“Waaait for iiit!” I can still hear in my mind the drawn-out warning of the drill sergeant when I moved my foot on hearing him bark, “Squaaad..!” My mind had known what was coming and my foot just wouldn’t wait.
Jesus once said to me: “You are impatient to the degree that you believe that I am late.” The Lord has a way of speaking softly, but his words cut to the heart. But you are never late, I responded, and then realized that I was too often early, and so impatient!
In my younger years I had a problem with waiting around for people to appear and things to happen. That was, until I spent a lot of time in the mountains of Borneo and the provinces of the Philippines, where waiting is not just likely but certain, whether it’s for an overdue bus or a person who fails to turn up at the agreed time. “Punctuality is respect for other people’s time” proclaims a sign on Manila’s busy EDSA Boulevard, but I wonder how many who read it ever practice it.
Until the 1970s and the start of what came to be called the Charismatic Renewal, “tarrying” meetings were common in Pentecostal churches. Pentecostals were rejected by mainline Christians, but Charismatics were members of mainstream denominations, so they were accepted.
What makes a church Pentecostal is that its members have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, and in the old days “tarrying” meetings (the term is based on Jesus’ words, “Tarry in Jerusalem until you receive power from on high”) were held so that those seeking to be filled could “tarry” in prayer until Jesus baptized them in the Holy Spirit.
Sadly, many of these churches are now Pentecostal in name only. A church mission in Manila described itself as Spirit-filled, but became so only when the Lord Jesus baptized forty-two of its staff and members in the Spirit after we laid hands on them. The power of the Spirit completely transformed the mission! The staff and members did not have to wait because they were willing and ready to receive!
In the old days Pentecostals believed that those who sought the Gift had to “tarry” in prayer until they were holy enough for God to fill them. It was widely thought that believers had to attain a more spiritual state before that could happen, so new Christians did whatever they could to become holy enough to receive the Spirit. Later it was realized that “Pentecost” had been a calendar event that was unique to the Jews, which was why Jesus had instructed his disciples to wait for it. “And when the day of Pentecost was fully come…” Well, we all know what happened when it did!
In every single instance thereafter, believers received the Holy Spirit without having to “tarry” – the “wait for it” time had ended. The Samaritan believers received as soon as Peter and John laid hands on them (Acts 8:17). True, they had to wait for them to arrive from Jerusalem, but only because the deacon-turned-evangelist Philip thought it prudent to ask the two well-known apostles to lay hands on the despised Samaritans. (The Jews would have regarded the term “Good Samaritan” as an oxymoron in the time of Jesus.)
The newly-converted Saul (who would later be known as the Apostle Paul) received the Holy Spirit when Ananias entered the room of the house where he was staying, spoke just one sentence to him, and then laid his hands on him (Acts 9:17).
In the house of Cornelius, Peter managed to speak only ten sentences before the Holy Spirit “fell” on the gathering! (Acts 10:44) The Jewish believers who had accompanied Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on non-Jews. Cornelius and his household had waited for days for Peter to arrive – but not in expectation of the Spirit!
As for the disciples Paul encountered more than 20 years later at Ephesus, the fact that they had not even heard of the Holy Spirit did not prevent them from being filled as soon as Paul laid his hands on them! (Acts 19:1-6) They had been baptised by John the Baptist in a baptism of preparation for the coming Messiah, but now they were baptised in identification with the death and resurrection of that Messiah.
But if believers don’t have to wait to be filled, why is it that so many do not receive as soon as they ask to be filled? The answer is that they have to wait only because they have been disobedient to the Lord’s command that they be baptized in water, or like Simon the believing magician, they have not yet fully surrendered themselves to the Lord Jesus.
I prayed for one Christian lady who had been seeking the gift of the Spirit without success for twenty-five years. After connecting her to a scriptural promise, I laid a land on her head and she received the Spirit immediately and shouted loudly in tongues! The ignorance of simple scriptural truths has kept many waiting much longer than the ten days the disciples had to “tarry” in Jerusalem.
I preached on healing in a small town in Cornwall and three ladies were baptised in the Holy Spirit and shouted in tongues! They liked my message on the woman who touched the border of Jesus’s robe, but they were ready to be filled!
You don’t have to wait to be baptized with the Holy Spirit; you only have to be ready and willing to be filled!