heard from Me: for John indeed baptized with water, but ye _shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence_.” It is evident then, that here the promise of the Father means the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Turn now to the second chapter and the thirty-third verse, R. V., “Being therefore by the right hand of God exalted, and having received _of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost_, He hath poured forth this, which ye see and hear.” In this passage we are told in so many words that the promise is the promise of the Holy Spirit. If this peculiar expression means the baptism with the Holy Spirit in Acts i. 4, 5, and the same thing in Acts ii. 33, by what same law of interpretation can it possibly mean something entirely different six verses farther down in Acts ii. 39? So the law of usage establishes it that the promise of Acts ii. 39 is the promise of the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Now let us apply the law of context, and we shall find that, if possible, this is even more decisive. Turn back to the thirty-eighth verse, “And Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ unto the remission of your sins; and _ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost; for the promise_ is unto you, etc.” So it is evident here that the promise is the promise of the gift or baptism with the Holy Spirit. It is settled then by both laws that the promise of Acts ii. 39 is that of the gift of the Holy Spirit, or baptism with the Holy Spirit. Let us then read the verse in that way, substituting this synonymous expression for the expression “the promise,” “For the baptism with the Spirit is unto you, and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” “_It is unto you_,” says Peter, that is to the crowd assembled before him. There is nothing in that for us. We were not there, and that crowd were all Jews and we are not Jews; but Peter did not stop there, he goes further and says, “And _to your children_,” that is to the next generation of Jews, or all future generations of Jews. Still there is nothing in it for us, for we are not Jews; but Peter did not stop even there, he went further and said, “And _to all them that are afar off_.” That does take us in. We are the Gentiles who were once “afar off,” but now “made nigh by the blood of Christ” (Eph. ii. 13, 17). But lest there be any mistake about it whatever, Peter adds “even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto Him.” So on the very day of Pentecost, Peter declares that the baptism with the Holy Spirit is for every child of God in every coming age of the church’s history. Some years ago at a ministerial conference in Chicago, a minister of the Gospel from the Southwest came to me after a lecture on the Baptism with the Holy Spirit and said, “The church to which I belong teaches that the baptism with the Holy Spirit was for the apostolic age alone.” “I do not care,” I replied,