BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT -- IT'S TIME
by Mark Hardgrove
ACTS 1:4-8

INTRODUCTION
	Before Jesus left the earth, before He ascended bodily into the
heavens, Jesus instructed His disciples, He instructed the believers, to
tarry, or to wait in Jerusalem until they had been endued, or clothed
upon with power.  He said in Luke 24:49, "I am going to send you what my
Father promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with
power from on high" (NIV).  Then in Acts, He elaborates on this further,
He said, "John truly baptized with water; but you shall be baptized in
the Holy Spirit not many days from now."  What is Jesus talking about? 
Verse 8 elaborates even further, "And you shall receive power after that
the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses..."
	Jesus wanted His disciples, His followers, His church to seek after, to
wait for, to receive the promise of the Father, the enduement of power,
the baptism in the Holy Spirit.  They would be facing a pagan world that
would resist them and try to silence their witness and Jesus knew they
needed the power of the Spirit.  He knew the religious world of the Jews
would persecute them and He wanted them to have the power to stand,
power to speak the truth in love, power to withstand the persecution
that He knew they would face.
	I'm preaching this message today because I believe that if the church
ever needed a fresh touch of the real fire, a fresh anointing, a fresh
enduement of power, it is the days in which we are currently living.  We
need to hear Jesus speak to us today as He says, "you shall be
baptized.....and you shall receive power!"
	There is much in scripture to preach about, there is the cross, the
blood, the church, victory, triumphing over troubles, and on and on; but
I believe God still wants a church that still believes in the full
gospel, a church that is hungry for and longing for the move of the Holy
Spirit in the singing, the anointing in the preaching, the power at the
altars.  I can't speak for anyone else, but you are looking at one
pastor does not lean on the flesh, I depend on the Holy Spirit to help
me stand and proclaim the Word.  I depend on the Holy Spirit to pastor
and to worship and to witness.  You are looking at one pastor who is not
ashamed to say I have been baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire!
	Make no mistake, I am a Pentecostal Preacher.  I'm not ashamed, I make
no apologies, I believe in the move and the manifestation of the Spirit
in our services.  I believe in speaking in, praying in, praising in, and
singing in a heavenly language that the Spirit gives us to utter as He
fills our being with His presence.   I am a Pentecostal Preacher and the
only kind of church I ever intend to pastor is a Pentecostal church.  A
church that will yield to the move of the Spirit, a church that will let
the gifts of the Spirit flow, a church that bears the fruit of the
Spirit, a church that will come to altars and let the Spirit move up and
down the avenues of their souls.  Oh! If we could just catch the
Pentecostal fire one more time before the return of Jesus, this place
would be packed out!  
	People are bored with dead dry formalistic, traditionalistic, and
legalistic religion.  People are bored of coming to church dry and
leaving dry, of coming sick and leaving sick, of coming empty and
leaving empty.  If we could only be what we claim to be, if we could
really be Pentecostal like the early church was Pentecostal, we'll come
down out of the upper room, out and into the work-a-day world and turn
the city upside down.
	I'm not talking about a denomination, if you want to be a Pentecostal
Methodist, then go ahead, if you want to be a Pentecostal Nazarine, then
go ahead, I don't care much about the denominational tag you wear as
long as you are willing to let Pentecost be reborn in your Christian
walk.  Are you willing to let the fire of God burn upon the altars of
your soul?  Are you willing to yield to the move and the majesty of the
Spirit of the Living God?  Because if we are ready to let God move, God
is ready to move!
	If we ever hope to see the Spirit of God move again as He did in days
of old, then it's time to do four things.  1) It is time to stop being
deceived, 2) it is time to retrieve, 3) it is time to believe, and 4) it
is time to receive.

I.	TIME TO STOP BEING DECEIVED
	Satan is a deceiver, he is a liar and the father of lies, and he knows
he can't stop the Spirit from moving, so he tries to deceive us and
cause us to fail to receive the promise of the Heavenly Father.  But I
am here to declare to you today that it is time for the church to stop
being deceived.  It's time we go back to the Word and hear the truth for
the truth will set us free, the truth will liberate the church and allow
us be plunged afresh into the person of the Holy Spirit.

A.	We will not be deceived by false teaching against the manifestations
of the Holy Spirit.  
	There are some religious groups who have fought long and hard against
the Pentecostal movement because we found a pearl of great price and we
sold everything we had and bought the field.  For years the church had
allowed itself to settle into a slumber, to go without any (or very
little) manifestation of the power of the Spirit in the worship or at
their altars.  Since they hadn't seen the move of the Spirit, they
concluded that the Spirit had stopped moving in the marvelous ways we
read of in Scripture.  And when some dedicated Christians began to seek
for more of God, began to seek for a fresh anointing and began to
experience miracles in their midst, began to speak in other tongues as
the Spirit gave utterance, began to prophecy and see the sick healed, it
caused a stir.  These early Pentecostals were rejected and ridiculed by
the formal religious denominations of the day.  But once they had tasted
of the Spirit, once they had been filled with the Spirit, once they had
been healed and spoke in other tongues, there was no turning back.
	Still, Satan has deceived millions of Christians and robbed them of the
blessing that God desires to pour out upon all flesh.  To this day there
are some precious brothers and sisters so entrenched in their
denominational teachings that they cannot hear the truth of the Word. 
Don't be deceived by misguided teaching against the Baptism in the Holy
Spirit with the initial evidence of speaking in tongues.

B.	Neither Can We Be Deceived By False Teaching About the Baptism in the
Holy Spirit.  
There are some groups who teach that you are not saved until you speak
in tongues.  But the people who were in the upper room were already
believers.  They had already professed that Jesus is the Son of the
Living God.  Jesus had already declared that their names were written in
heaven.  They had forsaken all to follow Jesus, they had heard and
responded to the sermon of Jesus to Nicodemus that you must be born
again.  The Baptism in the Holy Spirit is the promise of the Father to
His children.  You must be born again, born of the Spirit to become a
candidate fro the baptism in the Spirit.  You must be baptized unto
repentance before you can be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with
fire.

II.	IT IS TIME TO RETRIEVE
	Jesus told the parable of the woman who lost a silver coin.  He said
she swept and cleaned the house until she found it.  And when she found
it she called her friends and said, "Rejoice with me; for I have found
the piece which I had lost!" (Lk. 15:9).  That's the way it is with
Pentecostals, we want the world to come and rejoice with us; a part of
the Christian experience had been lost in the church, but at the turn of
the century it was found and we rejoice and worship in the freedom of
the Spirit for where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.
	Still, I'm afraid that Pentecostals are in danger of losing some
things, some things that we need to go back and retrieve let we throw
out the baby with the bath water.  Sure, as a movement Pentecostals had
excesses and were imperfect in their understanding of some things
related to the Spirit.  And yes, our forefathers and foremothers did
some things that were not totally in line with Scripture.  But as the
movement has grown and as we have matured, we have made corrections,
needed corrections.  Unfortunately, like anything that gains momentum it
can sometimes be difficult to know where to stop.  I'm afraid that some
things that are biblical are being thrown out by Pentecostal churches. 
And because they are Scriptural I think maybe it is time to go back and
retrieve some things.

A.	It's time to retrieve the biblical teaching of the initial evidence
of speaking with other tongues when one is baptized in the Holy Spirit.  
	There are some Pentecostal churches that have grown by non-Pentecostals
coming to enjoy the worship and freedom of the Spirit in the Pentecostal
churches.  And that is wonderful.  But as the church grows with former
Baptists, Methodists, Lutherans and so on, some Pentecostal churches are
bowing to the pressure of crowd not to emphasize the teaching of initial
evidence.  Some have allowed the power of the tithe dollar to take
precedence over the power of the Word.  But the only thing that will
happen is that as Pentecostal churches become less and less Pentecostal,
they lose the very power and appeal that made them grow in the first
place. Before long the big church loses its fire and dies in a dead heap
of cold and lifeless ashes.  
	It's time to retrieve the biblical model of the Baptism in the Holy
Spirit with the initial evidence of speaking in other tongues.  It's not
time to teach that it is the last evidence, or the only evidence, but
that it is the first, or initial, evidence that the believer has been
baptized, plunged into the Holy Spirit.  
	On the day of Pentecost they all spoke in other tongues as the Spirit
gave the utterance.  When Peter preached to the household of Cornelius
the Christian Jews knew they had been filled with the Holy Spirit, "for
they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God."  When Paul laid
hands on John's disciples, "the Holy Spirit came upon them and they
spake with tongues..."  
	Some said, "Why is tongues the initial evidence?  Couldn't it be
something else?"  Well James said the man that could control his tongues
is a perfect man.  It is a small member of the body, but it is the
hardest to tame.  God chose the sign of tongues because it represents
total surrender and because it is by the tongue, by the words of our
mouth, that we bear witness to Jesus.

B.	It's time to retrieve the teaching of holiness as a prerequisite to
the infilling of the Holy Spirit. 
	There has been a gross neglect in many Pentecostal churches on the
teaching of sanctification, of holiness and righteousness.  While being
Pentecostal has become popular in our day, teaching and preaching on
living a sanctified life is as unpopular as it has ever been.  We live
in a time now when people want the Spirit, but they don't want to
surrender their life to God.  They want the power, but they don't want
to place their life before mirror of the Word and examine themselves.  I
hear a lot of people talking about wanting the anointing who don't want
to make sacrifices.  But I still believe the Holy Spirit is looking for
clean vessels to fill.  The anointing is a witness to a sanctified life.
	You don't get to Pentecost until you come by Calvary, until you come by
an old rugged cross and let the blood of the crucified one cleans you
from every sin and stain.  The Church of God was part of the holiness
movement years before we became Pentecostal and the day we forsake our
holiness roots is the day we cease being Pentecostal.  It's time to
retrieve the teaching that "without holiness, no man shall see the
Lord."

III.	IT IS TIME TO BELIEVE
	Some are asking, "Why don't we see God move like we used too?"  And the
answer is very simple, we don't believe like we used to.  If we want to
be a Pentecostal church, it is time to believe for a Pentecostal
outpouring.  If we want to see people healed at the altars, it's time to
believe that they will be healed.  If we want to see people baptized in
the Holy Spirit it is time to pray and lay hands on them and believe
that God will do what He has promised in His Word to do.

A.	We can believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit because it was
prophesied by John the Baptist.  He said, "I indeed baptize you with
water unto repentance, but there cometh one after me who shoes I am not
worthy to unloose, He shall baptize you in the Holy Spirit and in fire."
(Lk. 3:16)

B.	We can believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit because it was
promised by Jesus.  He said, "you shall be baptized in the Holy Spirit
not many days from now." (Ac. 1:5)

C.	We can believe in the baptism in the Holy Spirit because it was
practiced by the Early Church.  "And when the day of Pentecost was fully
come, they were all with one accord in one place.  And suddenly there
came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all
the house where they were sitting.  and there appeared unto them cloven
tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.  And they were
all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit gave them utterance." (Ac. 2:1-4)

IV.	IT IS TIME TO RECEIVE
	Joel prophesied, "In the last day, saith the Lord, I will pour out of
my Spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy...."  These are the last days, these are the days of Pentecost,
these are the days when the church needs the power of the Holy Spirit. 
It is time to receive all that God has for us because we are going to
need all the armor, all the gifts that He has for the church, all the
fruit in our lives, all the power that is available.  It is time for us
to be what we say we are.  If we are Pentecostal, then let's be
Pentecostal or let's change the sign.
	It's time to stop quenching the Spirit through our unbelief.  It's time
to stop resisting the work of the Spirit in our life.  It's time open up
the windows of our soul and say, "Come in Holy Ghost and fill me afresh
with your sweet anointing!"  It's time to clap our hands and shout unto
God with the voice of triumph, it's time to dance for joy, it's time to
rejoice, it's time to stop living on yesterdays blessings and let God do
a new work in us and in this church!  It is time to receive!