Go Therefore Into All The Nations

John had a baptism of repentance. The disciples of Jesus, while He was still on the earth, would also baptize people, and this as well was a baptism of repentance. It was a public proclamation of the desire of the heart to be right with God. And it prepared the heart to receive what Jesus accomplished by His death and resurrection. Scripture records the last instructiion Jesus gives His disciples before His ascension into heaven, and this has to do with a new type of baptism. In Matthew 26 Jesus says; "All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you."

The account in Mark goes as follows; "Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved, but he who has disbelieved shall be condemed. And these signs will accompany those who have believed; in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues . . . they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover."

In Luke Jesus tells His disciples that it is written that "repentance for forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations . . . And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high."

And finally in Acts 1 we read; "And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father promised . . . for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now . . . you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses . . . even to the remotest part of the earth".

God invites us to come into a relationship with Him through a rebirth of our spirit. The first step in doing that is to repent of our disobedience toward God the Father. Water baptism is a declaration of repentance and a proclamation of faith in Jesus as our Savior and Lord. In telling His disciples to go into the whole world to baptize Jesus is teaching that repentance and faith are needed to be reconciled to God.

But Jesus not only invites us to come in, He also sends us out, in the power of His Spirit, to be able to witness in word and in power; proclaimng the good news that in Jesus there is salvation, healing and deliverance. Water baptism speaks of the repentance and faith that leads to our spirit being born again. Spirit baptism speaks of a surrender in our soul to the moving of the Holy Spirit who resides in us at salvation. When I asked Jesus to come into my heart as Savior and Lord I also asked Him at that same time to fill me with the Holy Spirit. My desire was for that power to be evident in my life. It was at that time that I took a step of faith and yielded my voice to a new language. But in the instant before I spoke I knew that Jesus would give me those tongues and I was flooded with a wonderful revelation of the presence of Jesus in my heart.

I believe that the Father's intent was to have all new believers equipped with supernatural power from the Holy Spirit. In Acts 8 Peter and John go to Samaria. The people had been baptized in the name of Jesus, but there was not any evidence of that supernatural power. When the apostles laid their hands on them the people received the Holy Spirit, and the implication in the text is that there were outward signs (perhaps tongues and prophecy), enough so that a guy named Simon offered money to the apostles so that he could impart the Holy Spirit. The lesson here is that the Holy Spirit brings Jesus to us, the Holy Spirit resides in us from the moment of salvation, and He should move in power in our lives from that point. But often we do not see that power. So for many there is a need for a release, a flooding of the Spirit into our souls, a surrender. This can happen through the laying on of hands of believers, or while we are standing alone in our shower.