Now, friend, this is an invitation for anyone
that is thirsty to experience the power of God. It is a deeper dimension of the same
Holy Spirit that makes the new birth a reality in you. There are many questions you are faced with
every day. We are all searching for answers that will make a real difference in our lives.
It’s hard to imagine that these answers might be right in front of us. Get ready to
discover answers in the Bible with Bayless Conley. Hello friend, we have been on this wonderful
series about the invitations of Jesus. Invitations that He gave to people on the Sea of Galilee.
Invitations that He gave to crowds that didn’t just apply to them, but they are just as applicable
to us in our lives in practical ways. And the Lord wants us to respond to these invitations
as well. So we’re going to begin by looking at one of Christ’s invitations where He
says, “Come to Me and drink.” What does that mean? How can we apply that in our lives?
The Bible is not just beautiful prose that we’re supposed to get done in a beautifully
scripted hand and put on our mirror or on the wall. It’s not just to be admired, it’s
to be applied. It’s not just to be applauded. God wants us to put His Word into practice.
So, come to Me and drink. Woman VO: Stay tuned at the end of the program
today for a special inspirational thought from Bayless. You ready? I'm ready as well. We began a series
last Saturday night. I thought I was going to be able to finish it tonight, but I'm not,
but I'll give you as much as time will allow, and let's pray, and just set our hearts to
receive. Heavenly Father, thank You for Your grace, that rests over us right now, that
is working in our behalf even as we're putting the kingdom first. We realize we believe,
even as the Lord told us, that all of the things that we tend to be concerned about
and worried about, You'll cause all of those things to be added onto us, as we seek first
Your kingdom and Your righteousness. So speak to us tonight by Your Spirit, and Jesus, may
You be glorified. If you agree, say "amen." All right. We began speaking about this last
week, and we found that throughout the Gospels, Jesus offers a number of invitations to people,
but they don't just apply to those that were physically present at the time. They're applicable
to us as well. They apply to people in every generation, and when you accept those invitations,
it brings you into a new world of hope, freedom, challenge, and rest. Last week we looked at
the first two invitations Jesus ever issued to a human being, in a sense, His first two
invitations to humanity. The first one was Come and see. The second one was Follow Me,
and we spent our entire time together talking about those two things. By the grace of God, we're going to look at
three more tonight, so the third one is this. Jesus said, "Come to Me, and drink." John
chapter 7. Look there with me if you would. John's Gospel, the seventh chapter. We'll
begin in verse 37. It says, 37 On the last day, that great day of the
feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and
drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers
of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would
receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. In the final day of the feast, and actually
what took place is on that final, they called it the great day of the feast, a priest would
go to the pool of Silo and with a vessel, he would fill it with water, come back into
the temple, and then he would pour that water over the sacrifice while the people stood
around and they sang a verse from Isaiah 12:3, Therefore with joy you will draw water from
the wells of salvation. No doubt it was at that very moment that Jesus
cried out that as the Scripture had said, out of your heart will flow rivers of living
water if you come to Me, and if you drink. Because that little ceremony that they were
doing was a type and a shadow that pointed to Him, obviously referring to the work of
the Holy Spirit in salvation. These living waters, throughout Scripture, Old and New
Testament, the work of the Spirit, many times is typed as water, as rain, as a river, as
a sea. Once Jesus was raised from the dead, people that believed on Him could be born
of the Spirit, that living water or eternal life would be granted to them. But I believe
there's more here. Jesus said out of His heart would flow rivers, or out of His spirit. Peter
wrote this in First Peter the third chapter. He talked about the hidden man of the heart,
which is the Spirit. So when Jesus talked about the heart, He's talking about the Spirit,
the hidden person, the real you. I'm a spirit being. You really can't see me. You can see
the body I live in. It has freckles all over it. Didn't ask for those, but there you go.
The house I live in has green windows. The house I live in is losing some hair, and actually,
it's growing out other places that it didn't used to grow. But the real Bayless is hidden.
I'm a spirit being created in the image of God, and it's that spirit being on the inside
that has received the life of God, that's been born again. Jesus said, "Out of your
heart will flow rivers," and I believe that Jesus is referring to more than a person's
initial salvation experience. I believe He's speaking to an experience subsequent to salvation
that the Bible calls being baptized in the Holy Spirit or receiving the Holy Spirit.
He said, "This He spoke of the Spirit, for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus
was not yet glorified." In fact, look back just a couple chapters in John chapter 4.
Jesus uses this same analogy, or a similar one, typing the work of the Holy Spirit to
water, and He's speaking to the woman at the well, the woman of Samaria. Look what He says to her in verse 13 of John
chapter 4: Jesus answered and said to her, “Whoever
drinks of this water will thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give
him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain
of water springing up into everlasting life.” No doubt he made some gesture toward the well
and said, "You drink that water, you're going to be thirsty again, but I've got water that
if you drink of it, you won't be thirsty anymore. The water that I give will be in a person
springing up, a spring of living water." Some translations say a well of water, a type of
the Holy Spirit's work in salvation springing up into everlasting life. A spring, it sustains
life. A well, you can put the bucket down in the well, put the bucket in the spring,
you can take the bucket out, and it sustains life, but a river produces power. I have a friend that has a ranch, and right
next to his ranch house, he has this amazing artesian spring. It is the purest, the tastiest
water you've ever put to your lips, and you know what? It's been there for who knows how
many thousands of years, just bubbling up, this sort of living well. On the perimeter
of his property, there is a river that runs by. You can drink from both, but there's a
difference. The river can produce power. The river can turn wheels. The river can move
things. The well sustains life. The river does more than that. Look with me in Acts chapter 1, if you would.
It's just the next book over. We're in John. Acts chapter 1. This is after the resurrection
now. Jesus said or the Scripture said that when He said, "Come to Me anyone that's thirsty.
Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water," this He spoke of the Spirit, who those
believing on Him afterwards would receive. Acts chapter 1. After the resurrection, look
what Jesus says. Verse 4: And being assembled together with them, He
commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father,
“which,” He said, “you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but
you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” Verse 8. But you shall receive power… (Everyone say
power). But you shall receive power when the Holy
Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea
and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Acts 2 and 4 is where they were filled, 120
in the upper room. It says, And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. We move a little bit into the future. Acts
chapter 8. Philip has gone down to the city of Samaria. He's preaching Christ to them.
There is miracles, and the Bible said, "The people believed the preaching of Philip concerning
the kingdom of God, and concerning the name of Jesus, and they were baptized." Then Jerusalem,
the church at Jerusalem gets wind that there's a revival happening in Samaria, and so we
read Acts chapter 8, verse 14: 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, 15
who, when they had come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. 16
For as yet He had fallen upon none of them. They had only been baptized in the name of
the Lord Jesus. 17 Then they laid hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. Apparently, Peter and John and the apostles
in Jerusalem didn't think that these believers had received all the Holy Spirit that there
was to get. They went down to pray for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit. They
certainly were saved. It said they'd received the Word of God. The Scripture says we're
born again not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible by the Word of God that lives
and abides forever. Jesus said in Mark 16, "He that believes and is baptized shall be
saved." They believed the preaching of Philip and they were baptized, according to Jesus
Himself. They were saved, but the apostles realized there was an experience subsequent
to salvation that they needed, so they came down and prayed for them, and friend, that's
where the river begins to flow out of a person's spirit. That's where power comes from. You can read in Acts chapter 10, 10 years
after the day of Pentecost, a group in the house of Cornelius, they're saved, filled
with the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues. In Acts chapter 19, nearly 20 years after
the day of Pentecost, Paul comes to a group of men, and he asks a question. Did you receive
the Holy Spirit when you believed? That would be a foolish question if you got all the Holy
Spirit there was to get when you got saved. Why would you ask that? They said, "We haven't
even heard about that," and Paul laid hands on them, and they were all filled with the
Holy Spirit, began to speak with other tongues and prophesy. Friend, this is an invitation
for anyone that is thirsty to experience the power of God. It is a deeper dimension of
the same Holy Spirit that makes the new birth a reality in you. You don't need to be baptized
in the Holy Spirit to go to heaven. You need to put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ
and be washed in the blood of the Lamb to go to heaven, but there is an experience that
is available with the Holy Spirit and Jesus offers an invitation. Are you thirsty? Do you want more? Do you
want power? You've got a well. You've got a spring, but do you want the power of the
Holy Spirit in your life? He says, "Well, then come to Me, and drink." I got filled
with the Spirit in the same mission where I got saved. It was a little street mission.
I accepted Jesus Christ. They laid lands on me. I got set free from years of substance
abuse. Never have taken illegal drugs again, and then I went back some nights later, and
there was a group of us all holding hands in the front praying. I got baptized in the
Holy Spirit, began to speak with other tongues, and I've done that regularly for the last
40 years. Speaking to God, as the Scripture says in First Corinthians 14. He that speaks
in an unknown tongue doesn't speak to men, but he speaks to God. He also said just a
couple of verses later there, "He that prays or speaks in an unknown tongue edifies himself."
That's actually an Old English translation, even though our Bibles have it. It meant to build an edifice higher and higher,
one stone upon another. The most modern translation, if you wanted to put it in modern language.
He that prays in an unknown tongue speaks to God and charges himself like a battery.
My wife, I love my wife so much. She's sitting on the front row. I have to be careful, but
it's true. We've been married 35 years, and I've just noticed something about her, that
we both have the identical mobile phones, but the battery on her phone ... I'll ask
her, she says, "Oh, I've got 11%." I ask her. It's 8%. When it's 28%, hallelujah, let's
release the balloons, but her phone, the battery almost always seems to be flat. Me, it gets
down to 79%, I say, "I got to plug this thing in." We're just different that way, but I
will tell you this. Even though the battery on her phone many times is flat, her spirit
is never flat. Every single day that I've been married to this woman for 35 years, she
spends time talking to the Father in other tongues. Every day. She sits in our bedroom, sits in
a chair, speaks in other tongues, talks to God, and charges her Spirit with power. It's
important. Jesus said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Cottonwood Church, because
that's the only place you can get it." No, if anyone thirsts, let him go to the nearest
Pentecostal church because that's the only place His blessing's being handed out. No,
Jesus said, "If anyone's thirsty for this, let him come to Me and drink." The only place
you can get it is from Jesus. In John chapter 1, John said this about Jesus. "Behold the
Lamb of God. He takes away the sin of the world, and He baptizes with the Holy Spirit."
You read it there. He said Jesus does two things. Takes away the sin of the world. I
know when that happened to me, friend. I also know when I was baptized in the Holy Spirit.
It's an invitation. I received it in a street mission. My wife received the Holy Spirit,
was filled with the Spirit in a charismatic Catholic prayer meeting. My mother got filled with the Holy Spirit
speaking in other tongues watching TBN, with Jerry Bernard on there, inviting people to
receive the baptism in the Spirit. I remember walking in the room, and there's my mother
crying, speaking in other tongues. I got a friend. I shared about the baptism of the
Holy Spirit with him, prayed, and nothing happened. That night, he went out, and he
said, "I was just hungry." He said, "And I was riding around my bike at night, talking
to God about it, and all of a sudden, I began to speak in other tongues, got filled with
the Holy Spirit." My dad, my dad's interesting. Frightening actually, because I'm becoming
more and more like him. The family says it to me all the time. Oh, that's your dad, Bayless,
I go, “Shut up. Shut up.” There's actually a lot of ways I want to be like him, but there's
some eccentricities that I would like to avoid. My dad, he was the last one to come into the
fold, last one to give his life to Jesus. When I came back from Oregon after being gone
for four years, and shoved the gospel down everyone's throat. I remember one day he said,
"Bayless, I liked you better when you were on drugs," and so he was a little slow to
come into the kingdom. The whole family had been saved, and then eventually everyone got
filled with the Spirit, had that experience. One night, my office was actually ... It was
in a room in our little house at the time. I had a desk I'd spent $5 on at a yard sale
in there. I was on my face. I was praying, seeking God, and I had a visitation. This
is a lot of years ago. This is probably 32 years ago, so don't get the idea that this
happens all the time. It's only happened once to me in my life, only once. It was then.
I was on my face. I was praying, and suddenly the presence of Jesus was in the room. I knew
He was there, and it scared me. He was standing there. I was afraid to look up, but I knew
it was Him. I felt in my spirit, He said words to me,
said, "What would you like Me to do?" You'd think you'd have this big list of things,
and I'm ... Man, I drew a blank. Absolutely overwhelming, that presence that came into
that room. The one thing that came into my heart, I said, "Lord, I'd like my dad to receive
the fullness of the Spirit." Felt like Jesus just nodded His head, and suddenly that presence
was gone. In about 30 seconds, with fear and trembling, I looked up and looked around the
room, and He was gone, but I know that Jesus visited me. One week later, I'm at my dad's
house. I'm helping him unload his van. We're loading stuff out of the back of the van,
and he hits me with his elbow in my ribs really hard. He says, "Guess what?" I said, "What?"
He said, "I speak in tongues." Who did that? Jesus did that. Jesus said, "If anyone thirsts,
let him come to Me and drink. Out of his heart, out of his spirit, will flow rivers of living
water." Certainly, that is not all there is to being
baptized in the Spirit. There's many other evidences that the Scriptures talk about,
but let us not sell short something that the Scriptures talk so much about. You actually
have to purposely avoid it to not see it in the Scriptures, this physical evidence of
speaking in other tongues. I wish I had more time just to go on about that, but I want
to move on. People that think they can explain God, or
the human condition by a few lines or a few paragraphs, that consider themselves wise,
and educated, and intelligent, God has hidden these weighty truths from those, and He reveals
them to those that come in childlike faith. Jesus, according to His own words here, is
the only one that can reveal the Father to someone. No one else can. The invitation then, to a weary, burdened
world that is looking for rest, looking for inner peace, looking for satisfaction, looking
for that crazy, missing thing, the invitation of Jesus is, come, and I'll introduce you,
and as you take My yoke upon you, you'll find out that that yoke is not one of elitism,
superiority, or pride, but it's a yoke of gentleness, humility, and meekness. Once I
introduce you to the Father, you will find your rest. Jesus' yoke is one of humility
and meekness, and for those of you that don't know a yoke, if you had two oxen, that was
this piece of wood that fit over the necks of both of the oxen. You'd usually take an
untrained oxen and put it with one that was very trained to the task, and as it took the
lead from that one, it would follow and it would learn to do its work. That's the analogy
Jesus is using here. Jesus demonstrated the ultimate dependence on God and obedience to
God the Father in childlike trust. Woman VO: Thank you for watching Answers with
Bayless Conley. Bayless will continue with part two of his message next week. You know, I am not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ. Nor am I ashamed of the power of the Holy Spirit. When I read the Bible I just
want to embrace everything that God has for me. And I think sometimes we, we want to pick
and choose, “Well, I like that’” and “That sounds kind of weird. I don’t want
to have anything to do with that.” And, “This is good” or “That there, that’s
too hard.” No, we need to take it as a whole. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today,
and forever. And though world cultures may have changed, world events may have changed,
His church remains the same. And the Holy Spirit is here to empower us. We ended as
I was talking about the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in other tongues. I was
baptized in the Holy Spirit as a very, very young believer. And every day of my life since
then I have taken time to pray in other tongues. The Scripture says he that speaks in an unknown
tongue doesn’t speak to men but he speaks to God. And he edifies himself or he builds
himself up with energy or with strength. I pray that you’d continue following us. In
the future messages, we deal more with some of these things in the future. But you know
God has wonderful gifts for us. One of them after that gift of salvation is the gift of
the Holy Spirit. The baptism or the infilling of the Holy Spirit. Read about it. Find out
about it. Experience it in Jesus’ name. Woman VO: And now here’s Bayless with an
inspirational thought you can apply today. Hi there. I have been for the last week in
different countries in Europe doing evangelistic meetings, preaching the gospel, ministering
to people. We´ve seen a lot of people come to Christ and in each of the meetings so far
I've prayed a healing prayer for people that have been in the services that have been sick.
It´s something I felt very distinctly led by God to do. And a young lady came up to me after the service. And she said: Well, didn´t the Apostle Paul
himself say that he had a thorn in the flesh and she wanted me to sit down and it would've
been to a long discussion but there was about fifty people in line waiting and so I didn't
have the opportunity to speak with her. But you know what she brought up seems to
be a stumbling block to a lot of people when it comes to healing and I've heard it so many
times: God gave Paul a thorn in the flesh and Paul was sick and Paul asked God three
times to be healed and God didn´t heal him so maybe this is just a thorn in the flesh
for me. Let´s just read it and just think about it.
I don´t have the time to go into this in detail but just some things you can study
for yourself. 2 Corinthians 12:7 Paul says: And lest I should
be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations a thorn in the flesh was
given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet, lest I should be exalted above measure. Paul says specifically what the thorn in the
flesh was. He said it was a messenger of Satan. Not something from God it was a messenger
of Satan. The word messenger is the same Greek word translated angel. And then he said: Concerning this thing I
pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. So Paul pleaded with
God three times that it might depart. And the Lord’s answer: And He said to me: My
grace is sufficient for you, My strength is made perfect in weakness. Now God didn´t say: No I´m not going to
heal you, Paul. First of all it wasn´t a sickness, again it was a messenger of Satan. God said My grace is all you need. My grace
is sufficient for you. In fact that phrase “sufficient for you” - look it up if you
think I´m making this up - it literally means to build a hedge of protection around. God
said to him “My grace will be a hedge of protection round about you”. When it seems like the oppression is there
and the devil is attacking you I want to tell you God's grace is sufficient for you. It
will build a barrier of protection round about you. And when you are at the end of your strength,
my friend, that's when God's strength can take over. Go ahead and read it, think about
it, do some studying on your own. God bless you.
You know, we always go through different things in life. We always have besetting circumstances.
The storms of life come to everyone. But in the midst of those storms there is hope. God
always has an answer for us. He always has a pathway for us to walk and I have a special
bundle of messages that will be a blessing to you. In whatever circumstance you are going
through, they will bring you hope. I hope that you get it. God wants to get your hopes up . . . way up!
Or maybe the hopes of a loved one. Along with 2 hope-inspiring CD messages, this bundle
includes a booklet with Bayless’ amazing story of how God completely turned his life
around, setting him free from years of addiction and confusion. Call or order online now. Just
use the information on your screen. And be encouraged: There is always hope! Thank you for watching Answers with Bayless
Conley.
