Immersion in the Spirit - Part 3 — Derek Prince

So Paul received through the laying on of the hands of Ananas. And in Acts 19, a passage that we looked at in another such situation, Paul at Ephesus found certain disciples. When he asked them if they'd had received the Holy Spirit, when they believed they hadn't even heard of the Holy Spirit.

So he knew they weren't disciples of Jesus. He discovered they were disciples of John the Baptist. So then he said, well that was all right in those days but now you need to be baptized in faith in Jesus.

So they were baptized in water and then it says, And when Paul laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, they spoke with tongues and prophesied. And let me suggest to you, don't just stop at speaking with tongues, that's wonderful.

But why not go on to prophesy? God isn't jealous. He'll let you experience that. Now, what are the purposes of the baptism in the Holy Spirit? The real primary purpose is to receive supernatural power from God.

Supernatural Power for Witness

And this is how Jesus expressed it in Acts chapter 1 and verse 8. Acts 1 verse 8. Jesus was about to leave them and this is almost the last thing He spoke to them. In fact it is. These are the last recorded words of Jesus on earth.

He said, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. The word for power there in Greek is dunamis, from which we get the English word dynamite. And dynamite is what causes explosions.

And you'll observe that when the Holy Spirit descended it caused an explosion. A lot of people say, well they were empowered by the fact that Jesus had risen from the dead. But that isn't accurate. Because Jesus had risen from the dead fifty days earlier but no one in Jerusalem had heard about it.

But when the Holy Spirit came, all Jerusalem heard about it in a few hours. That was dynamite, you see. It was an explosion. Some people don't welcome explosions. They're frightened. Well, if it's the Holy Spirit I say let Him explode.

Let Him do whatever He wants. I never have hung from the chandeliers, as some people say. But if that was what God wanted me to do, I'd be happy to do it. I found He hasn't really led me in that direction.

Now, what does they receive? Power to be witnesses. You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses. You see, the message of the gospel is supernatural. It's not a record of natural events.

It's something totally supernatural. Jesus died, He was buried and rose again and ascended into heaven. That's supernatural. And if you're going to testify to a supernatural event you need supernatural power.

Just a little theology isn't enough. You need to be empowered. And people are discerning. Sinners sometimes are more discerning than Christians. And they know when it comes with real supernatural power.

And they'll listen. I've discovered this in many different cultures. Sinners can discern the presence of supernatural power. And it does something for them. It commands their attention. And that's what Jesus said.

You shall receive power, then you shall be witnesses to Me. And then in Romans 15, verses 18 through 19, Paul is speaking about his own ministry. And he says, I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ has not accomplished through me in word and deed to make the Gentiles obedient by mighty signs and wonders by the power of the Spirit of God.

So Paul said the only things that are worth talking about in my ministry are the things which the Holy Spirit has done. I wouldn't even mention anything else. And he said the Holy Spirit, by supernatural power, by signs and wonders, has made the Gentiles, the non-Jews, the un-evangelized people, obedient.

Now I've dealt with Gentiles in many countries. I always think back to my five years in East Africa. And I was principal of a college for training African teachers. And at that time the ambition of every African was to get an education.

So I was purveying something that they desperately wanted. And they would come to the college as students and they would be very cooperative, very obedient. Because they wanted their education. And whatever we missionaries said, basically they would do it.

And I remember one day calling the student body together and I said now I want to tell you something. I want to thank you. You're very obedient, you're very cooperative. Whatever we want you to do, you do it.

Because, you want your education. But I said, in the minds of most of you there is a question that has not been answered. And then I got their attention. And I said I can't tell you the answer to the question.

Well then they really had their attention. I said the question is this. Is the Bible really a book for Africans that we can believe or is it just a white man's religion that doesn't work for Africans?

And that is exactly what their own elders were telling them. Then I said to them, listen, you'll never know the answer to that question until you experience the supernatural power of God in your own life.

And when you do, you'll know that it didn't come from America, it didn't come from Britain, it came from heaven. And I left them, continued to put the Word of God before them but mainly I prayed. And a few months later there was a sovereign, supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit on those students.

And every student in the college was baptized in the Holy Spirit. And up to that time you had to urge them to pray. From then on it was difficult to stop them praying. They'd spend half the night in their dormitories praying because they'd received the supernatural seal, the supernatural endowment with power from on high.

And my fellow white missionaries used to have this attitude, well, I'm sorry to say this but it was true, you can only lift Africans so high, they won't go any higher. I didn't argue with them, I just spent my time with the Africans.

But when the Holy Spirit fell, you know what happened? The missionaries came down to see what was going on. They suddenly discovered that Africans could go higher. So, this is just an illustration. Those young people, men and women, needed a supernatural experience on their own.

It was not enough just to get a message from a person from another race and another culture. And then in the next few months amongst those students, most of them under the age of 25, we saw all nine gifts of the Holy Spirit in operation.

I've said to the Jewish people amongst whom we live, we non-Jews, like me, we really owe an apology to you Jewish people for ever asking you to believe a gospel that was not supernaturally attested. Because your whole background in the Scripture tells you that whenever God sends a message through a special messenger, in some way or another He always gives supernatural attestation.

And that's really the purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It's to bring us into the realm of the supernatural. Which is the only realm in which the gospel really can be effectively proclaimed. Let's look in Hebrews chapter 2 for a moment.

Hebrews 2, verses 3 and 4. How shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles and gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will.

The writer of Hebrews gives us three reasons why we should attend to the gospel message. Number one, the first person who proclaimed it was Jesus. Secondly, it was confirmed by those who were personal eyewitnesses of Jesus.

But the third reason is, the Holy Spirit bears supernatural testimony to the message with signs, wonders and gifts of the Holy Spirit. And the unbelieving world has a right to expect from the church that that's what we'll do.

We're living below the level of the will of God if we just present an intellectual message and quote a few Scriptures. Some people will get saved, it's wonderful. But it's not God's best. Now, I want to give you one further reason for the gift of the Holy Spirit, for the baptism.

The Baptism in the Spirit and Unity in the Body

It's stated in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and verse 13. Now verse 13, this is one of the most misunderstood verses in the whole of the New Testament. And actually it's mistranslated.

And it's mistranslated because the translators had a preconception of what they thought Paul was trying to say. Now I have to say I've learned Greek since I was ten years old. I am totally confident of the correctness of what I'm saying.

And if I weren't, I wouldn't say it. The text that I have and most of the other translations read the same. 1 Corinthians 12, 13. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free.

And have all been made to drink from one Spirit. Now the wrong word there is by. Because the Greek says in one Spirit. We were all baptized into one body. And there is no suggestion anywhere else in the New Testament that the Holy Spirit ever baptizes people.

People are baptized in the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit doesn't baptize them. We are born again of the Holy Spirit. That's what brings us into the body. Now, the word emphasized there is the word one.

What Paul is saying is the purpose of the baptism is to produce unity in the body. In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. We're all given to drink of one Spirit. Three times he uses the word one.

You see, I pointed out to you before with regard to the use of the word baptized in and into. When you are baptized, you're baptized in something and baptized into something. But in both the other cases, John's baptism and Christian baptism, in actual fact, the people were already in what they were baptized into.

For instance, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. But he wouldn't baptize people who hadn't repented. So the baptism of John didn't produce repentance. It was his acknowledgement that they had repented.

And then the Christian baptism, baptism in water, we're baptized into Christ. But when we are baptized we are already in Christ. Otherwise we have no right to be baptized. So being baptized in water doesn't put us in Christ.

It seals us as having been in Christ. The same with this. In one Spirit we were all baptized into one body. Not that we weren't in the body, but this is the seal that we're in the body. So in every case, baptize in, baptize into.

In is the medium. With John's baptism it is water, with Christian baptism it is water. With the Holy Spirit it was the Holy Spirit. What we're baptized into is something that we're already in but it marks us out as being in.

In repentance, in Christ, in one body. But what we need to bear in mind, and this is one of the tragedies of recent church history, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is designed to produce unity in the body.

But unfortunately we've been so carnal that instead of accepting unity we've often used it to produce division. And for that all of us need to repent. So bear in mind, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is designed to make you know that you're part of one body and that every other true believer, no matter of what denomination or what race or what culture, is a member of the same body.

There's only one Holy Spirit, there's only one body. That was God's purpose and unfortunately like so many other things we've abused God's purpose. For instance, the celebration of communion was designed for the same purpose, to emphasize the unity of the body.

What has it done? Through our carnality, it's divided us. But that's not God's fault, it's our fault. And all of us need to bear some responsibility. The non-Pentecostals for being so critical, the Pentecostals for being so arrogant.

See, a gang, a lot of Pentecostals had the attitude, I mean I know it so well, you get saved, born again, baptized in water, speak in tongues and you've arrived. No, no, no, you've just started. It's not a goal, it's a gateway.

But if you treat the gateway as a goal you'll never get any further. Some of you Pentecostals need to give a little heed to that. If you are a Pentecostal and you're here, I love the Pentecostals, I owe my salvation to them.

For a good many years I thought they were right about everything. And then I discovered they too had their weaknesses. But bear that in mind, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is to bring Christians into unity.

Physical Manifestations and Biblical Worship

Now, there's one other thing we need to deal with which is physical manifestations. See, my opinion is most Christians are living what I would call bottled up lives. They're not free to express what God has put in them.

Because we have this standard of dignity, you speak with a quiet voice, you don't get too excited, you sit upright in your seat, you get up, you stand up, you sit down, you kneel down and you walk out of church.

I mean, I was in it for years so don't tell me that isn't so. That has very little to do with New Testament Christianity. It's got very little to do with the experience of people in the Bible. They got excited.

You read those Psalms of David. He roared, he cried, he wet his bed with tears. He was a man of strong emotion. Even Jesus, He groaned, He wept, He expressed His feelings. See, I mean, no one has got this background more than I.

I was brought up at the very center of the old school Thai tradition. If you know anything about Britain, I was educated in Eton and Cambridge. I was a bastion of the empire. But, one night God baptized me in the Holy Spirit.

I didn't know what it was. I didn't go to church. It happened in an army barrack room. I was so ignorant I didn't know you had to go to church. Either to get saved or baptized in the Spirit. I got both of them in an army barrack room in the middle of the night.

But then, when I began to move in the church, I discovered that people didn't make room for God. Now I'm not a super emotional person. I think most of you who know me a little bit about me will know. But the trouble is, we've quenched our emotions.

We haven't given free expression to what God has done in us. I'm going to speak on Sunday night about worship. If you're going to be here, I'll go a little further with that. But, worship is not just saying words.

Worship is an attitude of the body. It's bending down, it's falling down, it's clapping hands. That's the Scriptural picture of worship. We are far short of the standards of the Bible. And one main reason among us Anglo-Saxons, and whatever else we might be, is we haven't expressed what the Holy Spirit has put in us.

We've quenched the Spirit. We've suppressed the Spirit. We've tried to be dignified. We've been afraid of being too emotional or too excited. Now I am not a super emotional person. But I believe in yielding to the Holy Spirit.

I believe in expressing what the Holy Spirit has put in me. Now let me give you just a little list of people. We have to keep going. Here's some of the people who met God. Abraham. The Lord appeared to him and what did Abraham do?

He fell on his face. How many of you would do that? Some of you would. I always smile when I hear Christians singing that hymn. Bring forth the royal diadem, crown Him Lord of all. Let angels prostrate fall.

I think those dear church members, it's all right for angels to fall but not us. No, no, no. We are much too dignified for that. And then there was Israel when the Lord accepted their sacrifice with supernatural fire.

It says they all fell on their faces and shouted. They didn't just... You know, the Bible says let us shout joyfully. I want to tell you shouting is not singing aloud. I don't think I'll lead you into this tonight.

We might go there on Sunday night. But, shouting is shouting. Now some of you, I'm sure, go to football matches. Don't put your hand up. You might be embarrassed but you do. And when the right side scores a goal, what do you do?

You stand up and you shout. Why? Because you're excited. You can get excited about football. Why not get excited about Jesus and the Holy Spirit? And then Joshua. He met the commander of the army of the Lord outside Jericho.

And there he was, flat on his face. In fact, I had an adventure to tell you that most of the great men of the Bible have been on their face before God at least once. And then God said to him, the Lord said to him, take your shoes off your feet.

You're standing on holy ground. Have you ever been in a place where you had to take the shoes off? We have. God moved in in a conference we were in in Jerusalem two years ago. And without anybody being instructed, the people just quietly began to slip their shoes off their feet because they knew they were in a holy place.

The priests, when the fire of God, the presence and glory of God came into the temple, it says they fell on their faces. They couldn't stand. I like to read Jeremiah because after all he was a respectable prophet.

He wrote a long lot of the Bible. More almost than anybody else. Jeremiah 23 verse 9 says this. My heart within me is broken because of the prophets, the false prophets. All my bones shake. I am like a drunken man and like a man whom wine has overcome, because of the Lord and because of His holy words.

That was Jeremiah's reaction to the holiness of the Lord. He said all my bones shake. You can't have your bones shake without your body shaking. That's impossible. He said I'm like a drunken man because of the holiness of the Lord.

Have you ever sensed the holiness of the Lord in such a way that it impacts your physical body? See, we're living on very low rations, most of us. The apostles on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit came and they were all very dignified.

No, just the opposite. They behaved in a very strange, undignified way. They were all speaking together in languages they hadn't heard. And you know what the unbelievers said? They're drunk. Have they ever said that about you when you walked out of church?

John the apostle encountered Jesus in a vision. And he fell at His feet as one dead. There was a power that overwhelmed him. I won't go on to the others because I want to come to the vital part now of this.

Time is running out on me as it usually does. Seven requirements for receiving and I'm going to give them very briefly. Number one, repent. Acts 2 38, repent, be baptized. Number two, be baptized. Be baptized and you'll receive the Holy Spirit.

Seven Requirements for Receiving the Holy Spirit

Number three, be thirsty. Jesus said if any man thirsts let him come unto me and drink. Number four, you've got to come to Jesus. There's only one baptizer in the Holy Spirit. If you want the baptism you have to come to the baptizer.

Number five, you have to ask. Jesus said if you, being evil now, are to give goods and gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? A lot of Christians say well if God wants me to have the Holy Spirit I guess He'll give it to me.

I don't need to ask. Well Jesus said you do need to ask. He said your heavenly Father will give the Holy Spirit to those who ask. And then you have to receive. And receiving is compared to drinking. And finally, and this is the difficult thing for some people, you have to yield the unruly member of your body.

The member which you cannot control, the tongue. The control of the tongue by the Holy Spirit is God's evidence that He's come in to take control. And you know, in the Bible the tongue is called my glory.

This doesn't come out in all translations. But in Acts 16 the psalmist said I will praise God with my glory. And Peter quoted that in Acts 2 .26 and he said I will praise God with my tongue. Your tongue is your glory.

Did you know that? You know why? Because you know why you've been given a tongue? For one supreme purpose, to glorify God. And any use of the tongue that doesn't glorify God is a misuse. But when the Holy Spirit comes and takes control of your tongue, everything you say and do will glorify God.

That's the first time you'll really be using your tongue for the purpose for which God gave you a tongue, in your mouth. All right, now we've come to the end of my little explanation. But there are some of you here undoubtedly who are thirsty.

At least I hope there are. If there are not, that's a pity. I want to tell you very simply how you can receive this experience here tonight. I want to read the words of Jesus in John chapter 7. He said, If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.

He who believes on Me, as the Scripture said, out of his heart, out of his belly, the Scripture says, will throw rivers of living water. But this He spake concerning the Spirit, who those believing on Him would receive.

For the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. It could not be given until Jesus was glorified. But when He was at the Father's right hand, He poured out the Holy Spirit. Now, these are the simple conditions.

There are some conditions you should have met but you may not. You may not have been baptized, you may not have asked. I wasn't baptized, I didn't even know about being baptized. I didn't ask, but God filled me with the Holy Spirit.

Had this strange sensation in my belly, and I knew it was my belly. And I thought, what is this? And the phrase came to me, my mind speaking with other tongues. And I thought, what's this got to do with speaking with other tongues?

Then I said out loud to God in an empty room, God, if you want me to speak with tongues, I'm ready to do it. And this thing moved up through my chest and into my throat, and my tongue started to move and I wasn't controlling it.

And the next thing I discovered I was speaking a language like Chinese. I hadn't asked and I hadn't been baptized. Later, believe me, I was baptized in water. But there are certain basic conditions. If anyone thirsts, Jesus said, let him come to me and drink.

And then out of his belly will flow the rivers. Marvelous transformation. You come as a thirsty person and you become a channel of rivers of water. What does that? The baptism in the Holy Spirit. What do you have to do?

Very simple. You have to come to Jesus. Only one baptizer, come to the baptizer to receive the baptism. You have to drink. Now this is where religious people have a problem. It's too simple. No one ever drank with a mouth closed.

And no one ever received the baptism in the Holy Spirit with the mouth closed. You drink by opening your mouth and taking in something. You're not taking in water, you're taking in the supernatural power of God.

That's what, I don't think I've ever seen anybody do that and not receive. I can't recall. I've seen as many as 3 ,000 people receive in one experience. But they drank. And after the drinking there's the overflow.

You remember, out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. And this is where you have to have faith. Because the Holy Spirit is not going to do the speaking for you. You have to speak as the Holy Spirit gives you words.

This is a step of faith. But without faith it's impossible to please God.