"Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (Acts i. 5). See also Acts xi. 16, Matt. iii. 11, Mark i. 8, Luke iii. 16, John i. 33. Now, though "baptized" and "filled" are sometimes convertible terms, it is instructive to note that they are not always so. The promise in Acts i. 5, "Ye shall be baptized," was fulfilled in Acts ii. 4, "And they were all filled," where "filled" is used for "baptized." In Acts iv. 8 we read, "Peter filled with the Holy Ghost," and in ver. 31, "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost;" where the word "baptized" could _not_ be used instead of the word "filled." The difference is this: the "baptism" is received but once; it is, so to speak, the initiatory rite to the life of Pentecostal service, and fullness, and victory. Life begins at the Cross, but service begins at Pentecost. If there has been no Baptism, there has been no Pentecost; and if no Pentecost, no service worth the name. "Tarry until ye be clothed with power," said the Master (Luke xxiv. 49); "Wait for the promise" (Acts i. 4); "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence" (Acts i. 5); "Ye shall receive power when the Holy Ghost is come upon you" (Acts i. 8). And we see that, in compliance with the commands of their Master, no service of any kind did these men attempt till "the day of Pentecost was fully come" (Acts ii. 1). "Theirs not to make reply! Theirs not to reason why!" Their business was simply to _obey_. With the promised "Baptism" they entered upon a new phase of life, experience, and service, and this "Baptism" need not be repeated; but not so the "Filling." Peter was "filled" in Acts ii. 4, again in Acts iv. 31. The "Filling" may be, and ought to be, repeated over and over and over again; the "Baptism" need be but once. In support of this, note how frequently the word "filled" is used in the Acts and Epistles compared with the word "baptized." The Baptism which we are considering here must not be confounded with the baptism in 1 Cor. xii. 13, the "Being baptized into one body." Paul is speaking there of every believer having been quickened from the dead by the agency of the Holy Spirit, and thus made a member of Christ's mystical body. This is a Pauline way of stating the being "born again" of John iii. 7. It was to those who already had been "baptized into one body" that Christ gave the promise, "Ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost" (Acts i. 5). In view then of this word of Christ, "Ye shall be baptized," and of the word of John the Baptist, recorded in John i. 29-33, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ... the same is He that baptizeth with the Holy Spirit" (the same promise is also recorded by Matthew, Mark, and Luke), it surely cannot be unscriptural for a believer--painfully conscious that as yet this word has not been fulfilled in his experience, that for him as yet the day of Pentecost has not fully come--to pray "Lord Jesus, baptize me with the