Steve DuPlessie

We never really talked about the verses of John chapter one where John the Witness told the crowd…

“I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. 33I would not have known him, except that the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ 34I have seen and I testify that this is the Son of God.”

Later in John we discover that the disciples of Jesus baptized people. John 4:1-3 tells us…

“1 The Pharisees heard that Jesus was gaining and baptizing more disciples than John, 2 although in fact it was not Jesus who baptized, but his disciples.”

So here’s my question. Maybe you can help me: What was the nature of the baptism that the disciples of Jesus were doing? Was it the same as John’s baptism, a baptism of repentance (see Mark 1:4)? Was it “Baptism with the Holy Spirit” that John mentioned in 1:33?

If it wasn’t baptism with the Holy Spirit at this time, then when/how is it that Jesus baptized people with the Holy Spirit?

What do you think?

Text: John 1:34-51

It was all about the invitation: “Come and see.” Once it was Jesus, replying to Andrew and John when they asked where he was staying (see verse 39). And again, when Philip was responding to Nathanial’s question about Jesus (see verse 46).

I like to hear stories of how people meet Jesus. In my case, I’m fortunate to have grown up in a home with a mom and a dad, and both were believers. So my earliest memories are about sitting in church meetings, singing the songs and hymns, listening to the preachers talk about the symbology of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament Tabernacle. And there was Sunday School with small classes taught by sincere and patient teachers.

I remember hearing stories from missionaries to Africa and Alaska. I heard evangelists from Jamaica and England. And Billy Graham at the 1964 crusades in Boston. So I had lots of voices inviting me to Jesus.

But it was my mom who led me to the Lord one night at bedtime. When I asked her a question about heaven after our nightly bedtime bible story, she told me again about God’s love and my need for a savior and invited me to give my heart to Jesus. I was only five, but God saved me that night, September 10th, 1957 at home in Lincoln, RI.

I’m curious. Who invited you to meet Jesus? Was it friend or family member who told you about Jesus? Was it a Sunday School teacher or a teacher at school or a counselor at camp? Was it in a church or in a coffee shop? Who invited you? tell me your story…

Text: John 1:19-34

It seems strange to us, a couple of thousand years later, that in Jesus’ time there was confusion about who John the Baptist was (I like to call him John the Witness), and who the Messiah was, for that matter.

But I guess the Jewish people had been duped before by people claiming to be “The Christ”. And in fact, at Jesus’ time, the Essenes of the Qumran community (the guys who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls) were looking for two Messiahs: one political and one spiritual. And Orthodox and Conservative Judaism today are still looking for the Messiah.

Prophets are another matter. God laid out clear diagnostics for determining if someone was a prophet of God or not. Check out Deuteronomy 18:21 & 22

You may say to yourselves, ‘How can we know when a message has not been spoken by the LORD ?’ If what a prophet proclaims in the name of the LORD does not take place or come true, that is a message the LORD has not spoken. That prophet has spoken presumptuously. Do not be afraid of him (NIV).

Yet we still seem to have a problem with prophets today. I’m thinking of Jim Jones, leading a bunch of people to South American and getting them to drink the Cool-Aid. And David Koresh comes to mind.

But just this past summer (2008) there was a guy, a tattoo covered, multi-pierced, “born again, Spirit-filled Christian,” Todd Bentley, who claimed that God spoke directly to him and that he had met and spoken with Jesus face to face many times. Tens of thousands of people gave up their vacation time to go to Lakeland, Florida to be at his packed ”revival meetings.”

Bentley claimed to heal hundreds of people, sometimes yelling “BAM!” as he struck them on the forehead in his “laying on of hands.” He even claimed to have raised 12 people from the dead!

That was before he resigned his revival in August after admitting an improper relationship with a female co-worker. Bentley and his wife have since filed for divorce. (See the article in Christianity Today magazine)

Someone has said that those who gravitate to the dramatic charismatic outpourings of the Spirit’s power are going to be the first to accept the Anti-Christ. But I don’t think that they’re the only ones.

What do you think? Are we too gullible? Will we too easily fall for anything? The latest Christian fad or phenom? Or, on the other hand, are we so concerned about being duped (or maybe so jaded and skeptical) that we miss–or even deliberately reject–the obvious signs of God’s power and activity in the “circumstances” our lives?

In his contemporary classic, Experiencing God, (a quick must-read), Dr. Henry Blackaby writes that God is at work all around us. But we too often fail to see it, enjoy it, or give him the credit. What do you think?