While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, ‘Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?’
They answered, ‘No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.’
So Paul asked, ‘Then what baptism did you receive?’
‘John’s baptism,’ they replied.
Paul said, ‘John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him, that is, in Jesus.’ On hearing this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about twelve men in all. (Acts 19:1-7, NIV)
Apollos is now in Corinth, (Acts 18:27); In Acts 19:1, Paul is in Ephesus where he finds some new converts who haven’t even heard of the Holy Spirit. This is probably because of Apollos, who didn’t know what had happened at Pentecost; he was only baptising as John did, preached the same message as John. Paul explained the Gospel and baptised them in the Name of Jesus. Immediately the Holy Spirit came upon them. Baptism of infants is not enough - read Romans 6:1-14 - we are baptised into the death and resurrection of Jesus by full immersion in water when you believe.
Let us examine what this baptism in water symbolises. Literally it means to be buried, as when you die! Look at Colossians 2:12 – buried with Christ in baptism and raised with Him through your faith. This is clearly symbolic of the death of all your past life, buried in the water. Then as Christ Jesus rose from the grave and from death, so we are to rise with Him, ‘through faith’, out of the water. It was the same extraordinary step of faith for Jesus, who died in absolute belief that He would be raised in three days. Our baptism must be a demonstration of the same faith.
There are conflicting traditions in the Church. One is of infant baptism by sprinkling. This cannot fulfil Acts 2:38 which requires repentance first. How can a baby or even a child without a knowledge of sin, repent? In addition, it is significant to look at Matthew 3. When John was unwilling to baptise Jesus, He rebuked him saying, ‘thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness’. Immediately after we find that both of them went into the river Jordan, confirming by implication and by the actual word used, that Jesus was not sprinkled, but rather immersed. The Bible shows that our baptism in water symbolises death, how can sprinkling do this?
Paul entered the synagogue and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God, (verse 8): Paul preached the Kingdom of God in the synagogue for three months; after a dispute he moved to the lecture hall of Tyrannus, where he preached daily. This is the first record of Paul preaching in a hired building, ‘This went on for two years, so that all the Jews and Greeks who lived in the province of Asia heard the word of the Lord,’ (verse 10).
God did extraordinary miracles through Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to those who were ill, and their illnesses were cured and the evil spirits left them.
Some Jews who went around driving out evil spirits tried to invoke the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were demon-possessed. They would say, ‘In the name of the Jesus whom Paul preaches, I command you to come out.’ Seven sons of Sceva, a Jewish chief priest, were doing this. One day the evil spirit answered them, ‘Jesus I know, and Paul I know about, but who are you?’ (Acts 19:11-15, NIV)
Many years ago I was ministering in Siberia. I remembered our Pastor friend from Blagoveschensk had told us that this town we were in, was situated in what they called the 'Valley of death'. That is actually the meaning of its name. The story is that although the town was relatively new, this place had been known for centuries as the place where men and animals would come to die. There was obviously a strong spirit controlling this area. Tania had clearly become possessed by an evil spirit. She could certainly speak in another language as if 'speaking in tongues' when the demon manifested itself and it also recognised and spoke English. When we began to pray, we were joined by Pastor Gorbachov and the senior members of his ground team, as well as our intercessors and the local Pastor.
This spirit had a very powerful control over the woman. When I spoke to it commanding that it should go in the Name of Jesus, Tania said that she was married to Satan. We discovered that her grandmother and aunt were involved in witchcraft and that even her fourteen-year-old daughter wanted to be a witch.
The spirit spoke to me in English, saying, "I know who you are", but when the Pastor began to pray, it asked who he was. Suddenly it took control of the woman again and began to make her dance, then go into a whirling ritual as if trying to cast spells on us. Again, I commanded that it should leave, this time saying that if it refused, I would cast it into the fires of hell. Suddenly it screamed out in response, "Anything but that, anything but that, don't send me there!" Tania then said, "The spirit will go if you only bring my daughter here." The devil's designs on the young girl were horrendously obvious and we refused. We took authority again in Jesus' Name, commanding it to come out, which finally it did, but only after a hard battle which continued after the service that night and into the early hours of the following morning.
The greatest difficulty we had was in convincing the local church members that Tania was free. Sometimes we become so impressed by the current teachings about demons that fear is introduced, and we are almost tempted to depart from our simple faith in Christ. In Him we are new creations, the old has passed away - 2 Corinthians 5:17. This over-emphasis on demons was at times a stumbling block in several of the churches we visited and a source of fear and bondage to new believers.
When this became known to the Jews and Greeks living in Ephesus, they were all seized with fear, and the name of the Lord Jesus was held in high honour. Many of those who believed now came and openly confessed what they had done. A number who had practised sorcery brought their scrolls together and burned them publicly. When they calculated the value of the scrolls, the total came to fifty thousand drachmas. In this way the word of the Lord spread widely and grew in power. (Acts 19:17-20, NIV)