How the Baptism with the Holy Spirit can be obtained

This chapter shows a simple, Bible-based way to receive the Holy Spirit’s baptism. Acts 2:38 outlines seven key steps: turn to Christ, turn from sin, openly confess Him, fully surrender to God, truly desire His Spirit, ask in prayer, and believe His promise. When these are met sincerely, the gift is sure and available now.

We have now reached a point where there is a profound sense that we must be baptized with the Holy Spirit. The practical question confronts us: how can we obtain this baptism with the Holy Spirit, which we so greatly need? This question was also answered very plainly by the Word of God. There is pointed out in the Bible a path, consisting of seven simple steps, which anyone who will can take, and whoever takes these seven steps will, with absolute certainty, enter into this blessing. This statement may seem very positive, but the Word of God is equally positive regarding the outcome of taking these steps, which it points out.

All seven steps are stated or implied in Acts 2:38: "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit...” The first three steps are brought out with especial clarity and distinctness in this verse. The others, which are clearly implied in the verse, are brought out more specifically by other passages to which we shall refer later.

1. The first two steps are found in the word "repent." What does "repent" mean?

Change your mind; change your mind about what? About God, Christ, and sin. As to what the change of mind is about in any given case must be determined by the context. Here, the first and most prominent thought is a change of mind about Christ. Peter has just brought against his hearers the awful charge that they had crucified Him whom God had made both Lord and Christ. "Raised in their heart" by this charge, carried home by the power of the Holy Spirit, his hearers had cried out, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" "Repent," Peter answered. Change your mind about Christ. Change from a Christ-hating and Christ-crucifying attitude of mind to a Christ-accepting attitude of mind. Accept Jesus as Christ and Lord. This then is the first step toward the Baptism with the Holy Spirit: Accept Jesus as Christ and Lord, 2. The second step is also found in the word "repent." While the change of mind about Jesus is the first and prominent thought, there must also be a change of mind about sin. A change of mind from a sin-loving or sin-indulging attitude of mind to a sin-hating and sin-renouncing attitude of mind. This is the second step: renounce sin, all sin, every sin. Here we encounter one of the most common obstacles to receiving the Holy Spirit. Something is held on to that in our inmost hearts, we more or less definitely feel to be not pleasing to God. If we are to receive the Holy Spirit, there must be a very honest and thorough heart-searching.

We cannot do satisfactory searching ourselves; God must do it. If we wish to receive the Holy Spirit, we should go alone with God and ask Him to search us thoroughly and bring to light anything that displeases Him. (Psalm 139:23-24) Then we should wait for him to do it.

When the displeasing thing is revealed, it should be put away at once. If, after patient and honest waiting, nothing is brought to light, we may conclude there is nothing of this kind in the way and proceed to the further steps. But we should not conclude this too hurriedly. The sin that hinders the blessing may be something that appears very small and insignificant in itself. Mr. Finney tells of a young woman who was in deep concern regarding the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. Night after night, she agonized in prayer, but the desired blessing did not come.

One night, as she was in prayer, there came up before her some matter of head decoration that had often troubled her before; putting her hand to her head, she took the pins out and threw them away, and immediately the blessing came. This was a small matter in itself, a matter that would not have appeared too much as sin. Still, yet a matter of disagreement between this woman and God, and when this was settled the blessing came. ''everything that does not come from faith is sin" (Romans 14:23). It does not matter how little the thing may be, if there are questions regarding it, it must be put away if we are to have the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. The second steptoward the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is to put away every sin.

3. The third step is found in this same verse : "Be baptized every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. “It was immediately after His baptism that the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus. (Luke 3:21-22.) In His baptism, Jesus, though Himself sinless, humbled Himself to take the sinner's place, and then God highly exalted Him by the giving of the Holy Spirit and by the audible testimony, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased." So we must humble ourselves to make an open confession of our sin and rejection of it and acceptance of Jesus Christ, in God's appointed way, by Baptism. The Baptism with the Holy Spirit is not for the one who secretly takes his place as a sinner and believer in Christ, but for the one who does so openly. Of course, the Baptism with the Holy Spirit may precede water baptism, as in the case of the household of Cornelius. (Acts 10:47.) But this was evidently an exceptional case, and water baptism immediately followed.

I have little doubt that there have been those, among Christians, who did not believe in or practice water baptism, for example, "the Friends" or "Protestants" who have had and given evidence of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, but the passage before us certainly presents the normal order.

4. The fourth step is clearly implied in the verse we have been studying (Acts 2:38), but it is brought out more clearly in Acts 5:32: "the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.”. “The fourth step is obedience. What does obedience mean?

It does not mean merely doing some of the things, or many of the things, or most of the things that God bids us do. It means total surrender to the will of God. Obedience is an attitude of the will lying back of specific acts of obedience. It means that I come to God and say: "Heavenly Father, here I am and all I have. You bought me at a great price, and I acknowledge Your complete ownership of my life. Take me and everything I possess, and do with me as You desire. Send me wherever You will, use me however You choose. I surrender myself and all that I have fully, unconditionally, and forever into Your hands and for Your purposes.

" It was when the burnt offering, whole, no part held back, was laid upon the altar that "there came forth fire from before the Lord" and accepted the gift (Leviticus 9:24), and it is when we bring ourselves a Whole burnt offering to the Lord, and lay ourselves upon the altar, that the fire comes and God accepts the gift. Here we touch upon the hindrance to the Baptism with the Holy Spirit in many lives: there is not total surrender, the will is not laid down, the heart does not cry, "Lord, do what You will, wherever You will, however You will." One man desires the Baptism with the Holy Spirit that he may preach or work with power in Boston, when God wishes him in Bombay.

Another, that he may preach to popular audiences, when God wishes him to work among the poor. A young woman at a convention expressed a strong desire that someone would speak on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. The address went home with power to her heart. She had been for some time in deep stress of soul when I asked her what it was that she desired. "Oh," she cried, I cannot go back to Baltimore until I am baptised with the Holy Spirit." "Is your will laid down?" "I don't know."

"You wish to go back to Baltimore to be a Christian worker?" "Yes." "Are you willing to go back to Baltimore and be a servant girl if that is where God wishes you?" "No, I am not." "Well, you will never get the Baptism with the Holy Spirit until you are. Will you lay your will down?" "I can't." "Are you willing God should lay it down for you?”

"Yes." "Well, then, ask Him to do it."

The head was bowed in brief but serious prayer. "Did God hear that prayer?" "He must have, it was according to His will; He did." "Now ask Him for the Baptism with the Holy Spirit." Again, the head was bowed, and the brief, serious prayer ascended to God. There was a brief silence, and the agony was over, the blessing had come, when the will was surrendered. There are many who hold back from this total surrender because they fear God's will. They are afraid God's will may be something terrible.

Remember who God is; He is our Father. Never an earthly father had so loving and tender a will regarding his children as He has toward us. "No good thing will He withhold from them that walk uprightly." (Romans 8:32). "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" There is nothing to be feared in God's will. God's will always prove in the outcome the best and sweetest thing in all of God's universe.

5. The fifth step is found in Luke 11:13. "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?" The asking of this verse is the asking that starts from real and intense desire. This is brought out by the context: "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you."

Note also the parable of the importunate friend that immediately precedes. Evidently, the asking that Christ has in mind is not the asking of a passing and half-hearted passion, but the asking of intense desire.

There is a very suggestive passage in Isaiah, the forty-fourth chapter and third verse: "For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring." What does it mean to be thirsty? When one is thirsty, there is but one cry: "Water! Water! Water!" Every pore in the body seems to have a voice and cry out, "water." So when our hearts have one cry, "the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit," then it is that God pours floods upon the dry ground, pours His Spirit upon us. This then is the fifth step, intense desire for the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.

To what a pitch of longing the early disciples had been brought by the tenth day of their eager waiting, and their thirsty souls were filled that day when "Pentecost was fully come." As long as one thinks he can get along somehow without the Baptism with the Holy Spirit, as long as he seeks something in the way of education or skillfully planned methods of work, he is not going to receive it. Many ministers are missing the fullness of power God has for them, simply because they are not willing to admit the lack that has been all these years.

It is indeed a humiliating thing to confess, but that humiliating confession would be the pioneer of a marvellous blessing. But there are not a few, who, in their unwillingness to make this wholesome confession, are seeking about for some brilliant device of interpretation to get around the plain and simple meaning of God's Word, and thus they are cheating themselves of the fullness of the Spirit's power that God is so eager to give upon them; furthermore, they are imperiling the eternal interests of the souls that are dependent upon their ministrations, that might be won for Christ, if they had the power of the Holy Spirit which they might have.

But there are others whom God in His grace has brought to see that there was a something their ministry lacked, and this something nothing less than that all-essential Baptism with the Holy Spirit, without which one is utterly unqualified for acceptable and effective service, and they have humbly and frankly confessed their lack, sometimes they have been led to the God taught resolution that they would not go on in their work until this lack was supplied, they have waited in eager longing upon God the Father for the fulfilment of His promise, and the result has been a transformed ministry for which many have risen to bless God. It is not enough that the desire for Baptism with the Holy Spirit be intense; it must also have the right motive. There is a desire for the Baptism with the Holy Spirit that is purely selfish.

There is many a one who has an intense desire for the Baptism with the Holy Spirit simply that he may be a great preacher, or great personal worker, or renowned in some way as a Christian. It is simply his own gain or glory that he is seeking. After all, it is not the Holy Spirit that he seeks, but his own honor and the Baptism with the Holy Spirit simply as a means to that end. One of the subtlest and most dangerous traps into which Satan leads us is that where we are seeking the Holy Spirit, this most solemn of all gifts, for our own ends.

The desire for the Holy Spirit must not be to make that supreme and divine Person the servant of our low ends, but for the glory of God. It must arise from a recognition that God and Christ are being dishonored by my powerless ministry and by the sin of the people about me, against which I now have no power, and that He will be honored if I have the Baptism with the Spirit of God. One of the most solemn passages in the New Testament bears upon this point. (Acts 8:18-24) "When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, 'Give me also this ability so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit."

Here was a strong desire on Simon's part, but it was entirely unholy and selfish, and Peter's terrific answer is worthy of note and meditation. Is there not many a one today who, with equally unholy and selfish purpose, desires the Baptism with the Holy Spirit?

Each one who is desiring and seeking the Baptism with the Holy Spirit would do well to ask himself why he desires it.

If you find that it is merely for your own satisfaction or glory, then ask God to forgive you the thought of your heart, and to enable you to see how you need it for His glory and to desire it to that end.

6. The sixth step is in this same verse. (Luke 11:13.) "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? “The sixth step is to ask. Definitely asking for a direct blessing. When Christ has been accepted as Saviour and Master, and confessed as such, when sin has been put away, when there has been the definite, total surrender of the will, when there is real and holy desire, then comes the simple act of asking God for this direct blessing.

It is given in answer to serious, direct, specific, and believing prayer.

It has been seriously claimed by some that we should not pray for the Holy Spirit. They reason this out in this way: "The Holy Spirit was given to the Church at Pentecost, as an abiding gift." This is true, but what was given to the Church, each believer must appropriate for himself. It has been well said on this point that God has already given Christ to the world (John 3:16), but that each individual must appropriate Him by a personal act to get the personal advantage of the gift, and so must each individual personally appropriate God's gift of the Holy Spirit to get the personal advantage of it.

But it is argued still further that each believer has the Holy Spirit. This is also true in a sense. "If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ."

(Romans 8:9) But as we have already seen, it is quite possible to have something, yes much, of the Spirit's presence and work in the heart and yet come short of that special fullness and work known in the Bible as the Baptism or Filling with the Holy Spirit. In answer to all specious reasonings on this subject, we put the simple statement of Christ: "How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him.

"At a convention at which the author was announced to speak on this subject, a brother said to him: 'I see you are to speak on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit." "Yes." "It is the most important subject on the programme; now be sure and tell them not to pray for the Holy Spirit." "I shall certainly not tell them that; for Jesus said, 'How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him." "Oh, but that was before Pentecost." "How about Acts 4:31? Was that before Pentecost or after?" "After it, of course." "After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit."

"How about the eighth chapter of Acts? Was that before Pentecost or after?" "After, of course."

"Well, read the fourteenth to the sixteenth verses."

The verses were read: "Peter and John, when they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them, and they received the Holy Spirit." Against all inferences is this clear teaching of the Word by precept and example that the Holy Spirit is given in answer to prayer. It was so at Pentecost; it has been so since. Those whom I have met who give most evidence of the Spirit's presence and power in their life and work believe in praying for the Holy Spirit. It has been the author's unspeakable privilege to pray with many ministers and Christian workers for this great blessing, and afterward to learn from them or from others of the new power that has come into their service, none other than the power of the Holy Spirit.

7 . The seventh and last step is found in Mark 11:24 : "whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." God's most positive and unqualified promises must be appropriated by faith. In James 1:5, we read: "If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you."

Now, that is certainly positive and unqualified enough, but listen to what the writer says next: "But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord." There must then be faith to make our own the most positive and unqualified promises of God, such as that in Luke 11:13 and Acts 2:38-39.

Here, then, we discover the cause of failure in many cases to enter into the blessing of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. The failure is because the last step is not taken, the simple step of faith. They do not believe, they do not confidently expect, and we have another instance of how men "Entered not in because of unbelief" (Hebrews 4:6) There are many, who are kept out of this land of milk and honey just by this unbelief It should be added that there is a faith that goes beyond expectation, a faith that just puts out its hand and takes what it asks. This is brought out clearly in Mark 11:24: "Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours." I remember how greatly I was confused by this verse when I first noticed it.

On examining the Greek of the passage, I saw that the verse was correct, but what did it mean? It seemed like a singular confusion of the tenses. "Believe that you have (already) received it, and it will be yours." This seeming enigma was solved long after, while studying the First Epistle of John.

I read in the fifth chapter, fourteenth and fifteenth verses: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. 15 And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask we know that we have what we asked of him." When I ask anything of God, the first thing to find out is, is this request according to his will? When that is settled, when I find it is according to His will, when, for example, the thing asked is definitely promised in His word, then I know the prayer is heard, and I know further, "I have the petition which I have asked of him "I know it because He plainly says so, and what I have thus appropriated on simple, childlike faith in His naked Word "I shall have" in experience.

When one who has a clear title to a piece of property deeds it to me, it is mine as soon as the deed is properly executed and recorded, though it may be some time before I enter into the experimental enjoyment of it. I have it in one sense as soon as the deed is recorded. I shall have it in the other sense later. In like manner, as soon as we, having met the conditions of prevailing prayer, put up to God a petition for "anything according to his will," it is our privilege to know that the prayer is heard, and that the thing which we have asked of Him is ours. Now apply this to the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. I have met the conditions of obtaining this blessing already mentioned.

I simply, definitely, ask God, the Father, for the Baptism with the Holy Spirit. Then I stop and say, “Was that prayer, according to his will?” Yes, Luke 11:13 says so. "If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?" Acts 2:38-39 says: "Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call. The prayer for the Baptism with the Holy Spirit is "according to His will," for it is definitely and plainly promised. I know then that the prayer is heard and that I have the request which I have asked of him. (1 John 5:14-15) That is, I have the Baptism with the Holy Spirit.

I have then the right to arise from my knees and say, on the all-sufficient authority of God's Word, "I have the Baptism with the Holy Spirit," and afterwards I shall have in experimental enjoyment what I have appropriated by simple faith; for God has said and He cannot lie, "whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.

‘Any reader of this book may at this point lay it down, and, if Christ has been accepted as Saviour and Lord, and openly confessed as such in God's way, and if sin has been searched out and put away, and if there has been total surrender of the will and of self to God, and if there is a true desire for God's glory to be baptised with the Holy Spirit, if these conditions have been met, you may get down just now before God, and ask him to baptise you with the Holy Spirit, and you can then say, when the prayer has gone up, "That prayer was heard, I have what I have asked, I have the baptism with the Holy Spirit,'' and you have a right to get up and go out to your work, assured that in that work you will have the Holy Spirit's power.

But someone will ask, "Must I not know that I have the Baptism with the Holy Spirit before I begin the work?" Certainly, but how shall we know? I know of no better way of knowing anything than by God's Word. I would believe God's word before my feelings any day. How do we deal with an inquirer who has accepted Christ, but who lacks assurance that he has eternal life? We do not ask him to look at his feelings, but we take him to some such passage as John 3:36. We tell him to read it, and he reads: "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." "Who says that?" we ask. “God says it." "Is it true?"

"Oh, certainly it is true; God says it." "Who does God say has everlasting life?" "He believes in the Son." "Do you believe in the Son?" "Yes." "What have you then?" "No, I don't know, I don't feel yet that I have eternal life,” "But what does God say?" "Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life." "Are you going to believe God or your feelings?"

We hold the inquirer right there until on the simple, naked word of God, feeling or no feeling, he says, "I know I have eternal life because God says so," and afterward the feeling comes. Deal with yourself in this matter of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit just as you deal with an inquirer in the matter of assurance.

Be sure you have met the conditions, and then simply ask, claim, and act. But someone will say, "Will it be just as it was before, won't there be any manifestation?" Most assuredly, there will be some manifestation.

"Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good." (1 Corinthians 12:7.) But what will the character of the manifestation be, and where shall we see it? It is at this point that many make a mistake. They have, perhaps, read the life of Mr. Finney or of Jonathan Edwards, and recall how great waves of electric emotion swept over these men until they were obliged to ask God to withdraw His hand, so they would not die from the overwhelming ecstasy. Or they have gone to some meeting, and heard testimonies to similar experiences, and they expect something like this.

Now I do not deny the reality of such experiences. The testimony of such men as Finney and Edwards is to be believed. There is a stronger reason why I cannot deny them. But while admitting the reality of these experiences, I would ask, where is there a single line of the New Testament that describes any such experience in connection with the Baptism with the Holy Spirit? Every manifestation of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit in the New Testament was in new power in service. Look, for example, at 1 Corinthians 12, where this subject is treated most thoroughly, and note the character of the manifestations mentioned. It is quite likely that the Apostles had similar experiences to those of Finney and Edwards and others, but, if they had, the Holy Spirit kept them from recording them. It is well He did, for if they had told of such things, we would have looked for these things rather than the more important manifestation of power in service.

But another question will be asked: "Did not the Apostles wait ten days, and may we not have to wait?" The Apostles were kept waiting ten days, but the reason is given in Acts 2:1. "When the day of Pentecost came" (literally was being fulfilled,) In the eternal purposes and plans of God and in the Old Testament types the Day of Pentecost was set as the time for the giving of the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit could not be given until the Day of Pentecost was fulfilled to come, but we read of no waiting after Pentecost, in Acts 4:31, there was no waiting. " After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit." Acts 4:31. When Peter and John came down to Samaria and found that none of the young converts had been baptised with the Holy Spirit, they "prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit," and they did then and there. (Acts 8:15, 17). Paul of Tarsus was not obliged to wait in the ninth chapter of the Acts. Ananias came in and told him of this marvellous gift, and baptised him, and laid his hands upon him, and” Straightway in the synagogue he proclaimed Jesus, that he is the Son of God." (Acts 9:17-20).

There was no waiting in Acts 19. Before Peter had fairly got through his sermon, the Baptism with the Holy Spirit came. (Acts 10:44-46, Acts 11:15-16.) In the nineteenth chapter of the Acts, there was no waiting. As soon as Paul had declared to the Ephesian disciples the gift of the Holy Spirit, and the conditions were met, the blessing followed.

(Acts 19:1-6.) Men only have to wait when they do not meet the conditions, when Christ is not fully accepted, or sin is not put away, or there is not total surrender, or true desire, or exact prayer, or simple faith, just taking upon the naked Word. The absence of some of these things keeps many waiting for more than ten days sometimes. But there is no need for any reader of this book to wait ten hours. You can have the Baptism with the Holy Spirit just now, if you will.

A young man once came to me in great seriousness about this matter. "I heard of the Baptism with the Holy Spirit," he said, "some time ago and have been seeking it, but have not received it." "Is your will laid down?" "I am afraid that is the trouble." "Will you lay it down?" "I am afraid I cannot." "Are you willing God should lay it down for you?" "Yes." "Ask Him to." We knelt in prayer, and he asked God to lay down his will for him. "Did God hear that prayer?"

"He must have, it was according to His will." "Is your will laid down?" "It must be."

"Then ask God for the Baptism with the Holy Spirit." He did this. "Was that prayer according to His will?" "Yes." "Was it heard?" "It must have been." "Have you received the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?" ''I don't feel it." "That is not what I asked you; read those verses again." The Bible lay open at 1 John 5:14-15 before him, and he read: "This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us." "Wait a moment; was that prayer according to His will?" "It certainly was." "Was it heard?" "It was. “Read on." "And if we know that he hears us whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of Him."

"Know what?" "That we have the request we desired of Him." "What was the request?"

"The Baptism with the Holy Spirit." "Do you have it?" "I don't feel it, but God says so, and I must have."

A few days later, I met him again and asked if he really had received what he took on simple faith. With a happy look on his face, he answered, “Yes.” I lost sight of him for perhaps two years, and then found him preparing for the ministry, and already preaching, and God was honouring his preaching with souls saved, and a little later used him with others as a means of great blessing to the theological seminary where he was studying.

He had also decided to serve Christ in the foreign field. What he claimed on simple faith and received, any reader of this book can claim and receive in the same way.