But there won't be any enemies to overcome or battles to fight when we get to heaven. The
last enemy shall have been conquered. There won't be any enemies to overcome in the land
over there.
Canaan is a type of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and our rights and privileges in Christ. The
children of Israel came out of Egypt, and Egypt is a type of the world. Then the children of
Israel were all baptized, because going through the Red Sea was ;t type of water baptism.
They also all drank of Christ; that rock out of which the water flowed was a type and shadow of
Christ(Exod. 17:6; 1 Cor. 10:4).
The children of Israel could have gone directly into Canaan's land, but because of unbelief and
disobedience, they wandered in the wilderness for forty years. Their descendants did
eventually enter in, but the unbelieving Israelites took quite a detour.
If you want to detour and take the long way into the baptism in the Holy Ghost, you can. For
example, you can detour by tarrying unnecessarily at the altar in order to receive the Holy
Ghost. You can detour a lot of ways. But you can also come directly in and receive Him
immediately if you are born again. That's God's best! The door is open to receive this precious
Gift.
Take the Direct Route!
By way of illustration, if you wanted to go from Oklahoma City to Dallas, for example, you could
go directly down the highway to get there. Or if you wanted to, you could go by way of St.
Louis, down to Memphis, over to Atlanta, down to New Orleans, over to Houston, and then up
to Dallas. You wouldn't have to, but you could.
It is the same way with receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You can detour if you want to
and take the long way to receiving the Holy Spirit, but why not take the direct route?
Someone said, "But I remember those wonderful times of seeking God for several years before
I was filled."
"Well, have you stopped seeking God since you got filled?" I asked. "Because I remember the
wonderful time I spent last week seeking God. In fact, I remember the wonderful time I spent
today seeking God. I believe in seeking God and tarrying before God, but not to receive the
Holy Ghost, or anything else God offers, for that matter."
Spirit-filled believers need to seek God just as much as folks who are not filled. But seek God
with the Holy Spirit, not without Him.
"Yes," someone said to me, "but I learned many lessons in those many years of seeking God
for the baptism in the Holy Spirit."
I replied, "You could have learned those same lessons a whole lot faster with the Holy Ghost
than you did without Him! And I will tell you something else: The thing you should have learned
when you did get the baptism was that you didn't have to do all of that waiting and tarrying in
order to receive the Holy Spirit."