In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the importance of living in the spirit rather than in the flesh. He highlights that many people will be deceived when they die because they only hear nice things said about them at their funeral, but God's word speaks of destruction for those who live in the flesh. The preacher declares that he does not live in the flesh, as Christ lives within him and controls every aspect of his being. He encourages the audience to recognize their need for transformation and obedience to God's will, so that they can experience the fullness of the Holy Spirit in their lives.

What is the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Why it's the coming of the Kingdom of God. It is Christ taking over. It's Jesus Christ who said, I am the beginning and the end, beginning. And Pentecostal people who have understood that, they realize that now the beginning has been made, the tree has been planted, now it's got to be watered and taken care of, and it must bring forth fruit in his season. And there's only one way to finish. God tells us that we ought not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together, because the day is approaching when we shall give an account for the things that we have done in our bodies. And that really means to give an account of what we let God do for us. God in us, God through us, God undertaking, living no more unto myself. That's over with. There was a time when I lived for myself, had my own plan, my own desire, followed my own inclination, wanted a comfortable life, made my own plans. But now, thank God, according to his eternal purpose, he has taken over. He has made the plan. The Bible says that Jesus Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last days for you. And that's the baptism of the Holy Ghost, is Christ coming in and taking over. And we, the Bible says, we must go through much tribulation. Why? Why, those are the stepping stones, those are the tests by which we choose day by day to let Jesus Christ take us on. And that is the wonderful thing, that we never stand still. We never remain the same. We're babes when we begin, but God wants us to grow up into the full stature of the manhood in Christ Jesus. And that's what meetings like these are for. And the Bible tells us not only that we need to let the word of Christ dwell richly among us by which we are changed, but we ought to exhort one another daily while it is called today. We belong together. We've got to grow together into this stature of the manhood of Christ. And then it tells us that we ought to fear, lest the promise being left us of entering into his wrath. Any of you should seem to come short of it. I'm reminded of Caleb, of whom God says, I'm going to bring him in because he followed me fully. Just think all the testings and all the trials Caleb had to face with that backslidden gang, the whole nation backslidden, building a golden calf, dancing around it. No wonder the woman came around, I don't doubt, and they got Caleb by the arm and said, come on, let's wail around a little bit. And he said, he followed me fully. That means something today, to follow Jesus Christ fully. It means that you forget the things that are behind. It means that you come out from among them. You're separate. You touch not the unclean thing. And little by little, day by day, we discover the narrowness of the way and we discover the will of God for our own lives. And as we take steps of obedience, Jesus Christ comes into his own and it fills us more and more with the Holy Ghost. And that's the wonderful thing of this life. I remember when uncle Frank got his baptism. I remember when he got saved. I was there when he was baptized in water. It's a wonderful time. And I remember when his sister got the baptism, Sister Anna Poster. I was there in Bethel Temple in Chicago until two o'clock in the morning. She prophesied. She had a wonderful, wonderful time with God. She had sought with all her heart. Really, it was an example to me how that girl sought the Lord. She came out of the Baptist church. She had been in my Sunday school class. And when I was put out, she came to see me and wanted to know why. What had happened? And when I told her of my experience, immediately she became hungry for the same experience. And like Frank, her mother forbade her, absolutely under threat of a beating, to come to meeting. And what did she do? She asked me for a key to the mission on Newell Street in Kenosha. I had to go there early in the morning, many times, and I'd find her there, praying before going to high school, spending an hour, calling on God, waiting on the Lord, praying. And one day she came to me. And she said, Please pray that this persecution shall stop. I said, No, I'm going to pray that it will continue. It's good for you. And she said, Now my mother is sending me out of the city so that I can't get to the mission to pray. Her mother sent her to Chicago. And one day I had to have a meeting in Chicago in Bethel Temple. And here Anna came with her friends. And it was that night she received the baptism, a wonderful baptism in the Holy Ghost. Oh, it is wonderful when you get the baptism according to Acts 2.4. But it's wonderful when you get the baptism according to John 7.38. Know what it says there? That's right. The rivers of living water. What does that baptism in the Holy Ghost mean to you? It was such a good thing, I think, for Anna, her sister, to have to go through persecution and have to face that issue. Her own mother, her own father were against her. Her own pastor was against her. And it was so healthy for her to have to make her choice and to suffer and to follow Jesus all the way. And it's been good for everybody that has fought that fight. You'll find some people get the baptism very easily. They call speaking in tongues the baptism. I think that's too bad. One, two, three, they speak with tongues. Next day they play poker again. I know them. But when you have to pay the price and God says, wait a minute, let's clean that temple first. Let's get the idols out first. And God declared war on everything that's worldly and fleshly and devilish and says, come on, get down, humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, and he'll exalt you in due time. Blessed are the poor in spirit, theirs is the kingdom of heaven. And you take scripture seriously and you follow on. The Bible says, repent, that's number one. And most people don't have to repent today to speak with tongues. That's why we have such a shallow experience. That's why the world and the flesh and the devil have moved into Pentecostal assemblies. Everywhere there is a complaint. But oh, when you pay the price because you don't want to speak in tongues, but you want the king, the kingdom of God, you're hungering and thirsting after righteousness. That's Pentecost. Thou has loved righteousness and hated iniquity. Therefore God, therefore God, even thy God have anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows. That's Pentecost. Everything else is unsatisfactory. And Anna got her baptism that way. And so did many others. But the wonderful thing is that from that baptismal, from that wonderful experience, God leads you every day to a new experience, to a new, not a new infilling. You're not losing the baptism, but you grow. You get filled more. You come more and more under the control of the Holy Ghost. And how is it today? Are you seeking today with all your heart to walk in the spirit and not in the flesh? If you do, you have a wonderful companion. You have the father and the son and the Holy Ghost in your life and you're growing and your growth is bound to show on the outside. Rivers of living water will flow from within you. That's the baptism in the Holy Ghost. It wasn't meant to be a climax when you speak in tongues. That's very wonderful. It was meant to be a beginning and God meant to take you on and he tells us how. What is that climax that you might be filled with all the fullness of God? What an experience to be filled with all the fullness of God. Here on earth, that's the climax. That's the goal that is set before us. And Paul said, I have not yet attained. Thank God as long as we're on this earth, there is always that wonderful goal before us. And every man that has this hope in him and that's the hope that becomes alive when God gives me the earnest of my inheritance. I shall be like him. You know, most people don't care to be like Jesus sufficiently to get a picture of Jesus. The New Testament is given to us that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. That like he was in the world, so should we walk. Like he walked in newness of life by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life. And so the baptism in the Holy Spirit is a flow of that mighty river of God. You begin like Ezekiel tells you by dipping your toes into that river of life, beginning to feel good. And then you get your knees into it. The Holy Spirit gives you. He becomes the spirit of prayer. Prayer prays God, becomes a passion in your life. You can't help it. The Spirit of God drives you. He becomes that driving force. And he drives you into your knees. And you recognize as you walk in the Spirit, as you look into this wonderful Bible, you recognize how far you have been. Paul says, not as if I had already obtained, either were already perfect. And I tell you, many had a start. And I tell you, weeping, they're enemies of the cross of Christ. Instead of being crucified with Christ, living no more unto themselves. Now they're living for themselves. The mind's earthly thing. Is that bad? He says that end is destruction. That's another thing we don't believe. Beloved, I think we're going to be fooled when we die. Lots of people are going to be absolutely fooled. At the funeral service, we say nice things about people. My, wasn't he a wonderful, wasn't he a wonderful fox, the geese said when the fox was being buried. Sure, you have to say nice things. What does God say? Destruction. Destruction. If you live in the flesh, you shall die. Thank God I don't live in the flesh. I don't have to live in the flesh. Christ liveth in me. Christ is the King. Christ controls my mind, my heart, my feelings, my body, every part of my being belongs to Jesus Christ. He has purchased it and he has sent the fire of God down from heaven to make me a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God. Why do you think God put those things in the Bible so that preachers can have nice texts to preach from? Why no, they wouldn't preach from those texts anyways. People call them, well, why do you call me anyway? I'll have to write a book someday. Telephone directory of what everybody calls me. I forget the things that are behind. I press toward that mark. And if I ever sought God for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, and God knows I did for weeks and for months, I'm seeking him more eagerly now because now the Spirit of God has enlightened me. He's become the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. The eyes of my understanding have been enlightened that I might know what is the hope of this calling and what the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints and what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe the power which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead. And even as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also walk in newness of life, but we don't if the baptism is the climax which we forget or which we boast of. Beloved, it's an open door into a life of fellowship with God Almighty. Life in the light even as he is in the light. And that's what makes it so interesting and so very, very, very wonderful. Very wonderful. My how wonderful were those days when we sought the baptism in the Holy Ghost. How wonderful. I was like in a dream for months. Like in a dream I said, is it possible? Had to pinch myself. Is it really so? Jesus walking with me, manifesting himself. But it's more wonderful today than it was then. And the Spirit of Christ has hold of you. Oh beloved, what a dreadful thing it is to mind earthly things. Don't we have to? God says, all these things shall be added unto you. And when they're added, they don't take away from you. When God adds to you a house and the lot and an automobile and a bank account and whatever it is, it doesn't belong to you, it belongs to him. And oh how God blesses all these blessings. They're part of the kingdom of God. Oh dear Lord Jesus, what does the baptism in the Holy Ghost mean to me? I know that there's a revision that God demands from us. Before there will be a rapture, before there will be the marriage of the Lamb, there has to be a revision. And God is going to come enslaving fire. And many will drop off, many will drop off. They're already on the way. They've already chosen the world and the flesh and the devil. That's why he says we ought to exhort one another daily. And we ought to fear, lest the promise being left us of entering into his rest. Any of you should seem to come short of it. Look what Caleb and Joshua did. And all these Israelites wept. They saw the giant. And they saw the walled cities. And God said, I'm going to take you in. And Caleb and Joshua said, come on, they're bred for us. Come on, the Lord's with us. Why the Lord will give us that land? And they said, stone them, hang them up, kill them, those crabs. And they rent their clothes. And God said, all right, I'll take you in, you too. And the rest of you go back and die. Let the snakes eat you and the lizards eat you. Jack off. And they did. God swore by himself, they shall not enter into my rest. God says they have despised the promised land. In one place he said, they despised me. In another place he says, in this you did not believe the Lord. What is God's promise to me? Why to take me through to that wonderful rapture? God was wroth us, for the selfsame thing will not be satisfied until we're transformed into the image of his son. And that transformation takes place now, as we follow on like Caleb and Joshua. Oh, wonderful land. Rama, Jagai, Banjo, keeps you in tune with heaven all the time, no matter what others do. You follow the Lamb with us wherever he goes. You follow Jesus Christ. You'll feel very lonesome many times. People will be against you. They won't understand. They can't understand. How can they understand if they don't walk that way? It's impossible. That's why Paul says, I write unto you weeping, do as I do. I am a follower of Jesus Christ. Our conversation is in heaven. From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body. This, it doesn't really say vile body. It says the body of our humiliation. God in his great mercy allows us to live in a body of dust. And in this body he, he does his great work. This is the temple of the living God, which God prepares for his habitation. And when Jesus comes, he comes to the bodies of his people. That's number one. That's scriptural. I hope you know the Bible well enough to know that that's so. In a moment, in the twinkling of a night, his body shall be clothed upon with immortality, and then the whole world will see what the new Jerusalem is, shining with the light of God. Sons of God without rebuke in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation. But in the meantime, the Holy Ghost is performing a wonderful work of cleansing, of purifying. Don't be surprised if the world is sliding deeper into the mud all the time, all the time. How can they help us? It is so visible today that you can't escape it. The whole world and the whole church is sliding into the pit of hell. But God has his chosen ones, and who are they? The people that choose him. That's what the Holy Spirit has come to do, to unite me to Jesus, to unite Jesus Christ to me. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is Christ himself. Not an experience, not a gift, but it's Christ taking over. The spirit of life in Christ Jesus makes alive this body of mine. Oh my God. Oh beloved, Jesus Christ is going to have a holy people, and he's making them today. And we might be surprised if we knew how many there are. We talk about juvenile delinquency, and I was so glad to hear brother Andrew's daughters tell of a convention, a therapeutic convention. Students said, I believe there were 9,000 students from different universities and schools together. And these girls said it was a holy time, all witnessing for Jesus. God has got his rank, his prowess. He has, and you and I are called and chosen and faithful if we follow the Lamb.