The Dancing Hand of God Part 8: The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

The final message of The Dancing Hand of God series is about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Dr. William P. Hohman teaches that believers are placed on earth for signs and wonders, and that this is impossible without heaven’s arsenal. He shows from Scripture that receiving the Spirit at new birth and being baptized in the Spirit are two distinct experiences, and that the second is power from heaven for service and witness. It follows The Dancing Hand of God, Part 7: The Manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit.

Below you will find the full video, a summary of the sermon, the Scriptures he uses (New King James Version on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Sermon at a Glance

This is the eighth and last message in The Dancing Hand of God series at NTC Ministries, posted in November 2022. Pastor Hohman opens with the one verse he says gives solid instruction about our purpose on earth, and builds from it to a clear teaching on what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is, how a believer knows they have received it, and why it is given.

He illustrates it with testimonies from his ministry and ends by leading listeners in a prayer to be born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit.

Called for Signs and Wonders

The opening verse is Isaiah 8:18: the children the Lord has given are for signs and wonders in Israel from the Lord of hosts, who dwells in Mount Zion. Pastor Hohman reads Zion as the church. Everyone who has given themselves to the Lord is here for signs, wonders and miracles, not for a normal life.

The world is still beautiful, he says, but it is the corrupted version until the Lord makes everything new. He has ministered in countries where bombings were normal. In a quieter place it is tempting to think God’s warnings are for someone else, but he insists they apply right here at home.

Jesus came doing signs and wonders, and all who are born again are called to the same, which requires weapons. The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, he says, not machine guns, tanks, knives or bullets, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). God has weaponized His people, yet most Christians have no idea.

Raising kids, being married and holding a job, he says, is just living here. Living for the Lord means living with Him. Jesus said that whoever keeps His word, He and the Father will come and make their home with him (John 14:23), which Pastor Hohman describes as God staking a claim and camping in your life.

Let Not Your Heart Be Troubled

He then turns to John 14:1–3, having the congregation say it aloud to one another: “Let not your heart be troubled.” Jesus spoke it on the way to the cross. Pastor Hohman says we are in the birth pains of the end, and they are getting worse, but the church will be spared the judgment that follows.

He affirms his belief in the rapture; the word is Latin, like Trinity it is not in the Bible, but the catching away is. He marvels that creation took six days, while Jesus has been preparing our dwelling for some two thousand years.

In the meantime, we live among people whose minds are becoming more warped as they refuse to follow God. They are not hopeless, he stresses, and they are not necessarily bad people. That is why Jesus promised not to leave us comfortless (John 14:18) and sent the Holy Spirit, who brings the arsenal. The Spirit is the governor of the church, as Jesus is Lord over it.

His picture is a homeowner with an active tank in the yard facing a robber with a knife: you would be comforted. Heaven saw something similar when Lucifer, the choir director as he puts it, tried to set his throne above God’s (Isaiah 14:13–14). Jesus said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven” (Luke 10:18).

God equips us with power for signs and wonders, not to destroy people but to bring them to their senses, so they see who He really is. Pastor Hohman calls the church the only army in history that goes into the enemy camp to recruit people into its own ranks.

The Dancing Hand of God and the Baptism of the Holy Spirit

Pastor Hohman’s first point is the difference between receiving the Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. In John 20:19–22, on the evening of Resurrection Day, Jesus stood among the disciples behind locked doors, showed them His hands and side, breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” He is certain they did: it was a regenerating work, and they were born again.

Jesus then showed Himself alive for forty days by many infallible proofs (Acts 1:3), which he calls signs, wonders and miracles. Just before His ascension, while they were gathered for a meal, He commanded them to wait in Jerusalem for the Promise of the Father: John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now (Acts 1:4–5). They had already received the Spirit forty days earlier, so this was something more.

The Spirit first comes in when we are born again, Pastor Hohman explains, but the Father wants Him to come upon our lives as armor and weaponry for a fallen world. It is grace to go through things others would wish on their enemies, the way Jesus slept in the storm and then said “Peace, be still,” and the sea became calm (Mark 4:37–40). With it you can run against a troop and leap over a wall, and bend a bow of bronze (Psalm 18:29–34). He calls it dunamis, explosive power from God.

The timing fits the feasts. Pentecost means fifty, and it came fifty days after Passover, so after forty days with Jesus the disciples waited ten more. John the Baptist had already announced it in Matthew 3:11: one mightier than he would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. Jesus Himself did no miracles until the Spirit descended on Him like a dove at His baptism (Matthew 3:16). Then came water into wine at Cana (John 2:1–11), which he notes was simply to keep someone from embarrassment.

After Jesus was taken up into a cloud (Acts 1:9), the disciples waited in anticipation. Then, with a rushing mighty wind and tongues of fire, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance (Acts 2:4). Scripture uses several terms for this: filled with, baptized in, and the Spirit coming upon. Because the Spirit already lives in a born-again believer, Pastor Hohman says, He comes out from within and upon us.

A Definite Experience You Can Know

His second point is that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a definite experience: you can know whether you have received it. Just as a born-again person can tell you when it happened, Jesus told the disciples to stay in the city until they were endued with power from on high (Luke 24:49). If that power came, he asks, would you not know it?

Being born again made him a different person, he says, but when he was baptized in the Holy Spirit he felt as if he was walking twelve feet off the ground. That same night he went into the streets and into a restaurant sharing Jesus, and he says he has never stopped. Not everyone is called to that, he adds, because there are different ministries but the same Spirit, and the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all (1 Corinthians 12:4–7).

In the book of Acts, he shows, people knew when the baptism of the Holy Spirit came, and it brought signs and wonders. The table below follows the accounts he reads.

At Cornelius’s house (Acts 10:44–46), the Jewish believers were astonished because they heard the Gentiles speaking in tongues. Pastor Hohman explains tongues as a heavenly language: someone born in Russia, China or France has a home language, and those born again are born from heaven. He often does not understand what he prays, but the Spirit prays through him.

Peter later reported that the Spirit fell on them as on us at the beginning (Acts 11:15–17), and asked who he was to withstand God. That, he says, answers anyone who claims God does not do this anymore. The gifts of the Spirit are not for him but for everyone else. He tells of a flight to Japan when the Lord showed him that the military man beside him was running away from his family. He also saw the man as a child on his grandmother’s lap while she sang the songs of Zion. The man wept and gave his life to Jesus.

When Paul met disciples at Ephesus in Acts 19:1–7, he asked whether they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed. They had not even heard of it. After being baptized in Jesus’ name, Paul laid hands on them, and they spoke with tongues and prophesied. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 12:3), so the Spirit was already in them; this was something more.

Prophesying is not the same as holding the office of a prophet, who speaks to churches, cities and nations. Every believer can prophesy to comfort and bless. At a Walmart checkout he told a frazzled cashier that the Lord was turning her finances around, and her face changed. A word that says you will crash and burn, he says, is not God.

For Every Age and for Service

His third point is that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is separate and distinct from the Spirit’s regenerating work. In Acts 8:12, men and women in Samaria believed Philip’s preaching and were baptized in water. Yet in Acts 8:14–17, the apostles sent Peter and John because the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them. They prayed, laid hands on them, and the believers received the Spirit.

Age does not matter. John the Baptist was filled with the Holy Spirit in his mother’s womb (Luke 1:15). Pastor Hohman’s son, Pastor Paul, was born again at about ten months old. At two and a half he was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and he would sit outside his father’s study for hours praying in tongues.

The purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not cleansing, which is the work of regeneration, but empowering for service and witness. Acts 1:8 says, “you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me.” For his listeners, Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria could mean Merrill, Lincoln County and Wisconsin, then the whole world. It starts where you live, and your life is bigger than it is right now.

In Luke 11:9–13, Jesus says that everyone who asks receives. No father would give his son a stone for bread, a serpent for a fish or a scorpion for an egg. How much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? Pastor Hohman says those who paint the Holy Spirit as something bad have been influenced by religious people who are afraid of God.

Ask, Believe and Receive

The way to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Pastor Hohman says, is to ask, believe and receive. Jesus said that whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them (Mark 11:24). It is not by might nor by power but by the Spirit of the Lord (Zechariah 4:6), and he describes the Holy Spirit as sometimes more intimate to him than the closest people in his life.

He who speaks in a tongue edifies himself (1 Corinthians 14:4). Pastor Hohman says edify means to build, and that praying in a heavenly language strengthens and improves your life while activating gifts that flow out to others. He calls it a win-win.

We receive with our mouths, because God spoke everything into existence (John 1:1–3). That is how salvation comes: confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead (Romans 10:9). He leads a prayer asking God’s forgiveness, making Jesus Lord, and asking the Father for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Then he encourages people to let the syllables rising from their heart come out of their mouth in a heavenly language.

He closes with two testimonies. At a town hall near Iron River, Michigan, a woman who had been through great hardship was delivered and then received the baptism of the Holy Spirit, and nuns from the local convent came for prayer for about four hours. Another time he told a man who believed he and his wife could not have children that she was already pregnant. Two years later the man was pushing a baby carriage, and both had been born again.

Living It Out This Week

Pastor Hohman’s charge is that believers are not here just to raise a few kids, have a job and hope to reach heaven one day. Here are the steps drawn from this final Dancing Hand of God message:

• Ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Ask the Father in faith, believe that you receive, and expect power from heaven.
• Pray in tongues daily. He says the more you pray in the Spirit, the more the gifts and that arsenal begin to activate.
• Refuse a troubled heart. Speak “Let not your heart be troubled” over yourself when the news is bad.
• Look for one person to bless. Like the cashier or the man on the plane, let the Spirit show you someone to comfort or encourage.
• Start where you live. Treat your town and workplace as your Jerusalem and be a witness there first.
• Measure prophecy by its fruit. Expect words from God to comfort, build up and bless, not to frighten.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Isaiah 8:18: for signs and wonders
• 1:01 Living in a corrupted world
• 3:12 The weapons of our warfare
• 4:13 Living with the Lord, not just for Him
• 5:10 John 14:1–3: let not your heart be troubled
• 6:54 The rapture and a 2,000-year building project
• 8:56 Not left comfortless: the tank in the yard
• 10:06 An army that recruits from the enemy camp
• 11:18 John 20: receive the Holy Spirit
• 14:10 Acts 1:4–5: baptized not many days from now
• 16:17 Peace, be still, and dunamis power
• 18:33 The Spirit came on Jesus at His baptism
• 20:38 Acts 2:4: filled and speaking in tongues
• 22:51 Luke 24:49 and Cornelius’s household
• 25:22 A heavenly language
• 28:16 The man on the flight to Japan
• 31:03 A definite experience you can know
• 34:02 Acts 19: the disciples at Ephesus
• 36:12 Prophecy and the office of the prophet
• 40:09 Acts 8: Samaria receives the Spirit
• 41:12 Age does not matter
• 43:09 Acts 1:8: power to be witnesses
• 44:15 Luke 11: how much more the Father gives
• 50:09 Receiving with your mouth and prayer

The Dancing Hand of God Series

This message completes the eight-part Dancing Hand of God series at NTC Ministries. Start from the beginning or go back one message:

• First message: The Dancing Hand of God, Part 1 — The Holy Spirit From Creation to Today
• Previous: The Dancing Hand of God, Part 7: The Manifest Presence of the Holy Spirit
• You are here: The Dancing Hand of God Part 8: The Baptism of the Holy Spirit

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I have to be a preacher to need this power?

No. Pastor Hohman says it does not matter whether you are a homemaker, a construction laborer, an attorney, a doctor or a teacher. Everyone who belongs to the Lord is called to signs and wonders. He was raised in Pentecost and recalls the saying that the Holy Spirit takes the chicken out of you, but he says the boldness should come out in a loving, kind way as God opens doors.

What if no heavenly language comes right away?

He teaches that we receive with our mouths, the same way we receive salvation. After praying, he encourages people to notice syllables rising from their heart and to let them out, even though they will not understand them. He also offers a longer teaching on the power of the Holy Spirit, including four hours on tongues, for those who want to learn more about receiving.

Why does the church need weapons if it does not fight people?

Pastor Hohman explains that the arsenal is not for destroying anyone. It is for bringing people to their senses so they see the quality of God in action and know He is real. That is why he calls the church the only army that goes into enemy territory to recruit, and why the gifts of the Spirit are given for others.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Isaiah 8:18 — for signs and wonders
• 2 Corinthians 10:4 — weapons mighty in God
• John 14:1–3 — let not your heart be troubled
• John 20:19–22 — receive the Holy Spirit
• Acts 1:4–5 and Acts 1:8 — the promise and the power
• Acts 2:4 — filled with the Holy Spirit
• Acts 10:44–46 — the Spirit falls on the Gentiles
• Acts 19:1–7 — the disciples at Ephesus
• Luke 11:9–13 — the Father gives the Holy Spirit
• 1 Corinthians 14:4 — speaking in tongues edifies

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

Watch More Messages

If this message stirred you to seek more of God, there are hundreds more teachings from NTC Ministries waiting for you. Browse the full sermon archive and keep growing in the power of the Holy Spirit.