The Manifestation of the Holy Spirit

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 baptised with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?"

And He said to them, "It is not for you to know the times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority.

"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 1:4-8

Now when the Day of Pentecost had 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 the whole house where they were sitting.

Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each one of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Acts 2:1-4

From these scriptures, we read about Jesus asking the apostles to stay in that place to wait for the Promised one - the Holy Spirit which will give them power and they will be His witnesses. And in the second chapter when the Holy Spirit came and filled each one of them and ALL of them spoke in tongues as seen from here, "Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

The noise of the rushing mighty wind was the wake of the Holy Spirit making His initial entrance into the temples He had always desired to dwell in. (The physical temple of the Old Testament is gone and now the temple means our bodies, bodies of believers.) Again, Scripture does not say He was wind; rather wind was the manifestation of His entrance.

One observation that was made known to me through the book, Drawing Near by John Bevere was that Satan and his cohorts always do things opposite to or in perversion of God's ways. Whenever the Holy Spirit makes His initial entrance He does it in such a way that it can't be missed. People would see and hear His manifestation when He filled them. Yet when He leaves, He does it quietly. We can see that from Judges 16:20 when the Lord departed from Samson and he didn't know it. Samson did not know the Lord left because the Spirit of God always leaves quietly. (This is where I would always pray David's prayer, "Do not let your Spirit depart from me!")

However, whenever demons enter in, they do it quietly, but when they leave many times they do it with a manifestation of some sort. Let me explain something. Manifest means to bring from the unheard into the heard, from the unseen into the seen and to bring from the unknown into the known. So the manifestation that comes when demons leave are like what's seen in exorcism. That's one example. :)

At the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit is poured out to all there were all sorts of people from all parts of the world visiting the place for the Pentecostal celebration. When the city heard the noise of the rushing wind, multitudes came to where the disciples were. These visitors were in shock as they heard the uneducated disciples speaking of the wonderful works of God in their own languages. Peter took the advantage of their shock and stood up to preach Jesus to all present. Toward the end of his message he said,

This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. Therefore being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear. (Acts 2:32-33)

Notice, he said the promise of the Holy Spirit was something they could see and hear. That means the Holy Spirit can be experienced, can be felt and all that is described above. He is not an It. He is a Person, not an invisible force that enters you when you believe and cannot be experienced then.

After that, the gathered crowd was cut to the heart and asked what they should do. Peter responds:

"Repent, and let every one of you be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." (Acts 2:38-39)

Notice carefully, the Promise, which they saw and heard, is to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. Exactly what these disciples received in the Upper Room has been promised to all who call upon the Lord, which includes you and me!

And from the scriptures onwards from there in Acts, we can see that the apostles began to be led by the Holy Spirit to speak boldly the Gospel and to go to places allocated and shown by the Holy Spirit.

In the next post, I'll be talking about how to be filled with the Holy Spirit. A lot of these are excerpts from the book, Drawing Near by John Bevere. Enjoy, people :) Any questions, please feel free to ask ^^