I want
to speak today about three baptisms that the
Lord Jesus spoke about.
The first of these is what is mentioned
in Matthew's Gospel, Chapter 28, where before he
was ascended up to heaven, before he ascended,
he said, these are the last words, and
you can expect that someone who is just
about to leave would say something very, very
important in his last few words.
And his burden was, verse 19, he told
his apostles to go everywhere and make disciples
in every nation and baptize them in the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,
and teach them to do all that I
commanded you.
So, as far as Jesus was concerned, if
you see the order there, he said, you've
got to make disciples and then baptize them.
In other words, right at the beginning, you
have to tell them what it means to
be a disciple of Jesus.
A disciple is a learner and a follower.
So, if a man doesn't want to learn
from Jesus and follow him, don't baptize him.
Far too many people have been baptized who
have absolutely no desire to learn from Jesus
or to follow him.
They lived for themselves and for money and
the world before they were converted, and they
live for themselves and for money and the
world after they are converted, except they've got
a little bit of religious whitewash now.
Jesus is not interested in such people.
In fact, they are a hindrance to his
kingdom.
What Jesus said was, go into every part
of every nation and make disciples.
And that's the basis on which we started
this church more than 29 years ago, to
make clear to people what discipleship meant, which
was not preached much.
Even today, it's not preached much.
But through the years, what has happened is
that any work of God gets diluted through
the years.
A person wants to be a disciple and
comes to the church.
And of course, his wife comes along.
His wife may have no interest in being
a disciple.
And then his children come along.
The children grow up.
They may have no interest in being disciples.
And then the person's brother comes along and
sister comes along and relatives come along and
they're all welcome.
Most of them may have no interest in
being disciples.
So you see what happens to a church
over a period of 20-25 years is
it may have started out with a real
desire to make disciples and the people who
started out may have been disciples.
But over a period of time, every single
church in the world gets diluted.
And that's the state of affairs in every
single denomination and every single church under the
sun except something that's starting newly.
Give it 25 years and it'll be just
like everything else.
But Jesus said that you should never baptize
anyone who's not a disciple, who's not serious
about discipleship.
And through the years, you know, we can
make mistakes.
I know I've baptized people who later on
I discovered they were not disciples at all.
But at least I have a clear conscience
that I made the claims of discipleship clear
to people.
I mean, if they fooled me, that's fine.
They can't fool God.
I always say I'm like a person at
one of these security checkposts and by mistake
I may lift the bar and let the
vehicle through.
But there's another security checkpost further up the
line which God mans and you'll never get
through that even if you fool the first
security checkpost.
So it's very important to remember how important
Jesus, the stress that Jesus placed on those
who are disciples must be baptized.
And you remember in Matthew's Gospel chapter 3
that John the Baptist, whose baptism was not
the same as Christian baptism.
In fact, those who took John's baptism had
to take Christian baptism again.
We read that in Acts 19.
John's baptism was not a baptism of belief
in the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was only a baptism of repentance.
It was half.
The baptism Jesus commanded was the full thing,
repentance plus faith.
But John the Baptist didn't say to people,
do you believe in the Lord Jesus Christ?
No.
Today when we baptize people, we ask that
second question.
That's what completes it in Christian baptism.
But John the Baptist prepared the way for
Christian baptism by bringing his baptism, which was
half of Christian baptism, which is a baptism
of repentance.
And in Matthew chapter 3, we read that
John was baptizing people there.
And when a lot of Pharisees and Sadducees,
verse 7, Matthew 3, 7 showed up to
be baptized and he said to them, you
brood of snakes.
It's really lovely to read it in the
Message Bible.
What are you trying to do slithering down
here to the river?
Snakes slithering down into the river.
Do you think a little water on your
snake skins is going to make any difference
to you?
No.
And don't think you can pull rank by
claiming Abraham is a father.
A little water on a snake skin doesn't
change it.
And that's what John the Baptist was telling
these people.
Do you think a little water on your
snake skins is going to change you?
No, it won't.
There's got to be a radical change of
heart.
He says, bring forth fruits that are in
keeping with repentance.
Verse 8.
And don't say that so and so was
my earthly father, so and so is my
spiritual father.
There are a lot of people who glory
in being connected with CFC.
It counts absolutely zero with God.
These are like people who say, Abraham is
our father, or we are connected with brother
so and so.
It counts for zero with God.
Because God sees each person's heart.
And your connection with Abraham or with the
greatest man of God alive makes no difference
to God.
You've got to have a connection with Jesus
yourself.
That's what John the Baptist said.
He says, what counts is your life.
And if you don't repent, it's no use.
I'm baptizing you here in the river for
turning from your old life, verse 11, into
a kingdom life.
So baptism is a turning.
It's a change of mind.
It's like the Indian translations have it.
It's a turning around of your mind.
That's what baptism is.
Repentance is that.
I've finished with my old life.
So baptism is actually a testimony about the
past and a confession that I want to
live different in the future.
Romans chapter 6.
It's very important for us to understand because
many Christians, for them baptism is a ritual.
And I think there are a lot of
people baptized in CFC who haven't really changed
much in their life, even after baptism.
Whereas actually, you know, the difference between before
baptism and after baptism should be the difference
between being dead and alive.
The Bible says we were dead in our
sins and we were made alive in Christ.
A new birth, a real new birth is
something that makes a person as different from
his old way of life as a living
person is different from a dead person.
You see, a dead person just gets worse
and worse and worse and worse and worse
and worse over the period of time.
Firstly, he begins to stink and the stink
gets worse and worse.
And then the body begins to crumble and
it becomes dust.
And finally, even the bones become dust and
everything disappears.
Whereas a newborn baby who's got life is
quite the opposite.
It's going the other direction.
Every day, every month, every year, things are
getting better and better and better to spiritual
growth and greater maturity and everything.
So this should be the difference between being
born again and before one is born again.
And baptism is a testimony that I've come
to that place where I've finished with the
past, I'm starting anew.
So it says in Romans chapter 6 and
verse 4, therefore, we've been buried with him
through baptism into death, so that as Christ
was raised from the dead through the glory
of the Father, so we too might walk
in newness of life.
So you know there's a lot of difference
between death and resurrection.
And in baptism, when you're being put into
the water, you're testifying to the old life
being buried.
And when you come out of the water,
you're testifying, I'm a brand new person, just
like Jesus came out of the grave.
It's a break with the old life and
a completely new beginning.
And you know, we have often said baptism
is a symbol.
It's a symbol.
Yeah, in one sense it is.
But the interesting thing is, nowhere in the
Bible does it say baptism is a symbol.
You can search and search and search the
New Testament.
It doesn't talk about that.
And they took baptism as not just a
symbol, but something real.
It was a very real event where a
person was finishing with his old life and
starting with a new life.
That's why in the early days people got
baptized as soon as they were converted.
You remember the story of the Philippian jailer?
He got converted at midnight in the jail
when Paul was there in jail and there
was an earthquake.
And he got converted.
And his family got converted.
He took Paul home and Silas home and
they preached the gospel there in the middle
of the night, two o'clock in the
morning.
They're listening to the gospel.
He woke them all up and they heard
the gospel and by six o'clock in
the morning they were all baptized.
Think of that.
That was pretty quick.
They didn't even wait to gather the church.
I mean, today we feel that the church
must come.
Not necessarily.
You can baptize a person all alone in
his room, in his house.
And they did it immediately because it was
a testimony.
Have you really finished with your old life?
Why do we have to delay so much
today?
Because we have such a lot of wishy
-washy Christianity where you don't know the difference
between those who are really born again and
disciples of Jesus and those who are just
coming along for the fun of it or
because their parents were in it or some
relative is in it or something like that.
It's like these roads where you have a
yellow line, clear yellow line and sometimes they
have these partitions between the two lanes and
that's to show traffic going this way is
this side and traffic going this way is
this side.
But over a period of time those yellow
lines get worn out and erased and you
can't see the difference anymore.
And that's somewhat of the state of Christianity
today.
In the olden days the line was very
clear.
Those who are going towards the devil go
that way.
Those who are going towards God go this
way.
And there's a very clear demarcation.
In fact, Abraham said there's such a great
divide between the two that you can't even
cross from here to the other once you've
decided finally.
But over the period of time the devil
succeeded in erasing that line and so you
have.
I'll tell you in every single denomination I've
gone to, every church I've gone to, including
ours, it's very difficult sometimes to say who
is born again and who is not.
The lines have been so erased that everybody
uses the same words.
But today you have people who claim they
are born again who won't talk to somebody.
I can't understand that.
Or who got a grudge in their heart
or take somebody to court.
They all claim they are born again.
This is ridiculous.
These are all children of the devil, 100%.
How can you be a child of God
and have a grudge against somebody?
I can't believe that.
You've got to be a child of the
devil to do that.
God doesn't have a grudge against anyone.
The devil's got lots of that in his
heart.
Because there's never been a radical repentance.
And I want to say that to many
of you sitting here.
Maybe there was a time 20 years ago
when you were saved and probably today you're
lost.
Because a lot of people think that once
you're saved you can never be lost.
I don't believe that.
In fact the Bible says in Revelation chapter
3 that there's a possibility that our name
can be erased from the book of life.
Jesus himself said that.
You read that.
Was the Lord just trying to threaten people?
How does that happen?
How does a person's name get erased from
the book of life?
I'll just mention that verse to you in
case you don't know where it is.
It's in Revelation chapter 3 and verse 5.
If you overcome, I will not erase your
name from the book of life.
Now that's not an empty threat.
Now the devil says, oh no, no, no,
no.
That will never happen.
That's exactly what he told Eve.
When God said to Eve, Adam and Eve,
that if you eat of that tree you'll
surely die.
Satan said, oh no, no, no, no.
Don't you believe that.
That is the first lie recorded in the
Bible.
Oh, don't believe what God says.
That's not so serious.
It's exactly the same thing he says today.
Jesus says, if you overcome, we're in Revelation
3, 5, I will not erase his name
from the book of life.
Otherwise your name will be erased.
And the devil says, oh no, no, no,
no.
Don't you believe all that.
God is a God of love.
And do you know the number of so
-called Christians who believe that their name will
never be erased from the book of life.
They just couldn't care less.
It's amazing.
I'm really surprised at the number of people
who just don't believe scripture.
Jesus said, heaven and earth will pass away,
but my words will not pass away.
They will not.
So that's why I say, maybe you were
converted genuinely 20 years ago, but probably you're
lost today because you've gone back to the
world and you started getting grudges in your
heart and you don't forgive somebody and you've
got a bitterness against somebody in the church
and you won't talk to someone, you won't
visit someone.
Boy, I don't believe you're saved today.
You're lost.
Completely lost.
And I would say to you, who were
converted 20 years ago, repent.
Repent today.
A little water on your snake skins is
not going to change you.
God looks at the heart.
And the Bible says, if you endure unto
the end, you'll be saved.
That's the gospel preached throughout the New Testament
and we're not ashamed to preach it.
So, why do things happen like this?
Why do people fall away like this?
Why do we need verses like, for example,
Hebrews chapter 6?
Let me read this.
Hebrews chapter 6.
Here it speaks in verse 4 about people
who've been enlightened, who've tasted the heavenly gift,
that's the heavenly gift is forgiveness, who've been
made partakers of the Holy Spirit.
That means they are baptized in the Holy
Spirit.
Real fine Christians.
And tasted the good word of God, verse
5, and tasted the supernatural powers of the
future age.
That means they've experienced some miracles from God
in their life.
And then, after all this, verse 6, they
fall away.
Now, some people believe it's impossible to fall
away.
Well, I suppose if you don't believe the
Bible, you can believe anything.
I believe the Bible.
That's the only difference between me and them.
And it's impossible because when they fall away
like that and go right back to the
world which crucified Christ, and start loving a
world which crucified Christ, they themselves, verse 6,
last part, are crucifying Christ again.
Because it says it's impossible to renew them
again to repentance.
You know, some people can go so far
that it's impossible to renew them to repentance.
But before you get that far, it's possible
to repent again and say, Lord, I'm not
what I was 20 years ago.
I had a sensitive conscience 20 years ago,
or 5 years ago, or 2 years ago.
But I seem to have slipped up.
I've just allowed the spirit of the world
to come right into me, and repentance is
no longer part of my life.
Do you know the greatest need in Christian
preaching today is the message of repentance?
The greatest need for Christians is repentance, turning
from sin.
The last messages that Jesus preached to 7
churches, to 5 of them that had sin
in their life, he said, repent.
Revelation chapter 2 and chapter 3.
Repent, repent, repent, repent.
And I'll never get tired of preaching it
because sometimes I feel in many places I
go, I'm a lone voice preaching against sin,
preaching against worldliness, preaching against the love of
money, preaching against bitterness, preaching against, you know,
anger and sexual lust and telling lies.
Hardly anybody preaches on these things today.
But I'm going to continue until the Lord
comes, preaching the same old things which are
found in the Bible.
Because then nobody's blood will be on my
hands.
I can't save everybody, but if they get
lost at the judgment seat of Christ, they
will not turn around to me and say,
Brother Zach, you never told me the truth.
I'll say, I certainly did.
You heard it, you had no interest in
obeying it, that's another thing.
But you heard it from me, all right,
and you heard it many, many times.
I want to say sin is a terrible
thing.
I want to ask you how many of
you believe that getting angry is worse than
getting AIDS.
I think that probably less than 1%
of believers who believe that getting angry is
worse than getting AIDS.
I'll tell you why it's worse.
I know people who have AIDS and who
got converted and are born again and who
are going to heaven.
Their AIDS is not cured.
I mean, they got it in their unconverted
days and they were born again.
After that they repented of their sin, but
they die of AIDS and go to heaven.
But I tell you, Jesus said in Matthew
chapter 5 verse 22 onwards, that if a
man loses his temper and he doesn't get
a control of his temper, he can go
to hell.
You read that, it's in Matthew 5.22.
If a man has got angry with his
brother and he says to his brother, you
fool or you empty head, you're in danger
of hellfire.
No person with AIDS can go to hell
because of AIDS.
But a person with anger can go to
hell according to the words of Jesus.
That's another word that's not preached much today.
I remember a middle-aged man coming up
to me and saying to me, Brother Zach,
he's been a believer for years.
He said, I never knew until I came
and heard you that getting angry was a
sin.
How in the world?
Which church was he?
Was he going to a mosque or a
temple or something?
How in the world could he sit in
a Christian church all his life and never
hear that which is written in Matthew chapter
5?
I mean, even if you got a little
New Testament and you read a chapter on
a day, on the fifth day you'll reach
it.
You don't have to be a believer for
a long time to know that anger is
a sin.
But people just don't think about it.
Now how do you know that AIDS is
such a terrible disease?
You know how I know it?
Because it's all in the papers, it's in
the magazines, there's so much publicity given to
it.
They put posters up about AIDS and AIDS
and AIDS.
Otherwise I wouldn't have known it and you
wouldn't have known it either.
But we don't have so many posters and
articles and magazines on anger.
If we did, we'd be a little more
careful.
To repent of everything.
I mean, if you're serious about repentance, if
you're serious about following Jesus and being a
disciple, I would say to you, take some
time to read through Matthew chapter 5, 6
and 7 and say, Lord, my baptism in
water testifies that I've finished with my old
life, the sins described in these chapters, and
I'm going to live a new life the
way it's described in these chapters.
I mean, that's the beginning.
I would recommend it to you.
I've done it myself.
I would never preach what I have not
done myself.
And I want to say to you, if
you want to really stand on your water
baptism as the first baptism Jesus said you
must take, then take this seriously.
Now I want to go to the second
baptism.
And that is in Acts chapter 1.
Jesus spoke about his second baptism in Acts
chapter 1 verse 5, which is also essential.
The first one deals with our past.
It's a testimony to the past.
I've finished with the past way of life,
living for myself, living for the world and
spending all my time with my worldly friends.
My friends are now God's people.
That's a mark of a man who's baptized.
He's finished with his old life.
And the Bible says Noah's flood was a
picture of baptism in 1 Peter 3.
When Noah came out of that flood, do
you know all his old friends had gone?
It was new friends.
And it was his family to begin with.
And I believe that that's what happens in
baptism when we come out of the flood.
It's a flood when you get into baptism.
You come out, your old friends are gone.
Mine were gone.
I got new friends.
I got a new family.
I hope you have.
Acts chapter 1 verse 5, Jesus said, not
many days from now you will be baptized
with the Holy Spirit.
See baptism, the word baptism just means immersion.
You can be immersed by being, there are
two ways to get immersed.
One is to be dipped under water.
And the other is to stand under a
waterfall.
If you stand under a mighty waterfall, you
just get as drenched as if you're dipped
in water.
That's the other way to get immersed.
So what Jesus meant was, you're going to
be immersed with the Holy Spirit.
And Jesus pictured that in John chapter 7
like a river.
The Holy Spirit's pictured in the Bible like
a river.
Like a river of water, even in the
Old Testament.
You know, when the rock was smitten, the
waters began to flow like a river.
It was a river that flowed from the
rock because there were two million people waiting
to drink.
It wasn't just a little trickle.
I believe there's many rivers that flowed out
of that rock that Moses smote.
And it is a picture of Christ being
smitten and the Holy Spirit being flowing out
from Christ.
And even in Revelation chapter 22, we read
about this river flowing from the throne of
God.
A picture of the Holy Spirit.
So think of this, how high heaven is
and from the throne of God, a river
flowing down to earth.
What a mighty waterfall that is.
Boy, I'd like to get underneath that and
be immersed, drenched, baptized and live there all
my life because it's always flowing.
You don't have to pray, Lord, send the
river.
It's already started flowing from the day of
Pentecost onwards.
It's been flowing, flowing from heaven to the
earth.
Mighty power of the Holy Spirit.
And you know, there was such an important
work that Jesus wanted his apostles to do.
Because the whole world, 95% of the
world hadn't heard that Christ died for their
sins.
Christ rose from the dead to the two
most amazing facts in human history.
Christ died for the sins of the world
and Christ rose from the dead.
Nobody's ever done these two things in any
religion in anywhere in the world.
I always say Christianity does not teach be
good and all that type of stuff.
That's the superstructure.
Christianity rests on two foundations which are unique
and make it different from all the other
religions in the world that Christ died for
the sins of the world, Christ rose up
from the dead.
But 95% of the world didn't know
it.
And Jesus commissioned 11 people and said, you
fellas have got to go and preach to
the whole world this wonderful truth and tell
them to turn from their sin and receive
the Holy Spirit.
And with this very important message where people
were dying every day to receive, Jesus then
tells his disciples, but don't go yet.
Because if you go in your present condition,
even though you're very sincere, even though you've
given up your jobs, and I know you're
very wholehearted, you will never succeed.
You will be an absolute failure because you
can't do this job in your own strength.
You need to be immersed with the Holy
Spirit's power.
Otherwise you'll get tired.
One of the best illustrations today of the
Holy Spirit's power is electricity.
Imagine if I had to keep turning this
fan with my hand.
Boy, I'd get tired.
You can do it for a little while.
You get tired.
You give up.
Then you try the other hand.
Then both hands get tired.
Then what do you do?
This is a picture of trying to live
the Christian life without the power of the
Holy Spirit.
Trying to serve God without the power of
the Holy Spirit.
Yeah, you can try it.
Try turning this fan.
Let's see how long you can go.
That's about how long you can go in
your Christian life.
But once the electricity comes, you don't have
to turn it.
It just flows in and you can have
it running 24 hours, 2 days, 3 days,
4 days.
It just goes on and on and on.
What a difference that is to be baptized
and immersed in the Holy Spirit.
It makes such a tremendous difference in your
life.
And I'm absolutely convinced, absolutely, that just like
most Christians haven't understood repentance, most Christians have
not had a genuine, mighty experience of the
fullness and the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
Because their life wouldn't be like this.
It's impossible.
Now, what do you say if in your
house the 100 watt bulb suddenly becomes like
a 0 watt bulb?
Have you seen that sometimes?
In Bangalore such miracles happen?
How does that happen?
Nothing wrong with the bulb.
You say, I mean even a dumb school
student will say, well the voltage has gone
down.
It's not 220 volts right now.
That's it.
And when I see some Christians who, when
I look at their lives and they're supposed
to be 10,000 watts and they're like
a 0 watt bulb coming along to the
meeting, most of them grumpy and sour and
can't get along with somebody and no desire
to witness for Christ, just to live for
the world.
I'd say something is wrong.
This light is on its way out.
In a little while it'll really be zero.
Well, it's not meant to be like that.
Think of the 220 volts of power coming
in and the light burning all the time.
It's amazing.
And that's how our Christian life should be.
I know my Christian life was not like
that when I first got converted.
For 16 years of my life, my life
was up and down.
Like you read in physics about the sine
wave.
Up and down and up and down and
up and down and up and down forever.
That's the experience of lots of Christians.
That was my experience too.
Till I understood what it is to be
filled with the Holy Spirit, not just once,
but all the time.
And I said, Lord, I never want to
be in a bad mood any time of
the day or night.
365 days of the year.
I always want to be a happy person
because God is my Father.
The Spirit's my helper.
Jesus my Savior.
My past sins are all blotted out.
It's never going to be mentioned again.
Satan's been defeated on the cross and he's
crushed under my feet and everything that happens
in the world is working for my good.
Why shouldn't I be happy?
Why should I be miserable?
I can't think of a single reason.
I mean, you can give 10,000 reasons.
I can't even think of a single one
that should make me miserable.
Everything just makes me happy.
But that could only be true.
I mean, you can hear these things and
it won't change you till the Holy Spirit
makes it reality.
You know, I can explain all the theory
of electricity on a blackboard here and give
you a thick book on electricity and you
still may not have electricity in your house.
You can understand all that.
You can explain it.
You can be a teacher in electricity and
not have electricity in your house.
That's the condition of a lot of Christians.
They understand so much and particularly you come
to a church like this where there's so
much teaching.
Boy, your head can become big and big
and big like these small children with big
heads.
It's actually hydrocephalus.
There's a lot of water.
That's all.
They don't live long.
And that's how a lot of Christians are.
So much knowledge.
The body this size and the head so
big.
That's not God's will.
We don't need more knowledge.
I believe we've got plenty of it already.
What we need is power.
The mighty power of the Holy Spirit.
So Jesus told these apostles, don't even try
to go out and do what I'm telling
you to do.
Wait.
Wait till you're filled with the Holy Spirit
and I tell you, you won't be the
same again.
Peter, you won't be scared of servant women
after that.
You'll be standing up before high priests not
afraid to tell them the truth.
And you won't be any more quarreling as
to who's the greatest.
Once you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you'll
want to be a servant of everybody.
That's it.
And you won't be defeated by all these
wretched things in your inner life.
You'll be an overcomer.
You'll be able to live the life I
described in Matthew 5, 6 and 7.
If you're filled with the Holy Spirit.
And I believe that's the greatest need.
And I'm not surprised that because it is
the greatest need, the devil has made sure
that this is an area where you have
maximum confusion today.
First of all, you have all these wild
extremes of people who think that being filled
with the Holy Spirit is falling down or
barking or laughing or getting a tickle down
your spine or all types of things, you
know, or shivering or bouncing on your knees
or praise and worship.
You know, when we have a wonderful time
of praise and worship, we say, boy, that's
the Holy Spirit.
I wish it were.
I'd like to see how it is this
afternoon in your relationships with other people and
tomorrow and the next day.
Then we'll know if it was the Holy
Spirit or just emotion.
There's tremendous amount of deception today.
Don't be fooled by all this emotion.
If it is really the Holy Spirit, it's
lasting.
If it's emotion, it's temporary.
It's not a permanent cure.
It's like, you know, I often think that
a lot of people who go to church
and have a wonderful time for two hours
are exactly like the man who goes to
a drinking bar because he's got so many
problems and so many sorrows.
He sits there with his friends and drinks
for two hours and how do you think
he feels?
He feels on top of the world.
He doesn't have a problem in the world.
You see him walking outside the bar after
he's drunk.
Ha!
You think he's the happiest man in the
world.
It's true.
I was in a charismatic meeting about 30
years ago in Bombay.
I'll never get tired of telling this story.
They made me sit on the platform.
I don't usually like that, but anyway, you
have some advantages.
You see people from there.
I saw everybody.
We were standing up and praising the Lord.
There was one man to my left who
was just clapping and smiling better than anybody
else.
I said, boy, that's a spiritual man.
I didn't have much discernment those days.
I said, I must meet this fellow after
the meeting.
He was an elderly man.
I went near him.
Within five feet, I could smell the alcohol.
He was happy, all right.
He wasn't even converted, but boy, nobody was
more Pentecostal that day or more charismatic than
that man.
That's why it says, don't be drunk with
wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit.
In other words, get the right spirit inside
you, not the wrong one.
That's what it means there.
That's why it says in Acts chapter 2,
when they were filled with the Holy Spirit,
people said, hey, these fellows are drunk with
new wine.
You can imitate that.
If it's only clapping, raising hands, looking happy,
whiskey will do it.
I'll tell you.
I haven't tried it, but I know it'll
do it.
I've seen other people who have tried it.
In addition to that, if you want to
be patient with your wife and your husband
and be a very joyous Christian who is
eager to witness for Christ, whiskey won't do
that.
For that, you need the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit will also make you praise
and worship and not just for two hours.
That's the difference.
Whiskey makes you do it only for a
little while.
The Holy Spirit will make you happy 24
hours a day.
Like this new phrase now we have, 24
-7.
Great.
I like that phrase.
24-7.
24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Rejoice in the Lord.
I mean, if Paul were writing in today's
language, he'd say Philippians 4, 4, Rejoice in
the Lord 24-7.
That's exactly what it means.
That's the way.
In everything, give thanks.
Give thanks 24-7.
That's not possible without the Holy Spirit.
You can do it for a little while.
Like I said, you can turn the fan
for a little while with your hands.
That's why Jesus said you must be filled
with the Holy Spirit.
That's why the Apostle Paul, you know, once
when he went to Ephesus, Acts chapter 19,
you read there that he went to some
people who claimed to be disciples of Jesus
Christ.
And I think he went to one of
their meetings.
There were 12 people in that church.
And he sat around in the meeting.
It was boring, like most Christian meetings are.
And heavy.
And the prayers were all sleepy.
And maybe they shed the Word and it
was all dead.
And after the meeting, Paul said, hey fellas,
I want to ask you guys a question.
Did you people ever get filled with the
Holy Spirit?
You've never heard it?
Ah, I'm not surprised.
That's the problem.
There's something missing here.
And then they were filled with the Holy
Spirit.
And what a difference it made.
And I want to say to all of
you who've been struggling to turn the fan,
there's a better way.
Ask for a power connection.
And don't give up.
Like you go to the electricity office and
say, where's my power connection?
You go the next day and say, where's
my power connection?
Why not go to God and say, Lord,
where's my power connection?
I didn't get it.
Lord, you know why God waits?
I mean, the electricity people wait for a
bribe, but God's not waiting for a bribe.
He's waiting to see whether you're desperate.
Whether you really value.
You know, God does not give His gifts
to people who don't value them.
And that's what He's testing when He waits.
Do you really value that?
Let me see.
And God sees the next day, you're not
bothered.
You pray for it once, nothing happens.
You say, okay, I've got other things to
do.
Go ahead, do the other things.
God sees you're not serious about it.
Have you seen people who, when the doctors
say your child is dying, there's a particular
injection you need.
And it's, I don't know, in some place
in Bangalore, it may be available.
Can you see how the father goes from
medical shop to medical shop to medical shop
to medical shop?
And he finished the whole day, didn't find
it.
Next day he starts, he makes a list
of all the medical shops.
He's determined to get that injection because he
wants to save his child's life.
What do you think of a father who
goes to one medical shop and comes back,
tells his wife, no, I tried, I couldn't
find it.
He's not serious about his child living.
And I don't think any of you fathers
would be like that.
And I tell you one thing.
You seek God for the power of the
Holy Spirit, like that father goes around those
medical shops in Bangalore to get one injection
for his child.
I tell you, before the week is out,
before next Sunday, you'll be filled with the
Holy Spirit.
I can guarantee it.
But if you're not eager about it, there's
a law in Scripture.
It's written in Jeremiah 29, verse 13.
Jeremiah 29, verse 13.
You will seek me and find me when
you search for me with all your heart,
otherwise you won't find me.
And that's why those disciples waited, waited, waited,
waited, waited.
And I saw a cartoon once.
Cartoons sometimes have a very powerful message.
It's all these 120 people waiting in the
upper room.
They had to wait for 10 days before
the Holy Spirit came.
On the ninth day, this is the cartoon,
one man gets up and says, I've had
enough of waiting.
Nothing is going to happen.
Let me go home.
And he goes home.
And next morning, all of Jerusalem is in
uproar, because something happened in that upper room.
And he goes back and he says, hey,
what happened?
Spirit of God fell.
I wish I'd waited another day.
Sometimes we can be so close to an
answer, and we get tired.
Either we don't believe that God will ever
give it to us.
Do you know who the Holy Spirit is
for?
The Holy Spirit is for sinners who are
unable to live a holy life.
Do you qualify?
I qualify.
Sinners unable to live a holy life.
I say, Lord, I qualify.
Do you qualify?
Are you a sinner unable to live a
holy life?
The Holy Spirit is for you, brother, sister.
That's the good news.
You can have the power of the Holy
Spirit.
First of all, God cleanses out your heart
from sin with the blood of Jesus Christ.
You know, it's like if my little boy
came to me with a mug full of
muck and rubbish and stones.
He says, Dad, give me some milk.
What do I do?
Pour the milk into that?
No.
I first clean out the cup, clean out
that mug.
Then what do I do?
I don't give him a clean mug.
I put something into it.
So when we come to Jesus with a
dirty heart full of all the rubbish we
have accumulated through the years and say, Lord,
give me your life, the first thing he's
got to do is clean it out.
That's what the blood of Jesus Christ does.
And then after that, there must be something
more.
There is.
He fills it with the Holy Spirit.
But that's where God waits to see whether
you're serious.
And I feel that I'm absolutely amazed how
so many believers are so defeated and defeated
and don't seem to be desperate.
Have you ever considered fasting for one day?
Just three meals.
You've eaten thousands of meals.
Have you ever tried skipping two or three
meals just to seek God?
For the power of his Holy Spirit?
Because you say, Lord, I'm desperate about this.
I want this in my life.
That's the thing that prepares us for the
present.
If baptism deals with the past, the power
of the Holy Spirit is for the present.
To make me a witness for Christ.
I'll tell you, I've been serving the Lord
now for 40 years nearly, and I'll tell
you the thing that's made a difference in
my ministry is one thing, the baptism in
the Holy Spirit.
I would never, never, never be able to
preach as I do if it were not
for one thing, the baptism in the Holy
Spirit.
The Bible says, seek earnestly for the gifts
of the Holy Spirit.
And I started seeking for the gifts of
the Holy Spirit 40 years ago.
How many of you are seeking for the
gifts of the Holy Spirit?
That God should exercise a gift of the
Holy Spirit through you?
Maybe not my gift.
It won't be my gift.
You'll have your own gift, whatever it is.
But if you are sluggish and lazy and
lethargic about seeking for the gifts of the
Holy Spirit, I guarantee you, I can give
it to you in writing, you'll never get
anything.
You'll live on earth, wasting your life, and
you'll go to heaven and discover that God
wanted to use you as a mighty instrument
in His hand, but you never sought Him
earnestly.
You are more interested in 101 things in
the world.
One of the wonderful things I found in
my life, when I decided more than 40
years ago to seek God's kingdom only first
in my life, what do you think happened
to all the other earthly needs of mine?
Don't you think I had earthly needs?
Sure.
I want to tell you, God supplied my
earthly needs when I spent my life seeking
God's kingdom.
I could have spent my life pursuing something
on earth.
I had something very good on earth going
45 years ago, but I decided to chuck
it and put God first.
I'll tell you this, you don't have to
be afraid that you'll starve or you'll be
out in the streets or your children will
suffer.
Impossible.
Be a living testimony to the world around
that you're a man, a woman, who decides
to honor God and God's honored you.
That you seek God's kingdom first and all
the other earthly things are added to you.
That's God's will.
And that your life and your ministry are
an expression of the radiance and the beauty
of Jesus Christ.
That's only possible through the power of the
Holy Spirit.
That's what you need.
Then thirdly, Jesus spoke about a third baptism,
which is not known very much by many
people and not even spoken about.
I never in 45 years of my Christian
life, I never heard one sermon on this
third baptism.
I heard a lot of sermons on the
other two.
This is found in Mark's Gospel and chapter
10.
It's the baptism of suffering.
If you want a complete Christian experience, you
need to be baptized in water under repentance
and faith.
You need to be baptized in the Holy
Spirit and you need to experience this baptism
of suffering.
The baptism in water relates to my past
life.
The baptism in the Holy Spirit relates to
my present being a witness for Christ.
And the baptism in suffering is the preparation
to reign with Christ in the future.
So there you have all three tenses, past,
present and future.
Mark 10, verse 35, James and John, two
sons of Zebedee, came to Jesus and said,
can you please do for us whatever we
ask?
And he said, what do you want?
Jesus was not foolish to say yes.
He said, what do you want?
Tell me that first.
And they said, grant that we may sit
on your right and on your left in
your glory.
That means we want to reign with you
in eternity.
That's a good desire.
We say, Lord, we don't want to reign
on this earth.
We want to be servants on the earth,
but we want to reign with you in
eternity.
Jesus said in Revelation 3.21, he who
overcomes will sit with me on my throne.
That's a reward.
It's a good thing to seek for.
Lord, I don't want any throne on earth.
I just want a bucket of water and
a towel on earth to wash people's feet
all my life, but I want to reign
with you forever.
And that was a good desire.
But Jesus said, you don't know what you're
asking.
You want to get there to the throne?
I'll tell you the route to the throne
and you don't know how difficult it is.
Are you able to drink the cup that
I drink or to be baptized with the
baptism with which I am baptized?
He wasn't talking about water baptism.
That's easy.
He wasn't talking about baptism in the Holy
Spirit.
A lot of people seek that.
He was talking about a third baptism, which
most Christians do not seek for.
They want to get to the throne, just
like James and John, but they don't know
the route to the throne.
Do you know the route to the throne?
I'll show you.
In Hebrews, in chapter 12, it says, let
us run this race, the same race that
Jesus ran, because he is the author and
perfecter of our faith.
How did he get to the right hand
of the throne of God?
Hebrews 12, verse 1 and 2.
Listen to the route that our forerunner went.
This is the route.
The marathon route goes through this way.
If you don't get this way, you won't
reach the finishing line.
That is, who endured the cross, despising the
shame.
There is a shame in being a wholehearted
disciple of Jesus Christ.
There is a shame in your office.
If you stand up for Christ, you may
lose your increment.
You may lose your promotion, because some people
may not like that you're a Christian.
I've seen a lot of government offices, banks,
etc., where some Hindu man will hang up
a calendar or a picture there of an
idol.
I wish there were more Christians who worked
in offices and banks, who would hang up
a calendar with the word of God.
I used to do that when I was
working in the Navy and I worked in
an office.
I'd have a calendar with God's word.
I'd have a Bible on my table.
I'd have tracts on my table.
I wouldn't distribute it to anybody.
I'm doing my official work.
If somebody sees it and says, can I
have one?
I say, sure.
Nobody can stop me from having that.
But there's a shame.
I know my commanding officer once called me
and said, you're a very unsociable person.
The translation of that is, you don't come
and drink with all the others.
You don't play cards with all the others.
You don't gamble like all the others.
Just sitting in your room reading the Bible
the whole time.
That's why I'm standing here today.
If I had spent my time doing other
things with all my friends just to be
popular, I wouldn't be here today.
I would have wasted my life.
And I think a lot of you are
wasting your life.
You're missing something because you're not willing to
suffer shame for the name of Jesus Christ.
What all names people call me because I
stood up for Christ in my ship.
I used to always think, Lord Jesus, you
were not ashamed to hang almost naked on
a cross just because of me.
I will never be ashamed.
For the sake of a promotion, I couldn't
care less for it.
For the sake of a little extra money
in increment, I couldn't care less for it.
I will not be ashamed to let everyone
in my office know, I'm not trying to
convert them, but they'll all know that I'm
a Christian.
They'll all know that I'm a disciple of
Jesus Christ and not the usual run-of
-the-mill, third-rate, good-for-nothing type
of Christian.
No.
A different type who will not cheat or
tell lies or will acknowledge a mistake.
If I broke something in the office, I
won't try to hide it.
I'll say, yeah, I'm sorry, I broke it.
I'll pay for it.
If you want to check me out of
the job, check me out of the job,
but I'm not going to tell a lie
to keep my job.
I won't write a false account and I
will not sign a false statement to get
a little more money.
Yeah.
It was upright.
We must have a testimony.
I remember once when I went to my
income tax auditor to file my return and
I went back to him and I said,
hey, you left out something.
I'm supposed to pay a little more tax.
He said, well, it doesn't matter.
I said, no, I've got to pay.
You know, that is what proved to him
that I was a Christian.
Not my name or what I try to
convince people about.
It's your life and you can be a
witness by your life and your words and
they'll make fun of you.
Maybe you don't get a promotion.
It doesn't matter.
I remember the time in my life when
I became a real Christian and I had
all this gold to go right up to
the top of the Navy and I had
to make a decision at that time.
Am I going to follow that goal or
be a disciple of Jesus Christ?
And I didn't even have to think twice.
I said, Lord, you died for me.
There's no question of having any other goal
in life but living for you.
My brothers and sisters, be willing to suffer
shame.
He suffered shame and reached the right hand
of the throne of God and he took
the cross.
He suffered.
You know, he knew before he came from
heaven to earth he's going to suffer, suffer,
be ill-treated.
Right from childhood he was ill-treated.
They all called him the illegitimate son of
Mary.
We don't know who his father is.
Maybe some Roman soldier.
They say that even today, two thousand years
later.
A lot of Jewish people say that.
Jesus, huh?
Mary had an affair with some Roman soldier
and they called him son of God.
Well, he suffered that from childhood.
People said that about him.
Imagine if somebody turned and called you an
illegitimate child when you were not.
Okay, you're grown up, you can handle it.
Could you handle it when you're five years
old, when you go to school?
And say, hey, who's your father?
We heard that nobody knows who your father
is and you're just six, seven years old.
Can you imagine how your child will face
it if your child faces that in school?
You've got children, six, seven years old.
Imagine if they had to be harassed by
all the other students.
Hey, we heard that nobody knows who your
father is.
And he grows up like that in the
next class, next class, next class.
He took it.
You know why he took it?
Because he loved you and me.
And he wanted to save us from hell.
I said, Lord, how much you love me.
What all you're willing to go through.
I want to follow in your footsteps.
I'm willing to suffer anything to save other
people from hell.
Do you want to save other people from
hell if you're saved from hell yourself?
How much are you willing to suffer for
that?
You want to keep quiet.
Nobody in my office should know that I'm
a Christian.
They all go to hell around you.
I tell you, nobody who worked with me
in the Navy will ever be able to
point a finger to me and say, Zach,
you never told us about the way.
You worked with us for so many years.
You never told us about the way to
heaven.
You knew we were going to hell.
And you never told us because you were
interested in promotion, increment.
Nobody will be able to say that to
me.
Because I say, I couldn't care less about
increment or promotion.
I'm going to be a witness for Christ.
I don't waste office time.
I don't go witnessing to people who should
be working.
No.
But I make it clear by my life
and what I stand for, I'm a Christian.
In the lunch time, all you got to
do is pick up a Bible and start
reading it instead of criticize the boss and
gossip like all the other people in the
office do.
And they'll know pretty soon that you're different.
You don't have to go wearing a badge
and going around shouting, I'm a Christian.
No.
Just be different.
Just be different that you don't speak evil.
You don't laugh at their dirty jokes.
And you comfort those who are discouraged.
And you make friends with those who are
despised and marginalized in your school or college
or office.
They'll know pretty soon you're different.
And they'll ignore you.
They'll taunt you.
They'll make fun of you.
And in some cases, in some places in
India, they kill you for being a Christian.
But that's the way to the throne.
The way of suffering.
It says in Romans chapter 8 that if
we suffer with Him, verse 17, if we
suffer with Him, verse 17, we'll be glorified
with Him.
And I tell you, He says in verse
18, the sufferings of this present time are
nothing compared to the glory that's going to
be revealed.
If you want to be a disciple of
Jesus, you must be willing to choose this
immersion, baptism of suffering.
It was not true in the Old Testament.
The Old Testament was a gospel of prosperity.
And there are a lot of Christians who
are trying to preach that Old Testament gospel
today.
And of course, they've got to go to
Deuteronomy 28 to get it.
The New Testament gospel is here, Romans 8,
verse 17 and 18.
If we suffer with Him, we'll be glorified
with Him there.
The blessing in the Old Testament was prosperity.
The blessing in the New Testament is adversity
or suffering.
People don't understand that.
And that's why you have this third-rate,
shallow Christians who say they've got cars and
houses and lands and don't have victory over
anger or lusting with the eyes or they're
not free from the love of money and
they seek the honor of men and they're
living for themselves and they say we are
following Jesus.
The whole thing is ridiculous.
It's because they're not willing to suffer.
If I'm willing to suffer for Christ's sake,
I can be a wholehearted Christian pretty quickly.
So my dear brothers and sisters, let's choose
this.
Lord, I choose to go the way of
the cross of denying myself.
Jesus said that if anyone wants to follow
me in any century, you've got to deny
yourself.
Take up the cross.
You've got to say no to yourself.
I got a little light the other day
on fasting.
Fasting is a form of suffering.
I said, Lord, what's the advantage of going
without food?
And the Lord said, you know, when you
have such a tremendous desire, you say you
decide to fast for one day and you're
just taking liquids and there's something very tasty
there and you want to eat it.
And you say no.
I'm going to fast today because I've decided
to do that before God.
And you battle it.
Something happens within you.
Your will gets a little strengthened.
By the Holy Spirit.
The result is next time when you're tempted
to lust after a woman, this strength which
you got by denying some desire, other desire
in your body, helps you there to overcome
that.
Same principle.
Your will gets strengthened.
Why is it so many young people are
defeated in the area of lust?
Because they don't overcome in the easier areas
of food or sleep.
They sleep and sleep and sleep and have
no time to read the Bible.
May God help us.
Let's pray.
Lord, do
a deep work in the lives of many
of us here.
It'll change your life.
It'll change us forever.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.