Clothed with Power from on High
Terry points out that the disciples would be familiar with the Old Testament phenomena of the Spirit of the LORD coming to ‘clothe’ individuals with power for particular purposes. They would also be clear having read the prophet Joel, that there would be a time coming when this phenomena would be far more widespread (Joel 2:28).
“Are we automatically filled at our conversion or do we have to wait for an endowment of the Spirit as they did?” Terry says he heard preachers who disagreed on the matter but he just knew he needed God’s empowerment. He talks about the powerlessness he felt to witness to Christ publicly and relays his embarrassment at seeing some old ladies who were being taunted whilst preaching the Gospel on Brighton seafront, when he couldn’t even muster the confidence to admit to his Christianity to a couple of bystanders. He sought the Baptism in the Spirit with a group of friends who encouraged him to thank God and step out in speaking in tongues:
“Through all my doubts, I heard my friend’s fiancee speak, ‘You know, you’re very clever Terry if you’re making all this up. You’ve been doing it for ages.’ There was something about the way she said it that made me laugh, and that laughter broke all the tension of the situation. I realized how worried I had become about it all; how self-defeating it was to get so intense. As I relaxed it was as if a flood of the Spirit went through me and I responded to God in words of praise I would never have used before: ‘Jesus, I love you. Jesus, you are wonderful. Abba, my Father.’ Words that previously I would have considered almost effeminate now expressed something that I knew and felt about God. I knew that he had filled me with his Holy Spirit.”
“Having shared the doctrine of receiving the Holy Spirit I assure people that the promise is to everyone the Lord calls (Acts 2:39), then I lay hands on them, encouraging them to believe (Gal 3:2). I have never felt it right to tell people that they have automatically received, nor do I try to force them to speak in tongues, but simply invite them to come and drink in the light of the clear promises of the Lord Jesus and to expect the manifestation of speaking in tongues.”
– Terry points to Acts 8:5-17, Acts 9:17, and Acts 19:6 as examples of people being filled with the Holy Spirit post-conversion.
“The baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a reward for trying so well on our own. It is a gift to enable you to overcome right from the start!”
“The early believers were mistaken for drunks and to remain drunk one must keep drinking!”
Conclusion – The baptism in the Holy Spirit is a vital and foundational teaching in Newfrontiers, birthed as it was in an era of lifeless church-going and formalism. The vital church life seen in the book of Acts was Spirit-empowered and that it is paradigmatic for authentic church in any era. Terry quotes from Smith Wigglesworth regarding another peculiar but common tendency to rest on spiritual laurels: “I would rather have a man on my platform not filled with the Holy Ghost but hungry for God than a man who has received the Holy Ghost but has become satisfied with his experience.”