The Evidence of Baptism in the Holy Spirit

Now, let’s ask ourselves for a little while, if you will follow with me, what are some of the things that can be shaken? Because if they can be shaken, they will be shaken.

I’d like to turn, first of all, to the famous parable of the two different houses, one built on sand and the other built on the rock. The version that’s given in Luke chapter 6, verses 47 through 49.

“Whoever comes to me,” Jesus is speaking, “Whoever comes to me, and hears my sayings and does them, I will show you whom he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when the flood arose, the stream beat vehemently against that house, and could not shake it, for it was founded on the rock. But he who heard and did nothing is like a man who built a house on the earth without a foundation, against which the stream beat vehemently; and immediately it fell. And the ruin of that house was great.”

Notice there’s no difference to the tests to which each house was subjected. Each of them was subjected to the storm. And don’t imagine that being a believer will give you a storm-free passage through life. If anything, rather the opposite.

There’s a kind of presentation of truth today which is only half truth, which is if you come to the Lord and get saved, everything will go well. You’ll never have any problems, et cetera.

Most of us know, by experience if not by scripture, that that isn’t true. A friend of mine, who’s a preacher, was once asked, “What is the evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit?” He replied, “Trouble.”

There was only one difference. It was not in what the houses went through. It was that one was built on a solid foundation, a rock. The other was not. And Jesus said building on the rock is very simple. It’s hearing what he says and doing it.

And I believe that is the only foundation that will give us a building that cannot be shaken. Anything that is not built on the hearing and doing of the teaching of Jesus will be shaken.

So I would like to think over with you, briefly, some things that will be shaken. This is not an impassioned, emotional appeal. I’m trying to be objective and, in a sense, analytical. I’m trying to say things which everybody will agree to.

The problem is not to tell people something they don’t know, it’s to remind them of what they know and maybe don’t want to remember. First of all, individual lives can be shaken. In the ministry, I’ve dealt with hundreds of people over the years whose lives have been totally shaken by sickness, by poverty, by a broken marriage, in various ways. People who say, “I give up. I can’t go any further. Nothing helps. Nothing works. I might as well be dead.” They were people whose lives were not built on the teaching of Jesus.

It doesn’t mean that if we build on the teaching of Jesus, we’ll have no problems, but we’ll have the strength to withstand the problems.