Acts Chapter 2:38-41

I don't see good scriptural evidence to suggest that God no longer engages in miracle, that God no longer wants to empower us or overflow us or fill us with the Holy Spirit.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit, you should ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. God's a gentleman. I've heard stories about God knocking people down and paralyzing them.

I doubt them. God can do whatever he wants to. He certainly got Paul's attention on the road to Damascus, but God wants us to yield willingly and ask for him to fill us with the Holy Spirit. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina.

While there has been a lot of confusion about the Holy Spirit, the truth is that we should desire to be filled with the Spirit. Today we have in the studio with us D.A. Brown, one of David McGee's associate pastors. Welcome to the program today, brother. Bob, it's great to be here. I had a thought, Bob, about this teaching. Perhaps I spent some time recently going to a store, picking out a gift for you, Bob.

Sounds good to me. Prayed about it, saved up for it, went and bought it, wrapped it up and put your name on it. I know you'd be excited to get that gift. Well, in the same way, Bob, God has some gifts for everyone listening today. Stay tuned because you're about to be blessed.

Hey, that sounds good, brother. Let's listen as David McGee teaches, you will receive power. We are in Acts chapter 2, a very important theological chapter. We saw Jesus promise that they would receive the fullness of the Spirit. We see that in John chapter 21, Jesus, 20, Jesus breathed on them and they received the Holy Spirit. So if they received the Holy Spirit there, what just happened in Acts chapter 2? Well, I think it's a question of volume and we'll get into this as we look at this because notice the symbolism. Jesus blew on them in the Gospel of John.

Here it's a mighty rushing wind. So I think it's a question of volume and we're going to look into this because depending on your background, your religious background, your denominational background, you may have been taught some things that weren't necessarily scriptural. And what we want to do is we look at the Holy Spirit as all doctrines. We want to be sure that that doctrine is based upon the Bible and the Bible alone.

Sola Scriptura is what they began to say in the Reformation and that means the Bible alone, only the Bible. So last week we got into chapter 2 verse 38, but let's start there. Then Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now we talked about baptism a little bit last week.

Let me mention this again. I believe you should be baptized. If you're here this morning and you've asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins and you've not been baptized, then I encourage you to be baptized because Jesus said we should be baptized.

So you don't want to be in disobedience to the one that you say that you follow. But at the same time, we need to understand that if somebody comes forward on a Sunday morning and asks the Lord to forgive them of their sins and then something happens before they're baptized, we serve a just to God. And he's not going to look at that man or woman and go, well, you know, you just, you didn't make it into the water.

What can I say? In many places in the scripture, when it talks about being saved and talks about going to heaven, it completely leads out anything about baptism. Romans chapter 10 verses 9, 10 and 13 is one place. And then also realize the heroes of the faith in Hebrews chapter 11, none of them were baptized. So are none of them going to heaven? So this is an important thing.

If you get questions about that, feel free to email us or call us. But it's an important doctrine to understand baptism, you should be baptized, but your forgiveness does not depend upon your baptism. Now, this is a heavy verse.

There's a lot of stuff in here. We talked about repentance last week, what repentance is and what repentance is not, but he mentions the gift of the Holy Spirit. And this is the second time he's mentioned the gift of the Holy Spirit or the promise of the Holy Spirit.

What is it that Peter was talking about? Well, there is an experience the Bible teaches that is subsequent to salvation called the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Now, there's a lot of debate and a lot of discourse about this, but the Bible is fairly clear about this.

Now, again, it's a question of volume. And we're going to get into this and it's going to get, you know, if you're really into theology, you're going to enjoy it and, you know, you may get more than you bargained for this morning, but that's a good thing. You need to understand what the Bible teaches about these things. If you've been taught that the moment you get saved, you get the Holy Spirit, that is correct, but you don't get all of him.

Understand that. See, that's why Jesus said, look, if you ask for bread, I'm not going to give you a stone. And what was he talking about in that passage? He tells us in that passage, he says, how much more will your heavenly father give you the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? He qualified that we need to ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And you've got a couple passages, if you still believe that, if you still believe that you get all the Holy Spirit the moment you get saved, then you've got a problem with a couple of scriptures. One of them is Acts chapter 19, verse 2. Paul is speaking to them and he said unto them, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? Since you believed? Well, I thought you got all of the Holy Spirit, when you believe?

Well, this is a cutting question. And they said unto him, we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy Ghost, referring to the Holy Spirit. Then in Acts chapter 8, verse 14, it says, now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who when they had come down prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

For as yet he had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. So again, we see that subsequent to that salvation experience was an experience with the Holy Spirit.

And we see that in the Bible, so we have to ask ourselves some questions. Now, we're not going to get in depth into the spiritual gifts. You can look into 1 Corinthians chapter 12. There's a list of the spiritual gifts there. 1 Corinthians 14 talks about their operation in the church. And it's interesting that those two chapters, 1 Corinthians 12 lists the spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 14 talks about their operation in the church. And what is in the middle of those two chapters? 1 Corinthians 13, the chapter about love.

God is such a good planner. And it's interesting because see, part of what happens with the Holy Spirit is you are filled with the Holy Spirit. You are filled with love. You're filled with love. You're baptized in love. And I've had people that told me that they were filled with the Spirit that were just the most cynical, bitter people. And I had to wonder, well, what exactly did you get filled with?

If you're new here, let me, I mean, I'm really glad you're here this morning. This is a difficult theological chapter. That last passage talked about laying hands on somebody. Let me tell you what that is and what that's not and what we do here because some people get really nervous when it comes to the laying on of hands.

The laying on of hands is simply touching somebody, putting your hand on their shoulder, maybe their forehead, and touching them. You notice what, touching. You notice I didn't say smacking them.

You notice I didn't say pushing them down or pushing them over. You don't see that in the Bible. You see a lot in Christianity today, but you don't see it in this book. Well, if you don't see it in this book, guess what?

We're not doing it here. When it talks about the operation of the gifts in 1 Corinthians 14, there's an interesting verse in there. 1 Corinthians 14.40 says, let all things be done decently and in order. And this is referring back to the spiritual gifts. So from that verse, we see these two things. Number one, let these things be done.

Number two, let them be decently and in order. Now, this is where it seems like a lot of fellowships go to one side or the other. From this passage, we know that the spiritual gifts are supposed to be in operation. In a lot of places, the spiritual gifts are in operation, but they're not in operation in a decent and orderly way. So we have to, from this verse, understand that the gifts are in operation, but they need to be done decently and in order. Now, on the flip side, there's a lot of people say, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We're not doing that. We're not having any of that stuff. Well, it says, let these things be done.

Let these things be done. And many of us use our bad experiences in regard with the Holy Spirit to reject anything to do with the Holy Spirit because we've seen something weird on television or seen some guy doing something weird or some lady doing something weird. But loved ones, you know what? There's people that don't get saved for that exact same reason. They look at Christianity and they know one weird person or several weird people and they think, you know what? I'm not going to receive the truth of Jesus Christ because I know one weird person.

You can't do that in regards to the Holy Spirit. See, oftentimes in a church, something weird starts to happen. Everybody's afraid to say anything. Oh, don't say anything.

That lady's running around the room screaming. Don't say anything. And everybody's thinking, somebody should really say something. Well, let me assure you, you know, if somebody runs around the room screaming here, I'm going to say something. I will say something. I will address it.

But here's the thing. Getting saved and getting filled, I want to do what Peter did. Peter says this is a good thing. I want it. Jesus says, I need this to be powerful in my witness. I want it. I don't want to go, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute now.

I saw something bad happen once about 22 years ago. I don't want that. I want what Jesus wants to give me. The focus in all this needs to stay on Jesus. But as we look at this, if the Bible encourages me to be filled, which it very plainly does, I want to be filled. I want to be filled to overflowing. You're listening to Pastor David McGee on Cross the Bridge.

He'll be right back with more in just a moment. But I want to remind you of the free resources available to you on crossthebridge.com. There's a team of hundreds of people that will pray for somebody to be saved. You have a loved one that needs to know Jesus as Savior. You need people to pray for them. You need someone to present God's Word to them. Every day we're presenting God's Word to them here on Cross the Bridge with Pastor David McGee. We can pray for them as well just by simply going to crossthebridge.com and click on the Pray for the Lost button. All you need to do is put in the first names of the people you love that need to know Jesus as Savior, click on Submit, and immediately hundreds of people will begin praying for your lost loved ones. And what an awesome way to bring your loved ones to Jesus. Here's a word from Associate Pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience, specifically Williston, North Dakota, and Hamler, Perrysburg, and Toledo, Ohio, and Clinton, Elk City, and Carnegie, Oklahoma. Lord, we thank you for everyone who lives in these cities. We pray that you would draw them to Jesus even right now.

Lord, I pray that you would fill them with the faith that they need to say yes to what you're wanting to do in their life. Lord, we pray for the leaders in these cities, that you would give them wisdom and discernment, help them to put their trust in you, help them to turn to your Bible for answers. And God, we pray that the churches will be full of people wanting to get to know you, to be taught, and to use their gifts to be a blessing to people in their community. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Let's move to verse 39, because this is going to deal with what I know some of you have been taught.

Verse 39, For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. I know that some of you have been taught that the Holy Spirit no longer fills people, that God no longer does the miraculous. Now, as a walking miracle, I kind of find that whole thing a little humorous when people say, well, God doesn't do miracles anymore. Oh, yes, he does. He does them every day.

He does them every day. And the Bible tells us to pray for the sick. Now, if God still doesn't heal people, why do we pray for the sick? I mean, and it's interesting, because in some churches, they don't believe in healing, that God heals people anymore, and yet they pray for the sick. Makes me wonder what they pray. My God is a healing God.

He's still engaged in healing. Now, let's talk about, there's three words, there's three Greek words that we need to understand in regards to our relationship with the Holy Spirit. We're not going to overdose on theology here this morning, but there's an important concept in our relation, para, en, and epi.

Now, para means alongside or beside. Before conversion, he will be with you. In other words, your relationship with the Holy Spirit before you're saved is that he's coming alongside of you, and he's convincing you or convicting you of your sin. You see, if you're here this morning and you've asked Jesus to forgive you of your sins, you didn't come up with that. You weren't sitting there one day and thought, oh, you know what, I think I'll say that prayer Pastor David's telling us we need to say all the time.

I think I'll go ahead and do that. And what happens is the Holy Spirit woos you. He comes alongside of you and says, it's more to life than this. You're not really forgiven. You need to be forgiven. You need Jesus.

He does such a beautiful job. And then the relationship changes. He's no longer para. He's en, e-n, or we now have i-n in the English, and that's en or in you at conversion. He shall be in you. So when you ask the Lord to forgive you of your sins, the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in you, and he begins to kind of convince you or convict you of sin so that you can become more like Jesus. Then we have a different word that's used, and that word is epi or overflowing, which is the word it's talking about when it says you shall receive power. Now, these words, two of them are used at the same time in John 14, 16. And Jesus is speaking to the disciples, and he says, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with, the Greek word para, there he dwells with you and will be in, the Greek word e-n, you. I will not leave you orphans.

I will come to you. So that describes part of our relationship with the Holy Spirit, and Acts comes on and says, okay, you're going to be filled to overflowing when you ask to be filled with the Spirit. Now, again, there's a teaching in the church today that says all this stopped at the age of the apostles. Once the first generation of apostles died off, these things ceased to exist, and we ceased to have access to this power.

A lot of denominations teach this. Now, certainly, certainly they have great scriptural evidence to come to this conclusion that the miracles and the gifts and the empowerment all stopped. Surely there's a strong, strong basis in scripture that none of this is available anymore.

1 Corinthians 13 is the evidence that's used. It reads like this, love never fails, but whether there are prophecies, they will fail. Whether there are tongues, they will cease.

Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away. Now, most of you are sitting there going, he must have read the wrong verse because that doesn't say anything about the miracles ceasing or the power not being available or anything like that. Guys, this is the verse that's used. I actually dug all over the internet to try to find another verse that could be tortured into confessing, and I couldn't find it. This is it.

This is it. Again, I don't want to bore you with the details, but I mean, it's so explicit in the Greek that this is talking about when Jesus comes back, but what they say is it's talking about the Bible, that when the Bible is finished, when the Bible is completed, then these gifts will no longer be in operation. The empowerment will no longer be available and God will never engage in miracles. You see, I had to explain that to you before you got that from that passage. When somebody has to explain a passage for you to get the meaning from it, there's a problem, especially if you're basing a good deal of your theology on that one verse.

I have to say, you know what, I don't see good scriptural evidence to suggest that God no longer engages in miracle, that God no longer wants to empower us or overflow us or fill us with the Holy Spirit. I can't get there, and guys, I have for years examined the scriptural evidence and had conversations with people. Here we have the believers wanting to be filled with the Spirit, and I think we should be desiring to be filled with the Spirit.

I do not see scriptural evidence that we should run, that we should hide from this. If you want to, you can toss this verse around and think about it and pray about it, but man, you just can't get there from here. The life lesson here is we should desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit. We should desire to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit, you should ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit. God's a gentleman. I've heard stories about God knocking people down and paralyzing them. I doubt them.

I doubt them. God can do whatever He wants to. He certainly got Paul's attention on the road to Damascus, but God wants us to yield willingly and ask for Him to fill us with the Holy Spirit. Verse 40, and with many other words, He testified and exhorted them, saying, be saved from this perverse generation.

The word perverse is scolios, or where we get our word scoliosis, it's crooked, away from this crooked generation. Now, who's He talking to? The Jewish leadership, very religious and very devout men, and He's speaking to them and He says, be saved from this perverse generation. That's interesting to me because these men had been warped by what? Religion. They had been warped by religion. Take a look at the landscape today.

Warped by religion. You understand there's churches all over the triad this morning that people that don't know Jesus will go in and they will not hear about how to be forgiven, be forgiven, how to follow Jesus, and they will leave. And they may think, well, God is at least impressed with my attendance, that at some point in heaven He has a big role or something and, you know, were you in church? And that's the first question He's going to ask. It's not the first question He's going to ask.

The question is, do you know Him? And so, you know, and let me share something with you. We, you know, contemporary worship here, and I love doing the hymns, but we mix it up. I actually love the pipe organ. I love the pipe organ.

And to be honest, I like responsive readings. I think some of the formalities and the stained glass and those things, I can appreciate those things. In fact, I'm even ministered to by some of those things at times.

Problem is those things have been used to drive people away from God because people think they can't approach God unless they approach Him in that way. We had a guy show up in the parking lot in the morning and ask one of the parking lot of helpers. He said, can I come in there looking like this?

He had on a t-shirt and jeans. God said, you betcha. Come on in.

We'd love to have you. And he said, okay, I'll come in. But see, I was down the street at another place, and I went to go in, and they stopped me at the door. And they said, if you're going to come to this church, you need to dress more respectfully.

What do you think Jesus thinks about that? Do we ever see Him in Scripture dressing people about ties or lack of ties? No, I like a tie. I appreciate a tie. I got ties. I have suits.

I wear them at weddings and funerals. But, you know, if you want to wear a tie here, I think that's great. That's awesome. That's fine. If you don't want to wear a tie here, that's great.

That's fine. It's not the point. The tie's not the point, and yet it's become the point. But why? Because we've gotten into this religious stuff. I don't want long-faced religion. I want a living, vibrant relationship with Jesus.

That's what I want. And some of this other stuff can trip people up. Verse 41, then those who gladly received His word were baptized, and that day about 3,000 souls were added to them. Notice something in verse 41. It says they gladly received His word. If you remember, if you were here last week, what was the word that Peter gave them? Peter said, look, Jesus was the Son of God, and you guys killed Him. It's a short version, but that's what he said to them. And yet, look what this verse says. It says they gladly received His word.

Peter was not like namby-pambian. I mean, he was telling the truth. The life lesson here, the Word of God, pastors and people sometimes tell us things we don't want to hear but need to hear. You know, in my years of being a Christian, I've heard some things that were really tough to hear, but I knew it was from God. And I said, okay, all right, that's solid, and I need to address this or address that. Sometimes that's hard, isn't it?

I mean, I can pretend like it's not, but sometimes it's hard. May the Lord continue to soften our heart as we hear these things. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name, amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you prayed that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge.

Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So, folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.