Through The Bible - Acts 19 - Part 1

Brett Meador: Those three relationships—some people call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit, some people say the coming upon of the Holy Spirit—it's basically when the spirit manifests itself in you as a Christian powerfully.
Guest (Male): Pastor Brett Meador and the ministry of the Holy Spirit with you, in you, and upon you.
Brett Meador: Why would the Holy Spirit come upon the church? For the furthering of the gospel. Not to flop in the aisles, not to swing from the chandeliers—for the furthering of the gospel. That's why we need the power of the Holy Spirit upon us. Very important to remember that part.
Guest (Male): Paul's third missionary journey in Acts chapter 19 took him to Ephesus, where his preaching had a dramatic effect. There, he discipled believers, teaching them about salvation through Jesus Christ, baptism, and the Holy Spirit. And so Pastor Brett Meador too reflects in today's word of Jesus affirming that it was so we could be witnesses unto him that the Holy Spirit came.
Brett Meador: Acts chapter 19. In chapter 18, we ended Paul's second missionary journey. Where we kind of ended up there was he's traveling, of course, originally from Antioch. On this third journey, he makes his way back to Ephesus. If you recall, he was in Ephesus for a short time, came back to Jerusalem, then to Antioch, and then back to Ephesus. That's something we've been kind of watching—the way he's been traveling all over. Ephesus was a huge, huge city. It was one of the wealthiest cities in the world at that time, and that plays into the story here. We're going to start in this chapter 19 at looking at the 12 disciples. But you might not think it's the same 12 disciples. Did you know there's two 12 disciples in the Bible? This is a second group of 12, not quite as dialed in as the first 12, but we're going to meet 12 more. But this is a different 12 disciples. Also, we finished the chapter looking at Apollos. In chapter 18, verse 25, we saw that he was instructed in the way of the Lord, was a God-fearing man, diligently seeking the Lord, but he only knew up to the baptism of John. He really didn't know what came after John's baptism. So, I love it. We met that wonderful couple, Aquila and Priscilla—great married couple serving together that Paul worked with in Corinth. They would pull Apollos aside and say, "Hey, Apollos, there's the rest of the story you haven't heard. You didn't get the memo." And so Aquila and Priscilla, this nice couple, pulled this wonderful, popular Bible teacher speaker aside and schooled Apollos. Later, Apollos would become part of a schism in the church where people would start boasting, "We're of Apollos." And others would say, "No, no, we're of Paul," or "We're of Peter," or "We're of Jesus only." People were boasting who their pastor was, if you would. The idea was that was not cool, nor should it be cool today. We shouldn't be boasting, "I'm of this Bible teacher, I'm of that Bible teacher." We really should be a part of the Church of Jesus Christ, and we're all united around Him, Jesus. So, we're going to see that. But there's many that would call themselves disciples but really didn't know Jesus or the gospel really, or what came after the salvation part. So, one of the things we need to sort of remember is what happened in this story—there were some people that weren't really dialed in on the whole story. In fact, let's look at John the Baptist's foretelling before we get into this here in Acts chapter 19. When they say, "We were of the baptism of John," you'll know what we're talking about. So in Matthew chapter 3, verse 11, John the Baptist said, "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I'm not worthy to bear. He shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." Obviously, John's saying, "My baptism: water, repentance. But Jesus the Messiah is coming, and he's going to baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire." We'll learn more about that. So, we're going to remember the baptism of the Holy Spirit and with fire and how that comes into play later. Now, the time period of Acts chapter 19, if you're wondering, is right around A.D. 52, 52, 51—it's debatable exactly the exact year, but roughly 20 years now after Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave. So 20 years now. This is really something. Apollos receives the gospel message and is now a believer in Christ. That's where we pick it up in Acts chapter 19, right there in verse 1. Let's take a look. It says, "And it came to pass that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul, having passed through the upper coast, came to Ephesus and finding certain disciples, 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.'" Does this sound pretty basic? You know, "Hey, we're disciples of Jesus. Cool. Do you know about the Holy Ghost? Don't know anything about that." What's going on here? Paul raises a question about their understanding of the Holy Ghost and all this. So verse 3, it says, "And he said unto them, 'Unto what then were you baptized?' And they said, 'Unto John's baptism.'" And then verse 4 says, "And then said Paul, 'John verily baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying unto the people that they should believe on him which should come after him, that is, on Jesus Christ.' When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on them, and they spake with tongues and prophesied. And all the men were about 12." So verse 7, there were 12 men. Verse 1 says they were disciples. But these were early disciples. Isn't it interesting they were called disciples yet they didn't even know about the Holy Spirit? A disciple is someone who wants to know more and wants to learn more and is being taught and trained in the things of God. This starts to deal with a very tricky question that the church even to this day argues about, and it has to do with the Holy Spirit. What's the role of the Holy Spirit? What does it have to do with the Bible, with being a Christian, salvation, and all that stuff? This is where I think a lot of people that don't go verse by verse through the Bible, they get it wrong. You could take some scriptures out of context and maybe make a case for different things, but this is where people really go wrong. To get the right view, I think you have to consider the whole story. This will be really helpful for you if you kind of look at the whole scripture. I'm going to review something here. The first thing we've got to talk about is salvation. The reason this is important is because we know how you're saved. You're saved by grace through faith, not of yourselves—it's a gift from God, not of your works, lest any man should boast. Ephesians 2:8. So, you're saved by confession with the mouth, Romans 10:9 and 10, and believe in your heart that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the grave. That's salvation. You go to heaven because of that. Once you add to that, you're already off course. Some people will—there's some churches that will say, "Oh, you've got to do that, yes, but you also have to be baptized." Now, this brings in all kinds of interesting things when churches say you have to be baptized to go to heaven. One of the things that happens is churches over the centuries have said, "Well, let's just make sure it's a done deal before a baby even gets out of diapers. Let's make sure they're baptized." This is not understanding what baptism is. Do you realize the Bible says repent and be baptized? So many times where the Bible says repent and be baptized, repent and be baptized. Those two words go together. Repentance means a change of mind and a change of direction. When you were three months old, were you able to change your mind? You don't even remember your mind back then. That's the problem. Baptism is a decision one makes when they say, "I want to follow Jesus. I want to be a disciple of Jesus. I want to be baptized." An outward sign of an inward commitment that Christ has for me, that I have for Christ. It's a beautiful and rich and important part of a Christian, but it's not what saves you. Being baptized does not save you. Well-meaning parents going to misguided churches have done infant baptism, which it sounds so wonderful. Of course, we would baptize our infant. No. There's no example of a baby being baptized in the Bible—not one. It's always someone who's old enough to make a decision to be baptized. That's part of a walk of a Christian believer. I feel like a lot of people have been done a disservice by well-meaning parents because they go, "I don't need to be baptized because I was baptized as an infant. So, check the box." But if you were baptized as an infant, I would say you're missing out because baptism should be something you decide to do, and it should have meaning for you. That's important because it's a part of your Christian faith. So watch out for those that say you have to be baptized because baptism is something you do. You can't add to the work of the cross by saying, "I'm going to do something in addition to what Jesus did to save me." That's a mistake. The Bible's clear on this one—you cannot add to the work of the cross. Jesus said, "It is finished." Oh wait, except you've got to be baptized, then it'll be finished. That's not what He said. He even said to the thief on the cross, "Today you will be with me in paradise. You're saved." And guess what? He didn't climb off the cross, baptize the thief, climb back up on the cross, and die. That's not what happened. Why? Because baptism is not one of those things that you have to do to be saved. It's something you absolutely should do to be obedient to God. That's the difference. Now, the baptism of John was a different baptism. It was a baptism of repentance, and we don't do that today because Jesus came. Now we have a baptism that Jesus talked about that I read to you earlier. It's a baptism that is speaking of Christ's death, burial, and resurrection, the salvation, the washing away of our sins. By the way, when the Bible talks about what a person needs to do to be saved, it doesn't always say be baptized because wouldn't you think if it was something that was absolutely necessary, it would every time say, "Believe in Jesus and be baptized"? But it doesn't say that every time. In fact, most of the time it's alone. It says believe on the Lord Jesus and you'll be saved. John 3:16, "Whosoever believes on Him will not perish but have everlasting life." Romans 10:9 and 10, "If you confess with your mouth, believe in your heart the Lord Jesus, that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved." No mention of baptism in that major mention of what salvation is. Okay, is that clear for you guys? I know that some of you were raised in different traditions. I would again, Acts 17:11, check and make sure that what I'm saying is true or false. You'll never find a baby being baptized in the Bible, and also baptism is something we should absolutely do to be obedient, but it's not required for a person to be saved to go to heaven. It is important for a healthy walk with Jesus, and it's important. It's funny because a lot of the churches that say you've got to be baptized, I've noticed they don't do very many baptisms. That's kind of an interesting thing. But we also have Peter sum up this idea of baptism in Acts chapter 2. I want to remind you, we read this, Acts 2:38, "Then Peter said unto them, 'Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ, not in the name of John the Baptist, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.'" One of the things you see often together is baptism with water and the filling of the Holy Ghost or receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost. Verse 39, "For the promise is unto you and unto your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." Those that are afar off, who is Peter talking about? Us, the Gentiles, right? He's talking about non-Jews. Even we will be baptized, and even we will have the filling of the Holy Spirit, which is really cool. Side note, so Peter's saying the Gentiles are going to be saved way back in Acts chapter 2. Now, this is where the Holy Spirit and baptism people get—are there two baptisms or are there one? What's the deal? Is there the baptism of the Holy Spirit? You'll hear that phrase sometimes. What is that? Well, that's where we realize that when you accept Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, He is now in you. The prepositions—it's all about the prepositions. We've done this before, but I like to rehearse this because there's so much confusion, and I hope that you can explain this from the scriptures. A lot of the misunderstanding is on the prepositions. Remember there's three: with, in, and upon. The Holy Spirit's with you before you were saved, tapping you on the shoulder saying you need to accept Christ, giving you that conviction in your heart of sin. Some of you remember that—before you were even saved, the Holy Spirit was saying, "You need to accept Christ." Then when you accepted Jesus, you actually had the Holy Spirit then in you. But there was a third preposition, and this is where some people say that's not for today, even though the whole New Testament acts like it is for today. So, I think you have to be careful with that one. So, what's this whole in, with, and upon? Let me just show you scripture so you can have reference here. Romans chapter 8, verse 9, this is where that very specific preposition is used by Paul. He says, "But you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if so be that the spirit of God dwells in you." There's that 'in' one. Now, the Holy Spirit, remember, He's not in you when you're a non-believer, but when you accept Christ, He dwells in you. I'll show you that in a second as well. "Now, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, he is none of his." So, if you say "I have the Holy Spirit in me" but you don't have the spirit of Christ in you, that means you're not really a Christian. You can claim it, but it may not be true. You need to be saved in order to have the Holy Spirit in you. That's why Romans 8:16 says the spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. One of the things that you'll know when you really truly accept Jesus—confess with your mouth, believe in your heart—the Holy Spirit will bear witness with your spirit that you are God's child. I love that when a person says, "Man, I know I'm a Christian, not because I deserved it or I did amazing things, but I'm a Christian saved by the grace of God." So, if you are a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit in you. Oh good, so we don't have to worry about anything else? Not exactly. Because remember our teaching when the Holy Spirit came upon the church there in Acts chapter 2. What's that? Well, that's that other preposition. Now, the first two, with and in, is what Jesus said in John 14, verses 15 through 18. He said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Jesus said, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter"—that's the Holy Spirit, capital C—"that he may abide with you forever, even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it sees him not, neither knows him, but you know him." Now, notice these prepositions here. It says, "For he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you." Those are those first two prepositions Jesus talked about: with before you were saved, in you when you accepted Christ. When did the disciples accept Christ and have the Holy Spirit in them? In the upper room, after Jesus died and rose from the grave, He appeared to them in the upper room in John chapter 20, verses 21 and 22. It says, "Then said Jesus into them again, 'Peace be unto you. As my father sent me, even so I send you.' And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said unto them, 'Receive ye the Holy Ghost.'" Now, is that the 'upon' or is that the 'in' or is that the 'with'? That's the 'in' because they're now just—Jesus has died, He's risen again from the grave, now they're officially with the Holy Spirit in a New Testament Christian kind of way. Now, you say, "Well, why isn't this the coming upon?" Well, Jesus right after this will tell them, "Okay, now you have the Holy Spirit in you, but wait in Jerusalem because the Holy Spirit's going to come upon you." When did He say that? Acts chapter 1, verse 8. This is Jesus later. He says, "But you shall receive power," the Greek word 'dunamis' where we get our dynamite word, "after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and you shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, in Judea, Samaria, unto the uttermost parts of the earth." Why would the Holy Spirit come upon the church? For the furthering of the gospel. Not to flop in the aisles, not to speak in tongues, not to swing from the chandeliers—for the furthering of the gospel. That's why we need the power of the Holy Spirit upon us. Very important to remember that part. And so, those three relationships—this idea is some people call it the baptism of the Holy Spirit, some people say the coming upon of the Holy Spirit—it's basically when the spirit manifests itself in you as a Christian powerfully. That's kind of an important thing to know. What are those things the Holy Spirit does to manifest or make himself known powerfully in you? Well, that's where you have to read 1 Corinthians 12. It's the manifestations of the Holy Spirit, which does include tongues. Now, let me just talk about this for a second. Speaking of things you have to do in order to be saved, some of our Pentecostal church brothers, they say, "Unless you speak in tongues, you're not really saved." Is that true or false? That's false. Now, if you're from a Pentecostal church, maybe you were raised that way. Where did they get that? Well, they're confusing the 'in' and the 'with', first of all, because they use that scripture, "Well, if the spirit's not in you, then you're not even one of His children. You can't even claim to be one of His children. So, we have to make sure the Holy Spirit's in you by speaking in tongues." Now, there's a bunch of problems with that. They're different relationships—the 'in' and the 'with' and the 'upon'. But question: where did they come up with the thing as, "Well, we need proof that you're a Christian, and the proof is you're going to speak in tongues"? Why isn't it one of the other 12 manifestations of the Holy Spirit? Which order is that on the importance of all the list? It's the least of these. Paul said that, 1 Corinthians 14, "The tongues is the least." It gets all the press, and then there's churches saying you've got to speak in tongues. So, there's some churches, if you go up to get saved, they'll pray for you and then they'll say, "Now receive the Holy Spirit, now speak in tongues." And you're like, "Uh, how do I do that?" "Just start with saying 'Better buy a Honda, better buy a Honda.' Just say that over and over again, and eventually you'll start..." That's kooky and sad, embarrassing. Don't do that. That's ridiculous. Now, it is wonderful to see a manifestation of the Holy Spirit in you as a Christian when the spirit comes upon you. But a lot of those are supernaturally natural. A word of prophecy, a word of knowledge. You know, you pray for someone to be healed, and a gift of healing the Lord gives through that prayer into that person—not that you have the gift of healing, you just prayed for healing and the Lord gave that person a gift, a manifestation of the Holy Spirit when you prayed for a sick person. That's the way it works. So, seeing manifestations is wonderful, but it's really misguided to tell a new believer, "Okay, now speak in tongues because we have to confirm that you actually are saved." That's wrong, misguided. So watch out. Again, this is just careful reading of your Bible. You'll see these different relationships and what have you about the Holy Spirit. So, what's going on here in Acts chapter 19? The point is there's a bunch of people confused. Paul says that simple question, "Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?" Question, now that I went through all that, quiz time. Which preposition is Paul referring to when he says, "Have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed?" Since you believed. Once they believed—remember what they were called? They were already called disciples. You can't really be called a disciple unless you're a believer. And so now they're believers. They don't have the full story yet about the Holy Spirit. So when they became believers, I believe the Holy Spirit came in them at that point. So this is the 'upon'. That's what he's saying. Have you received the coming upon, if you would, the Holy Ghost since you believed? You say, "Well, Brett, how do you know that?" Well, let's just keep reading, and then you'll know. The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible. Yeah. So they said, "We have not so heard whether there's a Holy Ghost." You know, that—so this is this big question. Paul's saying, "Have you received the power of the Holy Spirit upon you?" And that's the question. Now, we've seen the order here is kind of interesting. They heard the word, and these 12 disciples believed. Then they were—we're going to see them here baptized with water, which again, notice it says they were baptized with the baptism of repentance, verse 4. That was the baptism of John. But verse 5, "When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus." But see, this is again, they were already called disciples and they were already believers by this time. This is again that argument about baptism. Baptism is really good, and it's important to be faithful, but it's not that which saves you. We see that here. Paul then, what does he do after he baptizes them? Then the third component here is it says verse 6, "When Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Ghost came on"—that's the 'upon', the same preposition—"them." Now they're filled with the spirit. You can call it what you want—baptism of the Holy Spirit, filled with the spirit, the coming upon of the Holy Spirit—then they spake with tongues and prophesied. And all the men were about 12. So these 12 disciples went through kind of an interesting order. Does it always have to be that order? Not necessarily. I think there's people that have been saved and then baptized and the Holy Spirit came upon them all in one fell swoop. I've seen that in the water of baptism. I've actually seen that where a person says, "I accept Jesus as my savior," they're baptized, and they come up and the spirit comes upon them, and things start happening in their lives right away. It's just something that's really cool when it happens in a one-swoop kind of deal there, and I love that when that happens. But not everybody's that way, and these guys are one example of that.
Curt: Pastor Brett Meador illustrating with Paul's teaching to the disciples in Ephesus some good understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit coming upon the believer. And there's much more to come of this verse-by-verse study in today's word of Acts chapter 19 next time. I want to mention that if you've missed any portion of our time today, you'll find all of Pastor Brett's messages online at todayswordradio.com. And Pastor Brett is actually joined me here. As we've seen the Apostle Paul teaching the people of Ephesus about salvation through Jesus Christ, I wonder if we're talking to a person today who has made a lot of mistakes in life and might think that salvation is something that cannot be attained because God would never forgive them for some of the things they've done. Brett, can you speak to that person?
Brett Meador: You bet, Curt. You know, as someone who's made some mistakes in his life, I can answer this question with some experience. But I understand there's some people that feel that way today, and I want people to know—and this is one of the great truths of the Bible—that you can't go beyond the reach of God's grace. The enemy, Satan, loves to whisper in your ear—in fact, the Bible calls him the accuser of the brethren and he accuses day and night—and he loves to whisper, "You've gone too far. God could never forgive someone like you." But that's simply not what the Bible teaches. I love what it says in 1 John 1:9. It says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." All unrighteousness. I love the 'all' there because it's not some of our sins. We think, "Oh, some of the smaller, easier to forgive sins." No, it's all forgivable when it comes to the sins and the mistakes you've made. If you're a person that comes to the Lord and confesses that and repents of your sin, man, the Bible tells us that the Lord is the forgiver of sin. Think about the people in the Bible. You know, I love that we don't have a bunch of stained-glass characters in the Bible that are perfect and pristine. But you know, David committed adultery and even murder, and the Lord forgave his sin. Peter denied Jesus. Paul persecuted Christians. And yet, God forgave and even used them mightily. So, not only is the Lord going to be able to forgive you and give you a new start, He can use you and let you be a light and a testimony of what God can do. So, really for our radio listeners out there, particularly the ones who feel like failures, your past may explain where you've been, but it doesn't have to determine where you're going. If you come to Christ in a humble, repentant way and with faith, you'll discover His mercy is much, much bigger than anything we could have ever imagined. That's the gospel, and that's why Jesus came.
Curt: That is so encouraging. And knowing the Lord did indeed use some pretty flawed people in the Bible demonstrates that God can forgive and even use you, no matter what you've done, if you just come to Him. Thank you, Pastor Brett. Well, if you'd like more information about this Today's Word Radio program or Pastor Brett Meador, just go to todayswordradio.com. That's todayswordradio.com. And that's all the time we have. Next time, Pastor Brett will continue looking at Acts chapter 19 as we follow what Paul did next in the city of Ephesus. Today's Word with Pastor Brett Meador is an outreach of Athey Creek Church in West Linn, Oregon.