In Acts 19 we come upon a difficult passage which has been misunderstood and misapplied by many people and denominations. Let’s take a look at when the believer is indwelt by the Holy Ghost.
Please note: We are currently meeting outdoors, and so there is occasional street noise in the recording, and we did not have sound amplification during the recording of the message.
Also, to clarify one point which may be hard to understand in the message: One of the proofs that I gave that the Holy Spirit is in every believer is that every believer is baptized by the Spirit into one body (1 Cor. 12:13). That body is the church. The church which I was referring is often called the universal church. The universal church consists of all believers from Pentecost until the end of this age. Every believer is placed by the Spirit into this body (the universal church). The Spirit indwells every believer in this body. Andrea thought that I was confusing upon this point. She thought that I did not make a clear distinction between the local church and the universal church. The local church is part of the universal church which meets in a certain locale. Emmaus Road Baptist Church is a local church. Being a member of the universal church (aka. being a believer in Jesus Christ) means that the Holy Spirit lives inside of you. Being a member of Emmaus Road Baptist Church does not mean the same. Even in good local churches there are pretenders, and being a member of our church or any church does not guarantee the presence of the Holy Ghost within you. If I communicated that being a member of a local church guarantees the indwelling of the Spirit, then I am sorry. We would hope that every church preaches the gospel and that all members of churches are genuine believers, but that is simply not the case. Just as local church membership is not a guarantee of salvation, it is not a guarantee of the indwelling of the Spirit.
Download the PDF sermon handout here.
Interactive online sermon notes may be found here.
Original sermon date: October 25, 2020
