Acts Chapter 8:12-17

I understand some people might be in here this morning, and I start talking about the Holy Spirit. I talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit, and immediately you begin to envision some really wacky things. If you're a guest here, you're thinking, oh my gosh, this is going to get weird. People are going to be screaming and running around before the service is open.

No, they're not. They may once, and I'll speak to them. Somebody in leadership will speak to them. A lot of times people do stuff, and they go, that's the Holy Spirit. They do crazy wacky stuff that's unscriptural, and they go, that's the Holy Spirit. That's not the Holy Spirit.

That's your flesh. So those people have misrepresented, if you will, the minister of the Holy Spirit. But don't let that drive you away from a personal experience with the Holy Spirit.

See, because here's the thing. I know bad examples of Christians. I know people that, boy, if they were the sole representative, I'm not sure I'd have ever got saved. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, it doesn't need to get complicated. We ask to be filled, and he fills us. Today, Pastor David explains more as he continues teaching in the book of Acts chapter 8.

Now here's David McGee with his teaching, Is Your Heart Right? We are in Acts chapter 8, and what we're finding, this is the early church, and Saul is persecuting the early church. He's pursuing the people that are involved with the church, and some things are going on. And out of this, Philip goes out of Jerusalem. Now we talked about the fact that Philip waited tables, and because he was willing to serve God in that way, God used him in more powerful ways. And we find him now in Samaria. We talked about how they had to break down the walls between the Jewish people and the Samaritan people, that Philip would reach out to them.

We talked about breaking walls down. And so that kind of brings us up to what's going on now. And so they're in Samaria, and these people are coming to the Lord. Well, let's go back to verse 12. But when they believed Philip as he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized. Then Simon himself also believed, and when he was baptized, he continued with Philip and was amazed, seeing the miracles and signs that were done. Now, some of the commentaries that I read concerning this passage, they present Simon as being unconverted. And let me go ahead and tell you, I don't believe that. You're going to see some troubling things in Simon, but when the Bible says Simon believed, I have to think Simon believed.

So I think to do anything else is a stretch. And this is why it's really important. If you're a student of the Bible and you dig into God's Word, understand, let me share something about the way I study. Probably 75% of the material that I share on a Sunday morning or a Thursday night comes together through just reading the Word. I read what I'm getting ready to teach several times. Whenever I do that, and really the bulk of the teaching is together, then I start looking in commentaries. Then I start doing cross references and things like that. But I want to make sure that I'm receiving from God, from His Word, what He wants to speak to you people. Not necessarily what, I love J. Vernon McGee, not necessarily what he was saying to people a few years ago or what some of these other commentators are saying to other people.

And that's important because sometimes if you dig into commentaries before you dig into the Word, it's kind of like, well, the phrase I use is predigested thoughts for you. And so you've got to be careful with that because before I dug in, I thought, hey, you know, I believe Simon is believing, and he was baptized. And I think here again we exercise grace towards Simon. Now we're going to see Simon is struggling with issues, and it's a little scary that somebody might think, well, Simon wasn't saved because he was still struggling with issues, unlike the rest of us when we got saved and quit struggling with all our issues, huh?

Amen or old me? Verse 14, 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. This is cool because it's continuing to build the bridge between the church that was beginning at Samaria and the church at Jerusalem. They sent for John and Peter, hey, come see what the Lord is doing, the Jewish Christians meeting and reaching out to the Samaritan Christians and other people being involved in meeting, you know, the needs of the people. Notice Philip wasn't like, oh, you guys can't come down here.

This is my flock. And, you know, he opened the door, they came, and they say, the Bible says that they might receive the Holy Spirit. Now we're going to be talking about the Holy Spirit, and we have to understand something.

There is a lot of poor teaching. There's a lack of teaching concerning the Holy Spirit. You may, as I was, I was a victim of bad teaching concerning the Holy Spirit for years and years. And you may need to understand this morning that you may have been a victim of poor teaching regarding the Holy Spirit.

Now, here's the thing. What should we look to to learn about our beliefs and the doctrine of the Holy Spirit? The Bible.

Sola Scriptura. That was a phrase that came out of the Reformation saying, you know what, we're going to look to the Bible alone to base our doctrine and our theology on. You say, well, Pastor David, isn't that obvious?

No, it's not. Because there's a lot of people that believe a lot of things about the Holy Spirit that are not scriptural, that they can't back up with the Bible. And when you challenge them with it, they say, well, our denominational headquarters told us this.

I don't want to be handing you a flyer from denominational headquarters. I want to be saying, yeah, let's take a look at the book. Let's see what the book has to say about the Holy Spirit.

Now, here's the thing, too. Should we base our beliefs about the Holy Spirit on our experiences? No.

No. And here's why. Because experiences, well, complicated, they're subjective. In other words, somebody might come here and really feel the presence of the Lord. And then somebody might come here and maybe they're having a bad day.

Maybe, I don't know what's going on, but maybe they come here and they don't really feel the presence of the Lord. So we see that our experiences can lead to misconceptions. So what we want to do is look to what the Bible says. So can we all agree this morning that we're going to enter into sola scriptura mode, if you will, and base our beliefs on the Holy Spirit according to the Bible?

Can we all agree on that? Okay. Awesome. Awesome.

As a follower of Jesus, if you can't recognize this is the book, man, you're already in trouble. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D.A.

Brown. We want to take just a minute to pray for some cities in our listening audience, specifically Merlin, Pendleton, Portland, Powell Butte, Prairie City and Redmond, Oregon. Lord, we thank you for the people living in these cities. Lord, we pray that you would draw them into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Father, we pray for their homes, that there would be unity and love, that they would follow you with all their heart, soul and strength as a family. Lord, we pray for the pastors and churches in these areas. God, that you would anoint them to teach your word verse by verse even. Lord, that you would give the pastors wisdom and discernment how to serve and love the people that God brings. Lord, we love you. We thank you for these cities and we pray that you do a mighty work in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Let's go back and reread 15 and the 16. Who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, verse 16, for as yet he had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Well, that's going to, that creates a situation for some of you because you may have been told that either, A, that you're filled with the Spirit when you're saved or that you're filled with the Spirit when you're water baptized. Well, according to this passage, neither of those are correct and let me explain. There are, well, there's three Greek words.

I'm not going to get heavy duty in the original language, but there is para, en, and epi. These are the words used concerning our relationship with the Holy Spirit. Para, before you're converted, before you come to the Lord, the Holy Spirit is a long side of you.

He doesn't dwell in you. Now, some of you are going, no, no, no, no. Everybody gets a little bit of the Holy Spirit. We're all children of God. No, we're not.

I'm sorry. That's unbiblical. It's a very popular concept, but it's unbiblical. Remember Jesus was having a conversation in John chapter eight with some Jewish leaders and they're, they're talking about fatherhood. They're slamming Jesus saying he was born as an illegitimate child.

If you've missed that, go back and reread it. They say, we not be born of fornication. And they were saying, where's your daddy? And Jesus goes on to say, you're of your father, the devil.

So obviously there's two fatherhoods going on in the world today. There's those who belong to the Lord. And then there's those who belong to the devil. John chapter one, verse 12 says, for as many as received him, they became children of God. So you see the clarification, you have to receive Jesus to become a child of God. And it's scripturally inaccurate to look at the whole earth and go, well, everybody's children are God.

No, they're not. Neither is everybody filled with the Holy Spirit. And maybe you're going, well, what, what's the whole thing about the conscience? Well, that's the Holy Spirit coming into contact with your conscience, convicting you or convincing you of your need for Jesus. But see, God's a Holy God. God's not going to dwell where sin resides and why you're yet unconverted, why you've yet to ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins. Holy spirit can't dwell in you because he's holy.

Now here's what happens at conversion. And I'm going to paint this out and then we're going to look to the Bible and you're, you're going to see this as it's just plain at conversion, you receive some of the spirit of God. Ephesians chapter one, I think it's verse 14 says you are sealed with the spirits. Interesting phrase actually is in the original Greek is like a down payment. You have some of the spirit of God, but the question is, are you absolutely filled to overflowing?

I have to say no. And here's why, because that's the picture of the Bible paints. The Bible paints a picture that there is a subsequent experience to salvation of being filled with the spirit. And it's very plain from this passage, these people believed they had been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus, and yet they had not received the Holy spirit. Now, let me tell you one of the challenges to this that people issue is they say, well, that was only for the early church. It's only the early church that was supposed to have this subsequent experience with the Holy spirit. That's a great theory.

Show me in here. Now I've had conversations with people who have all sorts of initials behind her name, doctor, PhD, you know, but they've been unable to convince me from this book that there is no subsequent experience with the Holy spirit. And when you look at this book, you see that there is a subsequent experience in John chapter 20, verse 22. And Jesus is speaking to the disciples.

This is after his resurrection. And he says this, and when he talking about Jesus, and when he said this, he breathed on them and said to them, receive the Holy spirit. Now at that point, did they receive the Holy spirit?

Absolutely. They received a portion of the Holy spirit. They did receive the Holy spirit.

They had that in EN in the Greek, IN in the English, that some portion into the cup experience. But after this, both chronologically and in your Bible, Acts chapter one, verse eight, after Jesus said, receive the Holy spirit, and we have to believe they received the Holy spirit. Jesus said this to them, said, but you shall receive power when the Holy spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth, the Holy spirit has come upon you.

It's a different word in the Greek. It's epi it's overflowing. Now does the Bible paint that there is a subsequent experience?

Absolutely. Have you been told that there's not perhaps you have, but again, if you have, you've been a victim of bad teaching, unscriptural teaching, because not only do we have that thing with Jesus, Jesus saying, received the Holy spirit and they did. And then him later saying the Holy spirit will come upon you epi to overflowing. But we have this passage that we're looking at now where the people believe in Jesus Christ, where they were baptized and they had yet to receive infilling of the Holy spirit. There's another place in acts.

That's a little less clear, but I'll share it. Acts chapter 19, verse two, he said unto them, have you received the Holy ghost since you believed? And they said unto him, we have not so much as heard whether there be any Holy ghost. Now in that passage, it's unclear because they said, well, we've been baptized in the name of John, but the question is the telling thing. Paul says, have you received since you believed?

And that's a great question for us this morning. Have you received since you believe now, some of you, this may be very new. Some of you may be sitting there going, pastor, I've never heard this. Well, I apologize for that, but you haven't heard it before, but I can only make sure that you hear about it this morning as we look at this passage. And I'm also, again, let me remind you separate yourself from whatever teaching that you have had that has been unbiblical. Cause again, you know, sometimes when I present this, I present the opposing scripture, but it almost adds confusion because you know what?

Let's we'll do an experiment. It's in first Corinthians 13. And if you think you can find it, then email it and ask us about it and we'll be sure to answer it. But you know what? If I don't point out what verse it is, I don't think you'll find it.

Now there's a model. If somebody has to twist the explanation of scripture for you to understand what they really meant, danger, danger, Will Robertson, you know, you're getting on really thin ice. There is no passage in the Bible that says that what was going on in the early church was going to stop. No verse at all.

I've looked at the Greek. I've gone into depth with this. Now perhaps you're sitting there going, well now wouldn't Jesus have told us there is a subsequent experience. Jesus told us, well, the disciples, he said, received the Holy Spirit. Later on, he said, the Holy Spirit will fill you. Well, okay. Well, well, wouldn't he have told us if we were neat, if we needed to ask for the Holy Spirit, wouldn't Jesus have told us, we need to ask for the Holy Spirit?

Well, I'm glad you brought that up. Cause some of you may be sitting in here going, I've never heard we're supposed to ask for the Holy Spirit. Where is that in the Bible?

It's in there. As a matter of fact, let me, let me go ahead and deal with something else. And I want to take time on this because I want you to understand biblically what the deal is. I understand some people might be in here this morning and I start talking about the Holy Spirit. I talk about being filled with the Holy Spirit and immediately you began to envision some really wacky things. If you're a guest here, you're thinking, Oh my gosh, this is going to get weird. People are going to be screaming and running around before the service is over.

No, they're not. They may once, and I'll speak to them. Somebody will speak to them. A lot of times people do stuff and they go, that's the Holy Spirit.

They do crazy wacky stuff that's unscriptural. They'll go, that's the Holy Spirit. That's not the Holy Spirit.

That's your flesh. So those people have misrepresented, if you will, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but don't let that drive you away from a personal experience with the Holy Spirit. See, because here's the thing. I know bad examples of Christians. I know people that, boy, if they were the sole representative, I'm not sure I'd ever got saved.

Now, do I look at their life and go, what? Christianity? Oh, don't want that. Looks bad.

Looks a little wacky at times. I could have missed out on salvation. And in the same way you could miss out on the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you use other people who have acted unscripturally as your example, Jesus knew that we were going to be fearful in regards to this issue. That's why he tells us in Luke chapter 11, he says, if a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If you then be an evil, know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

That's as plain as it gets, isn't it? Jesus says you're supposed to ask. Jesus said you may be afraid, but still ask. I've even heard some whacked out people say, no, if you ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit, demons will come in. And Jesus said, absolutely not.

Absolutely not. And notice, give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him. We're supposed to ask for it. Ask to be filled with the Spirit. The life lesson here, we should be filled with the Holy Spirit. We should be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, Ephesians said be not drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit or be constantly filled with the Spirit. So what we want to do is we want to take a balanced approach, because the Bible talks about that subsequent experience where you were overflowing filled, and it also talks about being filled on a daily basis. That's what the Bible does.

So we want to approach it biblically. But you should be filled with the Spirit. And there is no reason for you not to ask the Lord to fill you with the Spirit today.

Your past experiences, your bad experiences, your improper teaching regarding this doesn't matter. This is what the Scripture says, that you're supposed to ask for the Spirit. Now, how do you get filled with the Spirit? You ask for the Holy Spirit, you ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and God does it.

It's as simple as that. A lot of times you'll see people, the Bible mentions the laying on of hands to be filled with the Spirit. So that's what we do here.

We do that in a manner that seems again consistent with Scripture. Because you talk about laying on of hands and what does immediately everybody think of? They think of somebody smacking somebody on the forehead. That's not, notice the phrase guys, the laying on of hands. If God wanted us to smack one another in the forehead, He would have called it the smacking on of hands.

But that's not what He calls it. He calls it the laying on of hands. So when somebody is praying for somebody to be filled with the Spirit, it is an appropriate thing for them to reach over and for them to lay their hands on them and pray for them. Or to take anointing oil. We see biblically, oil is a picture of the Holy Spirit. To anoint them and say, may the Lord fill you with the Spirit.

Those are all appropriate things. Now let's see what happens. Verse 17, then they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. And notice again, they laid hands on them and they received.

And again, there's been kind of some stuff, you know, I've heard of people having tarrying meetings. You know, they just wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. You know, the only time you see that is when the disciples waited the first time at Pentecost.

Because there was a picture there. You can go back in the teachings and you'll hear the whole Feast of Pentecost and what that was about. But that was the only tarrying. And I've heard people say, well, you know, you won't receive the Holy Spirit because there's sin in your life. Well, ask the Lord to forgive you of your sin and then ask Him to fill you with the Spirit. Because again, I've heard people say, well, I'm going to pray that you get filled with the Spirit and then, you know, if you supposedly don't get filled with the Spirit, they say, well, there's sin in your life. There's something wrong with you. You receive the Holy Spirit by grace, just like you receive salvation by grace.

Let me mention one more thing. In this room, a lot of people in here came, we know Jesus as our Savior. There was that moment in time when we said, Jesus, forgive me of my sins. For some of us, that was an incredible emotional experience.

Tears flowed. And for some people in here, when they came and they asked Jesus to forgive them of their sins, it was not this big, incredible emotional experience. Maybe it was a quiet thing. Maybe it was in the quietness of your own home.

Maybe you didn't cry. Well, Pastor David, what's your point? Both cases received salvation by faith through grace, not basing it upon, well, I felt, I felt something. Don't base it on your feelings because some people might not feel forgiven when they do this. You ask the Holy Spirit to fill you. You may feel something incredible.

You may not, but you don't base it on your feelings. So I know I spent a lot of time on the Holy Spirit, but I want to be sure that we understand doctrinally and theologically what the Bible has to say about the Holy Spirit. And again, that subsequent experience and then that daily experience. God, fill me with your spirit. 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. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

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. Jesus said He would not turn anybody away who comes to Him.

And He came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness, those who were sick, not the righteous. 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.

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