You Shall Receive Power

Hey, folks, welcome to Self Talk. I'm your host, Dr. Ray Self. This is a very important show, and I hope you pay attention to it very closely. What I'm getting ready to tell you changed my life forever. It was a turning point in my 73 years that I will never forget, and it's something critical that all Christians have to know. You may understand this already, and you may have already experienced what I'm getting ready to talk about, but this show is going to make it very clear, and unfortunately, some people think this is controversial, although it should not be so. Again, today's show is sponsored by the International College of Ministry at icmcollege.org. Check out the website, maybe consider enrolling. Get your associate’s, bachelor’s, masters’, doctorate. Work on your own schedule, it's affordable, we take life experience credits, credits from other colleges, and it's just an amazing school. You can also try it before you buy it. There's a, there's a way you can sample the courses. Anyway, try it out, icmcollege.org. Enough about that. I want to get into this show because it is so important. 

Let me start by telling you a quick story about me. I'm not going to be long. Sometimes it bugs me when people want to tell stor stories about their life, and they go back to the day they were born, and, you know, and 20 minutes later they've got to kindergarten. Anyway. I was…I've been a Christian for a very long time. I'm 73 years old. I was baptized and genuinely saved at age 10. I guess that means I've been a Christian for 63 years. Have I always walked closely with the Lord? No, I have not. I've had some years when I wasn't doing so well, me and God. God was doing fine, I wasn't doing so well. But, I was a Christian, uh, when I was saved at age 10, 10 years old - it was in a Baptist Church - it changed my life. I remember uh, going forward, uh, on the altar call. Now, they– people say, “Well, that doesn’t mean you're saved.” Well, it happened to me. I went forward, I accepted Christ, and it was interesting, was, my father went with me. It was April, it was April morning, and the year was 1961. And it was an April morning– it was Easter, it was Easter Sunday in April 1961. My father and I were saved at the same time. My church decided they would hold a baptism ceremony that night, so that night they had uh…it was a large church, a large Baptist church in Memphis, Tennessee. They had a, a big formal baptism, and you know, you, you waded down, put on a robe, waded down the stairs, and uh, you announced your– that you believed in Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and I was put under water and raised. Well, interestingly enough, I never forget this as long as I live. I went home, and I began to notice the world had changed. I knew something had happened to me. The world had changed. I'll never forget this. I walked out into my backyard - I lived in the suburbs of Memphis, Tennessee, in a beautiful area - I walked into the backyard, and all of a sudden, everything looked greener. The grass looked greener, the skies looked bluer, uh, the birds chirping were more clear. Everything was more vibrant. I, I remember just looking around, going, “Wow, things look really different,” and I knew as a 10-year-old in my heart I was a different person. And you see, salvation is not just a, an act and a belief, it's an experience. You become born again. You become a new creation. 

Now, we can talk about the theology, how you're, you're redeemed, and you're justified, and you, you have eternal life. But the thing about it is, when a person is genuinely saved, there is a change that goes on inside of them. The Bible talks about it, uh, being born again. Jesus said you must be born again. Paul talks about we become a new creation. And I literally did. Things changed for me. It– something– I, I changed. There was a definite change in my life. And so you know, I rocked along for about 25 years, and I had some years when, you know, I backslid and did some wild and crazy stuff back in the hippie days in the late 60s and 70s. But that's a whole nother story, it's kind of a fun story - well, not really fun, a dark story, we can tell that one later. And uh, along, about 19, uh…in the late...in the 80s, in the 1980s, mid 1980s, my life was in shambles. My life was a complete wreck. Uh, I mean, bad, bad stuff. My, my marriage was doing horrible, uh, my business was was uh, in a big, big, big, big trouble. There was stress on every count, I mean, I had some crazy stuff going on in my life. I had a former business associate make a false charge against me, accused me of racketeering, federal racketeering, and sued me in federal court for a million dollars. Back then in the '80s, that was a big, large amount of money, you know, extremely stressful, but we got through it. And the judge did throw the case out, thank you, Jesus. But there was a lot of stuff going on through my marriage, with my kids, uh, with business, everything was just falling apart. 

And then one day, and I, you know, I may have told the story before in some other, other podcasts, I know I've written about it in my book, but I want you to get this because one day, my mother looked at me and she said, “Ray, I want you to meet a friend of mine named John.” I said, “Okay, what's he do?” “Well, he's one of the leaders at our church, and uh, he prays for people at his home, and I've seen miraculous things happen in his home when he prays for people.” And some– something– you know, I was in a very dark place, and something told me I need to go see John. I want to go see John. So, I go to see John. My mother– we pull up in his driveway, go in the front door, my mother introduces me to him, he looks at me, and the first thing he says is, “Ray, have you heard of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?” And I didn't know what he was talking about. I did not know what he was talking about. But he opened my eyes to scripture, and he shared these verses with me, and I want to share this with you because maybe you don't really know what it is, but you need to understand this because it is so, so critical. 

Jesus talked about it, in, in the book of Acts, we go to chapter 1, Jesus said something in Acts 1. 1:5, Jesus said, “John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” You shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit, okay? Then in Acts 1:8, Jesus continuing to talk, He said, “But you shall receive power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; you shall be my witnesses to me in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria, and the end of the Earth.” Well, a lot of people stop right there, and they go, “Well, that– He's talking about Pentecost to come,” and He was referring to Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit did fall at Pentecost, and the people got baptized in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost in the upper room. And so, some of the traditional people teach, “Well, that's it. We, we've all had it ever since.” I'm going, “Well, it doesn't say it's passed down generationally.” It happened to those 120 in the upper room in the book of Acts. However, when you read on, you see the baptism of the Holy Spirit continuing to happen. So we go to Acts chapter 8, and this is the scripture that changed my life, and I want to share it with you. Acts chapter 8 is the story of Phillip going up to Samaria. Now, there was a, a great persecution in the church and the, and the– a lot of the believers were scattered, okay? And so there was a man named Phillip, and it says in Acts 8:5, “Then Philip went down to the city of Samaria and preached Christ to them. And the multitudes,” verse six, just going to read on, “the multitudes with one accord heeded the things spoken by Philip, hearing and seeing the miracles which he did. Unclean spirits crying out with a loud voice came out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and the lame were healed. And there was great joy in that city.” And let's go on down, okay? And then at verse 12, “And when they believed Phillip, he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God in the name of Jesus Christ, and both men and women were baptized. Folks, that is salvation. They believed Phillip, he preached the things concerning the kingdom of God, he preached the name of Jesus Christ, and men and women were baptized. They were saved. But, but, but you, but you understand it didn't say they were baptized with the Holy Spirit, it says they were saved.

Now, we did see the Holy Spirit fell on 120 in Acts 2, but now something else is getting ready to happen in Acts 8. And this is important because this, this is the argument against people that say, “Well, the moment you're saved, ever since Pentecost, the moment you're saved, you're baptized with the Holy Spirit.” No, that's not what scripture says. So we go on, okay, go on down to verse 14. “Now, when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For as yet, He had not fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And when they laid hands on them, they received the Holy Spirit.” So here you have a very clear case of people being saved under Phillip and then in a later time - remember, there were no automobiles or cell phones or jets or trains, or cars. This– a later time, these men, the apostles from Jerusalem, came up to Samaria and prayed for these believers to receive the Holy Spirit. And when I heard that, I went, “Wait a minute. So there's more that we can get after salvation? I thought I had the Holy Spirit when I was saved.” Yes, you do. 

The Holy Spirit does a lot of things. When you are saved, like when I was saved in 1961, the Holy Spirit redeemed me. He made me into a new uh, creation, He gave me eternal life, He adopted me into the body of Christ, okay? He justified me, He declared me righteous, He forgave my sins, you know, through the blood of Jesus Christ. All these things were done by the Holy Spirit, but there's more the Holy Spirit wants to do, and that is give you power. Power. Jesus said, “You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.” So you say, “Well, that's in Acts 8.” Well, all of a sudden, we go to Acts 19. And we, we got another example of it. Also, there's– also it happens in Acts 10. But Acts 19, verse 1 [coughs] excuse me. When, “And when it happened while Apollos was at Corinth, that Paul, having passed through the upper regions, came to Ephesus. And finding some disciples, he said to them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’” Here's another case of people who believed. These are believers in Christ who had not received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. “So they said to him, ‘We have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit.’ And he said unto them, ‘Into what were you baptized?’ They said, “Into John's baptism.’” Now, John preached Jesus, okay? And they were baptized, okay? “Then Paul said, ‘John indeed baptized with the baptism of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him who would come after him, that is, on Christ Jesus.’” Okay. “And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. But when Paul laid his hands on them,” verse six, “And Paul laid his hands on them, and the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they spoke with tongues, and they prophesied.” 

So what you see here is the Holy Spirit coming upon people– to baptize means to be immersed, where the Holy Spirit just, just literally drowns you. So back in 1986 when John started showing me these things in scripture, he sat me down in a chair, he had– he asked me some questions about uh, it was kind of funny, he, he asked– gave me a repentance list. “Have you ever done this?” Yep. “You ever done that?” Yep. “You ever…” you know, and I had to repent of all these things I had done. It was things like uh, uh…you know, fornication, um, uh, psychic, you been to a psychic practice? Astrology, um, you know, stuff like that. You know, I was, I had done a lot of that stuff, and so I repented of my sins. And then John put his hand on me, much like Paul laying hands on these folks here, and he said something like, “I baptized my brother with the Holy Spirit.” And all of a sudden, I'm sitting in this chair and I feel what felt like - now remember, I'm a completely stressed out, tensed up, depressed human being - and all of a sudden, I felt perfect peace and I felt perfect love and it felt like somebody was pouring warm oil on my body which was a strange– I never forget that strange feeling, like this warm oil type feeling, was like warm oil was flowing all over my body. And then I felt this peace, then all of a sudden, I had this incredible sense of love. I had a sense of something was going on. It was extremely powerful. And then, all of a sudden, it was just, got in– incredible. Uh, there was, it was peace, love, and power. I couldn't move. I just could not move. And I remember I could hear my mother's voice in the background, going, “Ray, are you okay? Ray, are you okay?” And I'm thinking, “Mom,” to my mind, I didn't say anything because I really couldn't say anything, I was just immersed in the Holy Spirit. And I remember thinking, “Mom, shh, it's okay. I don't know what's going on here, but this is really good. This feels terrific.” And it was just amazing. And I knew something powerful had happened to me. I knew my life had changed. 

Listen, I was a Christian, and I knew I was a Christian. I wasn't a perfect Christian, but see, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. This power came upon me, and my life changed. People say, “Well, did you speak in tongues?” Well, you know, there, there's an argument that you– if you get the Holy Spirit, you'll always speak in tongues. I believe when you get baptized with the Holy Spirit, you do have the capability for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, because you have the Holy Spirit; He's got gifts. Tongues is a very common gift, and actually, I did begin to speak in tongues on the way home, not immediately. I mean, some people really dog back, “Well, if you don't speak in tongues, you don't have the Holy Spirit.” Well, I think you can have the baptism of the Holy Spirit, maybe you have the gift of healing, maybe you have the gift of discerning of spirits, maybe you get words of knowledge, words of wisdom. Maybe you get tongues, maybe you get uh, the prophetic gift, I don't know, but you'll probably have the gifts of the Holy Spirit because you're full of the Holy Spirit now. And hopefully you'll have a lot of fruit of the Holy Spirit. But my life changed, and John told me some things, and he said, “Ray, let me tell you something.” “Yes, sir.” This time, he had my full attention. “You're going to look in the Bible and see things you've never seen before.” I thought, “Well, that's kind of strange.” I'd been reading the Bible for about 25 years at that time. Then he said uh, “And you will pray for people and watch them get healed right in front of your eyes.” I said, “Oh, really?” And he said, “And you'll probably end up casting out demons.” I said, “Whoa, I don't know about that one.” And everything he said came true. I began– it was like the word of God became alive to me, and scriptures would jump off the page at me, and scriptures I had not even seen, all of a sudden I, I could see an understanding I never had before. And the gifts of the Holy Spirit began to flow in me. I did put, I did pray for people who were sick, and they got healed. And I, I, I, I began to give prophetic words that turned out to be accurate. 

I'll never forget I had a, a friend of mine named Bill who was a severe diabetic, and the Lord spoke to me, and He said, “Ray, I want you to pray for Bill. I'm going to heal him.” And I was kind of new with this kind of stuff, but I had received power. I had received power, the Holy Spirit's come upon me. So it was kind of after church one day, and I went up to Bill, and I said, “Bill, I think God told me I'm to pray for you and He's going to heal you of diabetes.” And he said, “Okay, whatever, yeah, go ahead.” And so I prayed for him, I don't remember the exact prayer that I prayed for him, and Bill said, “Well, well, thank you, thank you so much.” I said, “All right, Bill, no problem.” So Bill decided to test the Lord, which is not always a good idea. Bill goes home, eats a big old piece of chocolate cake, tested his blood sugar, and it did not rise. So, just things like that begin to happen. But I could go on and on and on and tell you stories of the miracles I've seen, prophetic words. I, I've seen cancer healed, I've seen blind eyes healed, I've seen a broken leg healed, uh, I've seen a lot of miraculous, incredible, amazing stuff with the most amazing thing of course is salvation. But it all happened because the Lord allowed me to be full of the Holy Spirit. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. 

Then the Apostle Paul writes again. He says, “Do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit,” okay? You'll see it again in Acts 10 when Peter's preaching and the Holy Spirit falls on all the people he's preaching to. In other words, salvation is the most important thing. When you're, when you're saved, you become a child of God with all the benefits. When you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, you become a child of God with the power of God to be His witness. Remember, Jesus said, “You shall receive power, then you shall be My witness.” He said in Luke, chapter 26, He told the disciples, “Wait till you receive power,” okay? “Stay in Jerusalem till you receive power.” What Jesus was saying is you're going to be a lot better witness if you'll get the power of the Holy Spirit. And I'll tell you something. You can tell people about Jesus, which is great, but when you show them the power of Jesus through healing or deliverance or discerning of spirits or a prophetic word, it's even more amazing. And I could tell you countless stories over the years of my ministry of the miraculous things I have seen. 

But what I want to get across to you in this podcast is if you have not ever been baptized with the Holy Spirit, seek it. You have not because you ask not. You can– now I've seen the Lord baptize people with the Holy Spirit privately and in their home, I've also commonly seen it when you're around– if you're at a Spirit-filled church with a Holy Spirit-filled minister or Pastor, pray for people, put their hands on people, and pray for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. I've seen Him come upon people that way. But seek God about the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and please do not let the traditional people– now I want to tell you something. I'm speaking from scripture, I'm speaking from experience. The Baptists, God bless them, I was Baptist, will argue against it, the Methodists will argue against it, the Presbyterians will argue against it, the Episcopalians will argue against it, okay? But the Pentecostals will argue for it, the charismatics will argue for it, a lot of independents, non-denominational - you really never know what they believe, haha. Some of them are great, some of them are not so much. But the Bible, I think, is very clear: the baptism of the Holy Spirit is available for all believers. It's something God wants us to have, it is something critical for us to have, and I pray that you will seek it. I hope this has made sense to you. I, I pray it, it has. I want to pray for you now. Heavenly Father, I thank you, Lord, for everyone listening to this podcast. Father, if there's anyone here who needs the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I mean, if you, if you want to do it, Lord, supernaturally right now through the sound of my voice. Holy Spirit, come upon those listening to me who want to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Touch them now. Fall upon them now. Lord, in the name of Jesus, by faith, I baptize my brothers and my sisters with the Holy Spirit. Come upon them now, come upon them now. Fill them now. Baptize them now, in Jesus’ name. In Jesus’ name I pray, amen. 

Now that prayer– maybe that, that did it for you. You know, you can usually feel something really dramatic when it happens, but if not, find an elder or a pastor or someone full of the Holy Spirit and just say, “Look, I want to be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” It is critical for you, it will allow you to see things you've never seen, do things you've never done, uh, move in the power and the anointing of God, okay? It's critical. The Lord wants us to have it, and it's so good, it's so amazing, and I hope this show has been a blessing to you very much. This is Dr. Ray Self, and um, I appreciate you listening today. Don't forget on our podcast to be sure and go to our website, icmcollege.org/selftalk. And you know, subscribe, rate, review, share. It helps us get the message out. I just want to get the message out. If you'd like to donate, that would be fantastic. That would really help me a lot. But that's up to you. icmcollege.org/donate. That's all. We're a 501c3. Anyway, the main thing is I appreciate you listening. I just hope this has been a blessing; that's my heart, amen. And God bless you.