Sermon Tone Analysis

The Promise

Acts 1

Acts 1

In describing to His disciples the office work of the Holy Spirit, Jesus sought to inspire them with the joy and hope that inspired His own heart.

He rejoiced because of the abundant help He had provided for His church.

The Holy Spirit was the highest of all gifts that He could solicit from His Father for the exaltation of His people.

The Spirit was to be given as a regenerating agent, and without this the sacrifice of Christ would have been of no avail.

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What does it look like to be baptised with the Spirit?

The Experience of Christ

When Christ was baptised in the river Jordan by John the Baptist the heavens opened and the Spirit of God descended like a dove upon Christ and there was heard the voice of God declaring that this was His Son in whom He was well pleased.

13-17

What happened after Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit?

He was led to the wilderness to prepare for His mission.

What took Moses forty years, Jesus had only forty days to prepare.

We too need a wilderness experience where we can solemnly prepare for the life work that God calls us to do.

Whether that’s in ministry or in secular work.

In either case we are to be His witnesses, and if our life calling is secular work than we need even more the Holy Spirit to resist temptations and provide a faithful and genuine “epistle” of our lives to be known and read of all men.

While there in the wilderness, He also suffered being tempted by Satan and gained victory over him.

1

While being tempted of Satan, what was the cause of His victory?

“Thus saith the Lord”, “It is written” was the weapon of His warfare and He won.

What else was a source of His victory?

Everything He did was to be an example and to His followers until the end of time.

He was full of the Spirit.

The word full means that Christ was characterised or distinct by having the Holy Spirit.

When we receive the Holy Spirit we will also become characterised and distinct as possessing a heavenly gift.

The indwelling of the Spirit was a source of Christ’s victory over temptation and sin as it was set as an example for all believers.

The standard is the word of God brought to the mind by the Spirit of the Lord.

“The prince of this world cometh,” said Jesus, “and hath nothing in Me.” John 14:30.

There was in Him nothing that responded to Satan’s sophistry.

He did not consent to sin.

Not even by a thought did He yield to temptation.

So it may be with us.

Christ’s humanity was united with divinity; He was fitted for the conflict by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

And He came to make us partakers of the divine nature.

So long as we are united to Him by faith, sin has no more dominion over us.

God reaches for the hand of faith in us to direct it to lay fast hold upon the divinity of Christ, that we may attain to perfection of character.

And how this is accomplished, Christ has shown us.

By what means did He overcome in the conflict with Satan?

By the word of God.

Only by the word could He resist temptation.

“It is written,” He said.

And unto us are given “exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” 2 Peter 1:4.

The power of evil had been strengthening for centuries, and the submission of men to this satanic captivity was amazing.

Sin could be resisted and overcome only through the mighty agency of the Third Person of the Godhead, who would come with no modified energy, but in the fullness of divine power.

It is the Spirit that makes effectual what has been wrought out by the world’s Redeemer.

It is by the Spirit that the heart is made pure.

Through the Spirit the believer becomes a partaker of the divine nature.

Christ has given His Spirit as a divine power to overcome all hereditary and cultivated tendencies to evil, and to impress His own character upon His church.

Through the Spirit Christ ministered to the needs of the people.

After Luke writes that Christ was “full of the Holy Ghost” in , he then again writes that “Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit into Galilee.

Straight away there was seen in His ministry the gift of teaching.

Wh

In Christ was seen all the gifts of the Spirit, but especially do we see in His ministry the gifts of healing, teaching, preaching, along with prophecy, evangelism, pastoring.

It was through the Spirit that He was anointed to fulfil His mission on earth.

It was through the Spirit that Christ would have a right understanding of truth and the ability to apply it in His life.

Through the Spirit He would have clear direction and strength of body and mind.

Through the Spirit He would have clear discernment and the fear (love) of the Lord would be with Him.

17-19

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It was through the Spirit that devils were cast out.

The Spirit was given to Christ without measure.

And it is also for us to have without measure also.

34

Here are revealed the heights of attainment that we may reach through faith in the promises of our heavenly Father, when we fulfill His requirements.

Through the merits of Christ we have access to the throne of Infinite Power.

“He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?”

Romans 8:32.

The Father gave His Spirit without measure to His Son, and we also may partake of its fullness.

Jesus says, “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?” Luke 11:13.

“If ye shall ask anything in My name, I will do it.”

“Ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full.”

John 14:14; 16:24.

Our Experience

Can we experience this power of the Holy Spirit?

Acts

What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

The Greek word here used for “filled… with the Holy Ghost” is in the imperfect tense, signifying continuous action.

It literally means “being [continuously] filled.”

This means that to be baptised with the Spirit is not a one time event, but a daily experience.

To be filled with the Holy Spirit does no so much mean that we are to possess more of Christ, but correspondingly it’s Him possessing more of us.

In order to be filled there first must be an emptying of ourselves.

We cannot use the Holy Spirit; the Spirit is to use us.

Through the Spirit, God works in His people “to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).

But many will not submit to be led.

They want to manage themselves.

This is why they do not receive the heavenly gift.

Only to those who wait humbly upon God, who watch for His guidance and grace, is the Spirit given.

This promised blessing, claimed by faith, brings all other blessings in its train.

It is given according to the riches of the grace of Christ, and He is ready to supply every soul according to the capacity to receive.

Why do we need this baptism?

The work of being transformed into the image of God, resisting temptation, displaying the love of God and making known the gospel to others is not a human work.

Zec 4

When are we prepared to receive it?

A private letter to James White:

The great desire in this age of the world is for more power.

I want more grace, more love, [a] more deep and earnest living experience.

The Christian who hides in Jesus will have power without measure awaiting his draught upon it.

Living faith unlocks heaven’s storehouse and brings the power, the endurance, the love so essential for the Christian soldier.

“Thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.”

Isaiah 57:15.

The soul of the prophet, emptied of self, was filled with the light of the divine.

As he witnessed to the Saviour’s glory, his words were almost a counterpart of those that Christ Himself had spoken in His interview with Nicodemus.

John said, “He that cometh from above is above all: he that is of the earth is earthly, and speaketh of the earth: He that cometh from heaven is above all.…

For He whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him.” Christ could say, “I seek not Mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent Me.” John 5:30.