Most Christians don’t want to hear that God has anointed others
with powerful spiritual gifts … when they have not been.
This attitude has resulted in a weak and powerless Church for hundreds of years!
Yes, this is the condition of the church today, but it started some 1800 years ago.
This selfish attitude caused God’s Church to become man’s church.
So God said, “Okay, if you insist on going in this direction, I’ll back off.â€
(Remember, it has always been God’s plan to accomplish His goals on earth
with a co-operative effort between Himself and man who has free will.)
However, Satan had a huge part in this …
“the god (ruler) of this world (age)†(John 12:31, 2 Corinthians 4:4)
has always had a tremendous influence in the affairs of man.
Satan did not want the churches to continue to have
the spiritual power they enjoyed during the NT times.
This spiritual power (the S-W-M) were a powerful confirmation of the
truth of the gospel, which obviously can help people come to the Lord,
and are what produce miraculous healings of all kinds.
Those in charge of the big churches 1800 years ago wanted to be in control.
What these men did NOT want …
-- God to be in control of the churches (this includes His use of S-W-M)
-- ditto for God’s anointed apostles and prophets (who ran the NT churches)
-- to acknowledge S-W-M
-- anyone in the church with more spiritual anointing than they had
-- to look spiritually inferior to anyone
-- to risk losing their power, prestige, jobs, etc.
These are the reasons why men in control of the large post-apostolic churches
increasingly chose to fight against God’s anointing of certain believers
who had some of the 9 spiritual power gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1-11).
So, they came up with the excuse that S-W-M ceased with the passing of the apostles.
Jesus is the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit (Mt 3:11, Mk 1:8, Lk 3:16, Jn 1:33).
And this special anointing baptism has absolutely nothing to do with salvation.
The experience is simply called “the baptism with the Holy Spiritâ€,
and the initial evidence (confirmation) of receiving this is speaking in tongues.
The tongues here is a one-time sign, just a confirmation of what happened.
This is NOT one of the 9 spiritual gifts (tongues) in 1 Corinthians 12:10.
This Spirit baptism also was claimed to have ceased with the passing of the apostles.
And other excuses were devised by Satan and man to weaken the churches’ spiritual power.
To those of you who have been taught that God no longer works through man with S-W-M,
… can Sauls turn into Pauls, can new wine work in old wine skins?
I urge you to persistently seek Jesus’ Spirit baptism for yourself.
Also, in the days ahead, you probably will find yourself in need of a miracle from God.
You need to have strong FAITH that God really is a God of miracles today!