WHAT MUST I DO, THAT I, TOO, RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT'S BAPTISM THAT JOHN THE BAPTIST SAID CHRIST WOULD GIVE WHEN HE CAME (Matt. 3:11), AND WHICH PETER TELLS ME IS FOR ME SINCE I HAVE RECEIVED AND BEEN BAPTIZED IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST?

  This was a question that rang in my own heart, as in those whom Paul came to at Ephesus (Acts 19:1-7), and I was found as they were there, a baptized and believing disciple, yet ignorant as was Apollos (Acts 18:24-27).

  I was asked, "Did ye receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?"  I with others of the Southern Baptist Church I pastored made answer, "Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was."

  Learning we had only the baptism of John, these like unto Paul, Priscilla and Aquilla heard us, and took us unto them, and expounded the Way of God more accurately.  Now we were to be baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and with the laying on of hands the Holy Spirit would come upon us and we would speak with Tongues " . . . as the Spirit gave them utterance".  As we therefore sat under Pauline teaching, and not the words of man's wisdom, we saw literally enacted Acts 2:4 and we know as did Peter that " . . . these men were not drunken . . ." but it was God's outpouring in Joel-fulfillment for "the Time of the End"!

  As with Peter, disciples argued with us, "It is not for this Gentile dispensation".  We too answer, "But who are we that we could withstand God since He is giving the gift as He did in Acts 2:4 right now from babes on up to gray hair?" (Acts 11:17-18)

  Well, brother, I reasoned not against what was shown to me in the Word of God as I saw it plainly enacted before me as in Holy Writ.  I saw the Holy Spirit baptism fall upon a Baptist deacon right in the choir as when Peter spoke at Cornelius' house, "for I heard him speak with Tongues and magnify God".  I could forbid my soul no longer to be cheated and fed with "passed-away" stuff.  The little "tarrying-room" found me there as with the 120 of Acts 2:4, although nearly deserted today because of Apostasy.

In a lonely corner I knelt, praying God that I, too, might believe and obey as the saint of old.  Faith came by hearing.  He had been ringing in my heart---