Baptism of the Holy Ghost -continue...

Loosing that feeling?
(Easter Message)
The love of God is missing in today's generation whatever you wish to call it, Gen X, Y or Z. There is too much of it being just an amusement. People goes to church to be amused? A spill over effect of our developing years spent in amusement parks, coastal roller rides, cinema and arcade games.

Going to church is not like going to a concert. The purpose is to worship God by being in the spirit and hear the Word of God presented in truth and purity. To know how to conduct ourselves, to be molded into the likeness and image of Christ.

Instead, is the situation today, of getting amusement caused by us, who are parents? We wanted to give our children what we did not enjoy when we were young, so we bring them to the newest of rides, the latest of games and sporting events filled with excitement and busy looking crowd. Think about it. All those growing and formative years spent on “me”. One ex-beauty queen who coined the word "boomz" unabashedly admitted, it is all about”ME”. Of course to be fair to her, she can't help it being deprived to the extend of using “borrowed” cards. I am guilty of it myself, not the card, but the covetousness, when I was young too, coveting and taking things that did not belong to me. I rather think of this generation as the “me” generation than Gen XYZ. King Soloman in his wisdom, admitted there was nothing new under the sun!

• Ecc_1:9  The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

How do we then reach out with the gospel to Gen “me”? Do we need new ideas, new gimmicks or hi-tec electronic entertainment to keep them interested? Is this generation different from that of Noah's time? Of Sodom and Gomorrah's time? Remember, God judged and destroyed them because those generations had also became the “me” generation. They were eating, drinking and giving in marriage in Noah's time, normal things we do everyday but there was also a giving way to vile practices in Sodom and Gomorrah, so much so that the word “sodomy” is a terminology used for unnatural acts. The apostle Paul wrote this clearly identifying the cause of these unnatural acts in the book of Romans, Chapter 1.
 

Without natural affection? This statement sums up what I am going to say in continuation of the most serious article I have written, the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. I am careful now not to offend but to show rather that in this generation, is the Holy Ghost still available to the seeker? Is this promise still true? We look for the answer in the Word of God.

• Acts 2:38-39 KJV

• (38) Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

• (39) For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

Verse 39 says as many as the Lord our God SHALL CALL. Is God still calling? If the anwer is yes, then according to this verse, the Holy Ghost which is the promise of the Father is still available. In fact that was the very purpose Jesus was crucified so that He could rise (Easter-Resurrection) again and send us the Holy Ghost, the Comforter as promised in the gospel of John.

• Joh 16:7 Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you.

He said it is expedient that He go away so that the Comforter can come. That was the promise fulfilled time and again for the earnest seeker. He promised “ask and you shall receive”, “seek and you shall find”. He said, if you being an earthly father, knows how to give good gifts to your children, will not our heavenly Father the same? Which father on earth, when his children asked for bread would give a stone? Or asked for a fish would instead give a serpent? Or asked for an egg would give a scorpion? How much more shall......

• Luk 11:9-13
• (9)  And I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.
• (10)  For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
• (11)  If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent?
• (12)  Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?
• (13)  If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

In the letters of John, we read that God is love. Can we interpret this as without God, there is no love? No feelings? He said, you cannot serve two masters. It is either God or mammon (the world and in the book of Peter, Kosmos was used for the "world"). In other words, it is either God or “me”.

• 2Co 1:20 For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.

• 2Co 1:21 Now he which stablisheth us with you in Christ, and hath anointed us, is God;

• 2Co 1:22 Who hath also sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts.

Wasn't this exactly Ezekiel 36 which we referred to in the previous article on the Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Could we have a dilemma, a paradox?  Here when in the same book of Ezekiel, he spoke of the sealing of the Jews in Jerusalem setting the mark on them, on those who cry and sigh for the abominations that was done in that city? The love of God must be in us first before we do sigh and cry for the abominations that are done in our "modern" day. Without it, we have "no feelings". It will be "me" all the time. We will expand on this topic on "being the seed" to have that love in us in the first place, but have it we must:-

• Eze 9:4 And the LORD said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. 

The following verse 5 of Ezekiel in fact was about those that were not sealed were utterly destroyed! Just like Noah preached for more than a 100 years, only eight souls were saved! Many cry against God that He was not right in flooding the earth, but the bible said, He was long suffering, He delayed judgment and gave them the sign of their end time prophet. What the prophet did they could not understand. He was building a boat, a large vessel with hollowed (gopher) wood that absorbed water faster than a sponge. The scientists of that day were laughing at him for using the wrong material. Yet he was crying for people to get on board to escape the rain, when their science proved that the sky was void of water at that time, for there was no rain but the vegetation was watered by springs of water coming from the ground.

• 1Pe 3:20 Which sometime were disobedient, when once the longsuffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is, eight souls were saved by water

There is a lesson to learn from Noah's method of building the Ark. In Genesis 6:14, God gave Noah the fashion of building it. Noah was to pitch the gopher wood with pitch within and without. Combined together, the gopher and the pitch produced a tough substance stronger than steel. The ark was battered, tossed, and strained to the extreme and yet it survived the mighty flood and carried the humans and the creatures in it safely through. Though the rain was incessant for forty days and forty nights, the ark was in the water for almost a year. No batlle armada today made of steel can survive such an onslaught of the torrential and overwhelming elements. God knew.

• Gen 6:14  Make thee an ark of gopher wood; rooms shalt thou make in the ark, and shalt pitch it within and without with pitch.

Take that as a type that is required today. We are in need of another Ark, but the ark God gave to us for this generation is to take our bodies, human flesh, as hollowed as the gopher wood. Wood which could be cut, easily shaped and formed and then He give us the Baptism of the Holy Spirit (the ptich) so that we can be raptured when He comes for us according to Mathew 25. Our Ark is the Lord Himself. We must have the same Spirit that was in Him. He is our safe passage today. The Name of the Lord is a strong tower, the righteous RUNNETH into it and are safe.

• Pro 18:10  The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.

So was the Ark in Moses temple. In Exodus 25, we understood that Shittim wood overlaid with Gold (Deity) formed the Ark and Mercy Seat. Before Judgment is Mercy. When Mercy is spurned, judgment followed. Israel also saw the long suffering of God but fell because she also became a "me" generation. They were a hollowed people set aside for the ministration of God but she denied her own Saviour and crucified Him.

God is the same yesterday, today and forever. He said,  "I am the Lord and I changed not" (Mal 3:6). God today is also long suffering towards us, giving us almost the same time span, the same number of years to repent and come back to him. Brother Branham was commissioned in 1933 when the Light, the same Light that Paul saw spoke to him on the way to Damascus, when he (Brother Branham) was baptising the 17^th person in the Ohio River, with thousands of witnesses in the river bank. The Voice said, “As John the baptist was sent to forerun my first coming, so are you sent with a message to forerun My Second Coming”. Newspaper carried the story in Louisville and the Associated press (Ontario) even printed it in Canada. Brother Vayle, a young minister at that time saw the article in Canada and kept a copy of it til this day. Remember, Brother F.F. Bosworth whom I wrote about in the previous article embraced Truths like duck to the water. He saw the truth of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and immediately did not hesitate to embrace it, even traveling to Los Angeles to meet up with Charles Parham (from Iowa) and William Seymour, a black brother. So did Brother Vayle when he saw the article about the Light appearance. He knew God was in it. Today, Brother Vayle is almost 100 years old and still retain his faculties just as sharp being filled with the Holy Spirit (see picture above)

If any is still in doubt about the Baptism of the Holy Spirit remember, Brother Branham's advice to his son-in-law, George Smith. Click on the link to read about Brother Billy Paul's conversion.......... http://en.believethesign.com/index.php?title=Billy_Paul_Branham

We will continue this with more scriptures to show that the message or the Gospel today have not changed. There can be no substitutes. The wise Virgins in Mathew 25 have Oil in their lamps. .............The message is the "good news", the Gospel. We will examine the following scriptures:-

Rom 8:10  And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Rom 8:11  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.

2Co 6:16  And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Rom 12:2  And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

2Co 3:18  But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

God bless you for reading this article but do apply it and be desperate enough to want to receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. You may ask, Brother Peter, how do I know it is for me? The answer is in the scripture. When you receive it, you will know. We do not and cannot duplicate or manufacture this. God promised it...........as many as the Lord our God shall call...