Tuesday, January 20, 2015

Did you HEAR it?

How can something so vital to salvation mean so much to so many different people? We could spend all day formulating ideas and thoughts as to why, but here's the question that I want you to ask yourself. Did you HEAR IT?

Hear what? I'm glad you asked.

The question isn't whether a person must be born again in most religious circles. The unanswered question seems to be how a person is born again and if there's any immediate evidence of this new birth that Jesus said we had to experience in John 3, otherwise we could not see OR enter Heaven.

More specifically, there's a great divide and debate in religious circles all over the earth as to when someone is born of the Spirit of God. I personally have a background in a denomination that taught that you received the Holy Ghost once you "accepted the Lord as your Savior". (Spirit of God, Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Spirit of Christ are all synonymous terms that can be interchanged without meaning anything different)          

It wasn't until a few years of being absent from this teaching that I was introduced to scripture that I was never taught and never searched out for myself. I only listened to what was preached and/or taught in my Church and thought that was all that I needed to do. My testimony of conversion comes from a black man full of zeal that brought his Bible and laid it at the end of the tables where we worked and would teach me scripture; a whole new revelation. It had always been there, but no one ever took the time to show it to me, and I, regretfully being in my late teens had no desire to spend the time searching for this on my own. I thought that I was saved with a prayer years before.

One day I was approached by someone and they asked me the question "Did you HEAR IT?". In ignorance of the question I thought that I missed something that they said. Then they explained that Jesus told folks in scripture that they would hear it when they were born of the Spirit. I was perplexed.

So I set out to prove them wrong! Then I found these scriptures.

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit. -John 3:8

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Acts 2:1-4 (Ironic?: Jesus mentioned the wind was like the Spirit, and that's what they HEARD at the first outpouring! I think not, it's exactly what Jesus said and the way He said)
And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Acts 10:45-46 (note: they HEARD THEM)
And as I began to speak, the Holy Ghost fell on them, as on us at the beginning.-Acts 11:15 (The beginning was in Acts 2, and they HEARD THEM then, they heard them again!)

(See additional scriptural references at the bottom of this blog)


What I set out to do was actually reversed and I found myself, in obedience to the Bible, opening up to something entirely different....but entirely Biblical. 

I then set out to experience the same thing as they did in the Bible. It took me nearly a year to experience this Heavenly experience. I would dream about being in services where I would be born of the Spirit in the dream with the evidence of speaking in tongues. But a dream wouldn't suffice. I wanted to HEAR IT with my ears. Then it happened!

I've had many people tell me that I'm wrong in believing that this is being born of the Spirit. But, I've found peace in knowing that this is exactly what Jesus desired for us and it's what the 120 experienced in the upper room, it's what Peter preached, it's what Paul preached and experienced (I Corinthians 14:18), it's what John's disciples experienced in Acts 19, it's what the early Pentecostal pioneers experienced on Azusa Street in Los Angeles in the early 1900's, it's what I experienced and the many hundreds have experienced that I've heard since coming into this great experience in 2002. 

I want to encourage you to answer the question that we started with. Did you HEAR IT? Did you hear it when you were born of the Spirit? There is an absolute distinction between this birth and repentance, and between this birth and water baptism. 

If you would like to have a Bible study on this topic or another Biblical topic please contact me at pastor@maysville.cc or by phone at 606-584-7010 (call or text)

God Bless you as you begin this great journey of being born of the Spirit! 

In His Service, 

Pastor Brian D. Young
TurningPoint Apostolic Church of Maysville, KY
Apostolic Pentecostal Church of Manchester, OH


Additional scripture references: Romans 8:26, Acts 19:1-5, Acts 2:33, Acts 2:42