The Holy Spirit And The Pentecostal Believers
By Pastor Cornelius R. Stam
The prophesied work of the Holy Spirit in connection with His people Israel should be clearly understood if we would understand His work today in connection with the members of the Body of Christ. In Joel 2:28,29 God promised to supernaturally cause them to prophesy, etc., but in Ezek. 36:26,27, He also promised to supernaturally cause them to do His will:
“A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. AND I WILL PUT MY SPIRIT WITHIN YOU, AND CAUSE YOU TO WALK IN MY STATUTES, AND YE SHALL KEEP MY JUDGMENTS, AND DO THEM.”
Thus God would show that the only way in which even His own people can perfectly obey Him is when He takes possession of them and causes them to do His will. Indeed, He is still demonstrating this. Though we today have all the advantages and blessings of the dispensation of grace, and though we desire most earnestly to obey and serve God as we ought, we still continually fall short.
This is because, contrary to popular opinion, none of us has been baptized with the Spirit (See Acts 1:5 and cf. I Cor. 12:13). We must be careful to notice the immediate change that took place in the behavior of the Pentecostal believers, now that the Holy Spirit had come to take possession of them. Not only did they speak with tongues and prophesy and work miracles, but they all began living for one another.
“And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common” (Acts 4:32).
We have not observed this way of life among those who call themselves Pentecostalists today.
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