Part 2 of 13

Acts 2:4

'And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost...'

I believe the next characteristic of the early church which we see in Scripture is that they were filled with the Holy Ghost. In Matthew 3:11 we see John the Baptist prophesying that Christ would come and that He would baptize the people with the Holy Ghost. In John 7:37-39 we see Christ teaching that those who believe on Him will receive the Holy Ghost. Every believer at the moment they accept Christ as their Saviour is immediately given the gift of the Holy Ghost. He immediately indwells every believer at the moment of their salvation when they place their faith in Christ as their Saviour.

In Acts 2:38, Peter instructed all those gathered together at Pentecost to repent and they would then receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. All throughout the book of Acts we can see those who trusted Christ as their Saviour and then were immediately given the gift of the Holy Ghost. We can even look in the book of I Corinthians and see that even they were indwelt by the Spirit of God as carnal as they were (I Corinthians 3:16; 6:19). So we can see that there is ample evidence throughout the New Testament to suggest that each believer has the Holy Ghost living within them immediately upon salvation. Simply being indwelt by the Spirit, however, is not what allowed the early church to turn the world upside down.

If we look back in our text verse we see that Peter and the other disciples were not just indwelt by the Holy Ghost but rather FILLED with the Holy Ghost. This is a big difference between those early Christians and most of today's Christians. While every believer is indwelt by the Spirit of God not every believer chooses to be filled with the Spirit. The Bible instructs us in Ephesians 5:18 to be filled with the Spirit. This is accomplished by allowing the Spirit to take control of our lives. Most Christians, however, do not want to turn that much of their lives over to the Lord. They want to hold onto those things which satisfy their fleshly appetites. Galatians 5:16 tells us to walk in the Spirit so that we will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. As has been stated by many a preacher before, "Whichever one we feed the most, whether the flesh or the Spirit, is the one which will control our actions." As long as we live after the flesh then it will be impossible for us to be filled with the Spirit and our relationship with the Lord will suffer as a result (Romans 8:8).

Many Christians would rather quench the Spirit as Paul warned the church at Thessalonica about doing (I Thessalonians 5:19). Today Christians have a myriad of ways to choose from in order to quench the Holy Spirit's working in their life. The majority of these ways can be lumped into two different categories. The first way many Christians quench the Spirit is by simply refusing to separate from the world. How can we expect to please God when we watch the same ungodly TV shows and movies as the world. We will listen to the same ungodly music or else we will take the world's music, throw in some lyrics about God, change the name to Contemprary Christian Music and think that makes it alright. The majority of Christians dress and talk so much like the world that you would not know them to be a Christian outside of them attending a church service on Sunday - though that does not make one a Christian. We need to follow what the Bible says in II Corinthians 6 and separate ourselves from the ways of the heathen.

The other way that many Christians quench the Spirit is in refusing to heed the preaching of the man of God from the Word of God. Now, I am by no means advocating that we blindly follow anyone or everyone who calls themselves a preacher. Instead, we need to take everyone who preaches the Word of God and check what they say to see if it lines up with the Bible. That includes those who are reading this post right now. If someone is preaching what the Bible says then we need to take the preaching and apply it to our lives. By not doing so we will quench the Spirit from being able to work completely in our lives.

As a Christian it should be our desire to be completely filled with the Spirit at all times. That along with being in one accord with prayer and supplication will allow us to be on our way to turning the world upside down.

In Christ,

PreacherE

When studying the early church we see a pattern of success which started with Saints of God filled with the Holy Spirit and the word of God...Because Souls hang in the balance. Today we could do the same if we would just get filled, on fire, and follow the Lord as they did....


Jim Norman
Northside Baptist Church