We welcome you, Holy Spirit, Part 3

By Helen Jesze, 31^st May 2024

“… and, being assembled together with them, (Jesus) commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father, which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water; but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence.”

Acts 1:4-8 KJV

In the days following my baptism in the Holy Spirit at age fourteen, it seemed as though I had been given a bigger spiritual ‘lightbulb’. I was able to understand the Bible more, I could witness better for Jesus, and the Lord gave me the same dream three times. In this dream I saw myself standing in a church or hall, preaching fluently in the German language. As my second foreign language, I was learning German at school, and the Lord kept bringing German people across my path where I lived in the South of England, and I was able to learn more. This was the beginning of my call to ministry, especially to German-speaking people.

Last week, we saw that the NEW TESTAMENT symbols of the Holy Spirit are: Water, Fire, Wind, Oil and Dove. He was called the Holy Spirit, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit.

Whatever we might be lacking or struggling with today, the third Person of the Godhead – the Holy Spirit – will come to fill that need.

If we need Peace, he will come as the Dove.

If we need cleansing and deliverance from sin, he will come as the Fire.

If we need physical, mental or spiritual healing, he will come as the Oil and the Balm of Gilead.

If we need spiritual hydration and refreshing, he will come as the Water.

If we need new spiritual breath, he will come as the Wind.

If we need power, he will come with his enabling Power and release.

A lady asked me recently if we know the difference between speaking in tongues and speaking ‘gibberish’. Is it a proper language? I told her to read this devotional, as I wanted to touch on that.

John Sherill, who used to be the editor of the Christian magazine “Guideposts” was a born-again Christian but not baptised in the Spirit. He was asked to do a study on Pentecostals, the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues. He had never even heard that so he started going to Pentecostal churches and recording messages in tongues. He invited a group of non-Christian language experts to come together, and played them his recordings of speaking in tongues, and recordings of people speaking nonsense and gibberish.

The experts identified each “tongues” as a proper language (although not known to them, but identifiable from the structure and form), and the others as gibberish. Soon John and his wife were also baptised in the Spirit.

I heard a preacher tell how when he was baptised in the Spirit, he received such a strange ‘tongue’. Some people even said he needed to be delivered from demon- power, as it sounded so strange! However, one day a missionary from Africa came to the church and identified his tongues as a native language!

I wrote earlier how I went to Hockley Pentecostal Church, where there were many prophecies. Rev. Brash Bonsall, Founder of the Birmingham Bible Institute, used to take down the prophecies in shorthand. Many of them came true. My friend, Dorothy, wanted to buy a house and one Sunday, a prophecy came: “You will buy a house where the grass is as high as the garden wall”. When Dorothy went to view one the following week, sure enough, the grass was high as the garden wall! She bought that one!

Before Miss Fisher and Miss Reeve had bought Hockley Church building, a prophecy came: “Go to Ninevah! The answer is at Ninevah!” and another one: “It’s near a brook!” These seemed very strange, but when they looked at the old plans of the church building, the street used to be called “Ninevah Street” and it was near what had once been a brook! The Holy Spirit knows what he is talking about, even though it seems strange to our natural mind.

After my baptism in the Spirit, I received a new creativity. I had had piano lessons for only 9 months, then we moved and I had no opportunity to learn more, so I started to ask the Lord to anoint me with his Spirit. After this, I found I could play more and more, and I praise the Lord that he has used this gift in churches, groups and conferences. At Hockley I played the piano on Saturday and Sunday nights, learning to usher the people into singing in the Spirit. Then I began writing poetry and later songs and books. Pastor Gerhard Klemm, whom George and I knew in Germany, after his encounter with the Holy Spirit, was able to play any instrument. Another man told how he could now play 14 instruments and still counting!

Once I preached on “New Creativity through the Holy Spirit” and a young lady came up afterwards, and said the elders in her church told her she must give up painting, now she was a Christian. I told her that unfortunately her elders were wrong, and that God would use her painting for his glory. Not long after, she sent me a beautiful silk scarf, on which she had hand-painted the dove and fire of the Holy Spirit, and she held the first exhibition of her paintings, in a centre in the Black Forest, and she continued in this fruitful ministry.

In Acts 2, we read that after the Holy Spirit was poured out on the 120 in the upper room, they began to speak in languages (tongues) that they had never learned, and the visitors from many parts who had come to Jerusalem for the Pentecost Feast heard them speak in their languages. Does that still happen nowadays? Some people think that we would never have to learn another language, that God could always give it to us like that, but that is not the case! God does this only in certain instances.

Evangelist Tommy Hicks went to Russia in the 1950’s to preach. The only interpreter he could find was a hard Communist woman. During his sermon, she spat on the ground in disgust and walked off the platform. Tommy stood there and did not know what to do. Suddenly the power of the Lord came upon him and he began to speak in tongues, in Russian! The people understood him and afterwards they wanted to speak with him, thinking he could speak their language. But he was unable to do so, for it had only been given him for this occasion.

George was preaching in the USA during the time of the Gulf War, and heard how a soldier was praying in his tent, also in tongues. An Arab man went by and understood him, for he was speaking in Arabic! I myself, heard Linda, an eight year old girl give a message in tongues and it was interpreted into English. An Ethiopian man, new to the church, understood it and God spoke to him. He got saved that night!

The gun that wouldn’t go off!

There are several uses for speaking in tongues but we do not have time to go into all of them here. But I want to share the following incident with you. A mother was very sad because her son had got into drugs and criminal activities. She had not seen him for several years and did not know where he was. One night, the Spirit impressed her to urgently pray for her son. Because she did not know what was wrong, she began to pray and intercede in tongues. She kept this up for three hours, until just about 10 o’clock the burden suddenly lifted, so she began to thank the Lord for the answer.

The telephone rang. It was her son! “Mum, I’m coming home!” Shortly after, he came in, greatly excited. “Mum”, he cried, “what were you doing just before 10 o’clock tonight?”

“I was praying in tongues for you!” she replied. “Why?” “I had sold some bad drugs to a dealer and tonight he came to kill me! He pointed the gun at me and kept pulling the trigger but the gun wouldn’t go off! Then he said: ‘It’s something your mother is doing and I can’t kill you!’ He threw the gun down and ran off!” That night, the son came back to the Lord and was delivered from drugs. This shows us how important it is to obey the prompting of the Spirit, and also how important it is to speak and intercede in tongues. Although we may not know what or how to pray, when we pray in tongues the Spirit prays the perfect Will of the Father through us, and can bring many answers to prayer, which we may not receive otherwise.

Prayer: Heavenly Father, thank you for sending us your Holy Spirit to work in and through us. Help us not to just look for his power but to open our hearts in a new way to get to know him. He is not a ‘thing’, an influence or a wind, but is the Third Person of the Godhead and has his own character. Work in us Holy Spirit to make us more like Jesus, going from glory to glory, we pray in the Name of Jesus! Amen!