October 5, 2025, Sermon by P. Kevin Clancey

Transcribed by Beluga AI.

He is better than you can think or imagine. The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases. It never ceases. And His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning. Great is your faithfulness, O God. We worship you and we thank you tonight in Jesus’ Name, Amen.

All right, dear ones, I wanted to do a series on revival through the book of Isaiah. And I did one sermon a couple weeks ago, got Isaiah 40, so I had Isaiah 49 all prepared for tonight. And as I was getting ready to preach that, I’m also reading a book called The Holy Spirit and You by Rita and Dennis Bennett, written 1971, actually. And I just got inspired to talk about what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And so last night I changed sermons, and so we’re going to do that and probably get back to Isaiah pretty soon.

So I want to talk about what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

God, may the words of my mouth, the meditation of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock, our Strength, and our Redeemer. Amen.

14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you, Lord, my rock and my Redeemer. (Psalms 19:14, CSB)

So… two views on this. One is that—and this is true; everybody agrees on this, by the way—when you come to Christ and put your faith in Christ, He gives you the Holy Spirit. You receive the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of you, and you are born again by the Spirit. You’re born again with God’s eternal Spirit. You are a child of God, and the Holy Spirit will live inside of you for, you know, for your life. And you know—how do you say—we’ll be glorified in heaven, and the Spirit will be there. I don’t know how the Trinity and how we relate to the Trinity in heaven, but it’ll be good. It’ll be better than even now.

But for now, the Holy Spirit lives in us. In John 20, Jesus breathes on his disciples and he says to them, receive the Holy Spirit. And they do. They’re born again.

22 After saying this, he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. (John 20:22, CSB)

And then you get to the Book of Acts after that, and He says, “I will pour out my Spirit upon you, and when He comes, you will receive power to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth.”

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8, CSB)

And for centuries, the church has kind of dealt with this. Well, what is that about? You know, they already have the Holy Spirit. And in the 17th and 18th century, the Wesleyans, the Methodists, the Nazarenes… that group began to preach this idea of a second blessing. That God would come and give you a second blessing and pour His Spirit out on you for the purpose of sanctification, to make you holy, to give you just a pure love for God and neighbor, and that you would be—they would talk about entire sanctification, our Christian perfection… And that became a real revival doctrine in the 19th century, especially in the 1800s, by what we call the holiness preachers.

And a group of holiness preachers began to study the Bible, and they said, “Ah, this phenomenon, speaking in tongues, has something to do with this.” And a small group of them set aside on a retreat in Kansas and went to a house, and they began praying for this, for this gift of the second blessing manifested by the speaking in tongues.

A woman by the name of Agnes Ozman began to speak in tongues. Then the rest of the household began to speak in tongues. The leader of that group was a man by the name of Charles Parham. And what happened out of that is in the early 1900s, the Pentecostal movement was born. And you’ve got now the Foursquare Church—we meet in the Foursquare Church—Assemblies of God… all sorts of different Pentecostal churches came out of that.

And the hallmark, the defining doctrine of Pentecostalism, is that there is a second blessing called the baptism in the Holy Spirit, or the filling of the Spirit, or the Holy Spirit coming upon you. And in that second blessing, the initial evidence that you’ve received that second blessing is the speaking in tongues. And just because, as Isaiah has already said, I am contrarian, I don’t perfectly agree with either of those views.

I’m going to go through a survey of the book of Acts to look at what I think is the accurate understanding of what it means to be filled, baptized, have the Holy Spirit come upon you. And so I want to read the account of Pentecost first—Acts 2:1-13—and then we will kind of get into it. And what I’m going to do today, what I’m going to do tonight—usually I just read one passage and kind of dwell on that passage—I’m going to do a survey. I’m going to be in Acts 2, Acts 4, Acts 7, Acts 8, Acts 9, Acts 10, Acts 13, and Acts 19. Because in each of those chapters there is reference either to they were filled with the Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit came upon them, and then it describes what happened. And so I want to talk about that phenomena.

Here’s the first instance, Acts 2:

1 When the day of Pentecost had arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like that of a violent rushing wind came from heaven, and it filled the whole house where they were staying. 3 They saw tongues like flames of fire that separated and rested on each one of them. 4 Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues, as the Spirit enabled them. 5 Now there were Jews staying in Jerusalem, devout people from every nation under heaven. 6 When this sound occurred, a crowd came together and was confused because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 They were astounded and amazed, saying, “Look, aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 How is it that each of us can hear them in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites; those who live in Mesopotamia, in Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome (both Jews and converts), 11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the magnificent acts of God in our own tongues.” 12 They were all astounded and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But some sneered and said, “They’re drunk on new wine.” (Acts 2:1-13, CSB)

So the first Pentecost, this outpouring of the Holy Spirit—now remember, these are Jesus’ disciples who earlier He had breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” And now it says, the Holy Spirit came upon them the day of Pentecost. And so they were in this upper room. In verse four: “Then they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in different tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” There’s your Pentecostal doctrine. They were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke in tongues.

But there’s other things that happened as well, as the Holy Spirit came. There is the sound of a mighty wind. And I’ve actually heard of instances where people were at prayer meetings and the sound of a mighty wind entered the building. There were tongues of fire that were visible that rested on their head. They spoke in tongues, languages, known languages, and began to proclaim the mighty works of God in languages that they had not learned or not heard. They began to articulately speak other languages, so that other people could understand them in their dialects from different parts of the world.

Then they had great boldness. Remember earlier, when Jesus was crucified? What did the disciples do? They ran away. They ran away. Am I the only person here who’s ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail several times?

“Brave, brave Sir Robin. When danger showed its ugly head, he turned his little tail and fled. No, I didn’t. Yes, you did. Shut up. Be quiet.” His minstrels are mocking him. That’s what the disciples did. They ran away.

Now they’re standing out in front of everyone proclaiming the mighty works of God. They’re filled with courage, with boldness. And finally, they have the appearance of being drunk. I’ve heard—and I used to believe this—”Well, that was because they were speaking in other languages.” But then I thought about that.

I grew up amongst a lot of drunkenness in my household and in the circles that my family… It was just a normal social thing for the people to get drunk. And one of the things that drunkenness does not impart to people is the ability to articulate a foreign language accurately. You, in fact, lose the ability to articulate your own language accurately. “Ociffer, I’m not as think as you drunk I am,” you know? And yet here they’re articulating a foreign language accurately, and people are saying they’re drunk.

That could just be slander and mockery. Or the other thing—and now that I’ve witnessed this is one of the things where you say, “Well, you don’t make your theology based on experience,” but no, when you have experiences, it may help you understand what the Bible is saying. And I’ve been in contexts where the Holy Spirit has fallen on people, and guess what? Drunk. They had a hard time standing, a hard time walking. They were laughing hysterically. They appeared to be drunk. In fact, we call that “being drunk in the Spirit.”

And so there was an appearance of drunkenness. Maybe it was because they were speaking foreign language articulately. Now that I’ve experienced otherwise, I actually think that they were so filled with joy and so filled with the Spirit, they were having a hard time controlling their bodies. They gave the appearance of drunkenness. And so those are things that happened.

Now, if you’ll turn over with me to Acts 4. The disciples begin to preach the gospel boldly, and because of that, they run into trouble with the Sanhedrin and they are arrested. And when they’re arrested, they’re threatened. And when they’re threatened—again, great boldness—they don’t hide. They go to a prayer meeting. And what do they pray for? They don’t pray to be protected. They pray for more boldness that they may proclaim the wonderful works of God, and God will stretch out his hand and perform signs and wonders. And verse 29 of Acts 4 says this:

29 And now, Lord, consider their threats, and grant that your servants may speak your word with all boldness, 30 while you stretch out your hand for healing, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” 31 When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God boldly. (Acts 4:29-31, CSB)

All right, wait. Jesus breathes on them and says, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Holy Spirit comes in. Acts 2, they’re filled with the Holy Spirit. This is the same crowd that’s Acts 2. It’s not a new crowd. These aren’t unbelievers who are just converted. These are people who have had been breathed upon, the Holy Spirit fell at Pentecost, and now, just a few days later, they are filled again.

Now I come to one of my original statements. I don’t believe what I was taught as a young evangelical, that when you come to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes in you, you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, settled, done, complete. Nothing else happens. Nothing else is necessary.

Then I started hanging around some Pentecostals, and they said, “Oh, no, you got to speak in tongues.” They prayed for me, and I spoke in tongues. Now you got it. Now, filled, complete. Now you’re done. Now you’ve got the whole package. You only had half the package before. Now you got the whole package.

But here, this is the third time. My evangelical tradition taught me there is one blessing. My Pentecostal tradition taught me there are two blessings. The Bible says there’s more than that.

Eleanor Mumford was a—if you know the band, Mumford and Sons, the son, Mumford, is the son of the Mumfords in England, who for years were the leaders of the Vineyard movement in England. And Eleanor Mumford had a couple of great quotes, and my favorite one was, some Pentecostal went up and asked her, “When did you receive the second blessing?” And she said, “Between the first and the third,” which I thought was a great answer.

This is the third blessing. It’s three. I mean, there’s only two kinds of people. There’s only, or excuse me, there’s only three kinds of people in the world. Those who can count and those who can’t. Come on, help me out. Help me out. Thank you. Thank you.

All right, so this is three. And what happens in Acts 4? The room shook. Remember, you had a physical manifestation where the wind blew in Acts 2. This time you have a very localized earthquake. One room. One room shook.

All right, what else happened? They were filled. They asked for boldness. They were filled with boldness. They went out and began to continue to preach in the face of the threat of persecution with more boldness.

If you read further in Acts, and I’m just going to—I don’t have time tonight to read the full Scripture, but do your own homework. Be a Berean. Read through Acts 5:16, and you’ll see that everything they prayed for happened. Their community became a community of love. At the end of Acts 4 is this great description of the generosity and the love of the early Christian community. And so they developed a loving community. Generosity is the result of the filling of the Holy Spirit. You’re no longer afraid, and you just give stuff away.

And then amazing signs and wonders. Signs and wonders in judgment—Ananias and Sapphira lie to the Holy Spirit because they want to look good to other people. Remember, if you know the story of Ananias and Sapphira, Barnabas gave a large sum of money to the church. He sold a piece of property and gave all of it, laid all of it at the disciples’ feet. Ananias and Sapphira saw how much everybody applauded Barnabas for that, so they had a sum of money; they sold a piece of property. They withheld some of it, which was perfectly their right to do unless God had told them to give it all. We have no indication of that in Scripture. They gave some of it, and Peter, in the power of the Holy Spirit, recognized they were lying and said—you know, for the approval of men—and said, “Is this all the money?” And instead of saying, “Nah, it’s 50%”—beats a tithe, good for you; go on your way, go on your merry way, you’re fine. But they lie. They say, “Oh yeah, this is all of it. We’re as good as Barnabas.” They died. And then, in one of the great Bible understatements, fear grabbed the whole church. No kidding.

But then it said the disciples went out and performed many signs and wonders. And here’s where you get the story of Peter’s shadow. As people would line up their sick, Peter would just walk by them and his shadow would fall on them. People would be healed. Great signs and wonders.

I was preaching on this one time and I said, “I’ve seen people healed, but I’ve never seen a shadow healing.” There was a friend of mine sitting out in the congregation who had a bad back, and the minute I said that, the Lord spoke to him and said, “If you will go stand in Kevin’s shadow, I’ll heal you.” So he walked up afterwards and he shared that with me. And we were in a room kind of like this where lights are all over. It’s kind of hard to find a shadow. I mean, I can… Yeah, right there. I can see it there. I got a little shadow. All right. And so he came up and said, “This is what the Lord told me.” And so I kind of walked around till we could kind of find a shadow. He stepped into it, and the back pain left immediately. I’ve witnessed, been part of, a shadow healing. Isn’t that cool? I know. I want more of those. I’m a big guy. I could get a whole crowd, you know, whoosh, whoosh. Get ya. Yeah, there you go.

Amazing signs and wonders as the Holy Spirit is released. The next one I want to look at is Acts 7. Acts 7, toward the end of it, Stephen is lecturing and preaching to the Sanhedrin about their hard-heartedness toward God, and they don’t like it, so they kill him. And at the end, as they’re getting ready to stone him, if I can turn my Bible page, here’s what the Bible says about that. That’s Acts 8. All right, here we go. Acts 7:54.

54 When they heard these things, they were enraged and gnashed their teeth at him. (Acts 7:54, CSB)

“Stephen”—listen to what it says:

55 Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven. He saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God. 56 He said, “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” 57 They yelled at the top of their voices, covered their ears, and together rushed against him. 58 They dragged him out of the city and began to stone him. And the witnesses laid their garments at the feet of a young man named Saul.(Acts 7:55-58, CSB)

And then he forgave them, just as Christ did, and he died. He fell asleep.

60 He knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, “Lord, do not hold this sin against them!” And after saying this, he fell asleep. (Acts 7:60, CSB)

If melatonin doesn’t work, get an enraged mob to stone you, and you will fall asleep. All right? In the Bible, he fell asleep. He didn’t die.

But here’s what happened to Stephen: full of the Holy Spirit, he has a vision of heaven before he dies and has the grace to die like Jesus and forgive those who are killing him. Dear ones, the Holy Spirit can fill you with the grace to die when the time comes. Whether it be as a martyr or at a ripe old age, you will receive, filled with the Holy Spirit, the grace to die.

My favorite one, probably in the whole New Testament, is Acts 8. Philip goes down to Samaria, right? You all know where Samaria is, right? Galilee is in the north, Judea is in the south, and in between them is just Some Area. All right? That’s where Samaria is.

And so Philip goes to Samaria, and he preaches the Samaritans, which is—they’re not Jews. They’re half breeds. The Jews didn’t like them; the Samaritans didn’t like the Jews. And yet he performs many signs and wonders and miracles. And it says very specifically, the Samaritans believed and were baptized.

Word got back to Jerusalem that there’s a revival in Samaria, and so Peter and John go down to Samaria. And when they go down, they recognize, this is recognizable. They believed, they’re born again, but they hadn’t been filled with the Holy Spirit. And so Peter and John lay their hands on them and pray, and apparently they’re filled with the Holy Spirit.

Now, it doesn’t say what happened. It doesn’t say they spoke in tongues, doesn’t say they prophesied, doesn’t say they were bold, doesn’t say there were signs and wonders and miracles. It doesn’t say that a flame fell on their heads or the room shook or wind blew. Doesn’t say, or they appeared drunk. It doesn’t say any of that. So how do we know what happened? We don’t know what happened. But I am convinced of this: something noticeable, visible, manifested and happened.

Why am I convinced of that? Because Simon the sorcerer was so impressed by whatever happened, he offered Peter and John money to have that power to lay his hands on people so what happened to the people in Samaria he could do as well. And Peter gently tells him to go to hell. Kind of what he says. “To hell with you and your money because you thought the gift of God could be bought.”

But here’s the point I want to make: the Pentecostals make a mistake here, in my estimation. They say, “Well, obviously something happened, and obviously that something was they spoke in tongues.” I’ve heard many Pentecostals argue that from Acts 8. And my point is, you’re arguing from the silence of Scripture. All right? But what I am convinced of is something happened that was visible, dramatic, impressive, mind-blowing. I mean, I can’t understand Simon’s reaction—you know, there’s a bunch of people sitting there. Peter and John lay their hands on them, say, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” and they’re still just sitting there, and Simon goes, “I want money to do that.” It’s like, no. I mean, we know that if not one of these things, something else happened.

So that’s Acts 8, which is great. It leaves room for today, because people do this with the Bible. They put the Bible in a box. In other words, at the end of this, I’m going to read a list of the things that happen in the Book of Acts when the Holy Spirit comes and fills people. And there’ll be people who will come along and say, “That’s all that. That’s it. That’s the complete list.” The Bible doesn’t say that’s a complete list. And so something else will happen when somebody prayed for to receive the Holy Spirit, and people will say, “Where’s that in the Bible?” Well, it’s not in the Bible. My question is, is it consistent with what’s in the Bible?

I think what Paul, or I think what Luke is showing us here is when the Holy Spirit comes upon people, fills people, that dramatic things happen, power is released, and it’s noticeable. I think that’s the point. But I think you can leave the specifics to God. That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Sometimes when people say, when people criticize, they say, “Where’s that in the Bible?” And they’re good church people. I say, “The same place mission sending agencies and Sunday school and church buildings are in the Bible.” It’s like, not everything’s in the Bible, people. The Bible gives us enough. It doesn’t give us everything. It gives us enough to believe and to pursue.

All right, Acts 9. Acts 9. Saul has this dramatic encounter with Jesus on the road to Damascus. He’s led blind into the city. God gives Ananias, speaks to Ananias—not the, obviously not the one that was killed earlier—speaks to Ananias and says, “Go lay your hands on Saul.” Ananias does what we all do when God speaks to us. We try to give God more information that He might not have. “God, don’t you know that this man came into Damascus to persecute us, and he might kill me?” Like, “In case you didn’t know that, God, before I go, I want to make sure that you understood that.”

And God’s like, “Yeah, Ananias, I had that piece of information available, but he is my servant that I have chosen to bring the gospel to the Gentiles. Now go. Go.” And so Ananias faithfully goes.

And then when Ananias appears, verse 17 in Acts 9:

17 Ananias went and entered the house. He placed his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road you were traveling, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” (Acts 9:17, CSB)

We don’t know if Saul had already converted to Jesus before this. My guess is that the road to Damascus did the job. You know, he believed in Jesus, and now he’s just waiting for what’s going to happen next. That’s my guess. I’m arguing from the silence of the Bible. This may have been his conversion as well. So he may have been filled with the Holy Spirit at his conversion as well.

By the way, just because it’s a second blessing doesn’t mean it can’t be a simultaneous blessing with the first. There are many people who experience this outpouring with the Holy Spirit the moment they confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. We’ll see that in the next example in Acts 10. There are many people who receive this outpouring when they’re water baptized. That’s been my experience. And we’ll see that in Acts 19. They get baptized and are filled. It might say Paul also laid his hands on them, but they got baptized. And then boom, this started to happen.

So here he goes in verse 17, he appeared to him on the road.

17 Ananias went and entered the house. He placed his hands on him and said, “Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road you were traveling, has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” 18 At once something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight. Then he got up and was baptized. 19 And after taking some food, he regained his strength. Saul was with the disciples in Damascus for some time. (Acts 9:17-19, CSB)

All right, again, there’s no direct reference to what happened. But very soon afterwards, Paul begins preaching so boldly in Damascus about Jesus, they want to kill him. So I think we can safely assume that he received boldness. Whether he received them at this moment or not, certainly, in the Book of Acts, you have other instances—and in Corinthians, Paul talks about other instances—of things that happened to Paul in his lifetime.

He spoke in tongues. He says in 1 Corinthians 14, as he’s telling the people in Corinth, don’t be jabbering about in tongues in the middle of the service. It’s confusing. But then he goes on and he says, “I speak in tongues”—what does he say?—”more than all of you. I speak in tongues more than all of you.”

18 I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; (1 Corinthians 14:18, CSB)

All right? So it’s a useful thing to Paul.

I had one lady, you know, she said, “Well, I prayed in tongues for a while, but” she said, “I didn’t see the point.” Okay, well, Paul did it more than everybody. I’m glad Paul didn’t say, “I don’t see the point. God, it’s not logical, it’s not reasonable. I don’t see the point. I’m going to quit doing it.” Paul says, “When you do it, you edify yourself.”

Some people say, “Well, see, you’re just being a selfish Christian.” No, when you edify yourself as a Christian, you’re becoming a stronger Christian and able to serve others. I use the analogy of like a uh, if you’re a quarterback on a football team, you have linemen. And on the other side, there are linemen. And those linemen are top, prime, incredibly strong, 300-pound athletes who are getting paid a ton of money to crush you. Now you also have linemen… top, prime, 300-plus-pound athletes, lifting weights, getting paid an incredible amount of money to keep those other guys off you.

Now, if my linemen, if I’m the quarterback and my linemen who are paid to protect me are in the weight room lifting weights, to do what? Edify themselves. Build themselves up. That’s what the word edify means. Am I going to say, “Stop doing that? That’s selfish?” No, I want them edified.

I’m a pastor of a church. I want you to be strong Christians. You know? I want to have a church full of fired up, Holy Spirit filled, excited, loving Jesus, committed to serve Christians. So go ahead and build yourself up. Yeah, yeah. You might improve on that status. Go ahead and build yourself up.

Paul spoke in tongues. He spoke in tongues. And I’ve heard the cessationists say, “Oh, that just meant he was bilingual and spoke in several languages.” No, if you look at the context in 1 Corinthians 14, when Paul says, “I spoke in tongues more than all of you,” it’s an adverb, not an adjective. Doesn’t mean I spoke in more languages. He said, “I did this activity more than the rest of you.” It’s amazing how people are just so fixated upon biblical inerrancy and then twist the Scriptures to support their preconceived notions or their lack of experience. Pet peeve of mine.

All right, Paul spoke in tongues. He prophesied. There were times Paul prophesied, and certainly we know that through the hands of Paul, incredible signs and wonders and miracles were performed.

Acts 10. Peter goes to Cornelius’ house. He has the vision of, you know, God presenting to him unclean food and Peter saying, “Nothing unclean…” And God says, “No longer call unclean what I have declared clean.” And the point of that vision is God is declaring that the Gentiles in Jesus are clean. We miss this, but almost the whole New Testament is written in the context of Jewish-Gentile controversy. And it’s written to show us the mystery of the Gospel, that the Jewish Messiah, God’s chosen people, His Messiah, is now becoming the universal Messiah. One new man, Jews and Gentiles together.

And we, you know, we look at the Bible, say, “Well, this is how you get saved.” That’s true. It talks about that, but it’s a book of incredible, the incredible miracle of reconciliation where God is bringing together these two distinct tribes, these two distinct worldviews, and He’s bringing them together under Jesus as one.

That’s what Pentecost in Acts 2 that we read is about, remember? What did God do at the Tower of Babel? Human beings were so evil, He had to divide them by language. What does He do in Acts 2? Now that Christ has come and the Holy Spirit has come, “I now will use language to do what? Unite you. Because I’m making one new man. I’m making one new man.”

And so this is—Acts 10 is a huge chapter in the Bible because the Gospel went to the Samaritans, that’s a half step. This is a full step. When Peter does this, the Jewish Christians rebuke him. “You went into a Gentile’s house?” And Peter’s like, “Hey, they spoke in tongues.” And they said, “Oh, okay, it’s good.” That was his argument. He didn’t even argue the vision. The vision makes it later. He said, “Well, you know, when I preached to them, they spoke in tongues,” and they go, “Oh, okay, they must be one of us.”

And so as Peter is preaching to them, two things happen. Let me read it. It says… let’s see. Oh, verse 44.

44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came down on all those who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were amazed because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and declaring the greatness of God. Then Peter responded, (Acts 10:44-46, CSB)

Then Peter’s like, “Well, I guess we can baptize them. I guess we could baptize them. They got it.”

This is one of the times where it happens—which tells you that God is not all that caught up with the order of things. Oh, my gosh. We love the systematic theology. We love to order things. First this, then this, then this. All right? Pentecostals: first you’re born again, then you have the second blessing. Here, first you’re born again, then you’re baptized, then you have the second blessing. Here, it’s like born again, second blessing all at once. Oh, I guess we’ll baptize them. God’s not all caught up on some of the things we’re caught up in.

But as the Holy Spirit came upon them, they began to speak in tongues, and they were released in the praise of God. They were released in the praise of God.

Acts 13. Two more. You guys doing all right? You bored? All right. If you were, I wouldn’t stop anyway. But I might speed it up.

So Paul begins to, Paul and Barnabas go out on their first missionary journey. The first place they go, there was a man named Sergius Paulus, who was an intelligent man, and he was the proconsul. But he had a false prophet named Elymas, or Bar Jesus, who was with him. And as Paul began to preach to Sergius Paulus, Elymas the sorcerer opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. That was verse 8.

8 But Elymas the sorcerer (that is the meaning of his name) opposed them and tried to turn the proconsul away from the faith. (Acts 13:8, CSB)

Now verse 9. “But Saul, also called Paul”—here it is—”filled with the Holy Spirit, stared straight at Elymas and said, ‘You are full of all kinds of deceit, trickery, the son of the devil and an enemy of all that is right. Won’t you ever stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord? Now look, the Lord’s hand is against you. you’re going to be blind, and you will not see the sun for a time.’ And immediately a mist of darkness fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand.”

9 But Saul—also called Paul—filled with the Holy Spirit, stared straight at Elymas 10 and said, “You are full of all kinds of deceit and trickery, you son of the devil and enemy of all that is right. Won’t you ever stop perverting the straight paths of the Lord? 11 Now, look, the Lord’s hand is against you. You are going to be blind, and will not see the sun for a time.” Immediately a mist and darkness fell on him, and he went around seeking someone to lead him by the hand. (Acts 13:9-11, CSB)

So Paul, already filled with the Holy Spirit. When it says “filled with the Holy Spirit,” that’s not a past tense. Yeah, he was already filled with the Holy Spirit. That is an event that happened there. He was filled with—that’s what the Greek indicates—he was filled with the Holy Spirit at that moment, to pronounce that judgment on Elymas, and the power of the Holy Spirit went out and blinded that man to the effect that Sergius Paulus said, “All right, I’m in. I believe. I believe.” I wonder if Elymas came around to believe, too. We’re never told, but I might reconsider my opposition if somebody struck me blind.

Finally, there’s Acts 19:1-3:

1 While Apollos was in Corinth, Paul traveled through the interior regions and came to Ephesus. He found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” “No,” they told him, “we haven’t even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” 3 “Into what then were you baptized?” he asked them. “Into John’s baptism,” they replied. 4 Paul said, “John baptized with a baptism of repentance, telling the people that they should believe in the one who would come after him, that is, in Jesus.” 5 When they heard this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. 6 And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they began to speak in tongues and to prophesy. 7 Now there were about twelve men in all. (Acts 19:1-7, CSB)

So in Ephesus, Acts 19, several things happened. First, they spoke in tongues and they prophesied, and then a great revival broke out in Ephesus. And it says the revival was so strong—one of the Bible’s hyperbolic statements—but anyway, the revival in Ephesus was so strong, it said all the people in that region of Asia heard the gospel.

Now, one of the guys who made his living through idolatry, making idols to the goddess Diana—I think? I have to reread it—was so upset because people had stopped buying his idols because they were worshiping Jesus. And so he raised up a crowd against them, and there was a great riot. And so what does that indicate? When the Holy Spirit is poured out to the extent that there brings revival, which we’ve been praying for, there’ll be revival. Guess what? It’s not going to make everything hunky dory. There will be opposition. There will break out spiritual warfare, and spiritual warfare is broke up.

There’s two reasons a bunch of stuff is going wrong in your life. And it’s really important to figure, to try to discern what these two reasons are. One is because you’re being stupid. You just made a bunch of stupid choices, all right? All been there, all done it. Like, you know, people sometimes come in to me and they lay out their woes, you know, and “This happened and this happened. Poor me, and this happened and this happened. And, you know, I have no job and all my bosses are unfair to me and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”

It’s like, all right, I think I see where this is going. I think I see where the problem is here. All right? It’s not really spiritual warfare you’re experiencing. You’re lazy and ungrateful. Now, I’m much gentler. I save all my hard words for preaching. If you would come in to me for counseling, I’ll be very gentle. I won’t just flat out say, “You’re lazy and ungrateful.” I’ll help you figure it out.

Anyway, just don’t be afraid to come talk to me. I’m nice in private. But, you know, I mean, let’s face it. We all know people. Their problems are they haven’t taken responsibility for their life. Right?

However, there’s another reason Christians have problems. Because God is using you so wonderfully and so powerfully. Listen, hell has a limited number of arrows. The devil is not omnipotent. He doesn’t have all power. He has a limited power. And if the devil’s shooting arrows at you, rejoice. You’ve become a threat. You’ve become a threat. And those arrows that are being shot at you aren’t being shot at one of your other brothers and sisters in Christ and their walk with Jesus because you’re now drawing the attack of the enemy. All right, so spiritual warfare is not a bad thing. Spiritual warfare is not a bad thing.

And here’s what I say when people come and say, “Oh, Pastor, I’m under terrible attack from the enemy.” Great! Attack him back! Engage. You’re on the winning side, you know? He doesn’t have the Name of Jesus. You got the Name of Jesus. He doesn’t have the resurrection. He doesn’t have the resurrection. Well, I don’t, I don’t mock, and I don’t do this often, but sometimes when dealing with demonized people, some of them are resistant, and I remind them of this. I speak to the demon and I say, “I am an ambassador of the Lord Jesus Christ who died and rose from the dead. And you know and I know that my boss beat your boss,” and it actually helps. You know, and I know that my boss beat your boss. You guys couldn’t hold him in the grave. He got up. That’s the firm I’m representing, the one that won.

So if you get caught in spiritual warfare, don’t whine. You can whine for a little while. I whine a lot. I mean, I gotta admit, I whine a lot. I pray to God. I pray Psalm 13 a lot. How long, O God? How long? Why did the Seahawks throw the game away in the fourth quarter today? Come on. Why didn’t my team ever win? I’m a baby.

But then God reminds me, “Be thankful.” And if he doesn’t remind me, my wife reminds me, “You have it so good.” I mean, they’re all reminding me I have it so good. I do, I do. You can, if I ever get too whiny around you, you can say, “Hey, you get to pastor us. You have it so good.”

By the way, you guys are on the top of my list of things I give God thanks for. You’re on the top of my list.

All right, so revival, tongues, prophecy, spiritual warfare. Alright, so in the Book of Acts, what happens when the Holy Spirit falls upon people, comes upon people, when they’re filled with the Holy Spirit? A bunch of stuff. There’s the sound of wind. There’s visions of fire. There’s tongues. There is boldness, the appearance of drunkenness. Rooms shake. Prophecy is released. Community is built, generosity is released. Signs and wonders happen. People are released in praise of God. Revival breaks out. Spiritual warfare happens.

Now, just to say, I don’t think this is an exhaustive list. Oh, visions of heaven and grace to die. Just to say that I don’t think there’s an exhaustive list. One of the things that I’ve noticed when people have a wonderful encounter with God and are filled with the Holy Spirit is they have an increased desire to read the Bible. All of a sudden, it’s like “I just got so hungry for God’s word.” That isn’t even in the list, but I think it’s a manifestation of the same thing.

All right, so what do I think this is? When you come to Christ, the Holy Spirit comes. But it’s like when my wife and I were driving through the Midwest. We went through western Illinois and Iowa, and corn, soybeans… Then you come into these little small towns, one after the other. As you’re coming into every small town, there is a distinguishing mark in that town—flat plains, so you see it. It’s a water tower. It’s the highest elevation in town. Filled with water. Why? So the town can get water pressure and water goes down. Right?

You got this, you got this huge water tank and you know the name of the town printed on it. And it’s just all over the Midwest. Fair drone through the Midwest. You see it all over the place. I came to Jesus. That water tank was built and filled with, in fact, unlimited supply, right? The Holy Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. Poured out, Poured out. Not dribbled out, not sprinkled out. Poured out. Unlimited supply.

But in my house, if I want to take a shower and I step into the shower and say, “Well, there’s an unlimited supply,” I have to do one little thing, don’t I? I got to turn the knobs. Then all of a sudden, what happens? That unlimited supply starts to come into my house and saturate me.

I think that these fillings, these coming upons that the Book of Acts talks about, I think that’s the best analogy I have of it—that every Christian has the Holy Spirit. And so sometimes when Pentecostals say, “Well, they haven’t received the Holy Spirit,” I get the lingo, but I think it’s offensive to people. I think, you know, people are like, “What do you mean, I don’t have the Holy Spirit?” “Well, you haven’t spoken in tongues. You obviously don’t have the Holy Spirit.” Billy Graham didn’t speak in tongues, best I know. He had the Holy Spirit, and he was anointed with the Holy Spirit.

By the way, that’s the word that revivalists, Charismatics, and Pentecostals use for this filling. That’s the best—they think of it as speaking in tongues. But I think the word they use often is “he had an anointing.” What’s that anointing? The Holy Spirit has come upon a person to heal the sick, to cast out a devil, to evangelize to the lost, to edify the church with teaching, to speak a word of prophecy.

Now, if you’re really going to be in the Charismatic/Pentecostal tradition, you can’t use the word anointing. You have to take the “-ing” and make it “-en.” It’s the anoint-en. All right? I got the anoint-en. All right? And you have to say God in multiple syllables. Go-hod poured out His Holy Ghost upon me. And “Ghost” is better than “Spirit.” Both are acceptable. But you really want the anoint-en from Go-hod? Say the Holy Ghost. Go-hod anointed me with the Holy Ghost.

I’m making fun. But you know what? Tell you what, if I’m sick and I got cancer and I want the cancer to go away, I want to go to those guys. I want to go to guys who believe in the anoint-en. I want to go to people who believe in being filled with the Holy Spirit.

One more evidence that this is a repeatable action that God does in our lives. Paul talks in Ephesians 5:18. He says, “Do not be drunk with wine. Do not be drunk with wine, which only leads to debauchery, but instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.”

18 And don’t get drunk with wine, which leads to reckless living, but be filled by the Spirit: (Ephesians 5:18, CSB)

And again, I don’t know a lot of Greek, but I know enough to look it up. “Be filled” is not a completed—Greek has six tenses, not three. And it’s not in the completed, it’s not in the aorist tense, an act completed in the past. It’s in the continuing tense. In other words, be filled regularly like your car. Be filled regularly like your belly. Be filled regularly like your cup of emotions.

Bill Bright, the great evangelist of the 20th century, one of the great evangelists of the 20th century, said he would wake up every morning. He would breathe in and breathe out. And as he breathed in, he would say, “Holy Spirit, come and fill me. Come and fill me.”

All right, it’s not a reservoir. He’s not a reservoir. He’s a river. It is experiential. We can run dry. We can turn off the faucets. Deliberate sin turns off the faucet. Eventually, deliberate sin turns off the faucet. Ignoring God turns off the faucet. Lack of gratitude can turn off the faucet. Unforgiveness.

And so we can run dry, but we can be filled again. And I think we need to be filled on a regular basis. I remember—God speaks to me often in rebuke, but He’s not mean or harsh in His rebuke. He’s very gentle. And I went to Brownsville. Those of you can remember the Brownsville revival in the 90s. And a bunch of us—I was a Methodist at the time—a bunch of us Methodist pastors went to Brownsville, and they called all the Methodist pastors forward. They were an Assembly of God church. And they said, We came from you Methodists, you know, we owe you. You know, you’re the tree. We came out and we want to lay hands on you and pray for you.” And they began to pray for us. And guys were falling and dropping and all these, you know, good proper Methodists were getting filled with the Holy Spirit. And that was the first time I was ever slain in the Spirit. Just want to say, took four of them to knock me over. All right. Took four of them. Well, actually, the third guy touched me and I went down, but just for a second. But when the fourth guy touched me, I was down for the count. All right. Just couldn’t get up.

I had a conversation with God. It’s like, “All right, God, what’s going on?” I felt like God said, “Why do you analyze everything?” And I argued with God because I analyze everything. I said, “Because that’s the way you made me.” And then I felt like God just said, “Just relax and enjoy it, all right? Just chill.”

But then I got up, and I was back there with my friends. Then they called everybody forward, and I saw these people going up. People were praying for them. They would fall. Then they would get up and get back in line, and they would get prayed for again. And they would fall. They would get up, get back in line, and prayed for again.

And I started to judge these people in my heart. I said, “Oh, they’re just experience junkies.” Which I had no idea—I don’t know if they were experience junkies or not. I don’t know anything about them. Right? But I, you know, “I’m a smart guy. I know it’s, they’re just experience junkies.” And I’ll tell you, the Lord rebuked me, and I’ll never forget this rebuke. He wasn’t, He didn’t yell at me. He didn’t scold me. I just heard these words, and it chastised me to my core.

“Kevin, would it be that you were that hungry. Would it be that you were that hungry.”

So when I pastored a church in California and this stuff was happening—and I called them pew jumpers—every time I did an altar call, people would come up. You could do a specific altar call, and they’d be like, they didn’t care. You know, one armed, blind, pregnant women. And these teenage boys would come forward. “Close enough. Close enough. Almost described me,” you know. “Whatever.”

I just said, “Listen, listen.” I said, “I love pew jumpers. I love people who just want as…” and here was my condition. I said, “We’ll pray for the Holy Spirit to fill you as often as you want, as long as you’re giving it away. Because if you’re just getting filled for the experience, yeah, then it’s nothing. But if you’re getting filled with the power of God to do the works of God in the world that God wants to redeem,” I said, “come up as much as you want.”

I said, “I’ll tell you what. Push old ladies out of the way.” And I told the old ladies, “Trip them with your cane so you get there first.”

“Kevin…” Lord, let me never forget those words, man. “Would it be that you were that hungry.” Lord, make me that hungry. I pray that in sincerity right now.

I just want to confess to you. I came up here full of fire, and years of disappointment have dampened that fire. And I repent. I’m preaching to myself tonight. Lord, would it be that I was that hungry to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. I pray fresh fire on lots of people, but I pray it now for me. Thank you, Jesus. Amen.

All right, dear ones, let’s come and take the food of God tonight. Are you hungry? There’s food for you. There’s food for you. The food of God for the people of God. Come and eat.

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