The principal purpose of the book of Acts seems to be the description of the anointing of the Lord and the fullness of the Spirit that rested upon the early believers. Many Christians today have too narrow an understanding of this dynamic book. A Pentecostal influence leads them to view Acts only as a book that records the fact that the Spirit of the Lord fell and the believers spoke in tongues. This experience is not what the book of Acts emphasizes.
It is true that the book of Acts is about people who received the Holy Spirit and in some cases spoke in tongues, but as you read further into it you find stories such as the one about the church at Ephesus (Acts 19).
When Paul found some disciples there, he laid hands upon them. They received the Holy Spirit and spoke with tongues and prophesied. Almost immediately a release came to speak the word of the Lord, and within two years everyone in Asia Minor, or what is now called Turkey, had heard the word of God.
This phenomenal evangelistic campaign started with twelve people being filled with the Holy Spirit, and from that humble beginning, the word began sounding forth.
The day they received the Spirit, they spoke with tongues and prophesied, and the prophetic flow became a magnificent tide of the word of God that kept rising and overcoming everything else. People with books of magic worth fortunes brought them to be burned. The word of God grew mightily and prevailed.
In this hour the prophetic living word is coming forth again through the New Testament foundational ministries. Does this mean that the Scriptures are no longer needed? Of course not. Actually, such a word is the fruit of the Scripture itself. The ministry who brings such a word has read and studied the Holy Scriptures until they are written and etched with fire upon his heart. As the Holy Spirit brings the Scriptures to mind, the prophetic flow comes forth. That word cannot be divided to determine which is prophecy and which is the written Word. Prophecy in a man is a result of the Scriptures. You can read the Scriptures, you can hear the word with your spiritual ear, or you can hear the word in its fruitfulness coming forth from another vessel; it is all the same word of the Lord.
The teaching which insists that we must differentiate between the prophetic word and the written Word is not borne out by a careful research of the Scriptures. There are two Greek words, rhema and logos, which are both translated “word” in the New Testament. These two words are used interchangeably for both the written Scriptures and the word spoken through a human channel. There were times when people spoke the logos, and there were times when they spoke the rhema. In like manner, there were times when the word logos was used when referring to Scriptures, and there were times when the word rhema was used for the Scriptures. The truth of the matter is that we have a holy Word from God, the logos, and we constantly put in action the rhema. It would be wrong to split hairs about those words.
Some believers will only accept the Scriptures. Yet they often end up placing the Bible on a shelf like a package of seeds. What will it grow? What can seeds bring forth if they remain in a package? Nothing. The Bible, like a package of seeds, must be planted in the heart and watered. The Holy Spirit must breathe on it, and after a while it will begin to spring forth and grow. If you decide to accept only the Bible to the exclusion of prophecy, consider the fact that prophecy is nothing more than the germinated Word that is growing and coming to fulfillment. One word can be likened to a seed and the other to a plant that has finally come forth bearing fruit.
God has given you the written Word, like a packet of seeds which you plant in your heart. That Word begins to grow and to explode in your heart, and after a while it comes forth as a true flow of the Word. God never intended that anything He gives you should be dead-ended within your nature. He gives you the Holy Spirit. Then as you come to Him and drink, it will be as the Lord said: “Out of your belly will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38). He never intended that the word which He puts in you should stop with you. When God gives you a word, He intends that the word should begin to grow until it possesses you. After a while you should be speaking the word of God too. You should become a source of that word. After you drink of the Holy Spirit, you should become a fountain of living water.
Recall how the Scriptures came forth and how the disciples began to speak the word of the Lord in the New Testament. God wants to do the same thing today. He wants to set on fire the moving of His Spirit in this end time. But most of God’s people do not realize what God says in His Word concerning the process which produces that fire. From the beginning of the restoration until now, certain phases were evident as it progressed historically. There probably were no altar-call services in the days of Martin Luther. Later on, an evangelism emphasis came forth, making it very clear what it meant to be born again as a believer. Still later, John Wesley brought forth his teaching on entire sanctification. However, it is doubtful whether the Christians in any of those periods received experiences as deep as the deliverances that Christians are receiving today. At the beginning of the restoration, experiences were shallow; and God intended that they should become deeper and deeper as the restoration progressed.
Years ago, in some groups, Christians were saying, “Praise God, now we are filled with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” But there was no fire; nor was there much of the Holy Spirit. They had an experience about which they said, “We speak in tongues as the early Christians did in the book of Acts.” Yet they did not move in the authority and power of the early disciples, as recorded in the book of Acts. Their experiences were simply the beginning of a restoration of the experience in Acts.
In former years, when elders laid hands on people and prophesied over them, years passed before those prophecies began to be fulfilled. Now people receive a word from God and immediately begin to move in it. The effectiveness of impartation has improved vastly. People can begin a walk with God now and immediately have a clear vision of what the restoration of the gifts and the ministries is all about. However, some have not had the depth of experience that brings forth the creative, forceful word which they must proclaim. Their present level of experiences must become deeper; actually, it is that depth which will give reality to their walk with God.
Because your experiences tend to become deeper with time, you ought to go back and strengthen your salvation experience and your experience in repentance. Seek God for a deeper experience of deliverance in your life. Seek further release from the flesh. It is one thing to be saved; and it is another thing to be saved to the uttermost (Hebrews 7:25). You may be saved, but are you saved to the uttermost? Have you received the Holy Spirit? Are you really filled with the Holy Spirit? Do you have a double portion of the Holy Spirit? How deep an experience are you going to have?
Everything that you receive from God is expandable. God does not give you anything that will not grow in your life. Your dedication must grow. Your revelations must grow. God intends for your experiences to expand and grow deeper as time goes on. Whenever there is a waning or a diminishing of your experiences, it is an unhealthy sign—a sign that the wrong kind of death is working in you. Put away the human arrogance that says, “Praise the Lord! Five years ago the Lord met me, and I had a real experience. Someone laid hands on me and prophesied over me.” Believe for something more to be imparted and received as time goes on.
God is making available a deeper experience, a deeper appropriation than His people have had thus far in the period of restoration. We should all seek the Lord for a double portion of the Holy Spirit, for a deeper deliverance, for a better healing. We should be ready for an experience in the Holy Spirit in which we can be overflowing constantly.
The desire for deeper experiences will lead to a true restoration of the experience described in the book of Acts. The disciples were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness (Acts 4:31). Would you like to have a new experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit until you speak the word of the Lord with boldness? It is up to you to turn loose that hunger. The more you are filled with the Spirit, the deeper will be the word that flows forth from you. You cannot move in something that you do not have. If you speak the word with limited effectiveness (regardless of how loudly you might voice it), then you need to go a little further and cry out to God for a deeper faith and a greater anointing.
When there is a meeting of God’s people which is given to exhortation and prophecy, expect to see the things happen that are prophesied. If prophecies come releasing the finances, then those finances should appear. If a blessing on a missionary project is prophesied, then that blessing should be evident. When God’s people prophesy over any situation, they should expect to see a change. There must be a violent, forceful explosion of faith. It is time to analyze very soberly how much you have from God, and then to seek a little more. Constantly reach into more of God. Constantly reach into a greater anointing of the Holy Spirit and claim what God is going to do in your life. Then the Lord will bring it to pass.
God has more for His people to move in than they are moving in right now. The quickest way to move in what He wants is to ask the Lord to fill your vessel again. You may think that you have been filled, but your capacity has most likely changed since you were first filled. To illustrate—in most households there are all sizes of jars: half-pint, pint, quart, gallon, and five-gallon. There is a great deal of difference between the capacity of a half-pint and a five-gallon jug.
If you are a spiritual half-pint, just keep on being full and your capacity will be enlarged. As you walk on in the Lord, you become like a wineskin that stretches; and then it takes a little more to fill you. God’s people must keep seeking the Lord and come together again and again to be filled. As they let the word of Christ dwell in them richly, it is out of that word that they can speak to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs as they come to Him to be filled again (Colossians 3:16). They must be conditioned to the relationship between spiritual fullness and the ability to speak the word of the Lord effectively.