His Own Witness

His Own Witness

by David du Plessis

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

We have had a rich day. And I am sure from this morning on, we have been well fed spiritually and physically. Now then, tonight, I thought perhaps it would be wisest, as I listened to the Lord, to, instead of sort of giving you another epistle, we add another chapter to the Acts of the Holy Spirit.

Because the book of Acts never closed. The last verse says, “Preaching the kingdom of God, teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.” And that’s the end. Why didn’t he make a conclusion there? Because it never stopped. It’s still going on. We ought to be writing new chapters every day. And, friends, what I can tell you, that I’ve seen in my lifetime, I can write a book that will eclipse the Acts of the Apostles. For greater things has happened, and the Acts isn’t the climax of the whole thing. No. No. I am glad the Lord so arranged it, that we should go on. Today, and since last night, yesterday, we have heard much of good teaching from the book of Hebrews. Hebrews. And, correctly, the speaker said, his book speaks of maturity. We’ve got to grow up. But, let me remind you tonight, that there is no such thing, that we are going to be the most perfect people that ever live.

There has never been a perfect church on earth. The church in the first century wasn’t perfect, because we were not in it yet. And, we are not going to be perfect, because there are others to come after us. And, what about all those that have gone before? So, we are just part of it all. And, thank God for the part that we can have in it. Now, in all the speaking that I may do here, I’m concerned about one thing, and that is, that what the Lord told me, when I first came to America in 1937, from South Africa, I said, “Lord, what do I preach in America? They’ve got all the big preachers, they’ve done all the great things, they’re such a great nation. What can I tell them?” He says, “Tell them Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. They don’t need any more than that.”

And so, friends, that is a great message. I was talking to the great, renowned Professor Karl Barth, and he kept on saying, “Well, that’s lovely what you say, but theologians say this and that.” He kept on what theologians say. Or he would say, “Theologically speaking.” Finally, I stopped. I said, “Professor, will you please tell me what this theologically speaking and theologians say, what is it all about?” “Oh,” he says, “don’t bother. That’s only the art of making simple things confusing.”

Well, I said, “Then I have a great job.” He says, “What?” “To make confusing things simple.” And believe me, I do make it simple. So, I said, “Well, if I bore you with things that you already know, just tell me so. I don’t want to waste your time, and I’ve got no time to waste.” He said, “I can see you’ve been talking to fundamentalists.” I said, “Why?” He says, “You think I’m a fundamentalist?” “Well,” I said, “then you better tell me what is a fundamentalist? I hear about it all the time, but I don’t quite understand.” “Oh,” he says, “those are the people that know some scripture and think they’ve arrived.”

“I see. And you haven’t arrived?” “No,” he says, “I haven’t arrived. I’m a seeker. And in my seeking and searching, I discover very confusing things. I write about it and the world gets confused.” That’s very honest for Kalpa.

“I see. And you haven’t arrived?” “No,” he says. “And I hope I never do.” “Why not?” He says, “Because Jesus Christ is the way and there is no terminal. You never arrive. He’s the way. No terminal. No stopping place. You go on and on and on.” And he says, “As I go on in Christ, more truth unfolds. And the truth liberates me. And the more liberated I become by the truth that I discover, the more abundant life I enjoy.” He says, “The abundant life is there, but if you’re not liberated by the truth, you can’t enjoy it. That truth shall make you free.” So it has been a privilege to learn from some of these great men. And I talked to them many times and I kept on telling them. Now, when the Lord sent me to these people, He warned me not to preach to them. He says, “They can do that too. But only witness, witness to them.” I said, “They won’t even listen to me.” He says, “If you witness, they will. If you preach, they won’t.” And you know, I found the Lord knew better than I did.

For when I witness, they listen. That’s how I got in, by witnessing. Just telling what the Lord has done. And that means telling stories, telling experiences. I one day sat down and had a long talk with Sam Shoemaker. And I’m sure CFOs know about Sam Shoemaker. CFOs know about, and Sam Shoemaker, Frank Buchman, Glenn, Clark. What? Clark. Killing Clark. Yes. Those are three names. I’m sorry I never met Glenn. But anyhow, Sam Shoemaker said to me, “David, you’ve got such a rich life of experience. You must always witness.” “Oh,” but I said, “they might think I’m bragging. That myself.” “No,” he said, “you’ve got to brag on Jesus.” He says, “When they ask you to explain a scripture, always see if you have an experience that makes that scripture the truth. And if you have an experience, always find a scripture that will validate your experience. The one belongs to the other.”

In the world today of Christianity, the Catholic Church is known to emphasize the body, the church. And there came a schism, a division, because there were some that said it is not enough to be in the body by rituals, but there must be sound doctrine. And the split that came about by between what we call the Catholics and the Protestants was doctrinal, theological issues that brought about the rift. But then came the Pentecostals and they emphasized experience and said that even with a church or a body and with all the doctrine, it is still a form of godliness without power if there is no experience. If you cannot experience what is taught, if the rituals, whatever you have, have no effect upon your life, it has no meaning. But the three belong together. A body, the body of Christ, the church, you cannot eliminate that. And anybody that thinks they can do without a church is just floating around. You’ve got to belong.

But you get into the church itself by an experience, the Holy Spirit. And this you’ve heard again and again, by one Spirit are we baptized into one body. And that happened when we got our drink of living water. That’s the infilling of the Holy Spirit. A drink is an infilling. A baptism is not. I’ve never heard of anybody get baptized and have a drink.

One Baptist preacher got mixed up. He had a communion service that evening and a baptismal service later on. And so he got a little mixed up and when he baptized the first candidate he said, “I baptize you in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, and drink ye all of it.”

That would have been a drowning, not a drink, not a baptism. Even if you’re immersed, not a drop gets into you. It’s on you, always on you, never in you. Well, today the Lord has graciously brought together the three.

And of course, it causes a lot of controversy. This charismatic movement we speak of is a wonderful, wonderful work of God. It’s the Acts of the Holy Ghost in the 20th century. And it isn’t an imitation of anybody else’s. And it isn’t a repetition of the past. It’s brand new. It is for this generation. It is for this age. It is the same Lord Jesus meeting the need of the people where they are today. As they are today. And what a privilege it has been for me to get involved with this. Now, I told this afternoon, I said to some folks, before I was born, my parents prayed, “Lord, give us a son for our firstborn and we will dedicate him to Your service.” And that’s me. They got me. So they prayed the ministry into my very veins.

And yet, oh, I was, as a baby, I was baptized even with water out of Jordan. Jordan water. But I was as wicked a little rascal as the next one. That didn’t do me any good. But at the age of 12, we were living in Basutoland, it’s now called Lesotho. My father was building a home for missionaries. And there, as a young boy, I come to live among pagan Africans, not savages. They were not savages. They were nice people, good people. And where I lived in an African hut, and I could speak their language, learnt the language, and so on, but I made an awful discovery. I had read through the Bible at my father’s table. He never knew that you could sleep later than 5:30 in the morning. 5:30 you get up, 6 o’clock devotions, and then begins the chores of the day. So, I’d read through the Bible, and I thought it’s a very nice book, nice history book. Here I come to live amongst people that cannot read, for what they hear from the Bible, they don’t treat like history, they make it a workbook.

And as Harold Hill says, this is the manufacturer’s handbook. If you can’t get the article to work, study the instructions again, and see how it works. Well, I saw it working. These Africans, they talked about Jesus as somebody that lodged with them.

Whenever you meet them or when they come to meeting, they always tell what Jesus did, how they talked to Him. And I said, “That’s funny. My parents are Christians and they knew Jesus, but I don’t know this kind of a simple life. I don’t know what they’re talking about. They know Jesus. I know the Bible.” And that opened my eyes. Knowing the Bible does not make you a Christian. At all. But knowing Jesus makes you a Christian. And I’m not surprised that the Jesus people didn’t call themselves Christians, they began to call them Jesus people. I often wondered why. Until I heard the testimony of a boy who had become so outrageously sinful that his father drove him out of the house. And he went astray until he met some people with the Bible. And through them he got acquainted, there was joy. He had testimony. But at the end of the week his father said, “Look, we couldn’t stand you because of your miserable life. Now you’ve changed. But now we can’t stand it. You talk Jesus without end. Morning, noon and night it’s Jesus forever. You’re high on Jesus now.”

“If you don’t stop talking Jesus you better get out.” So he goes to the minister and he says, “Sir, my parents don’t want me to talk Jesus. Would you mind if I talk Jesus in the church?” He said, “No, I’m afraid I can’t let you do that either.”

He says, “But I thought the minister said, I thought your parents were Christians.” “Oh yes,” he said, “they’re wonderful Christians, but they don’t know Jesus at all.” Then I knew why they are called Jesus people. They knew Jesus. Well, what did I decide about the Africans where I was living? I decided, well, poor things, they are just too dumb to know what’s impossible.

They believe anything and sure it happens. I saw it happen. I saw them. They want to follow Jesus. They want to be like Jesus. They want to follow Jesus. And so as a boy it was exciting for me to go to the river, because they wouldn’t be baptized anywhere but in a river, flowing water, where Jesus was baptized, like He was baptized. Water. And they heard that when Jesus came out of the river the Spirit came on Him. And then they learned that John said this, that happens to Him, He will do to others. And so they want to be baptized in water, but believe me, they prayed before they went in, “And Lord, when we come out, You do for us what the Father did for You, baptize us in the Holy Ghost.” And so I see them come out of the water talking in tongues. Well, if you get baptized in water, the consequences, you get wet every time. It’s impossible to baptize anybody without getting wet. But I see when Jesus baptized people they talk in tongues. It doesn’t say they must, but it doesn’t say you must get wet either.

Getting wet is a consequence, not an evidence. And speaking in tongues is a consequence, not an evidence. Don’t call it an evidence. It is a consequence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit. I saw all this and I didn’t have it. And that’s how, one day, as I went to fetch the mail, I had to go on horseback 11 miles. I came out of the post office and a storm had come up and it was rather a violent storm and I wanted to race home before that storm breaks. So I raced the horse through the cornfields as fast as I could. No roads really, just a footpath through the cornfields up to the mountain, and the lightning struck ahead of me. I heard a sizzling sound and I smelled sulfur and heard the most tremendous earth clap, thunder. Well, when I heard the thunder, I said, “Thank God I’m still alive.” They told me if the lightning strikes you, you won’t hear the thunder clap.

But I was dead scared. I fell off the horse, knelt down in the cornfield and said, “Jesus, save me.” I was too young and too dumb to know how to get saved. So Jesus saved me. And He did a good job.

Some people say, “I got saved,” and then they say how. But when you say Jesus saved you, it’s not how, it’s who saved you. Who saved you? Always remember to say Jesus saved me. Don’t talk as if you did something and accomplished something. It’s not what you did, it’s what He did. And so He saved me. And I found He gave me, took my sins away of course, but then gave me a drink of that living water that He promised. And He said if you get that drink you’ll never thirst again. So there are some silly choruses that I can’t sing. One of them is that “Fill my cup, Lord.” How in the world can you say “Fill my cup, Lord” when He says once you’ve had a drink you’ve got a well that will never dry up. And now you sing “Fill my cup, Lord” as if you’ve never in your life had a drink. You’re making Jesus a liar.

You can sing “I’ve got joy like a river.” That’s more true. You can overflow with rivers. But how can you have rivers if you’re fiddling around with little cups? Why are Christians so poor? That’s a beautiful song, “Fill my cup, Lord,” but only for sinners. And once the sinner has had his sins forgiven and had his first drink, he can never sing it again. That’s the end. Then he’s got to sing about the rivers. Overflow, out of your belly will flow rivers of living water. Well, 1916, I got the drink and I knew I had it. My parents knew I had it. 1918, the Lord baptized me in the Holy Spirit, and that’s a baptism of fire.

They told me, “David, if you want to get filled you must first get empty.” And I prayed, “Lord, empty me.” And the more I tried to get empty, the fuller I got. That well just won’t dry up. Where did they get that silly foolish teaching? From people who never had the experience.

And so they taught it. And they said it’s the baptism, is an infilling. And I wanted to get filled with the Spirit. That word has been abused until people don’t know what you’re talking about and what you mean when you say filled.

How can you be born of the Spirit and not be filled with the Spirit? That’s impossible. If you’re born of the Spirit you are filled with the Spirit, because your new birth came because of the drink. But one of these professors said to me, “That’s what Jesus said on earth,” meaning before Pentecost. “But after Pentecost things changed.” No, it didn’t, because Pentecost wasn’t a drink, it was a baptism. So here I read in Revelations 21, that’s heaven, “He that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And He said unto me, Write, these words are true and faithful. He said, It is done. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to him that is athirst of the fountain of the water of life freely.”

Isn’t that the same story that He told the woman at the well? Isn’t that the same story that He told them? The same promise He made in John 7 at the feast? A drink! “He that overcometh,” what? His thirst, “shall inherit all things.” How come? You mean take a drink of this living water and you become an heir of all things? Indeed! “I will be his God and he shall be my son.”

So the new birth, becoming a son of God, is like taking a drink of living water. You get Spirit filled. This is the infilling. Then comes the overflowing. And I am happy to tell you that the door of grace is not closing at all.

For two years ago when the Methodists asked me to come and speak to two thousand ministers, no, to a thousand ministers in Atlanta, I said, “I’ll come if they bring the wives. I don’t like to talk to ministers without the wives. I’ve tried it. It doesn’t work. I persuade the minister of the truth. He goes home. His wife didn’t hear what I said. She doesn’t agree with him. And once you’ve got a minister and his wife to argue, you’ve lost the whole church. Because if the parsonage is divided, how do you expect the church to be united?” And so I said, “Nothing going. I’ll in future see that I have the wife there too. For if he and she agrees, the church will pretty well have to go along. If both of them agree.” So they said, “All right.” I said, “What do you want me to talk about?” “Tell us what the Spirit is saying to the church in this day.” “Oh,” I said, “that’s great. I’d love to tell you. What does He say? Revelations 22:16, ‘I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify these things in the churches. I’m the root and offspring of David, the bright morning star. And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. Let him that heareth say, Come. Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.’”

That’s the last cry. That’s the last cry. And brother and sister, if a minute before Gabriel blows the final trumpet you had a drink, you’ll go up in glory. For you become a child of God when you receive the Holy Spirit. When He takes out the sin, He doesn’t leave you with a vacuum, He immediately fills you with His Holy Spirit. And I’m glad when Jesus met His disciples after Calvary was accomplished, reconciled to God, but then Jesus could say to them, “As my Father sent me, so send I you.” Having said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” And I’m glad in this case He said He breathed, for what Adam lost Jesus came to restore, and God breathed into Adam and they become living souls, but the soul that sinneth, it shall die. And what did Adam lose when they failed to obey the Lord? They lost the indwelling Spirit, and He became an exterior Spirit, He would not forsake man. We have the scriptures how God forever followed them, wanted to be their guide, and now Jesus comes to redeem mankind. Law could not do it. The law came by Moses, and I’m glad that God did not give us more laws, better laws, but gave us His only begotten Son.

And He had paid the price and now raised from the dead, spoke to Mary, ascended on high, back that evening, and in that room He met His disciples and breathed on them and said, “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.” Who was this? The glorified Jesus, the Lord Jesus. He’s risen from the dead and He’s Lord, and here stands the head of the church and adds ten new members to the body. That’s the birth of the church. That room where Jesus met His disciples was the first Holy Ghost maternity ward. The first people were born of the Spirit right there. And you know, it’s remarkable, you couldn’t start a synagogue with less than ten men and Jesus just had ten, but He didn’t start a synagogue, He started the church.

The church was born on Easter day, but fifty days later the newborn church was baptized, and surely it could… the church couldn’t be born on the day of Pentecost, that was a baptismal service. The upper room was a baptismal font, and you can’t baptize a thing that isn’t even born.

That is why I say to people, don’t worry, unregenerated sinners cannot get the baptism. It’s impossible. They must be born again first before they can be baptized. And Jesus is the one that brings about the regeneration, gives you the living water, and He surely won’t make a mistake and try to baptize you if you’re not born.

Why do I say this? Because some of my Pentecostal brethren think I’m encouraging people to get the baptism that are not good candidates. I said, “If I was the baptizer, I’d examine them. But I’m not. Jesus is the baptizer and He cannot make a mistake. Impossible.” Do you really believe Jesus is the baptizer? Thank God there’s only one baptizer, otherwise what a mess. We got such a mess with water baptism already. What would we have had if Jesus wasn’t the only baptizer? Who would have been right? In fact, they now wonder who’s right. I said, “All that are baptized by the Lord Jesus have the real thing.” And this I learned later when I had to meet with the Commission of Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches.

150 or more of the world’s greatest theologians, bishops, archbishops, presidents of institutions, just the best they would think. And they had invited me to come and talk to them. That’s the first time a Pentecostal was invited to talk to the Faith and Order Commission.

I told them what they wanted me to tell them. What they asked for. But I only delivered a little message, about 15 minutes, to give them 45 minutes to ask me questions. You see, I found out if I say some things out of my own, they think I’m aggressive, I’m attacking them, I’m judging them and so on. So I came wise. I just tell them a few nice things and let them ask questions. And when they ask questions, I can say anything. They ask for it.

And so there’s never any problem. That was the same thing here. An archbishop there asked me, funny, I never mention tongues. But when I don’t mention it, the first question always is about tongues. And so the first question came, “Do you still think tongues are important?” I said, “Whoever said it isn’t?” He says, “But all theologians seem to agree that it’s least of all the gifts.” “Well,” I said, “I’ll agree with that too. But that’s why I believe you ought to begin with it.”

It’s the least of all the gifts. Why not begin right there? Oh, the Lord gives me some funny answers. One good Baptist said, “All right, I believe I have the baptism, but I haven’t spoken in tongues. Have I missed much?” “Oh, no,” I said, “not very much, just as much as a genius would miss if he didn’t know the ABC.”

He’s a genius. But because he doesn’t know the ABC, all the libraries are closed to him. They didn’t close it. His ignorance closes him out. But if you know the ABC, he that knows the ABC can educate himself, and he that speaketh in a tongue edifies himself. All you’ve missed is the edification that you could have had. He says, “That’s important.” I said, “Well, that depends on you. If you’re a genius, you’d quickly learn the ABC.” He says, “How do I, what do I do now?” I said, “Do what Jesus told you. Believe. Mark 16, he that believeth shall speak with new tongues. Go ahead, believe, and start talking.”

“Yeah.” He said, “It’s simple as that.” I said, “Yes, it is. Just as simple as that. And remember, you talk to God and nobody else.” So these things, the Lord has helped me as I came to different meetings and different places. But at that Commission of Faith and Order, I stopped by saying to them, “I’m not here to encourage you to accept Pentecostalism. I’m here to warn you, be not conformed to Pentecostalism, but be transformed by the Holy Spirit in your own churches. And in order to meet that transformation, you cannot get it anywhere else, any other way, but from the Lord Jesus Christ, the head of the church.” And I said, “Friends, let me say to you, you who have accepted Jesus Christ as Savior, why is it that you ignore Him as the baptizer? You do all the baptizing as if He has authorized you to take His place. He is the baptizer in the Holy Spirit, as sure as you are baptizers in water.”

At the close of the meeting, there came a man, after a lot of compliments they paid me for the nice way I treated them or the nice answers I gave and so on. And here comes a man and he says, “Would you accept the sincere thanks and the deep gratitude of a Catholic priest?”

I said, “Who are you?” He says, “I’m Professor Bernard Leeming from Oxford, England, and I’m Pope John’s personal representative at this meeting. I always thought I had the Spirit, but tonight you have convinced me I’ve missed the baptism.”

I said, “Well, God bless a good Catholic.” He said, “Can you, you’ve got it?” I said, “Yes, Jesus baptized me.” He says, “Can you give it to me?” I said, “No, sir, I cannot give it to you.” He says, “Can’t you lay hands on me?” I said, “But this doesn’t come by apostolic succession. But if you get it, you’ll have apostolic success.”

Well, the next morning we met at breakfast. This priest or this professor had heard about Pentecost, so we agreed that if I come in first, I’ll keep a chair for him. If he comes in first, he’ll keep a chair for me. I was in first, and I looked around to see where I’d sit. I knew the Catholic was coming, and up to then I had no time for Catholics, and didn’t like them, and didn’t trust them, and so on. In fact, when he was speaking to me, my good old Huguenot heart said, “David, watch out, you don’t know what this old fox has got up his sleeve.”

And so the next morning he came, and I was talking, I sat opposite some Presbyterian theologians, and I thought if I get in trouble with the Catholic, they may help me. But he came, and suddenly somebody planked his hands on my shoulders and gave me a shaking, it’s my Pentecostal brother.

The Presbyterian said, “There you have a perfect ecumenical picture, a Pentecostal outside the World Council, a Catholic outside the World Council, and behold, they are brothers.” I said, “That proves to you that the Holy Spirit is more ecumenical than the World Council.” And He is. This charismatic movement is God’s ecumenical movement. And if you don’t make it ecumenical, it isn’t charismatic. And if it isn’t charismatic, it isn’t ecumenical. It must be the Spirit of God, for the unity between Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost is spiritual, that they may be one as we are one. And in the Spirit we can be one, but no rule or regulation or bylaw or any decision of any council will ever make us one.