Countless churches and preachers baptize people. Does that somehow force God to give the Holy Spirit to those people? Baptism for any reason is not what is commanded! If a person is just dipped in water and the purpose is not that which is determined by the instruction of the Holy Spirit in the written word of God by Christ apostles, is to BREAK the Word of God, and God’s Word CANNOT BE BROKEN!! There is never a connection between denominational baptism and the Holy Spirit! To take for granted that anyone who is baptize receives the Holy Spirit and not asked the question, why were you baptized? promotes this confusion to everyone involved. The only person who can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit is he or she who is baptized by direction, instruction, and command that the Holy Spirit has left us on the written page called the Word of God. But that’s not the question that these people are wanting answered. They want to know WHY they do not see a change in the way their life is lived??
When a person is baptize “into Christ” for the remission of sins and others know them and see no change in their lives, they fault the plan of obedience to the commandment of God, not the heart of the individual! There was nothing wrong with the seed sown, there was nothing wrong with the sower; the fault lies in the heart into which the seed was sown! The difference between the gospel of Christ and the charismatic movements of the day is that when God commands something, the blessings incurred always comes to fruition. The Pentecostals have problems with their religion because some of their people just never seem to get what they’re told that they can receive. They don’t get that bubbly feeling, they don’t get that speaking in tongues, they don’t get the financial blessings promised them. Many things they are promised, they never get, which also includes forgiveness of sin! That being the case, the outside world makes an unfair comparison!! God has “promised to all who obey Him,” the gift of the Holy Spirit!! Acts 5:32 Be it noted we do not get the Holy Spirit we RECEIVE Him as a welcomed guest into our hearts, we receive Him as a gift from God, the Son who has purchased us! We are commanded to “obey from the heart that form of doctrine which is delivered us,” if we do not obey that from the heart, then the heart is never involved in the transaction to begin with. “From the heart the Holy Spirit directs as He resides as a welcome guest, there is no way that He will begin to work on a heart into which He is not been invited TO REIGN! If the Holy Spirit is not there, then the fruits of the spirit can not be used as evidence of Him NOT being there! “Then they that gladly received His word.” speaks to the issue! Before baptism there is a command called repentance, disobey that command and God owes you NOTHING!!
To deny the Holy Spirit the throne room on the seat of our hearts, repentance becomes a word, not a command! For one to change his are her minds after they become Christians and have received the gift of the Holy Spirit, and go back to the ways of that from which they came, does not deny that the plan of God did not work! The story of Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8 is a sad story of this truth. There are hundreds of examples that we could cite to show the pity we have in our hearts for they who decided not to remain “in Christ”! But again, that does not deny the fact that He was there! For a child to die after childbirth, does not deny that the child was there!! To deny a man has become a child of God after he is been baptized into Christ because of the life that he lives afterward, does not deny that he has been born again!!
