Jesus told His disciples, “My sheep hear my voice” and I believe the Lord speaks to us through the Holy Spirit.
We see an example of this in Acts 8, when Philip encountered the Ethiopian Eunuch. We are told that God spoke to Philip in two ways.
First, we are told that an Angel of the Lord appeared to Philip telling him, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza” (verse 26).
Some suggest the angel may have spoken to Philip through a vision or a dream.
Then as Philip walked down this road, we read that Jesus communicated with Philip again when he encountered a chariot, but in a different way.
“Then the Spirit said to Philip, ‘Go up and join this chariot,’” Luke writes in verse 29.
We are not told specifically how the Holy Spirit spoke to Philip, but it does not appear to be through a prophetic word or word of knowledge given by another individual.
The Holy Spirit communicated this message directly to Philip, who obeyed, resulting in a key official in the Ethiopian government not only becoming a believer but also getting water baptized.
I am convinced that the Holy Spirit is still regularly communicating to Christians today.
In fact, Philip may have had a vision similar to what happened to Pastor Mark Francey of Oceans Church in Orange County, California which resulted in over 4,200 people being water-baptized last year, Faithwire reports.
At the time Baptize SoCal took place in May 2023 at California’s Pirate’s Cove, it was arguably the largest water baptism in American history.
Francey had been pastoring his church for just three years when he read a book that included a story about one of America’s largest water baptisms that took place in the 1990s at Pirate’s Cove when 3,000 people were baptized.
After reading about the story, Francey said he received a vision of a mass baptism taking place at Pirate’s Cove. This included some very specific details.
“I had almost like an open vision,” he told CBN’s Billy Hallowell, “I saw boats from guys I knew in our church parked along Pirate’s Cove.”
“I saw that beautiful house on the corner there with [people] leading worship from its balcony,” he continued.
Two weeks later, he told his church about the vision, and they were excited and agreed to help organize and fund the baptisms.
But then Francey started having second thoughts.
“I tried to talk God out of it,” Francey said. “I’m like, ‘There’s a lot of other guys here — fathers, mothers here that are doing great things. You know, I’m a nobody.’”
Like any normal person, he struggled with insecurity. Was the Holy Spirit really speaking to him? What if he was wrong? What if it failed?
Well, it seems that the Holy Spirit wasn’t interested in Francey’s insecurities and told him to it and God would be with him.
Francey and his church obeyed the promptings of the Holy Spirit, took the risk, and organized the mass baptism that included dozens of churches.
And for a few weeks, it was the largest water baptism in America’s history, until Greg Laurie, of Jesus Revolution fame, baptized 4,500 a few weeks later.
