Being Filled With the Spirit by Hans Waldvogel — Hans R. Waldvogel

Baptism With the Holy Ghost and Union With the Risen Christ

You've got to be married to him that's risen from the dead. You've got to be filled with the Holy Spirit. You're in the flesh. You can be baptized as Baptists a million times over, unless you're baptized with the Holy Ghost.

Christ’s Work in Bringing Life and the Holy Ghost

Why, that's the great job God Almighty charged Jesus Christ with doing. He had to die that he might bring life and immortality to life through the Gospel, that he might be purchasing the gift of the Holy Ghost, that he might lead many sons unto glory, that he might accomplish that which the law could not do because it was weak through the flesh, that he might destroy the body of death, that might raise the body of resurrection, the new body.

Glory to God, that we might receive the adoption of sons. Have you received the Holy Ghost, since you believe? Why, we have not so much heard as that there was a Holy Ghost. But when they had been baptized into Jesus Christ, and Paul laid his hands, these authoritative hands upon them in the name of Jesus, something happened to these Baptists.

Then they became real Baptists. I never was a real Baptist until I was baptized both in the name of Jesus Christ and in the Holy Ghost, and Jesus did it. I used to look askance on the Pentecostal people.

I didn't like it when they tried to baptize me. They tried it. Oh, there's so much stupidity exercised even among Holy Ghost people. I always say, if we could raise the tax for stupidity, boy, we wouldn't have such a big national debt.

But I said, Jesus Christ says that he will baptize with the Holy Ghost and fire. That was my first real meeting with Almighty God. When he baptized me with fire, I was surrounded by flames of fire, and my whole body was charged with the power of an endless life.

I was made to drink of the water that Jesus gives, and it became within me a well of living water springing up into everlasting life. My life has been marvelously changed from that moment on, but it's continually being changed by that Spirit that dwells within.

Walking in the Spirit Rather Than the Flesh

That's important. We need to know the Holy Ghost because he's our life. We need to drink of that fountain of life. It isn't sufficient to be baptized with the Holy Ghost, but now to walk in the Spirit.

He has translated you out of the kingdom of darkness. How many people claim to be baptized with the Holy Ghost, and they're satisfied to still live in the flesh, and they're satisfied to still be governed by the flesh.

That's where our frowns come from. But beloved, that, the Bible says, is dangerous. If you live in the flesh, we shall die. We shall die. But if you live in the Spirit, do you know the Spirit? Do you know the Holy Ghost?

Is he your habitation? Is he your realm? Is he the ocean of life, and of light, and of grace, and of love, and of joy, and of peace, into which you've been sunk, deeply sunk, so that your whole being has been transformed into this ocean of love?

Spiritual Blessings in Ephesians

Have you received the Holy Ghost? Yes, they received the Holy Ghost, and now the Apostle Paul, writing to the Ephesians Church, tells them of the blessing they couldn't possibly understand in the beginning, when they spoke in tongues and prophesied what it all meant.

They had just begun to taste of the powers of the world to come, but now he writes to them, and he says, God, oh, how he has blessed us with all spiritual blessings and heavenly places in Christ, according as he has chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.

Oh, that's the result of being filled with the Spirit, of walking in the Spirit. Beloved, we need Ephesians. We need these words of life. They never meant much to me until the Holy Spirit had come, and he illumined my understanding.

Oh, how differently I read Ephesians. I had given to me an English Bible when I was a boy, and it was always new until that thing happened, until God came to me. And in three months' time, that thing came apart, and Ephesians stuck out from among the other pages, because I wept over it, I laughed over it, I rejoiced in it.

I read it until I had memorized it without trying to memorize it. It had gone into my heart that you should be holy and without blame before him in love. Beloved, we don't know the Holy Ghost unless we have accepted that call of God, unless we have made a vow, we've taken a vow of allegiance.

Submission to the Holy Ghost and Daily Holiness

Christ is my Lord. The Holy Ghost is my Lord. Beloved, we're not filled with the Spirit unless we're submitting ourselves to the Holy Ghost, unless we allow him to reign, and when he reigns, something wonderful happens, and it happens every day.

Every day his blessings new fall around me like a dew. Every day he gives me his living bread. Every day he meets me. Every day he instructs me. Every day he talks to me. Every day he chastens me by his word.

Every day he deals with me as with a son, that I might be partaker of his holiness. Every day he walks with me. He doesn't let me get away one inch from him. He keeps such a careful watch over me. He that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.

But beloved, this is the Israel of God. They're not born of the flesh, but they're born of the will of God. They're begotten of the Spirit. They're sons of Abraham by merit of the cross of Christ and the resurrection of the Son of God.

The Spirit’s Seal and the Hope of Resurrection

Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? Why, after that you believed, he says, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession of God.

Why, that's the rapture. That's the rapid Jacobi lagunta by parazono. That's the moment for which Jesus Christ bled on the cross, for which he cried with great cries and tears unto him that was able to save him from death.

That's what he died for, that you and I might be gifted with a resurrection body, that we might be like unto him, that we might be sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, and then rise to reign with him forever and forever.

The Holy Ghost’s Indwelling Righteousness

Why, we didn't know there was a Holy Ghost. Listen, if you don't know there is a Holy Ghost, if you don't know the Holy Ghost who is with you all the time, who's within you, who reigns within you, who governs you, who controls your mind, who controls your tongue, who controls your feet and your hands, your body, soul, and spirit, beloved, will never be presented spotless before the presence of his glory.

Moses can't do it. You can be the choice Pharisee in the world. You can graduate from every school of learning of the Jews and the Buddhists and the Confucianists of Christian science and unity and father divine and whatever you call it, and you'll never.

Beloved, there must come to me a righteousness which Jesus Christ himself lives out within me. Oh, when he lives within me. But we didn't know there was a Holy Ghost. Do you know there's a Holy Ghost?

Do you know who he is? Do you know what a powerful being? And you, Paul is looking upon a gang of robbers and adulterers and murderers and thieves and liars. That's what they were, he says. Such were some of you.

But you're washed, you're sanctified, you're justified, and you, and today he would say you dumpers, you jealous folks, you carnal Christians, you hath he quickened. He's made you alive. Oh, beloved, I'm not quickened until I let Jesus Christ live out his life within me.

Drawing Near to God

This morning I wrote a letter to someone in Germany, and I quoted a text. Draw night to God, and he will draw night to you, and there flashed into my soul a light. And I said, why, is there a Christian in the world who doesn't consider it a great privilege to draw night to God?

Draw night to God, and he will draw night to you. And Paul says, it's good for you that I'm locked up in jail.