This was a post, and a response that I saw on Sermonindex.com. PaulWest, one of the moderators of the site responded to this brother with truth and boldness that truly blessed me. He is speaking about the baptism in the Holy Ghost and what it really means, versus what man has made it to be(knowingly or unknowingly).
Quote:
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"Your description of how the Pentecostal Churches today go about their initiation of the baptism of the holy Ghost was most discouraging. If I were a new believer reading this I would want nothing to do with any of the spiritual workings of God, lest I'd be deceived."
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PaulWest:I realize your concern, and yes, what I described is most discouraging. However, my hope is not that it would discourage a believer from having anything to do with the "spiritual workings of God", but that it would instead discourage a believer from seeking supernatural manifestations of God in today's typical charismatic setting; furthermore, when I think of the spiritual workings of God (as you put it), I am actually inclined to think more of fruit than gifts. Genuine fruit is more excellent, and certainly more demonstrative of God's true "spiritual working" in the life of a believer than anything else...including supernatural gifts, which are not partial and can (and often do) flow through the most ungodly of vessels.
In just about every case that I know of, believers abounding in fruit automatically abound in gifts - gifts of helps, governments, tongues, healings. The difference here is that the gifts exhibited by fruit-bearing believers do not strut or need emotional music to kick-start a service. I am 100% opposed to today's charismatic agenda of just "come forward and get baptized in the Holy Spirit if you want to" with the obligatory tongues to seal the deal. I've seen enough of it; heard enough testimonies, and observed the final product of the majority of these ostensible baptisms, and in the end almost all of the recipients have nothing but a testimony of how they spoke in tongues and just felt God's awesome presence all around them.
I always ask them: "How do you know it was God's presense you felt and not a soulish euphoria?" and they can tell me nothing more but circular reasoning. Mind you, if the genuine fruit of the Spirit followed - with an increased appetite for God's Word and prayer and a sobriety and fearless burden to proclaim the gospel - I would not have to ask this question, but as a youth pastor I beheld these baptisms taking place on many occasions...and afterwards only to see the kids go back to their XBoX video games and cliques and gossip and unholy dating. How can this be? What we see brethren is wholesale deception going on right before our eyes, and with ministers (often without the genuine baptism themselves) telling these kids that they're baptized in the Holy Ghost and congratulating them.
The kids that do get genuinely filled with the Spirit go in the opposite direction, and I will readily admit that a kid can get filled at one of these meetings, but such is the exception and not the rule. In fact, most people I've talked to (and many on this site) have been filled with Spirit while alone, communing with God or reading the Bible or during a period of quiet prayer time...sometimes with tongues, sometimes without. God then sends people your way and the gifts just happen - sometimes the gifts of healing, sometimes helps; sometimes governments, sometimes tongues. It's spontaneous, not at all premeditated or worked-up or planned out.
Brother Paul "
Praise the Lord for this truth! Ill write more later....
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