Transcript of Is the BAPTISM of the Holy Spirit a REAL Thing?! (What the Bible ACTUALLY Says) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Some people get tripped up and they think, until I become nearly sinless, I'm never going to receive the gift of the Spirit. And I would just point out, it's called a gift, brother.

We're going to talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What is it and how do you get it?

There is one God and there's one story of salvation that he is writing. That's a continuous thing from Old Testament to New Testament.

Well, hey, Live Free Nation, before we jump into the episode, this podcast is recorded right here at Lake Pointe Church in Dallas, Texas. But the Live Free Nation is spread all over the country and all around the world. So if you've been watching and thinking, man, I wish I could be part of something like this, we want to invite you to take a simple next step, and that is join us for church online. Every weekend we stream our services live on YouTube, Facebook, and our church online platform. And it's more than just watching a service. There are live hosts in the chat, prayer teams ready to stand with you, and people all around the world worshiping together in real time. And so whether you're exploring the faith, coming back to church, or just looking for a place to start, Church Online is a great way to jump in and experience what God is doing here at Lake Pointe. We would love to see you in the chat this weekend. And now enjoy the podcast. Let us keep this faith.

Let us keep this faith.

Well, hey, welcome back to another episode of the Live Free Podcast. My name is Carlos Orozco, and today I am excited because I'm here hanging out with two great men of God. I'm here with Pastor Josh Howerton and Pastor Paul Cunningham.

Woo-hoo!

What's up?

Coming to you from Lake Pointe Church in Dallas, Texas. And today we're gonna have a great episode. Pastor Josh, I'm excited for this one.

Me too, but we've been commandeered by the Mormons. Okay, you went ahead and went there.

Uh, he went there quick.

It's a joke. Uh, explain that. You're in a second.

You know, that escalated quickly.

In addition to what you just brought up, we're going to be addressing today 2 Timothy chapter 1. God did not give us a spirit of fear or timidity. Uh, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What is it and how do you get it?

Talking about, or is that a thing, or is that even a thing? A lot of people are like, hey man, not sure that's a thing, that just happened at salvation.

We ask people on Instagram to submit their questions, and literally it's like, hey, would you submit questions on baptism of the Holy Spirit? Literally one question was, what is it?

Yeah, okay, there you go.

Continuities and discontinuities between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant in the Bible. Very nerdy. And of course, uh, talk nerdy to me. It gets better. We're gonna be asking It took me a second.

We may actually have to edit that out.

You're talking to Paul, right? Because he's not going with it.

Let's just keep going.

We're also going to be asking, should Christians try to legally stop mosques from being built in their cities?

Okay. I'm just going to go ahead and give a quick buckle your seatbelt. I know. Let me just— we're going to talk. I spent an inordinate amount of time this week trying to get my head around this question. So let me just get this out the gate. I need you to listen with an open mind when we get there. We may have time to get to it this episode. We're going to do our best. There's a lot there that may need its own episode. And I'll just let listeners know the reason we're doing this. We're not trying to— I think some people are like, dude, you guys keep talking about Islam. Well, it's like, A, we live in Dallas and that's a thing here. And B, it's like, if people don't know, there was just a national news story came out of McKinney, just a few miles from us. Future McKinney campus coming in the next little while.

Good news.

Yep. Maybe, maybe it is, but I don't think I've announced— anyway, let me just keep going. And so this became a national news story because there was a massive, I mean, I think about 1,000 people at a city council meeting protesting, opposing the building of a pretty significant mosque site. We're going to talk about all this here in a second. Became a national news story because despite all the opposition, city council approved approved it 7-0. And so then, dude, this is a major question Christians are getting, is should Christians legally organize to try to stop a mosque being built in their city? Or, and here's the tension, I'm going to go ahead and pull my punch and give the tension, or religious liberty is an explicitly Christian concept. That's our thing. We're a religion of invitation, not imposition, and First Amendment, and all the things were made by Christians. So how should Christians think about that? And there's a lot there. So we'll see what we can do.

I have a couple questions about that. It's gonna be fun. So either on this episode or the next one or a bonus episode, because there's quite a bit that we're gonna be covering as well. Hey, a couple things I wanna celebrate here at Lake Pointe. Pastor Josh, we just came from At the Movies. And man, how did you feel this weekend?

Well, we can't— so this weekend was our first week not at the movies.

That's right.

So we came out of this series we started last week. Obviously we started Fight the Good Fight. This week's week 2, bro. Honestly, I was so proud of our church because we kind of did the thing, hey, for 4 weeks we reach wide, now we're going deep. And it's just verse by verse through 2 Timothy. Let me brag on the people of Lake Pointe. Everybody knew coming into this week, here's all we're doing. We're deep diving verse by verse in 2 Timothy. And it was our first week ever, non-holiday, non-ATM, over 30,000 people in person. I'm at the Rockwall campus. Obviously both services on Sunday stairs are covered with a bunch of college students with Bibles in their laps. And dude, it was stinking awesome. So that was last week. And then partly because of Live Free Nation, we told everybody to go get these little Crossway 2 Timothy journals. So not only did we sell out all the ones at Lake Point, we sold out Amazon.

We broke Amazon.

We broke Amazon.

Amazon's like, what is going on with this man popularity in this random $7.

We sold out all of Amazon. So sorry to everyone and we'll do our best to see what we can do for you.

We need to figure that out in the future whenever we, you know, have people buy things from Amazon. Like it's a, it's gonna be a thing.

Well, we actually had like an emergency meeting afterward and realized we're gonna have to change our strategy because between Lake Point and Live Free, when we say stuff like that, like 250,000 people go looking for it. So, but here's what I love. I love that everybody listening, everybody at Lake Pointe loves the word of God. That's what I love.

People came hungry.

You could tell.

They came hungry. Yeah, they did, man.

Hey, also if you are listening to this and you're in the DFW area, part of the Live Free Nation, come hang out as well. We always love to meet people from all over the place. Every single week we do a giveaway. So comment hat on YouTube or Spotify and maybe even Chad Gipolzi might sign one and you know, it's gonna be a special one. We'll see. Also subscribe on YouTube or Spotify as well. Thank you for supporting. To download the Lake Pointe Church app.

How many of those hats have we given away?

'Cause you may know, I'm curious.

Thousands. Thousands?

Yeah.

I may know, you might know the answer to that. We don't know.

I don't know that, but I do know that if you wanna download the Lake Point app, you can just go ahead and text the word aptitude to 0411. You're gonna find—

Oh, I think people have texted.

And so it's gonna be great. Okay, so on that note, Pastor Josh, I have a question for you, but that's not the question that I usually ask. It's a different one.

Oh, okay.

You brought up Mormonism at the beginning of this episode when we were saying hi. So let me, Wait, do we have a picture of the announcement?

Hang on, Trinity. I'm going to send you a picture of the announcement. Can I pull it up? Is that weird if I do that?

No, you can pull it up.

Go ahead and keep talking. So this is what resulted in many, we're going to call them frequently shouted questions.

For the, for like the—

Oh, can you pull it up? No, no. Go to, hang on. I'm going to send you the one I'm talking about.

There's one there.

Look at that guy.

Okay. So for the, for the one or two people that are—

What a punchable face. Oh, that's not joking.

I'm joking.

Hey, bro, calm down.

I need to calm down. I know the story behind that. And yeah, just got—

Hey, we got a podcast to record.

Sorry.

That's okay. Hey, for the people that actually have no idea what we're talking about, Pastor Josh, why are you bringing up The Blaze Media?

Okay, so we just— so this announcement became public this week. This announcer, we, you know, and well, I won't go there. And so essentially this is what was announced.

And first of all, let me just say, wait, we'll read it for the people that are listening.

I'm not reading that. It feels weird to read that.

I got you, bro.

I'm not reading that.

Let me just say America's fastest growing Christian voices joining Blaze Media, Blaze TV staff. It says Josh Howerton, Lake Pointe Church pastor and host of Live Free, joins Blaze Media to share the gospel and apply scripture to the issues of the day.

And that is exactly what we're doing.

Okay.

That's exactly what we're doing. First of all, I would just like to say we did not tell them to say fastest growing Christian podcast.

No, we did not.

It's like, it's— so I didn't want to read it, but this resulted in— we've got a— it's called a distribution partnership. Is that the right thing to say? With Blaze, where they're starting to put Live Free on their platforms. And this resulted in a significant number of, we will call them frequently shouted questions.

That's right.

So we would like to dispel some frequently shouted questions.

Yes.

And then we'll actually talk about the Bible and it'll be great.

Let me start with the first one.

And mosques.

Pastor Josh, you are now—

No, you have to shout them.

Oh, okay.

They're frequently asked.

Okay, you ready? This is going to be really interesting.

Pastor Josh, you are now working for our Mormon.

He can't even do it.

He can't do it.

He can't even do it.

He can't do it. That looks like a fake shout.

So first of all, let me just—

Oh my gosh.

All right, so first of all, number one, I'm not working. I'm working for Lake Point Church.

Okay.

This is a word. I'm not— we're not employees. Of The Blaze. This is a distribution partnership. Essentially, they came to us and we've had, by the way, we've had people approach us before about potentially acquiring the podcast or, hey, can we put it on our networks? And we just didn't feel awesome about it. And I'll talk about why here in a second. All this is, is they are putting our content on their platforms. That's number one. So I'm an employee of one. I have one employer, Lake Pointe Church, the elders and the people of Lake Pointe Church. Number two, a lot of people don't know this, dude, but I realized this. Amidst the frequently shouted questions. First of all, let me just say I have met Glenn Beck. Dude's awesome. I stinking loved Glenn Beck. He was amazing, but he doesn't own The Blaze anymore. So in fact, I talked to the CEO this week of The Blaze and both the current ownership group and the board is entirely comprised now of Bible-believing Christians. So that's my answer to your frequently shouted question, Carlos.

Well, you know what? You know what? Okay.

The cat just got back. Oh, you know what?

I got another one. Shout it. Shout it, Pompadour from El Salvador.

After this partnership, Pastor Josh, you're going to be distracted. You're a pastor.

Yes.

I saw this a lot this week. This was a frequently shouted question. Literally, we're not doing anything different. We're just recording the podcast like we've always done, and then they're putting it on their channels. So literally the exact same amount of time that goes into the Bible teaching and the production of Live Free is the exact same thing we'll keep on doing, except more people are going to be listening to the word of God. Okay, that's right, more people hear the word.

But there's one more. Uh, Pastor Josh, you're also aligning with a political organization. What are you doing?

No, no, that, that's just not— that's not true. So, uh, first of all, again, this is a distribution partnership. It's just— they're just going, hey, would you take— can we take Live Free and put it on our platforms? And for us, we're going, more people hear, hear about Jesus, more people hear about the word of God. All that's great. We also, no one anywhere, and this was a part of us just making clear, and they had no problem with this. They were like, hey, we don't want you to change anything. We're not changing absolutely anything. No one has editorial control over anything that we do. In fact, they just love what we're currently doing. We're going to keep doing that exactly what we're doing. So Lake Point works and has partnerships with tons of organizations. Are you talking like tons of organizations? So when we partner with organization, really, that's not us endorsing everything that comes out of any organization. When we order food from a restaurant, that's not us for a catering thing. That's not us going, we now approve of everything every employee of that restaurant ever said. No, this is just us going, hey man, more people hear the life-saving message of Jesus Christ and hear the word of God preached.

That's right.

That's all that is.

But will you still be able to—

You literally, you can't shout, can you?

Well, man, I'm being mindful of the people listening in the car right now with the family. So will you still be able to talk freely about the Bible? Yes. That's all we do.

So again, nothing whatsoever changes about the pod except more people see it.

That's great.

Yeah.

What I've told some people, it's basically like, I watched Seinfeld on multiple stations that they syndicate the show that they did not create. They just syndicate. Same thing, like sometimes you have radio shows that it starts in one city and then other radio stations elsewhere, they distribute it, they syndicate it. That's all that's happening here.

That's great, man. That's great. That's all I got.

Hey, good job at the frequently shouted questions.

Thank you, bro.

Semi-shouted.

Now, hey dude, can I ask you something about your neck of the woods?

Yeah, sure.

Kind of your neck of the woods. I don't know if I'm allowed to say that.

Yeah, go ahead. I'll allow it. I'll allow it.

All right. There's a, Something pretty significant happened in Colombia, South America last week or so. Yeah. Catch me up.

So, okay. So Colombia some days ago had this like massive earthquake. I think it was like 7.4. And by the way, if you've ever been in an earthquake, I have, it's really scary. Obviously there's like buildings falling, you know, the ground literally shaking. Like if you've ever been in one, it's like apocalyptic. That's, and that happened, 7.4 is a big deal. And so what a lot of people are asking right now is, Why does it seem like there's so many different earthquakes happening, like, literally all over the world? Like, you see this in, like, Venezuela. Obviously, this happened last month. There's, like, two earthquakes happening. Mexico, Japan, Indonesia— these are, like, massive earthquakes. And what I want to do is I want to help you think biblically about this. So it's interesting, when you look at scripture, there's only one time that Jesus actually specifically, explicitly addresses earthquakes. And the one time he does it, it happens in the context of the end times and the return of Jesus. And so let me just read it. Matthew 24:7-8, it says, for a nation will— this is Jesus speaking in the context of the end times and his return.

He says, for nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and there will be earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. So this photo right here, Trent, if you can pull it up— this photo right here, it is an image showing the 10 earthquakes that have been over 7.0 and above in magnitude, which is like devastating. Uh, that's Mexico, Japan, Venezuela, Indonesia. Again, more than just numbers, this is like literally people dying, buildings falling apart. A lot of these countries are not even ready to sustain that damage. Uh, this is literally what Jesus said 2,000 years ago would happen. Like, there would be earthquakes literally in all a bunch of different places. And somebody might be hearing this and be like, yeah, okay, but there's always been earthquakes. Uh, there's always— this has always happened. And that's true, but it— we haven't always had these amount of earthquakes in the context of literally everything else that we're seeing right now happening and unfolding in our world. And so let me just give you another one real quick. Uh, wars and rumors of wars is what the Bible says.

So studies show today that in the last 4 to 5 years, there's been an increasing number in quote, active armed conflicts involving governments, 2025 set an all-time record high since World War II. In 2026, the amount of countries that were involved as well in conflicts outside of their own borders nearly doubled in the last 20 years. And according to the same report, it says, quote, global peace is at its lowest level since 2007. And again, this is just one more example of, of so much more. We could keep going, but here's the point I want to put on my pastor hat on. When people see— and by the way, this is not the last one, you will probably see more of these for, for the rest of the year, like a significant earthquake and things like this. When you see stuff like that— earthquakes, wars, persecution, the insanity happening out there, chaos— Jesus said this would happen. And he said when you see these things, what you need to understand if you're a Christian, like, you need to be reminded, uh, this is literally what Jesus said would happen before he said, hey, I'm gonna be back soon, I'm gonna return soon.

Now, if you're not a Christian, what you need to understand is like, this should scare you. It means, uh, that you need to know, like, Jesus spoke about birth pains, and this is just the beginning of something that's going to get worse. But what's interesting, a lot of people don't know this, that if you are a Christian, in the same verse where Jesus is speaking about the end times and what's going to happen, he literally says this, Matthew 24:6, and you will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see that you are not alarmed. And so if you are a Christian and you are seeing all this chaos, what you need to understand is Jesus is saying, hey, you believer, you should not be afraid because this is actually a divine plan that is unfolding. And so again, the world is expecting catastrophe, but Christians are expecting Christ to return. The world is expecting tragedy, but Christians know that Jesus is still on the throne. And we don't put our faith in possibilities, we put our faith in a person, and his name is Jesus. So Lord Jesus, please come soon.

Amen.

Amen, Carlos. Okay, bro, that's How do you— how are they doing down there? Do you know? We sent some resources, I think.

Yeah. Yeah. And same with Venezuela. I mean, better. I mean, again, there's rescue mission. There's a lot of effort. Some countries are better positioned to— their infrastructure. The thing with all these countries, they don't have the infrastructure that we have necessarily here in the US. So again, the damage is significant. We partner with Convoy of Hope.

Yeah, that's right.

And they're the ones that get in there.

So, yeah, that's great, man.

Yeah. Pastor Josh, now I do have a question for you that you're somewhat familiar with. What did it make it to the sermon?

A lot, dude. And I'm excited about this right here is why I love having the podcast. Because for real, dude, there's this thing.

Hey, by the way, great job this weekend.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, man. I'll be honest, this is a little thing. I don't know if it's just trends or age. It's the older I get, dude, I just really don't like any sermon series that's not just preaching through a book of the Bible. I don't know what that is. It's just like, The best, man. I don't know. I don't know. There's just something about it for me. I'm excited about this. This is why I like having the podcast. There's one thing in particular I've been trying to get into a sermon for, it's probably been 3 years and I can never do it. I've been like, okay, at least I have the podcast now. So I'll get there here in a second. So a couple things. First of all, this sermon, 2 Timothy 2, and we picked up in verse 6. And then we went down all the way to the end of chapter 1. We're just going verse by verse of the book. What this is, is this is Paul's exhortation to young Timothy. Remember, Timothy's young. Paul probably picks him up when he's around 15, starts discipling him, takes him on a whole bunch of mission trips, that kind of thing.

What we know, everybody's got what the Puritans used to call a besetting sin. What we know about Timothy from context clues is his besetting sin was fearfulness. I don't want to say cowardice. Timothy makes too many decisions that are courageous to call them cowardly decisions. But I'll give some context. Here's why Bible scholars think this. You have 14 times, very interesting. You go through 2 Timothy, 14 times Paul encourages Timothy. And by the way, 14 times, if you're looking at the camera, this is 14 times in just this. So it's like, that's it. It's literally front and back, 1.5 pages. So 14 times in this one little book, Paul says something like endure suffering. 14 different times, endure suffering. Number 2, I'm going to read it here in a second. He tells Timothy, you have not been given a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, love, and of a right mind. By the way, I got thoughts. I'm interested to see if you guys think the same thing. I got thoughts on what that means. There's theories on what that means. I am very, very convictional about what I think that means. So he says, hey Timothy, you haven't been given a spirit of fear.

Number 3, he says in 1 Timothy things like, don't let anybody look down on you because you're young, but set an example for the believers. So it just seems over and over like Timothy struggled with fear. Okay. Now there was a good reason for this. So let me just, I'm going to toss some pictures up here. So this is the kind of stuff where it's like, One, you start figuring out, hey man, the Bible really happened. Number two, it just starts, I don't know, the Bible goes from black and white to color. And so I'm going to show some, pop some stuff up here. So Paul leaves Timothy eventually in Ephesus. Timothy becomes the pastor of Paul's favorite church in Ephesus for a long, long time. You can still go to Ephesus today. I know Paul has never been anywhere over there before, but it's not in Israel.

That might change someday.

It will change. Listen. Are we allowed to say that?

I mean, I mean, I almost hesitate to. I want to jinx it. God willing, 2 and a half weeks. God willing, 2 and a half weeks from now.

We are people of faith. Listen, that's right.

That's right.

People of faith.

That's right. Not a spirit of fear.

Hey, bro, don't be timid.

That's right. Okay. Yeah. God willing, 2 and a half weeks from now, be on the ground there.

Don't let anybody look down on you because you're bald. Set an example.

Wow.

I'm sorry, Angel.

Let's keep going. That went very personal.

I'm sorry, dude. I got my hairline screaming. I don't know. It just came out. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. So Paul leaves Timothy in Ephesus. Ephesus is— it's not in Israel. It's in modern-day Turkey. That's a whole— by the way, that's a whole other Islam conversation. So now it's in a Muslim country. Used to be the center of Christianity, by the way. It's the— of every site I've ever been to. Now there's more significant sites. Dude, when you're standing at Golgotha. It feels more significant. But as far as just archaeological impressiveness, there ain't nothing like Ephesus. It's the stinking coolest thing I've ever, ever, ever seen. So this is when I did that series, Letters to the American Church, and this is me standing in front of the Library at Ephesus. It's stinking cool, man, because the archaeologists, they took all these ruins and reconstructed it accurately. So those are the actual original stones of the Library at Ephesus. So when I'm showing you these pictures, I'm going to give a little context. What you need to do if you're a Bible reader is I'm going to show you the Bible actually mentions some of these specific places.

So if you go to Acts 19, it says that when Paul and Timothy— so Paul's got Timothy with him in Acts 19. It says that Paul, quote, lectured from day to day in, quote, the lecture hall of Tyrannus. Some people think that the lecture hall of Tyrannus was either synonymous with the library or underneath the library. Greek. So it starts being cool because you're reading, you're standing there in Ephesus, you're reading these verses and you're like, bro, this is literally where this verse is talking about, man. Okay. So what happens in Ephesus, massive outpouring of the Spirit. I'm going to show evidence of that in a second. There is actually, really cool, there is archaeological confirmation of the outpouring of the Spirit that happened in Ephesus that is all over Ephesus. It's one of the stinking coolest things. I'll show it here in a second. So lecture hall, Tyrannus. All right, now, so they plant a church. Then you read in Acts 19, this is your homework if you're a Live Free Nation listener, you go to Acts 19 and it says so many people get saved. I told the story last week that there's the temple to Artemis and they got all the idols that they're making and all that stuff.

So right next to— go ahead and show that next picture. Right next to the library, if you're standing in front of the library looking to the right, is the agora. Okay? So the agora just means Greek marketplace. So when you're reading Acts 19, the silversmith and all these dudes making the idols, all that's happening literally right there. So this is where this is happening. By the way, if you look at this picture on the left side, I didn't take it very good. On the left side of the picture, just out of the frame, there is still evidence of what would've been a first century synagogue that most people think, if I remember correctly, turned into a meeting place for the local church. Underground church. Okay. So the agora is right here. So when all that stuff happens, people get ticked at Paul and Timothy for preaching the gospel and, hey, we can't sell our idols anymore. Bro, that's literally happening right there. Okay. Now if you look, go to that next picture. So here I'm standing in the agora, but I'm looking to the right of where I was talking about earlier. You see that crane in the background?

That's original. No, I'm done. That's a joke. That's a joke. That's what they're doing right now is they're reconstructing constructing some of the theater that Acts 19 mentions. All this is going to make sense here in a second. I'll explain why I'm saying this. So the Bible literally says, I'm going to read it to you. So in verse 29, there's all the big, the riot because Paul and Timothy are causing their economy to get uprooted. Verse 29 says, the people seized Gaius and Aristarchus, Paul's traveling companions from Macedonia, and all of them rushed into, and then it says the theater. Theater is right where that— so I'm just trying to get you to get it in your head. The theater is where that crane is because they're reconstructing it. Now go to that next picture. This is the theater. All of it's still there. I mean, basically the whole city where Timothy is the pastor when 2 Timothy is written, the whole city's still there. So that's the theater. When you read Acts 19, that's legit. There is no doubt whatsoever. That's where this happens. They try to kill Paul right there. Little fun fact, that thing It has a greater seating capacity than the AAC.

So I mean, it's thinking big. Now, this is just one thing I love about the Apostle Paul. He's surrounded by an entire theater full of people who want to kill him. And Paul essentially goes, sounds like a good time to preach. He's just like, so here's what you get. And I'm going to get to this in a second. Paul is the most fearless man in the New Testament. I actually really believe that Paul is the most fearless man. And 2 Timothy, he's discipling maybe the guy that struggled with fear the most. So this is happening right here. Okay. Now you got to remember all this. So Paul's act, he is that dude. He's like, man, sounds like a good time to preach. If they kill me, they kill me. Okay. That's just how Paul rolls. Now he tells Timothy, hey man, over and over, hey Tim, don't be afraid. You be a man of fearlessness and conviction. And what we know about Timothy is he does it. I really, I love it so much. Timothy becomes that man. Timothy stays there. I'm going to get to this in a second. Church history tells us that he lives there from when he's young.

Church history tells us he died somewhere around when he was 80. I'm going to tell you this story here in a second. He was supposedly martyred for his faith when he was 80 years old. And Timothy becomes the man that Paul encouraged him to. There is such a massive outpouring of the Spirit in Ephesus. Church history tells It was probably outside of Jerusalem, the largest New Testament church was in Ephesus. What's really awesome, dude, is there is still evidence today all over the city of Ephesus of Timothy's pastoral work. So we call it the ichthus, we call it the Jesus fish. That's what we see. The ichthus was not originally the Jesus fish. Okay? That's not what— the ichthus, bro, this is amazing, originated in Ephesus. Under the pastoral leadership of Timothy. Oh, I didn't know. This is amazing. If you go to Ephesus today and you don't even need some Christian guide to tell you this, you'll see this little symbol everywhere in the city. Pull that up. This is, if you're standing in front of that theater, I took this picture, it's right in front of the theater. Okay? So basically anywhere in Ephesus where Timothy's pastoring, they would have these little booths, like a little farmer's market vibe.

And you'll see now originally on the left of the picture, which you're seeing there are the Greek letters. I'm going to make a fool of myself here. It's iota, chi, theta. What's the Y looking one?

Epsilon?

No, no, the Y looking one. Last one's epsilon. The Y looking one.

Last one is sigma. I think the Y one is epsilon.

Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. That's right.

That's a capital sigma. That's right. It looks like an E. It's capital sigma.

That's right.

And then that's the— okay. Now what you got here, that little symbol that looks like a wheel with the spokes, bro, that's the original Ichthus. It wasn't originally— and here's what I mean. So Ichthus, all that is, Ichthus is the English transliteration of the Greek letters iota, chi, theta, epsilon, sigma. All that is is Ichthus. Okay, those are the letters. And bro, check this out. Now I'm going to ruin this and I might get up out of my seat. But just do your best here. So Timothy's the pastor, the church keeps growing. Apparently he disciples, somebody disciples the Christian business owners. Hey, you're going to get in trouble if people find out if you're a Christian. So here's what we want to do. We want Christians to help other Christian businesses. By the way, we should still be doing that. That's a really good idea. And what he does is he apparently in that, In that city, it became a thing where the Christian business leaders, they would etch that little sign in front of their little agora booth. And it was a signal to the other Christians, "Hey, this is a Christian. You're safe here." And what that is, bro, is, okay, if you look at it, so man, I hope if you're just listening, you need to pop over to YouTube so that you can see just this segment because it's so stinking cool, man.

So that little symbol, I'm going to get up and I know this is annoying, but I want you guys to understand. No, then they won't be able to see it. They won't be able to hear me, will they?

No, they will not.

Ah, dang gummit. Okay. So you see that basically, if you take the middle spoke with the top part, that's the I. Then you have this, look, there's the chi, right? Then look, there's a theta, the all around with just the line across. Then you got the Y thing, that's the upsilon, the upsilon there, the Y thing. And then the epsilon is just, if you take just the right side of the ichthus, the just the right 3.

Oh, I see it.

Yeah, you see that? I see it. So bro, and what those letters stand for, Iota, Chi, Theta, Upsilon, Sigma, is Iesus Christus Theos Huion, what's the word for Savior or Lord? Lord, Lord. That'd be Kurios.

Yeah, that'd be Kurios.

Yeah. But what it stands for is Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior. So what's the Savior? I'll look it up. Look it up, look it up. That'd be great. Look that up. I want to get that right. And so all over the city, So this is Timothy, what became a fearless, Spirit-filled preacher. There's a revival in the city. And to this day, bro, you can still go to the city and see the evidence of Timothy being a faithful, fearless pastor. Now here's what we know.

Soter.

Soter.

Soter.

Stands for savior. Savior. Savior. Which, by the way, fun fact for listeners, Greek word soter means salvation. Yep.

Okay.

Which by the way is where we get the theological term soteriology, which means just study of salvation. That's right. That's right. So there's your little fun fact.

That's great.

That's fun to do.

I appreciate it.

I got that right?

You nailed it.

All right, good. Thank you. I'm insecure after that. I took a dig at Paul and I felt guilty the whole time. He literally got you back. I forgive Paul.

He got you back in the most gracious way possible.

I mentioned Paul's baldness earlier with the residents.

That's true. Okay.

I told him the story of Elisha and the two bears. Sorry, that's another thing for another time.

Now here's what we know, happened in Timothy's life, and then we can talk about fear real quick, and then we can talk about mas real quick. Church history tells us this is one of those things that's like, it's one of those, hey, this is probably true. We don't know certainly true, but probably true. In the 300s, church history records, I'm just going to read it to you, that Timothy remained as Bishop of Ephesus. By the way, fun fact, Not only was Ephesus, the Timothy pastored, Paul's favorite church, most people think, church history and tradition tells us that Mary, the mother of Jesus, ended up being a church member at the church at Ephesus and the Apostle John.

Yeah.

Because Ephesus is, I think, the closest, geographically closest New Testament church to the Isle of Patmos, which is where the Apostle John was exiled and he wrote the book of Revelation.

Revelation.

By the way, for our listeners, this is a little thing. Make sure you never say Revelations. That is not the title of the book.

It's not.

And if you say that, then you out yourself as not knowing that it's not the title of the book.

So I'm pretty sure I've said Revelations before.

No, no, that's okay. That's okay.

I wonder if you said at the beginning of this episode. Did I? I don't know.

Did you? You talked about it a few times. No, I don't think so. No, no, no, no.

Yeah, man.

I will say in Spanish, Revelation is literally translated the Apocalypse.

The Apocalypse.

Apocalypsis.

Well, the official title of Revelation is— people just say the Apocalypse of John. And apocalypse, it doesn't mean end times, it just means revealing.

That's right.

Yeah. All right, let me go back to the— it's fine. I like our little tangents. So becomes Paul's favorite church. Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the Apostle John, this becomes their home church. They become members of this church according to church tradition. This is how Timothy dies when he's 80. Now remember, this is the kid that was scared kid that Paul has to be like, hey Tim, don't be afraid. Hey buddy, don't be afraid. Timothy remained as Bishop of Ephesus after Paul's death. In his old age, tradition says he was about 80, during a pagan festival called the Catagogia, linked to the cult of Dionysus or Artemis/Diana. Those are the Greek and Roman names. Revelers were engaging in wild, idolatrous, and violent processions through the city. Wearing masks, carrying clubs, and committing public immorality and violence. Timothy confronted them, urging them to turn from their idols to the true and living God. And let me just say, dude, here's what I love. The spiritual son grew up and acted like his spiritual father. Yeah. So I have a feeling in a moment like that, Timothy remembered, well, I know what my spiritual father did.

He stood up in that theater that's right down the street and he thought, Paul thought, "Seems like a good time to preach the gospel." And Timothy, when he was 80, he saw the same thing. And I think he went, "You know what I ought to do? Seems like a good time to stand up and preach the gospel." Wow. The crowd turned on him and attacked him, beat him with clubs and stones and dragged him through the streets, the streets you just saw with your very own eyes in those pictures. He died from his injuries. Some accounts say that he lingered for 2 days. Suffering before he died. And let me just say, well done, good and faithful Timothy. So awesome, dude. So awesome.

So good.

So the whole book is just Paul going, hey man, let me disciple you, Timothy, and you have a besetting sin. Let me disciple you in that besetting sin. And it becomes helping him with his fear. So this whole passage we were preaching was about the fear stuff. Now I can go wherever you want me to go on this. But there was a lot that didn't make it in. And that's the context.

Yeah.

So I wanna ask you this, Pastor Josh, there is a particular section in this text that you shared that talks about the gift of God.

Yeah.

Which is in you through the laying of the hands. You have a particular theory about what is that gift specifically?

Okay. Yes, I do.

Okay.

And before I explain it, I will say Bible, there's kind of two views on this. And I think I might be in the minority view, but I'm like 10 toes down on this.

I think Paul disagrees with you, but go ahead.

It's okay if you do. It's seriously okay if you do. And so this is one where it's like, hey, second or third tier issue, not hurting my feelings. But dude, I really, I spent the first day and a half, sometimes in sermon prep, I'll just get obsessed with one thing. And it's just doing something for my soul. And so for the first day and a half of sermon prep, all I did was just study that little phrase. All right, well, let me do this. Okay, let me back up. So let's read that verse. It is 2 Timothy 1:6. Paul says, for this reason, and the this reason is, hey Timothy, your mama and your grandmama, they prayed for you. For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. And here's the big verse. For God gave us a spirit, not of fear. I love this, but of power and of love and of self-control. Let me just riff on this and then I'm going to get to what I think I'm just going to cut to the chase. I think that verse is talking about Timothy's, and I don't care what you call it.

Some people call it spirit baptism, baptism of the Holy Spirit. Some people will just call it being filled with the Spirit. Our Presbyterian friends might call it unction. I like that word. Mm-hmm. I think it's specifically talking about Timothy's baptism in the Holy Spirit. Interesting. And I'm going to explain why I think that here in a second.

I've never heard that before.

And again, I think I might be in the slight minority view, but dude, I think when I'm done, I think I can win you. But let me just say a few things about this. Sermon is really about fear. Let me just differentiate a couple things. And then I want to get to the thing I've been waiting for 3 years to get into a sermon. I couldn't. First of all, it says we have not been given a spirit of fear. Let me just say there's a difference between feeling scared and a spirit of fear. I think the Bible differentiates between those two things. Scared is just feelings of fear. Scared's fine. Scared's normal. Honestly, scared keeps you alive when a bear's chasing you or there's lightning outside. That's fine. God gave us emotions for a reason. Scared's fine. And then what the Bible says is sometimes when you're scared, what we do is in the face of feelings of fear, we take steps of faith. The Bible calls that courage. That's wonderful. We need to be people of courage. But there's a difference between feeling scared and what I think Paul is talking about here when he says a spirit of fear.

Feeling scared is like, is feeling, I kind of will use this language, feelings that are on ya. It's on ya. What you can never do is let the fear get in you and begin to control you in the way that the Holy Spirit is designed to control a Christian. That's what I think Timothy is saying. There are times in your life, I have definitely had times in my life when this happened where fear moves from being on me to being in me. And all of a sudden the role that the Holy Spirit's supposed to play, and I'm supposed to walk by the Holy Spirit, I'm supposed to be led by the Holy Spirit. And all of a sudden, dude, I just look up and honestly, I'm walking according to my fear and I'm being led by a spirit of fear. And if you're looking at your life and if you're a listener right now, I would ask you in the next 30 seconds just to say, Lord, if this is me in any area of my life, will you show it to me when he says it? If you're looking at your life and you start to realize, wait a second, fear is actually the thing that's telling me what I can do and what I can't do anymore.

Huh, man. Actually, I'm a slave to fear. Maybe fear is telling me where I can go and where I can't go. Fear is— what about this? Fear is telling me when I can sleep and when I can't sleep. Fear is telling me what I can do with my money and what I can't do with my money, or things like this. If you ever get to a spot in your life where you're realizing, bro, fear is actually telling me when I will obey God, when I won't obey God. Well, you're no longer controlled by the Holy Spirit. You're being controlled by an unholy spirit, the spirit of fear. And that's what Paul's talking about here.

Okay?

And I'll just say, and I don't have time to do this, I listed in sermon prep this week every single one of the greatest blessings God has ever given me. And I have never received a blessing God has given me that was not on the other side of some kind of fear. Fear. Getting saved, getting baptized, dating Jana, deciding to adopt kids, deciding to come to Lake Pointe, stepping into my calling as a preacher is very interesting to me. Every single one, every single one of the great blessings God has brought me were on the other side of some fear. The reason for that is fear, in my opinion, is the number one thing that the enemy uses to keep you from everything God wants in your life. And dude, so let me just prove this. And bro, this is the thing. I've been waiting 3 or 4 years to get into a sermon and I can never find a time until now.

Come on.

Boom. Okay, so bro—

Kick this big.

Let's kick this big. So bro, check this out. So a few years ago when I went to Israel, I will refrain from joking, we went over to Caesarea Philippi. Now, Caesarea Philippi, bro, this is so stinking awesome. This is one of those things when you're done, you're like, the Bible's amazing. So Caesarea Philippi, Carlos.

Yes.

That's where Jesus pulls the disciples out into the dadgum middle of nowhere. There's nothing out there. For real, you're out in a one-stoplight hick town kind of thing. And that's where Jesus apparently points at some rock and he goes, hey, I will build my church and the gates of— and this is very interesting. It does not say the gates of hell. What does it say? The gates of Hades. Hades. Okay. Now bookmark that. There's a reason for that, that most people, they'd never see this. So Jesus apparently points to some rock. I wonder what rock. And then he goes, the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. Now, when you go out to Caesarea Philippi at the bottom of Mount Hermon, there is one spot and one spot only that people are like, This is probably where it was because this rock formation is there. Go ahead and toss it up here. Okay? It's the only spot around there where there's some prominent rock location. Now, dude, here's what's nuts. So this is the bottom of Mount Hermon. Now you got to remember, it's 1st century. This is Greco-Roman Empire with all the Greek and Roman gods.

Now, dude, the tradition at that time when Jesus is alive is that— now, and again, we're asking this question, why does Jesus walk all the way out into the middle of nowhere where there's nothing else around there to do I will build my church. The gates of Hades will not prevail against it. So he walks all the way out, finds this one rock and goes, points at the rock and goes, the gates of Hades will never prevail against my kingdom. Now, Greco-Roman Empire, Greco-Roman gods, the tradition was at that time, this spot right there, that cave at the bottom of Mount Hermon was the dwelling place in their minds. Do you know this? Of Pan, of the Greek Roman god Pan, which, oh, by the way, was associated with fear, which, oh, by the way, is where we get the English word panic. To this day, where we get the English word panic is from their belief that anytime you saw the god Pan, that you would just be consumed by an irrational, controlling spirit of fear. And bro, Jesus walks all the way out to that daggum rock, points at that rock. People are terrified of Pan.

They're being controlled by panic. That's what's going on in their head. And Jesus points at that rock and essentially he says, on that rock, I'm going to build my church. I'm going to essentially, I'm going to dunk on that god. On this rock, I will build my kingdom. And what he was saying is the god of pan, the god of panic, shall not prevail. Why? Because the Prince of Peace is here. Wow. You will no longer be controlled by a spirit of fear, but by a spirit of power and of love and of a right mind. Because when you know the Prince of Peace, you can have peace. Wow. Bro, isn't that nuts? Dude, I've been wanting to get that into a sermon forever. That was amazing.

Wow.

Okay. So that's the whole thing that's going on in this passage throughout the scriptures is the unholy spirit does fear, the Holy Spirit does faith and peace. That's what's going on.

Okay.

Paul, any thoughts on that?

No, that was incredible. I'm not going to add to that. Anything else?

No, I will say this, dude. Can I just— let me just, brother, man, there's so many things that didn't make it in the sermon. It's going to actually kill me not to do all this stuff, but the podcast will get too long. I will just say one other thing on this. Well, I think people want it. All right, we'll see. We'll see. It depends how it feels. Feels. One thing I will say is there is something that Christians say to each other a lot that they don't know it. I think Christians are accidentally discipling each other into being disciples of Satan, and I'm not joking. So, bro, here's a warning that I will give you that if you don't get over this thing in your head, you ain't never going to be led by the Holy Spirit. Christians will do this thing. It's one of those dumb things smart Christians believe where they'll say, hey man, you're trying to discern what the will of God is? Here's all you need to do. Ask yourself, do you have a peace about it? And if you have peace about it, then it's from God. And if you don't have a peace about it, it's not from the Lord.

And I always just, when I hear that, I always just want to go, will you please shut up? It's like, here's what I mean, dude. Listen, I'm always like, bro, have you read your Bible? When you look in a Bible, when people are taking steps of faith to follow God and be led by the Spirit, they almost never are fearless and just tranquil. Like Moses is— he's so scared he's stuttering. You've got Jesus in Gethsemane. Does it sound like a spirit of, "I have a peace about going to the cross"? He's sweating blood. His capillaries are exploding because he's overwhelmed by anxiety and fear. He's like, "God, if you do anything else, else except this, would you do it? He's like, you know, do you have a peace about it? Uh, I could do this all day. Um, when, uh, when Joshua is being encouraged, yes, to take over the nation of Israel, 3 times, what do they say? 3 times: fear not, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous, be strong and courageous. Why? Because Joshua felt weak and afraid, weak and afraid, weak and afraid. So what I say is, bro, when Christians disciple each other by saying, hey man, here's how you know if you're being, you know, if it's of the Do you have a peace about it?

What you're accidentally doing is you're discipling people to put fear into the driver's seat of their life. Watch for any time they have fear. And if you have fear, don't do the thing. And oh, by the way, guess who puts fear in you according to scriptures? Satan. So you're accidentally Christianizing the concept of people being controlled and reverse engineering their decisions by a spirit of fear. So here's what I would say to Christians. Man, if you want to figure out if something is God's will for your life, the question isn't, do you feel a peace about it? The question is, has the word of God spoken about it? That's the question. And then dude, you're going to have times when you look at it and you know what the word of God says or what the Spirit of God has led you to do, and your knees are going to be buckling and shaking and you're going to have those moments and you decide to plant your feet firmly on the word of God and move forward anyway in faith. That's what it looks like to be led by the Spirit.

That's good.

That's great, man. That's great.

And I think with both of these things, one thing that came to my mind, I think it was Watchman Nee who first talked about this. He talked about there's three things. There's facts, there's faith, and there's feelings, and you've gotta get them in the right order.

Do this thing.

It's like the thing that should go first in our life are the facts, the facts of who God is, the facts of what God has done and who he is for me. And so the idea is whenever God speaks to people and says, fear not, by the way, you don't tell people to fear not. Told to not fear unless there's something to be afraid of. Bingo. Like ever. Bingo. So when he's talking to Joshua, they're going into the promised land and facing battle. So there is reason to be afraid. But then what does he do? He doesn't say, 'cause Joshua, man, you're good enough and you're strong enough and gosh darn it, you can do it.' No, he says, 'For I am with you.' That's right. He puts his eyes on the facts. That's right. And then there's faith. There's the question of, am I going to put my faith and believe the facts and trust the facts? And then feelings are supposed to be the caboose that come on. 'Cause like you've said earlier, Fear is just a feeling. And peace, by the way, is just a feeling. Man, are they good if they're there in terms of the peace?

Yeah. Is it bad if the fear's there? Yeah. But guess what? That's the caboose. And the decision you're going to have to make is, hey, when you're facing fear or any kind of emotion or lack thereof, am I going to put my faith in my feelings or am I going to put my faith in my facts or in the facts?

Amen.

So you got to get them in the right order. And then guess what? When you put your faith in the facts, your emotions will eventually catch up and fall into place, but they got to be the caboose of your life, not the engine of your life. Yes, dude. That's great. Yes, dude.

So you said facts, faith, and feeling.

Exactly.

So I guess it is true. Facts don't care about your feelings.

That's actually— yeah.

All right, let's go.

We got some more.

We're going to do a the— let's— well, I want to get to the theology of what I think this verse means because there's layers to this thing. And then Paul, what I want you to do here in a second, there's two things I want you to talk about because this is going to dovetail into two concepts. They're a little Bible nerd geeky. Theologians call it continuity and discontinuity between the Old Covenant and the New Covenant. Another way to say that is the rural, dumb Kentucky kid way to say it is, what's the difference between the New Testament and the Old Testament?

Yes.

It's like, that's how I would say it. But Old Covenant, New Covenant, discontinuity and continuity, because that's going to relate to what I'm talking about here in a second. And then just to be honest with people who are listening, we're going to talk about— some people call it baptism in the Holy Spirit. Some people call it filling with the Holy Spirit. Some people say one baptism, many fillings. I don't care what you say.. But there are different views on this, and I want you to talk about what those views are, where some of the denominations fall and some of that kind of stuff. What do you want me to do? Do you want me to kind of talk about, give my theory on what this means and then we do—

okay.

Let's do that.

I'm sorry. I've been talking for a long time, man.

You're good, bro. It's great.

All right, let's keep going. All right.

Well, hey, Live Free Nation, if you're ready to go deeper in your faith and build strong biblical community, Rooted is your next step. Rooted is our 10-week discipleship experience designed to help you grow in your relationship with God, understand your purpose, and build meaningful relationships with other believers. And so here's something that you need to know. Rooted is an in-person experience only. It's not available online because so much of what makes Rooted powerful happens when you're sitting around a table, having conversations, praying together, and growing alongside others. So if you live in the DFW area, Dallas-Fort Worth area, we'd love for you to come be a part of our Rooted experience at one of our Lake Pointe campuses. And so if you are ready to take that next step, just text the word ROOTED to 20411 to learn more and get connected. And now let's go back to the podcast.

So here's the debate in verse 6 and 7. I didn't have time to get into this in the sermon. This is literally, I almost made the whole sermon this. I'll just be honest. I decided on Tuesday not to. So Paul again says, for this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God. Here's the question theologians, Bible scholars ask: what gift of God is he talking about?

Yeah.

Is he— there's a few theories here. Is he talking about the big G gift of the Holy Spirit, or is he talking about a little g specific gift of the Holy Spirit, preaching or prophesying? Or is he talking about Timothy's commissioning as the pastor. So the moment when the elders placed their hands on him and commissioned him as pastor, which one of those three is he talking about? And then it goes on to say this, which is in you through the laying on of my hands, for God gave us not a spirit of fear, but of power, love, and self-control. Now I got 4 reasons. I actually think he's specifically talking about the New Testament big G gift of being filled with the Spirit. And just if when I say this, it kind of triggers you a little bit and you're like, what? Just hang with me. I'll explain what I mean and what I don't mean. And I'm talking about something that happens to you subsequent to your salvation.

Yeah.

Okay. So let me explain why I think this. All right. Number one, he specifically says this came with the laying on of hands. Now there are multiple things the laying on of hands represent in the Book of Acts. Paul and Timothy are commissioned initially through the laying on of hands out of the church. Was it Antioch? Was it Antioch?

Paul and Barnabas.

Paul and Barnabas. Paul and Barnabas. Yeah. The church of Antioch.

Yeah. Laid on hands, basically commissioned them as missionaries to go out.

And that became the New Testament pattern for how you essentially ordained is the word that we use in the modern church, recognize the Holy Spirit was setting somebody apart for an office in the church. By the way, to this day, Today, if you go to an ordination service at a church, you're going to see the elders or a bunch of people lay their hands on somebody. They got that from the Book of Acts.

Yep.

Okay. Now, but frequently in the Book of Acts, the laying on of hands is something that is done to confer the big G gift of the filling with the Holy Spirit in somebody. I'll do these real quick. This happens in Acts 8. It says this, then they, quote, laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. This whole Simon the Sorcerer deal right there. When he saw that the Spirit, watch this, was given through the laying on of the apostles' hands, then he offers the money and he tries to buy the gift. You're not allowed to do that. Then this happens again in Acts 9. So Ananias departed and entered the house. This is when Paul is actually, it's after Paul's salvation, I believe. This is when Paul's filled with the Spirit. Spirit. So Ananias entered the house where Paul is and, quote, laying his hands on him, he said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me to you so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit. One more time, Acts 19:6. I'm coming back to this later in the pod.

And when Paul had laid his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them. So number one, I'll do quick. You got laying on hands. Paul says that whatever this gift was came to you by the laying on of hands. Number 2, he calls it a gift. I'll just point this out. When Jesus in Luke 11 is talking about the Father giving the gift of the Holy Spirit to those who ask, he uses the language of the Spirit's coming on your life as a quote, gift. I'm going to read it to you. This is Jesus. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? if you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is being mentioned as a gift. That's clue number 2. Clue number 3, he says to Timothy, fan into flame. Now, dude, it's hard for me to— now these context clues start stacking up, bro. Everywhere in the New Testament, fire and flame is the dominant visual representation of the Spirit coming on somebody.

In both Matthew 3 and Luke 3, John the Baptist says that Jesus will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Acts 2, Spirit falls on the apostles. He comes as, quote, divided tongues of fire. 1 Thessalonians 5:19, people miss this. It says, hey, do not quench the Spirit. And the Greek word when it's talking about quench, that's literally the word that it uses that you would use a little spray to quench a fire. So you got that. Now you stack those up, I think you're already there. But then number 4, I'll just point this out. Notice the flow of the verses. He goes, hey, you haven't been given this spirit. This is not the spirit you got, spirit of fear. You've been given this spirit, power, love, self-control. Those are all things in the New Testament that are specifically associated with the Spirit's presence in somebody's life. So I think the very obvious flow is, hey, not this spirit, you've been given that spirit. And really what I think he's doing is he's going back to the example of Peter. And I think he's going, hey, pre-Holy Spirit, pre-Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, he's running away from little toddler girls.

And then post-filling of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2, Peter's standing in front, by the way, of the same people who crucified Jesus. And he's planting his feet, saying with his chest, you killed Jesus. Judgment is coming. You need to repent and be baptized or there's going to be hell to pay. That's literally what he's— So I think you stack those up, bro, I don't know how to see it any other way. I think Paul's specifically talking about Timothy's, whatever phrase you want to use, Spirit baptism, filling of the Spirit. Now really quick before we go any farther, Paul, can you real quick, because talk real quick about the different views. Do you want to do the different views here on baptism of the Spirit, filling of the Spirit? Because I need to acknowledge there are different views on this that are kind of emotional for people. I'll just get that out there and I'll let you take it.

Before I get to— I will say some of the other views that we threw out, because of it could be Timothy's ministry, it could be the big gift of the Holy Spirit like himself. The hard thing is you can make a great argument for any of those and all in the spiritual gifts. It's like there's great data for each of them. When we go into this, what I would say is even if it were any of those other two, I think we would all agree that receiving fillings or a filling of the Spirit would make those more effective. That if you're a Spirit-filled person and it was his ministry, that's going to make him more effective. You see that in Acts 4, by the way, where it says all the apostles were gathered together after Pentecost had already happened. The Spirit fills them and then they go out and preach the word with boldness, it says, and they see a lot of fruit. So what I'm saying is when we get to this in a second, I think even if it didn't happen, I mean that, I think we'd all agree that being filled with the Spirit would make ministry or your spiritual gift more effective.

Right?

That makes sense.

Very obviously.

Okay. I'm just saying. So that's where even if you disagree with your interpretation, we can still get to what we're about to say.

So yeah.

So Spirit baptism. So let me say a few things and then I've got 3 views. There's actually like 6 or 7 really minor views, but I try to put 'em in 3 camps to make it simple. So if you hear this, well, that's not exactly what I believe. I'm sorry. I tried to get it as simple as I could, but this is a classic area and you've kind of already touched this a few places. Where people can use different words for the same thing.

Bro, yes.

Or they use the same word for different things. Yes. And so what ends up happening is we go back and forth and in circles arguing. We may actually agree with each other on most stuff. Yes. Or we talk past each other. And so there's gonna be a few places where I'm gonna have to give some nuance of saying, hey, some people call it this, some people call it that. That being said, let me give you 3 big views. Hey, I got another charter table for you this week. Week. I've got another one.

The quality of this podcast just went up again.

Oh my gosh.

I've got another one for you. And again, this is something that we can include in our guide that people can get so they can look at this later. So 3 views. You've got what's called— and I'm going to name them and then I'll walk through them— cessationist, number 2, classical Pentecostal, and number 3, charismatic continuationist. Fancy, fancy terms today. Cessationist. Here's what— and by the way, all of these positions agree. This is what they all agree on, that the moment you're saved, You received the Holy Spirit.

Gonna take a pair of scissors to get that outta the Bible. Yeah.

And by the way, it's this misconception that Pentecostals don't believe that. They say, oh, they don't believe that you fully have the Holy Spirit. They say, no, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit. So every one of these views agrees that at salvation you have the Holy Spirit residing within you. Here's some places they disagree. A cessationist would say every true believer is baptized in the Spirit at conversion. So Spirit baptism happens happens at conversion. They would point to 1 Corinthians 12 where it says, "For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though we are of one body, so it is with Christ. For in one Spirit, we were all baptized into one body," referring to the church, "and we were all made to drink of one Spirit." And so they would say Spirit baptism happens at conversion and there is no later second stage experience whatsoever. If you ask them, "Well, hey, what does it mean to be filled with the Spirit?" They're like, "Oh, that just is really about growing in intimacy with God." through worship and obedience, but not necessarily in experience. And they would say that speaking in tongues is a gift that is no longer available today.

So if you're wondering why they call 'em cessationists, that word simply means cease, that gift has ceased today. Go ahead.

And frequently what primarily the cessationist view will be is that "speaking in tongues," or the Greek word is glossolalia, they'll kind of go like, hey man, that really only referred to other languages. Exactly. Like missionaries speaking in other languages.

They would say that.

Now the problem, this isn't what this podcast is about. Your problem with that is 1 Corinthians 14, but that's a different conversation.

Yeah, it's a really, really big issue. So again, so summing up their view, they would say every true believer is baptized in the Spirit at conversion. There's no later experience that you have, and speaking in tongues is no longer available. Now, the opposite of this would be a classical Pentecostal view. That's view number 2. They would say every believer receives the Spirit at conversion, but Spirit baptism is a distinct subsequent experience that happens later, and it is accompanied by speaking in tongues. That is the sign that you've been baptized in the Spirit is that you have spoken or have spoken in tongues.

—Is that the Assemblies of God view?

Yeah, that would be like an Assemblies of God, like again, more of a classical Pentecostal view. But I want to differentiate something here. A lot of times people will say Pentecostal and charismatic and think they're the same thing. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. That's the key for when we get to point number 3. Pentecostals would say, "No, speaking in tongues is the sign that you have received the baptism of the Spirit." A charismatic would not necessarily say that. So the argument they have is this, is Jesus promised to the apostles that they would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But he said that to them after they were already believers and had the Holy Spirit. That's their argument. So they would say they already believed, they had been born again, they had the Holy Spirit, and then he said they would be baptized and that's what happened. Also, they would point to other places like you talked about that you gave references to, which is, hey, these other people like in Acts 8 and Paul had already believed, but then they received the Holy Spirit afterwards. They'd say, hey, there's other places in Acts where this seems to happen.

You wanna list some others or are those the big ones that you're gonna give?

I'll wait a second. Okay. Okay. So again, and then, but they would say is that, hey, speaking in tongues accompanied.

It happened at Acts at Pentecost. It happens other places where people had already believed and then they spoke in tongues, that this is the ordinary sign. Then you have a third view that this is almost kind of a— I hate to call it a middle ground, but kind of a mediating view between those two. And it is this: a charismatic continuationist would say every true believer receives a Spirit conversion, yet they can also receive later feelings that don't have to be accompanied by speaking in tongues. So say, hey, you can have later experiences. The difference with the Pentecostal would be they say you don't You don't have to speak in tongues in order for that to be legitimate. Here's the thing with them that I would say is some charismatic continuationists would use baptism only to refer to conversion. Others would use it for the second filling that usually is really powerful. And they would say, "You've been baptized." I'm a person, I personally only use baptism typically for salvation. I don't quibble with words over it, because usually when people use that language, they mean the same thing I mean. It's a good example of we're using different terms, but we mean the same thing.

Thing. All right. Anything you want me to double-click on or hit or respond to on any of these? You think that's pretty good?

So let me get this. So the classic Pentecostal view, like for instance, Assemblies of God, I think in the official doctrine of the Assemblies of God, it talks about speaking in tongues is, quote, "The initial physical evidence of being baptized with the Holy Spirit." Isn't that right? That's right. It says something like that. So basically every single time, there is never a case in which you are filled with the Spirit and do not speak in tongues in general.

Yeah. If you've been baptized in Spirit, speak in tongues.

Baptized in the Spirit. Okay. Yeah. Hang on.

And I didn't respond to these, but I can give you examples of where we disagree with some of these views. I didn't really lay out where we would land on it yet. I don't know if you want to go there or say, hey, here's where we disagree.

I think we're in the same place. I think we're in the same place. Where are you going?

I'm at number 3 for sure.

Number 3 is where I'm at. I'm for sure number 3. Carlos?

Number 3. Do you want me to respond to why we would disagree with Pentecostals at the idea? Because we would agree with them that you can receive. We would probably use the word feelings. But again, you and I are the same way. Hey, some people call them baptisms. Feelings. We mean the same thing.

Number 3, I would just disagree with Paul on the— he would say baptism language for conversion only. I would be the guy who would say the second part of that chart, it says other calls the first feeling of the Spirit after conversion a baptism of the Spirit. That's kind of where I would—

we all got to be wrong somewhere. That's great. I'm just playing. If you want to, I can explain why I don't use that term, but it's not the biggest thing. Now, here's why we would lovingly disagree with our Pentecostal brothers and sisters that speaking in tongues does not have to happen. And it really all is found— I could go to a bunch of places, but to me, 1 Corinthians 12 is the big thing. First off, it says that we all— so here he is assuming that all of them have been baptized. Every single person he's talking to. This, by the way, is why I do only use it for salvation, because if you're baptized into the body of Christ, I think that could only happen at your salvation. But here's the big thing at the end. Paul's going to ask some rhetorical questions, and he's basically, he's saying, hey, everybody has different gifts and assignments, but man, we all matter in the body of Christ as we serve this common good. He's going to ask some questions starting in verse 29. Are all apostles? What do you think his assumption is? They're going to answer.

In this case is clearly no. No.

Are all prophets? No. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all possess gifts of healing?

No. Do all speak with tongues? No. That the implication is clearly no. Yeah.

Every, if every rhetorical question to this point has been, the answer is expected to be no. It's hard to believe that all of a sudden speaking in tongues, the answer is yes, of course. Cause you've been filled with the Spirit and you've been baptized. No. So we would lovingly disagree with Pentecostals to say, hey, we do believe in subsequent fillings of the Spirit that are powerful and necessary for more effective ministry and life transformation. But speaking in tongues does not have to accompany that.

Yeah. Yeah. Was you like Carlos in growing up in South America? Was, was, uh, was charismatic continuationist or classic Pentecostal the more dominant view or experience down there?

Uh, I grew up in an Assemblies of God for sure. Number two, classic Pentecostal. Okay. Yeah. So I mean, it was a high, high emphasis on praying towards asking God to give everybody the gift of tongues. Okay.

Now let's go one layer deeper, get a little more nerdy. So the reason this is a big deal is theologians will talk about, and this is where I want to click on real quick and I want to talk about this. And honestly, man, I just want to tell a couple stories. This right here is theologians talk about old covenant, new covenant continuity and discontinuity. In other words, if you were one of the people of God, covenantal people of God in the old covenant, what is different about your experience with God as a new covenant people of God versus the old covenant. So this gets into old covenant, new covenant. There are things that possess continuity, and there are aspects of the two covenants that possess discontinuity. And a lot of times that's where I think people get a little confused, and that specifically comes to bear on our theology of the Spirit. So do your little thing. Oh no, this is—

I mean, number one, there's a lot of places of continuity, discontinuity. Actually, in prepping for this, I looked up trying to see if I could find an image, and a guy listed like 25 things. And I'm like, we ain't— ain't nobody got time for that. So, so we ain't doing that. So I'll list a few things of continuity, things that are still the same. Man, there is one God and there's one story of salvation that he is writing. That's a continuous thing from Old Testament to New Testament. This one actually surprised people. In both the Old Testament, New Testament, people are saved by grace through faith.

Yes. Uh, specifically the New Testament says through faith in Christ. Yeah. So like, just for listeners to be really clear. People under the Old Covenant were saved by faith in Jesus Christ according to this book of Galatians, right?

Galatians. Yep. Before they knew it. But so, because there's sometimes this conception of, oh, in the Old Testament you just had to be a really good person and the New Testament is all by grace. You can pull up that verse. Yeah, I think maybe Galatians 3 or 4.

Galatians 3 is what I think.

And so, yeah, so it's just, no, people are saved by grace through faith. Now their faith is demonstrated in different ways in the Old Testament, but that's the same. The moral commands of the Old Testament are still in place. So all the commandments, the more moral commands—

We're going to talk about this when we talk about mosques. But in the Old Covenant laws, theologians, especially in the Reformed tradition, have typically divided the commands of the Old Testament into 3 parts: civil, ceremonial, moral. Exactly. Civil would be laws governing how the specific nation state of Israel functioned. Yep. Ceremonial would be the priestly laws, sacrifices, that kind of things. And then moral laws, it's like, honestly, it's like things like the New Testament. These are binding, moral things that reflect the character of God.

Exactly. They reflect God's character. God's character doesn't change. They're still in place.

Galatians 3:6-7. Yeah. Just as Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness, know then that it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham. No, but there's— where's—

there's another one.

If you're going to keep going, it specifically says that Abraham— it implies Abraham had faith in Jesus.

Yes. And somehow he was looking ahead. Now that might be a little bit of Hebrews if we pull in Hebrews 10. Maybe Hebrews. Yeah, maybe Hebrews 10, what we're thinking about and connecting the dots. But it's between them. But no, but to your point, this is why a lot of people don't realize this. The command to love your neighbor as yourself, what book do you think that's found in originally?

Well, people would say the Gospels.

And they are, but Jesus is quoting Leviticus. That's right. And there's also laws in Leviticus that we don't observe because, and this will get started into discontinuity, is that when Jesus came and he fulfilled the law, there were things that are still in place because they reflect God's unchanging character, but there's things not in place because they're no longer needed, such as the purity All right, some disclaimers. Hold on, I got the verse.

Verse 6 is really good. "And the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, 'In you shall all the nations be blessed.'" Yeah.

So bro, it's like, just for listeners— It's fascinating. It is. Sometimes in a Sunday school class, people are accidentally sharing ignorance. And they'll kind of say like, "Man, the Old Testament, we were saved by works. And in the New Testament, we're saved by faith through grace." Ah, wrong. Do not pass go, do not collect $200. We're specifically told we're saved by faith and faith in Jesus Christ. Abraham heard the promises of God given to him that were pointing forward to Jesus. And it was faith in promises pointing to Jesus that saved him and everybody else. That's right. Okay, let's keep going.

That's right. So let me get into specific places of discontinuity. In the Old Testament, there was sin just like in the New Testament. And how they had to deal with that was through sacrifices, through priests who made those sacrifices, and then at a temple. This is an example of where when Jesus came, 'cause he's where the whole story was going, going to. He fulfills all the promises and all the shadows that are in the Old Testament. We no longer have those sacrifices, the priest in the temple, because Jesus was the one who was the sacrifice. He's the high priest because he actually offered the sacrifice of himself. And we no longer have to go to a temple to get this done because now the church is the temple of the living God. That's right. So these are examples in the sense of, hey, there's continuity and that there is a sacrifice. There's discontinuity because we no longer have to go make animal sacrifices because Jesus Jesus fulfilled it by sacrificing himself. Lemme give a few other things, 'cause there again, there's many, but let me, I'll end on the Spirit, 'cause this is actually a really important one.

In the Old Testament, the sign of the covenant is circumcision. In the New Testament, it's baptism. So there's continuity, there's a sign, discontinuity in what it is. But here's the big one on the Spirit. Guess what? The Holy Spirit didn't wait until Pentecost to make his arrival. No. He was active in the Old Testament. In fact, it says that people were filled with the Spirit in the Old Testament, or that the Spirit rested on them. But here's the key: it was for specific people or for specific tasks. Usually the idea of a king or a prophet was the one who was filled with the Spirit. Although it's cool, actually one of the first people describes it as, as Bezalel and Oholiab.

I read that, that was in my Bible reading this week.

The people, I love it, they're the contractors of the tabernacle. Yep. People behind the scenes job, which is cool little sermon in and of itself there, that even the people doing the behind the scenes stuff What changed at Pentecost is what some people call the democratization of the Spirit. Instead of the Spirit only resting on and anointing a few people with gifts and using them for ministry, now it's on everybody. Oh yes. Because at Pentecost it goes on everybody. And in the Old Testament prophesying to this, it says, "My Spirit will be poured out on all flesh." It doesn't mean literally every human being, but it means all kinds of different people and all people who believe in Jesus. Yeah.

This is a big deal. So like, All right. So this dovetails, this is one of those things where it's like you have a Bible inception moment and a bunch of stuff comes together in one moment and you're like, what? Okay. So this is one of those. So if you read Exodus, one of the interesting things about Exodus is God gives his law. So this is going to make all sense here in a second. You know where I'm going. This is amazing. This is one of those, the Bible's thinking amazing. So God gives the gives the law at Sinai. And the law, this is really important, is written on tablets of stone. And the law is obviously, it's outside of the people. And when you read Exodus, honestly, the big lesson of the book of Exodus, if you zoom out, is it's kind of like, daggum, it doesn't matter what I can do. They can't obey my laws. Doesn't matter what I do for them. They just, they can't. They literally can't do it. Okay? Now, so then you get the prophecies that the Spirit's going to indwell all God's people, be poured out on all flesh.

Okay? Well, then you fast forward and I'll be honest, I think this is arguably the most misunderstood passage in the entire Bible, and I'm not joking. Christians use it all the time. I think most of the time they got no idea what it actually means. So Matthew 5, Sermon on the Mount, Jesus— it's the verse you've heard it a million times. Jesus says, if your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. Now let me give you I'll give you a little hint. When the law was originally given outside the people, we're on a mountain. When Jesus is preaching the Sermon on the Mount, we're on a mountain. Okay, now we got our first little hint. All right. Now what usually people think when they read that passage is they think, hey man, if I'm really struggling with sin, I need to be willing to commit a quote unquote radical amputation to any sin out of my life. And let me just say, that's true. That's true. I do not think at all that's what Jesus is saying in Matthew 5:29.

Okay? Now, and here's why I say that. A couple clues. Literally the verse before that passage, Jesus says, if anybody lusts, they have committed adultery in their heart. Okay? Then when you get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount, I can't wait. I'm going to preach it Next year, you get to the end of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus summarizes the entire Sermon on the Mount with a tree fruit analogy saying that, man, people tend to try to fix the fruit, what's coming out of their lives. But he's going, man, actually everything comes from the root of what's in your heart. And he's going, that's the whole point of the Sermon on the Mount. Now let's put all this stuff together. You got Exodus, they get the law, it's outside of them and they can't obey the law. Now we're on a new mountain under the New Covenant. The Spirit is poured out inside of and on top of all all of God's people. And Jesus is going, and man, there ain't a guy in the world that hasn't felt this down deep in his soul at some point in his life.

Jesus is going, hey, I want you to imagine that there's a guy who's just ate up with lust and he can't stop. And the guy essentially goes, you know what? I'm going to cut off the part of me that causes me to sin. And so I don't want to be weird or whatever, but he commits a lustful lustful act. And he cuts off, so he cuts off his hand. And then he notices, man, but I can still lust with my eyes. And so he gouges out both of his eyes. But then he realizes, you know what, man, I can still go places in the city and hear lustful things. And so then he chops off both of his ears. And then the guy's just so overwhelmed with sorrow for his sin that he realizes, you know what, even still I can walk to places where lustful things are happening. And then he cuts off both of his feet. And the guy keeps chopping off body parts and he realizes, "No matter how many parts I cut off, I can't cut off the part of me that causes me to sin." Mm-hmm. And what Jesus is saying in the Sermon on the Mount is he's saying, "In order to do that, you're going to have to cut out your heart." And then He's going, "And I can do that for you." Wow.

And Jesus is applying an Old Testament prophecy about the discontinuity between the old covenant and the new covenant. Because in Ezekiel chapter 36, deep cut, bro, deep cut. In Ezekiel 36, God is prophesying about the blessing of the new covenant. And he says this, "I will give you a new heart." I'll put a new heart. And how's he going to do it? I'll put a new spirit in you. I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. And I will be your God. That is what the Spirit does is whereas— bro, check this out. Let me go one layer deeper. Deeper. So at the original, all Pentecost means— people get tripped up on that Pentecost, those weird people who flames and speaking in tongues and gold dust and weird crap. That's not what it means. All Pentecost, it just means 50th. Penta means 50th. And it's saying that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, it happened 50 days days after the giving of the law, or after Passover, right?

Passover, because it celebrated the giving of the law. That's it.

Pentecost was the feast where they celebrated the giving of the law at Mount Sinai, which happened 50 days after the original Passover. So this was— Pentecost was an Old Covenant feast. Okay, well, bro, check this out. There is a, there's a huge significance to the fact that the Spirit of God laws on all flesh for the first time on the day of Pentecost. Because check this out, at the original giving of the law at Mount Sinai, check this out, there was a loud noise, a cloud descended, there was fire, and God wrote his laws on tablets of stone. In the New Covenant at the day of Pentecost, check this out, there was a loud noise, a rushing like mighty wind. The cloud of the Spirit descended, divided tongues as of fire fall. God wrote his law on men's hearts. And oh, by the way, check this out. At the first Pentecost in the Old Testament, 3,000 people died. And at the Pentecost in the New Testament, 3,000 people were saved. Bro, the Bible's amazing. So this is what the it does is he's poured out inside of every Christian everywhere, empowering you to live free.

Hashtag, come on. To live free and walk in the righteousness and commands of God.

And with that, it's like in the Old Testament, it was just Moses who got to be there. But that— and I'm literally, I'm looking at Acts 2 and it says, divided tongues of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. It's the democratization of the Spirit doing a new work through anyone who's a believer in Jesus. And to connect it back, because I know we connected this again that, man, fear and overcoming that. So they were filled with the Spirit at Pentecost in Acts 2. But again, just 2 chapters later in Acts 4, they're facing persecution. I didn't give that context earlier. They are being persecuted. They're gathered together in a room and probably being a little afraid. And they start praying. They say, "Oh Sovereign Lord," and they're starting to recount some things. And then it talks about these men who had already been filled with the Spirit. Pentecost had already come. It says, "Oh, they were filled with the Spirit again." They already had the Spirit and yet they were filled again, a subsequent filling. And that's when they went out and they —use the word and it says with boldness.

So the way they overcame— this is where connecting it back to your thing in Timothy— the way they overcame is it got flamed again. I mean, he got fanned into flame again, bro.

Let me make this practical because obviously that's, that's a lot of helpful theology. I just don't realize people are aware of the how big of a deal that is, which you just said. The fact that the presence of God himself indwells in you, and then when you look at the Old Testament, that's not how it was, but it is how it today, uh, there was somebody said this, uh, I thought it was interesting, this illustration where like, you know, we're all going to get to heaven one day and we're going to have an opportunity to have some very interesting conversations with like, you know, Moses. And we're going to be like, Moses, tell us about the time that, you know, you were there and leading the people of God and the, you know, part of the Red Sea. You saw God do some crazy miracles. Then we're going to meet David and we're going to be like, David, you got to tell us the story. You in front of Goliath and you're so young and did stones. So how did you feel? And then, uh, you know, Elijah. Elijah, my goodness, you know, showdown with Baal and all the prophets.

And then at some point, those guys are going to look to you and they're going to be like, but wait a minute, bro, you lived in the time where like the presence of God himself was in you, and you had the fire of the Holy Spirit inside of you, and you were baptized in the Holy Spirit. And like, you tell me, what did you do with your life?

I went to church when it was raining.

And we were gonna say things like, man, well, uh, you know, I posted a Bible verse on my social media feed. Uh, you know, I, uh, I try to— once in a while, maybe I served in church, you know, maybe, uh, I was really brave and, you know, maybe went to church a couple times a month. I don't know. Um, I try to be a good person. And, and I think the point is, uh, man, we don't desire to be filled with the Spirit enough. And we've been offered this opportunity to— the Bible says be filled, that which literally means, hey, continuously seek to desire to be filled with the power of God living inside of you, to be bold, to preach the Bible, to preach the gospel, to let other people know, to let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify the Father in heaven, to literally change the whole world for the glory of God. And I just don't think we realize how big of a deal that is.

That's right, man. It's good, dude. Let me say, I'm gonna make a quick case for why I believe that this is something Christians should seek to experience subsequently. Salvation. And then I give a couple examples and then we can see if we got time to talk about mosques or McKinney, whatever is going on. So first of all, I'll just point some things. First of all, if you're ever going to read a book, this is a top 5, literally a top 5 changed my life book in my entire life. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, old dead Presbyterian guy. It's called Joy Unspeakable: Power and Renewal in the Holy Spirit. Fun fact about Martyn Lloyd-Jones, because his denomination was historically Continuationist, when he wrote this book, he founded a printing— what is it called? Is it called Puritan Paperbacks? What's it called? I don't know. Who published this sucker? Ah, dadgummit. There's a sticker on it. I can't see. But literally the publisher he founded would not publish his own book about this because it's explicitly continuationist. So this is a little fun fact. So if you're going to read something about what we're talking about, that's the best one in my opinion.

Top 5 books that changed my life. Two things that are interesting about this. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points this out. So it's interesting. It talks about charismatic and Pentecostal kind of stuff. Martyn Lloyd-Jones is like a Puritan Presbyterian, a British, highly educated doctor Puritan Presbyterian. He points out two things in addition to some other things. One, he points out that the New Testament uses the language of us being, quote, sealed with the Spirit. And his point is, hey guys, a seal is something that is visible. He's like, this can't be referring to something that you won't even know if it happened to you or you won't even know if it happened to somebody. It's a seal. It's visible. The other thing he says is he uses this analogy. Martyn Lloyd-Jones thinks Romans 8, when it says we've been given a— for you no longer slaves to fear, but you've been given a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry, Abba, Father. Martyn Lloyd-Jones thinks that is referring to the experience of being filled with the Spirit, baptized with the Spirit. He uses the example of, you probably heard this before, of a kid walking along the sidewalk with his dad.

And then there comes a moment where the dad just randomly just is overwhelmed with love for his kid, picks him up in a big embrace, bear hugs him, twirls him around, sets him down. And he's like, he asks the question, in that moment, was the kid anymore a son of his 'Father' before then. And they're like, well, no, this is the same. But he's like, no, but he experienced his sonship in a new way in that moment. And Roy Jones says that's what the baptism of the Spirit is. It's the moment that the Father essentially picks you up in a felt visible embrace. And he quote, this is, by the way, there was somebody who had a unique experience with the Spirit at my church in Nashville. And bro, this dude was a brand new Christian. This is what he said. He said, "It felt like being attacked by love." And I was like, "Bro, you don't even know it. You just Romans 8 this thing." He didn't even know it. So here's what— I don't want to belabor this. Let me just do this real quick. The pattern of the New Testament, in my opinion, first of all, I agree with Paul, going to take a pair of scissors to get out of the Bible.

You receive the Spirit at salvation. Without the work of the Spirit, you would not even have believed in Jesus. Jesus. So I'll just let that sit. But I do think the pattern of New Testament is kind of 3 experiences. You got the Holy Spirit baptizes us into Christ. This is what happens at salvation. 1 Corinthians 12:14, in one Spirit we're all baptized into one body. Second experience, a disciple baptizes you into water. Matthew 28:19. Yeah, you see what I'm doing there? This is what preachers do. It's good. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Third experience, Jesus, I'm going to say, fills us with the Holy Spirit. I think that's what Matthew 3:11 is talking about. I will baptize you with— John the Baptist says, I will baptize you with water for repentance. He who's coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Now, what some people do, I'll just point this out, that oppose what I'm saying right here is like, well, he was talking to the 12 disciples.

The disciples and they had a unique thing in Acts. That's impossible. That happened in Matthew 3. The first disciples aren't even called until Matthew 4. He's not talking to the 12. He's not talking to the 120. He's talking about everybody. So I'll point that out. And then let me give a couple quick examples. Okay. Ephesians 5:18, talking to people who are already Christians says, "Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit." Talking to people who are already Christians. So if your theology does not allow you to look at a person that's already saved and say, "Hey brother, you need to seek to be continually, continually over and over filled with the Spirit." If your theology doesn't allow that, your theology doesn't allow for Ephesians 5:18. Okay. You have the example of the disciples. So I'm going to do this real quick. You got the disciples, Obviously, everybody knows about Acts 2 when the disciples are filled with the Spirit. People forget that is after John chapter 20. It says this, "On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus, he does the little, he apparates through the wall and says, 'Peace be with you.' Again, Jesus said, 'Peace be with you.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.' And with that, he breathed breathes on them. Obviously, a word for spirit is pneuma, means spirit, breath, or wind. Jesus breathes on them and says, receive the Holy Spirit. So the filling of the Spirit in Acts 2 happens after the disciples receiving the Spirit in John 20. There's no way to get away from that. There's some subsequent experience happened. There's no way to get away from that. And then you've got in Acts 2, Acts 1, you got that again. Acts 1:4-5, while he was eating with them, he gave this command, do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised. Again, this is after the disciples have received the Spirit in Acts 20. He's going, hey, there's still more. You need the gift my Father promised. In a few days you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Last one, I'll just— golly, I could do so much here. Jesus, he's— people say, okay, 3 things: saved, baptized, filled of the Spirit. Was Jesus saved? Well, it's a trick question. Saved means to be born again. He didn't need to be born again because he was born right the first time.

That's right. Sin nature. Okay. But then baptized, obviously baptism of Jesus. And then right after the baptism of Jesus, in all four gospels, it's at least mentioned he's filled with the Spirit. And I'll just point this out. Jesus never preached a sermon, never did a miracle, never raised anybody from the dead until after the coming of the Spirit on Jesus's life. So you all just say this, man, if Jesus needed the Spirit, how much more do you need the Spirit? Amen. And then, man, gosh, there's so many other things I could do. It's the pattern all throughout the book of Acts.

Yeah. Yeah. Man, briefly, let's make it practical. Somebody's listening to this and they're like, okay, but what do I do now? What would you say?

Yeah, a few things I would say. So it is interesting in the book of Galatians, here's another reason, dude, that I would say, man, when somebody is filled with the Spirit like we're talking, it's a unique discernible experience you have. In Galatians, Paul says to them, hey, he's trying to prove to them salvation's not by works, it's by faith. And he says, hey, let me ask you a question. Did you receive the Spirit by works or by believing with faith? Believing with faith. I just want to point this out. Unless that experience with the Spirit was something visible, felt, and tangible, that doesn't make any sense. So Galatians— the book of Galatians assumes some sort of experience with the Spirit that was a before and after experiential thing in their lives. Great point. I'll just point that out. Okay, so what I would say is, man, it's not that hard. So one, I will say some people get tripped up and they think, man, I need to become, I need to work really hard. And until I become nearly sinless, I'm never going to receive the gift of the Spirit. And I would just point out, it's called a gift, brother.

Amen. There's a reason it's called a gift. And really all you need to do is Jesus said, the Father loves to give good gifts to his to his kids. What you need to do, you need to believe with faith that your heavenly Father's a good dad that loves to give good gifts to his kids. And then ask, seek, and knock. Yes. And I'll just say something like this. You might just pray this. My experience was that I began to study this doctrine and it was almost like an agony. I do not know how to describe it other than an agony, like an agony to have whatever that was just enveloped my life. And I entered a season of just begging God in prayer and some fasting. It's like, God, whatever you got on offer, I want it. Yeah, that's great. And I'll just say something happened to me and I was in a car in a mall parking lot. And dude, something happened to me and I just started literally crying out in the car, God, if there is anything you got on offer that I haven't got yet, I want it. And that something happened to me.

I don't know what to say, but you might pray something like this. You might just pray something like, Father, I ask in the name of Jesus Christ that you would fill me with the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet, everything you have on offer, I want. I want everything you have for me. Thank you for the good gifts that you give. And then believe by faith that your heavenly Father's going to give that to you.

That's right. Just go for it.

Ask, pray, and wait. That's what the early church did in Acts chapter 1. They devoted themselves to prayer. And then in chapter 4, they received the— says the ground was shaken. Uh, actually, no, they were gathered together and they were shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. And then Ephesians chapter 5 also says, hey, as you do that, by the grace of God, walk in the Spirit. Uh, Ephesians chapter 5 says, walk as children of the light and do not get drunk, for that is debauchery, but then be filled with the Spirit. Uh, Pastor Paul, uh, would you pray?

Wait, wait, before you do that, I want to say one last thing. Yeah, please. Yeah, if somebody's listening and you're, you're ambivalent, and honestly, man, you got a spirit of fear about even seeking this thing, I want to say one last thing to help you understand how important this is. Okay? I do not want the podcast to end without me pointing this out. All right, Trinity, will you throw up that— I want to show you there is something happening in the global church today that demonstrates visibly how significant this is. All right, so here's what you're looking at. This is— I screenshotted this a couple years ago. This is a church. Charting the decline in attendance in America, in all of the major Christian denominations in America. Now, if you just kind of survey this thing, it nets out to a negative, it's about 20, 25%. Okay. Over the last 20 years. But I have intentionally excluded one denomination and I'll just get it on the table. This is not the denomination to to which I belong, but I've intentionally excluded one denomination. Throw that other chart up there with it on there. It's the AOG, it's Assemblies of God.

This is the kind of what you'd say is the Spirit-filled denomination. And in that same timeframe, it's +51%. Everybody else down 20-ish percent, +51%. And I will just say this to you. There is a reason I think that's the thing. I'll also note this in my experience of pastor, the whole deconstruction movement kind of became sexy to deconstruct your faith and apostatize and I'm reexamining I'll just say this, dude. Does it happen to people in every stream? Absolutely. I'll just say this. It does not seem to happen to people in Spirit-filled streams of Christianity to the same degree. And here's my theory on why. If an argument got you into Christianity, then a better argument can get you out. But you cannot argue somebody out of an encounter with the living God. That's right. I can't do it. There you go. That's right. And so dude, I just ask, seek, and knock. There you go. Paul Cunningham, will you pray for us?

Love to. God, in faith, I just want to say on our behalf here at The Table, on behalf of everyone listening to this, we do not want anything less than what you have for us. Thank God. We just want to admit that far too often we have settled for so little when you have so much to give. And so Lord, we are right now, we just want to come to you and ask and seek and knock. Would you fill us with your Holy Spirit? That's right.

We thank you for giving us your Holy Spirit at salvation.

And we thank you that because that we are sons and daughters of God. But would you now fill us, Lord, for greater transformation so we can become more the men and women that you want us to become, that you saved us to become, but also so that you might use us mightily in this generation, in our world, in our families, in our friendships, every sphere you've put us. Fill us, Holy Spirit, to that end. Would you drive out any spirit of fear that is in us? Would you make us bold men and women who can be used mightily in your hand? Yeah, we love you. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

Amen. Amen.