Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles Men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized every one of you inthe nameof Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. Acts 2:37-38
Stage 1. REPENTANCE: “repentance toward God”
What do we repent for? Remission of Sin (From the dictionary “Remission” is a pardon of a sin, the forgiveness of an offence).that is taking away of our past sin, before coming to the knowledge of truth (Acts 17:30) not the future sin and not Adam’s sin, what we did is chopped off but our old nature is still there.
llustration:
Fig .1 Fig.2
NOTE: Snake = Sin Dove = Holy Spirit
(Above are two hearts of human, inside one is a snake the other is a dove as life in each. Now when we are forgiven of our sin, we are done away with the malice hatred, etc. but the thing that made us do them are still there. That is the old root of evil it’s still there)
Stage 2. WATER BAPTISM: that is to be immersed into water in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ to cleanse the mind and sets the heart in order of holiness. A man repents of sins (eg. Immoral, drunkard, etc.) and any time he sees any immoral looking woman he is still thinking of it ,why ? Drunkard any time he smells the drink he is still itching for it, why? Because the old root of evil is still there. But then when he/she gets sanctified, that cleanses that desire out of him/her. it takes the want of it away. Though he/she can still be tempted, but the want is taken away. Still, he is not right yet. (Acts 2: 38; Acts 19:1-5; Acts 10:46-48; Acts 8:14-16)
Stage 3. Finally comes the baptism of THE HOLY GHOST, AND FIRE (Matt. 3:11), cleansed, burnt out cleaned up and then put you into service of God . ( Ref;The Future home Of The Heavenly Bridegroom and The Earthly Bride, 64-0802 Vol.3-5R Paragraph 87-98)
