In this sermon, the speaker begins by apologizing for his attitude and asks for forgiveness. He shares a personal story about a young man named Angelo who was deeply moved by his apology and broke down in tears. The speaker reflects on the power of unconditional love and how it can transform relationships. He then discusses the importance of supporting the weak and quotes the words of Jesus, emphasizing the blessing of giving rather than receiving. The sermon concludes with a reflection on the prevalence of hatred and bitterness in society and the need for understanding and compassion.

My message tonight, a baptism of love. God, I need that unique unction, that unique anointing that makes a sermon a message, that leaves something in the heart when they walk out the door, something that people can eat and taste, for the word becomes life and dwells among us. God moved through this message. This is needed, it's vital. So speak to us now, amen. You can speak with tongues and still be a bigot. You can boast about being full of the Holy Ghost, but still be exposed as a person full of prejudice, envy, and hatred. You can tell someone to their face that you love them and be telling the biggest lie you ever told in your life. You can read stories in the newspaper about Rap Brown and Stokey Carmichael and the black racist. You can watch television news reports and shudder as you hear them pour out their torments of hatred and blasphemy and filth. You watch the National Democratic Convention and you hear the stories of them cursing the police, calling them fascists, and throwing human excrement in their faces. And something happens. We wonder how these people could have become so bitter. Where is the source of their hatred? And sometimes our blood seems to boil. But you can be just as guilty as they are by harboring bitterness in your heart, in your home, listening to gossip in the church, and dirty slander on the job where you work. If you're not careful, you can hate the Communists so much that you learn to despise even the poor lost souls who are doomed behind the Iron Curtain. Now, friends, it's one thing to hate Communism. It's another thing to hate the Communists who have souls that could die and go to hell without Christ. Now, I love the Communist soul, but I hate Communism. There is the difference. You can break God's commandment and despise and ridicule the authorities that God has ordained. That includes the President of the United States. You can make disparaging remarks about those in authority, and God says that that is not right, that is not love. You can go to a polling booth, you can pull the levers and vote for the candidate of your choice, and carry into that polling booth a heart bursting with hatred for some politician that you don't like. In fact, you can sit in your front room and call him all kinds of names and get your blood pressure up over the boiling point. You can smile while you sit in your church pew and look like a loving little kewpie doll and put on an act like you love all your brothers and sisters, but that ain't necessarily so. You can carry a grudge against Sunday school teachers or against the deacon or the pastor. You can accuse the deacons of disloyalty, the associate pastors of laziness, secretaries for worldliness, and criticize the way the church is run and how the pastor conducts his meetings. You can say the church is dead or it's got too much life, and if you tried to please everybody, you couldn't please anybody. Or worse yet, you can be so sure of yourself that you've got all the truth and all the knowledge, and you see you're not going to study anymore because the Holy Ghost is going to teach you. You've learned it all. And so in your boastful way, you talk about your liberty from bondage and legalism and become so dignified and so precise that you're able to look down the end of your nose at the little holy roller group down the road who sing like hillbillies and clap their hands like thunder and dress like Salvation Army lassies. No, there's nothing wrong with dressing like a Salvation Army lassie. Or you can be at the other extreme, vice versa. You can be a member of that big fancy church or rather of that little church down by the railroad track. You can be a member of that small group, and you look at that church and the people going in it, and you can accuse them of worldliness, you can talk about their lipstick, you can talk about their earrings and their short dresses, and you can even say, isn't it terrible? Their choir even sings in robes. When I was a boy, in my dad's church, that was the very height of worldliness that a choir should ever sing in robes. I've heard sermon after sermon about the mark of the beast. We're in robes. You can talk about love, you can sing about it, and still not have it because we're not to love in word or in deed or in song, or rather in mouth, but we're to love in deed and in truth. Now, what is the truth about love? Let's look into it. I say that love is the most important evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The most important. I have said it once. If I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is a baptism of love. The baptism of the Holy Ghost is a baptism of love. God actually is instructing the wild tongue in the knowledge of love. He's taking the hatred out of the heart by way of the tongue, for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh. Now, the moment you stand up and testify to the world that you've received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you say, I've been filled with the baptism of the Holy Ghost, I've been baptized, then you must also be able to quote Isaiah 50, verse 4. The Lord hath now given me the tongue of the learned, that I should know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. He waketh me morning by morning. He waketh mine ear to hear as the learned. Once you've received the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you should know what it's like to be awakened by the Holy Spirit. You should know what it's like to be instructed in the ways of knowledge in calling a person in need, spreading a word of love here and there. How easy it seems to be for some, quote, spirit-filled, end of quote, Christians, who are able to lass out with tongues of bitterness and strife, look here and look there, and like a machine gun, their tongues mow down all the opposition and everything that they don't like, or that which they deem to be ungodly or unnecessary. How easy it is for some spirit-filled Christians to have a holier-than-thou attitude. How much disgrace has been brought upon the charismatic experience through some people who have never understood this marvelous truth of the baptism of the Holy Ghost being a baptism of love. I would be awakened morning by morning. He waketh mine ear to hear as the learned. Now, which is more pleasing to the Lord? To use that gifted tongue that is now baptized only to edify a man's own soul? Or to dedicate that tongue to seeking out weary friends and edifying them in the Spirit? And all friends, if there was ever a need today for people who knew how to say the right word at the right time, it's now. You'd be surprised how just sometimes just one single word of encouragement means so much to a man. I remember a minister, a friend of mine, recently going through a terrible time. His church had persecuted him, and he was having personal problems in his family and in his home. And all I did was put a hand on his shoulder and say, Pastor, I'm still your friend, and no matter what happens, you'll always be a friend. He broke down and began to weep. It was the only word of encouragement he'd had, and he moved on to victory, and God brought him through on that word of encouragement. How seldom do we go to the pastor when he pours his heart out and just take him by the hand warmly and say, Pastor, that was a message from God. I'm praying for you. I'm standing with you. Oh, he knows that. Well, that's just the reason you don't tell your wife you love her, sir, because you say, well, she should know it. Tell her! Go to that individual. The Sunday school teacher. I'm talking about spreading that love that God fills us with. Sadly, too many baptized tongues have been used to stir up strife. The Bible says, Proverbs 10, 12, Hatred stirreth up strife, but love covereth all sins. I was never able to understand that verse until last night. In fact, early this morning in prayer, God began to speak very clearly to me about this verse. If you look at it at face value, this verse seems to be saying that love covers all sins. In other words, love would dismiss all the wrongdoing. That's not what it means at all. Interpreted, this means love gets over all sin. It gets over things. It doesn't hold the grudge. Love is able to fly above it. Love is able to get through. Love is there when lust is conceived, and love is still there when it brings forth death. Now, I covered 3,000 miles today to get here. I covered 3,000 measured surface miles. Now, how did I cover those miles? I flew over them. I rose above them. I got here in five hours. I covered 3,000 miles. This is really the interpretation of this verse, that love gets over sin. It mounts up like wings of an eagle. It allows no stumbling blocks to hinder it, no grudges to ground it, and no winds of adversity to stop it. Love is not stopped by what people say or do. Love keeps on going. I say that it's absolutely impossible to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and still be prejudiced. Prejudice, I think, is a childish thing. The Bible said when I was a child, I speak as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child. When I became a man, I put away childish things. Now, I witnessed a very tragic brand of childishness when we were conducting crusades in South Africa. They called it apartheid. These good Dutch Reformed and other Protestant Christians refused to sit in my meetings anywhere near a black man. In fact, in Johannesburg, in the stadium meetings there, the blacks had to sit in a special stand outside a fence. They weren't even allowed inside the fence. And it bothered me. I tried to preach, and before I preached one night, I said, Pastor, what would happen tonight if I'd open that gate over there and let all the blacks come in and sit with us really white people? He said, Mr. Wilkerson, 80% of your crowd would leave and 80% of the pulpit would leave too. You can imagine my surprise when we got at the airport and one of the ministers who had invited us to South Africa as well as informed us that the black man in Africa, South Africa, didn't even have a soul. Yes. And you know, that same brand of childishness is still existing in America today. And do you know something? The most prejudiced in Alabama, Southern Texas, Tennessee are Southern Baptists, Pentecostals and other Protestants who don't even allow a black man to sit in their church. Can you imagine the hypocrisy? Can you imagine why the hippies run out on our religion? You don't wonder why they walk out on us and say it's phony because we sit in our church and we sing, give me that all-time religion. Makes me love everybody except the blacks. Bring them in. Bring them in. Just so they're not black. Send out the lifeline. Just watch who gets it. Yes. You see the utter hypocrisy. None of our songs make sense. None of our worship makes sense at all if we carry hypocrisy. And all my friends, this political program, or what do you call this, campaign that we've got now, it is pregnant with all kinds of racism and talk about violence. And this is going to be one of the most hotly contested campaigns of all times. But I want you to know that I personally believe, and I believe the Scripture backs me up, that it's impossible for a spirit-filled Christian to carry any prejudice through any election. I don't care who you're for. I don't care if you're for Wallace. I don't care if you're for, I was going to say Truman, for Humphrey. Did you see that sign the other day that said, Keep America Humphrey? Now that doesn't tell you anything at all about my political leanings. All I'm saying is that this is the time, my brother, sister, we need to pray for this election and keep prejudice out of our heart and ask God for His divine will for this nation. And I believe it's impossible for you to maintain a true relationship, a warm, godly relationship with your Heavenly Father and still carry prejudice of any kind. Let me have a little amen out of that. Furthermore, Christians, charismatic Christians, are supposed to love the Jews, the Japs, the Italians, the Polacks, the hippies, the masses of Red China, Czechoslovakia, and even in Russia. That's right. How wonderful it was for me to sit in Helsinki. There was a man who was a car dealer, a good Christian man who'd read my book in the Finnish language, and he had a sauna in his home, a Finnish sauna, and they wanted me to try a sauna bath. And I'll tell you how I lived through it, I don't know. They stuck me in this little thing and burned me up and then they took me out and threw me in the snow and then put me back in that thing. And I was bleeding to blood the whole time. They kept telling me, you'll feel better, you'll feel better, you'll feel better. Well, I kept feeling worse. But after the sauna, we were having a nice Finnish lunch, and he began to tell us about his trips to Moscow. He sold Moskovich automobiles, the Moskovich. One beautiful pile of junk. I mean that sincerely. He said that himself. But he would go to Moscow and he'd smuggle my books into Leningrad in Moscow. And he told me of people who were worshiping the Lord in Russia. He said there are literally thousands of Christians that are serving the Lord and saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. And we talk about Communism, friends, and often we forget that behind this Communist front that there are literally thousands of young people and adults over there who need our prayers, our love and our compassion. And I say maintain your strong stand, my brother, sister, against Communism, but don't forget God has called upon us to love the souls of the lost there behind the Iron Curtain. Secondly, love makes you go out of your way. Love helps you to stick your neck out for others. Paul, speaking of Priscilla and Aquila, said of them, who have for my life laid down their own necks unto whom I give thanks. Romans 16.4 Now Paul the Apostle knew something of that love that was willing to give without getting anything in return. Because speaking to the Corinthians, Paul said, and I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. Now friends, let's start with you, dear wife. Can you say that in your home when you honestly have to look yourself in the mirror and say, my husband no longer deeply loves me? He's lost his first love. Can you say that when you feel that others around you, your innermost circle of loved ones, have lost their love for you? Can you say, I will gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved? I can't understand that kind of human love. We've seen it at Teen Challenge for the past ten years. I'll take a drug addict in. He's been in jail maybe ten, fifteen times. And he's never home but once every five or six months. And sometimes he's gone two years at a time. But he's got a little wife who lives on relief. And she's faithful to him. She waits year after year hoping against hope that someday, somehow, a miracle will happen. I've seen them sit in my office and cry like little babies. She says, I've waited for him for ten years. She'll go to jail every time he's in jail. Every day she's there. She's there to talk to him and comfort him. And she'll maintain that love. He'll abuse her. He'll cheat on her. He'll curse her. He'll beat her. And yet she'll stand there faithful, little Puerto Rican girl, little Negro girl, or little white girl, just waiting for that man to straighten out. And friends, if someone human, without the real love of Jesus Christ, can sow so much love without getting anything in return, I've often thought how much more should Christians give out of their love in spite of the fact that people grudge you, in spite of the fact that people talk about you or misuse you or mishandle you, to love even though you're despitefully used without getting anything in return. I love you even though the more I love you the less I be loved. That's the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Now answer this. When certain individuals really hurt you and say and do unloving things, what kind of reaction do you have? Do you still spend your love on them or do you take it back? The Lord Himself revealed a great truth. He said that love is better when given than when received. Love is much tastier. It's much better to give it than to receive it. I've heard saying that love is give and take. Not according to the Scripture. Love is a process of giving with no concern about receiving. Now you young couples that want to know about real love, if each individual determined in his own mind to get nothing back but just to give, imagine what kind of love we would have in our homes. I have showed you all things. How that laboring, you ought to support the weak and to remember the words of the Lord Jesus. How He said, listen to the words of our Master, it is more blessed to give than to receive. Charismatic Christians are commanded to love even their enemies. Love your enemies. Bless them that curse you. Now this is hard to take, friends, but you better take it. It's His Word. Do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. Think of that one person in your life who has misused you and persecuted you and troubled you. Think of the one person you may consider an enemy. The Bible says, love them. Bless them. Love your enemies. I want to move on because isn't it really true that we would rather rejoice when we seem to be justified and our enemy falls? The Bible said, rejoice not when thine enemy falleth and let not thine heart be glad when he stumbleth. What happens in your mind and in your heart and in your spirit as a baptized person when somebody falls and stumbles? Too often it goes like this. Well, I could have told you that. If they would have just said, I knew that. I expected it. What do you expect? They are reaping just what they sowed. If they hadn't backslidden, it wouldn't have happened. You see, that's what you get. If you heard that kind of language, we've all used it. The Bible said, rejoice not when thine enemy stumbleth. Rejoice not when they fall. If you're going to follow that through to the logical conclusion, that means that even when government officials, politicians that you despise fall, you're not to rejoice in it. You're not to gloat over these things. Take it to the Lord in prayer and say, Lord, give me a heart of compassion and give me a heart of love. Let me tell you something. I've disagreed many times with some of the policies of Mr. Lyndon Baines Johnson. But I'll tell you something. When I found out this man's popularity went down to 28%, and I thought of this man carrying the weight and the burden of a nation on his back, and having to pick up the newspapers and read of all the criticism in spite of all the mistakes, I could have nothing but compassion and pity in my heart. And I wonder sometimes, friends, if we as charismatic Christians think that it's alright to spend our bitterness, our hatred, not so much our hatred, but our ill feeling, as long as we don't do it toward a Christian brother, that we can spend any kind of emotion as long as it's not among our own brother and sister. This says, all our enemies. Holy Ghost love will take you out of your way to be kind to your enemies. Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him drink. For in so doing thou shalt heap holes of fire on his head. I was recalling this evening, a number of years ago, having to deal with a young lady, one of my workers. She found it convenient to break our rules and counsel with the boys. Now, we have a rule at Teen Challenge. The girls work with the girls and the boys with the boys. And every time somebody breaks that rule, there's always been trouble. And thank God, we've had very little of it, only three or four cases. And it's been tragic. We had one girl run off with a drug addict at one time. She broke that rule. She had an illegitimate child with him. He went to jail for murder. And that little child was taken from her. And I saw her a few years ago. She was working for the Salvation Army in New York. And it was totally cold in her heart. And she was afraid, ashamed, to even look me in the face. Another preacher's daughter, a minister's daughter, broke that rule, went out with a drug addict, fell in love with him, broke the rule, and they've both been living a life of hell and misery ever since. But this young lady was sneaking out in the back porch against all the rules, and she was counseling with this boy. He would tell her all her troubles. And this boy was a con artist. This boy was there just to play on our emotions. He had never really surrendered his heart to the Lord. He was still possessed with the enemy. This boy had ruined numbers of young ladies and made prostitutes out of them to support his habit. The boy's name was Angelo. One day she came to me and said, Mr. Wilkson, I'm in love with Angelo. I want to marry him. It frightened me. I called her in my office. I said, Now look, Betty, I've told you once, I've told you twice, and I've told you over and over again that we don't allow you to talk to any of the boys here. You're supposed to stick with the girls, and I told you there'd be trouble. That boy is really unconverted. I'm going to make him leave this center. That boy is still full of the devil. He's just going to get you, make a prostitute out of you, and damn your soul. I got on the telephone and called her mother in Virginia, and I told her the story, and I said I want her to come home tonight. I had the secretary call the bus company. She was to leave that night at 6 o'clock. I gave her the bus fare. She had her bags packed. I'd already asked Angelo to leave. He had left an hour or so before. I thought she went home. Imagine how surprised I was a week or two later when one of my associates came and said, Mr. Wilkerson, do you know that Betty is living in a hotel just two blocks from the center, and Angelo is visiting her in her hotel rooms? I got the number of the room, and the associate went with me. We knocked on the door, and nobody answered for about five minutes. I could hear somebody scurrying around inside, and then in about five minutes, she came to the door and opened it sheepishly. Her face was burning red. She said, what do you want, Mr. Wilkerson? I said, I thought I told you to go home. She said, well, you're not my boss anymore. I said, well, I want to come in, and I pushed my way in with my associate, and I said, is Angelo visiting you? She said, oh, no, no. I said, is he in the apartment right now? She said, no, and I went into the bedroom and I looked in the closet and I looked behind the chair and I looked everywhere. I went all over the apartment and looked everywhere except under the bed. I should have. I went into the living room satisfied that he wasn't there, and I sat down for the next 15 minutes, and I told her what I thought. I said, this boy is full of the devil. This boy is going to make a prostitute out of you. This boy has, he can't possibly love you because you're unequally yoked together with an unbeliever. It's unscriptural. It'll never work, and I said, that boy is no good yet until Christ can get a hold of him. There's just no hope for you, and I noticed my associate trying to get my attention. He was shaking his hand and I couldn't understand, and then he motioned for me and I walked over to the door and looked in the bedroom there. I saw two feet sticking out under the bed. I said, okay, Angelo, I know you're here now. You can come out. He came out all right. His arms wailing and he was cursing. He jumped on me and was going to beat me up and he got me down. Fortunately, I had my associate with me. My associate pinned him up against the fireplace there and put his hands behind him. With his hands behind him, I felt pretty strong. I went over to him. I jumped up and shaked the dust off. I said to myself, blessed God, I'm a man of God. Nobody touches me. Nobody gets away with that. Nobody touches God's anointed. I'm God's man and he's going to know it. I went over to him and stuck a finger right on his chest. That was easy. His hands were pinned behind his back. I said, look, Angelo, the Bible says, touch not mine anointed, do my prophets no harm, and I'm God's anointed. If you got away with this, my life wouldn't be safe anywhere on the street. He said, look, I know where you walk on the street and one night I'm going to find you and put a knife in your back. I said, look, nobody talks to me like that. I said, nobody. Nobody talks to me like that. I like to think I was righteously indignant, but I was just a plain old man. I walked huffing and puffing back to the center. I said, Joe, he's not going to get away with it. I'm going to get ahold of God and send judgment on him. I went back to my room and to my office and I knelt down and I put my cross before the Lord, tears rolled down my cheeks. Poor little David stood there before his mighty God and said, now Lord, you know I've given my life to these drug addicts and you know how he did me wrong now. He could have killed me and he's threatening to kill me, Lord. And you know that I can't stand for anybody trying to threaten me or my life won't be safe here on the street. Put him on his back, Lord. Put him down. Put him down. Put him on his back. Deal with him, God. Get him. Oh, God's prophet was all stirred up. I was zealous over a righteous cause. After all, I was right. Oh, friends, I was right. Believe me, I was right. Suddenly, a thought burst through my subconscious. What do you want me to do, David? Call fire down out of heaven and burn him up? And then I remembered the disciples threatening to call fire down out of heaven. And the Lord said, I came not to destroy man's lives but to save them. The Lord said, David, I called you to New York to show compassion and love no matter what they do. I came, I called you to New York to save these boys and not to destroy them. And when I saw it, and I knew it was the Holy Ghost talking to me, it was then in that room that God showed me that the baptism of the Holy Ghost is a baptism of love. That well that's springing up inside of you is a well of love that springs up. And the Bible said it casts out all fear. Perfect love, His Holy Ghost love is perfect love. And when it flows up through you, it casts out your fear, it casts out the fear of all those around you. And that is the well of living water that springs up. And I raised my hands and said, Oh, God, forgive me. Fill my heart with love for that boy. Help me to love Angela. Save him Lord. Don't let him be lost. And in my mind, I can picture him just a lost little drug addict had been led astray by the devil. And I was on my way an hour or two later. I had to leave for the airport to go to Dallas, Texas for a crusade. Nicky drove me to the airport. And I was telling Nicky I heard about it. He said, Don't worry, I got the boys ready. And I said, Well, Nicky, that's all right. We don't need them. And all the way down to Texas to do the crusade and getting back on the plane. God, fill my heart with love for that boy. Oh, it was just bubbling in me. A love for that boy. Couldn't wait to get back. Nicky met me at the airport. He said, Hey, Mr. Wicks, you got company waiting for you. Backyard, the center. I said, Angelo? He said, Yeah. He said, Don't worry, I got the boys there. Nicky's always got his boys there. I said, That's all right, Nicky. He said, I need to see him. I got out of the car and there he was sitting on the back porch on the steps, his hand on his head, and he was scowling at me. I knew he couldn't wait to get a fist in my face and a shim knife in my stomach. But by now, I didn't have any fear. You see, perfect love casts out all fear. You see, the fear of the Lord is only the beginning of wisdom. But the maturity of wisdom is perfect love that casts out that fear. And so there was no fear now. I said, Look, Angelo, before you say anything, come on in the office, I got to talk to you a minute. And I was walking through the kitchen and Nicky pointed two boys by the door at my office. He's got his boys there, you know. Walked in, and he sat down, he flopped down the chair beside me. I said, Angelo? I said, Before you say or do anything, I just want you to know that God's put love in my heart for you. I said, And I want to apologize. I said, I wanted to send God's judgment on you. And I said, I think I could have done it, but God showed me that wasn't the reason. I said, I just want you to know that I'm sorry for my attitude. I said, Before you do anything, just shake hands with me and tell me you forgive me. And I reached out to take his hand, and he looked at it and then turned away. And he looked at me again. And that kid flopped down in his chair, and then he turned and knelt and broke and began to sob like a little baby. And I got up, I had gone back to my chair, and I got up and walked over there. And I stood over and I said, as he was just sobbing his heart out, just crying, like he was dying. And I looked at that little mass, that poor little lost sheep. And I thought, what would have happened? And it shuddered. I can still feel what happened in me. And I said to myself, what would have happened if I had walked in here as God's big man of the hour, God's man of faith and power, and said, Angelo, receive the judgment of Almighty God. Now, God may have honored that request for me. And I tell you, there was something rise up in my heart. Because that boy was sick all along. That boy just needed a bit of love. You see, love takes you out of the way. On another occasion, I remember one of the girls, one of our workers coming to me and said, Mr. Wilkerson, you've got to pray for me. I've lost all my love. She said, I came, she had come from the Midwest, from a farm. She said, when I first came to Teen Challenge, I was so full of love. I used to cry and weep and walk the streets, but I feel so cold. I just feel so cold. I had three or four tell me that after the first service. Back here in the room, Mr. Wilkerson, pray for me. I've lost my love. I've lost my love. And she said, two weeks, she said, for two weeks, I've been fasting and praying in the chapel. God, give me back my first love. I said, I want you to quit praying. I want you to quit crying. Wipe your tears. And I said, here's an address. And I gave her an address on the fourth floor in Apartment House on 102nd Street up in Harlem. I said, go knock on the door and when you're done there, I said, go right down that whole apartment, all four floors, just knocking on doors and find out what kind of need in the house. If they need the dishes done, do the dishes. Whatever it is, get in that house and witness for Jesus. She said, all right. She took another girl with her. Seven hours later, she came back bubbling over. She said, Mr. Wilkinson, I know now. I know now what you were doing. She said, now I see it. She said, I hadn't lost it. She said, it was there all the time. I just needed some victims to put it out on. I just needed somebody to love. Oh, my friends, it's not a matter of losing it as much as being in a position where there are those around you that need it to bring it out of you. And so you're sitting around here worried about losing your love, your first love. And all you've got to do is get up and walk out and find somebody that needs some love and you'll find you've got more than you can handle. Oh, yes. Love. A baptism. A baptism of love. Love overpowers fear. 1 John 4, 18. There is no fear where perfect love casts without fear because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. Now, friends, if you have fear and anxiety and torment in your spirit, you'd better check your love. Something's missing because love casts without fear. Now, I say that the baptism of the Holy Ghost is a mighty rushing wind of love that's sent to sweep out and cast out all your fear. That's why God has given the Holy Ghost a mighty rushing wind to clear the decks of all the fears and the anxiety. You don't need a trip to the psychiatrist. You just need to let the baptism of the Holy Ghost demonstrate for you through the power of His Spirit how He can sweep these things out of your life if you exercise that love that He's given you. You've got to see the importance of this truth or your baptism is in vain. That fountain that springs up is that fountain of love. Now, there is evidence of the baptism of the Holy Ghost and there's a test of the baptism and love is that test. Love is above the gift of tongues. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am become as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. The truly baptized person is one who loves all his enemies. He loves his God with all his heart and mind and soul and strength and he loves his neighbors himself. By this shall all men know that you are my disciples if you love one another. We know that we have passed from death unto life because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death. If a man say, I love God and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? I remember a young man coming to me, a young Negro lad, about seven, eight years ago. I was holding a crusade in Albany, New York. And he knocked on my hotel room. He said, Mr. Wilson, can I come in and talk to you? I said, yes. He said, I read your literature about what's happening down at Teen Challenge in New York. He said, I want to come and work with you. And I said, look, son, do you have love? Have you been baptized in the Holy Ghost? Oh, yes. I said, do you have love for souls? He said, well, I don't think so. He said, I don't know. I don't think I do. I don't have too much love. I said, well then, I can't talk to you anymore. I said, I'll be here another day. You go to prayer tonight and ask the Lord to show you what it means to be baptized with love and let him open up that fountain of love and then come back. If you can tell me you really love the lost and you'll walk the streets with love in your heart, then I'll take you as a worker. He knocked on my door the next day and I said, yes. He said, I still want to work with you, Mr. Wilkson. I said, fine. Did you pray last night? Oh, yes. Do you have love? No. I'm not sure. He said, I'll tell you what God told me. He said, I asked the Lord what I would do if I had real love. He said, I told the Lord that if I really had love for the lost, I'd go out in the street and work for at least six or eight hours a day. I'd go out and put my arms around anybody. I'd just pour out everything I have. I wouldn't hold anything against anybody. I'd give my life. I would stay up with drug addicts that are kicking cold turkey. I would wipe the sweat from their brow. I'd hold the bucket while they were vomiting. He went on and listed all these things that he would do if God would just give him love. I said, well, that's just what I want from you, son. He said, well, God told me to go out and do it until I get it. So I said, look, that sounds good enough for me, son. That's all right. I accept that. And I invited him. I like that kind of language. So he came to New York and that boy started walking the streets. It was nothing emotional. He was walking the streets six, eight hours a day. He stayed up with the drug addicts and that boy worked and with compassion and love. That boy gave it himself. No talk about love. He didn't even think he had it. He didn't even know what it was. But he was doing it. And about three weeks later, we were at Glad Tidings Tabernacle. I'll never forget it. And I gave an alder call and here came this young Negro lad to the front and there were three drug addicts he brought in off the street right outside Glad Tidings Tabernacle. And he was kneeling there with his arms around him. Tears were streaming down his cheeks and those drug addicts were getting converted. And I said, look, son, it looks like now that God has given it to you. He said, well, it doesn't make any difference now, Mr. Wilks, and I'm going to give it to I'm going it to I'm going to give it to I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to it to I'm give it to you. I'm going to give it to I'm going to it to you. I'm going to give it to you. I'm I'm going it to I'm going to give it to you. I'm going to give it to I'm going to give it to you. It's a hard friend, sir. While I can't tell you why I preached like this tonight. I haven't talked to the pastor, but I'll tell you this, I know that I preach in the will of God and I've got his message for this hour right now. God wants to take out of our hearts that bitterness, that criticism, and give us a baptism of Holy Ghost love, L-O-V-E, love for everybody, your enemies, the pastor, the Sunday school teacher, all the deacons, and your wife, and your husband, and your children, and everybody, your next door neighbor, that's right, the next door neighbor, even though he hasn't returned your lawn mower for the past two years, and he wants to put a kind of love in your heart that you don't come home from work and kick the dog, oh yes, and grab that newspaper and yell and scream around the house like little King Tut, and there sits the Holy Ghost man sitting there, he's already blasphemed the whole family, he's yelled and screamed all over the house, and there he sits, God's man. God take that out of us. God give us the spirit of gentleness. I don't believe in cowards and sissies, but I believe that God wants to give us a baptism of love in our homes, in our lives, on the job, in the church. I tell you, friends, if you don't humble yourself and come his way, he has a way, God has a way, and that way is hard. I would like in my own heart now to say, Jesus, give me love even for the long-haired bearded hippies. No more talking about or screaming about the way they act or behave. We don't have to be a partaker of their sins, we can cry out against their sins, but God give us a heart of compassion. Our young people are trying to say something to us today, and Dad, Mom, sometimes we refuse to listen that God would give us an open heart to love and a heart of compassion. Do you have that tonight? Do you have a baptism of love? Is there anybody that you hate? Is there anybody tonight that you have a grudge against? Is there anybody in the world? I want to say something tonight, and this is not boasting, but God has been so good, I can't think of anybody in the world tonight that I despise. I can't think of anybody that I have a grudge against. It makes me feel so warm tonight to know that there's nobody, now I know a lot of people may not feel that way about me, but bless your heart, I just refuse to hold those things in because that love, I've just said, Lord, you're the baptizer, just sweep it out, take it out now, let this well spring up within me, this well of love. Father, do that for us tonight, in this meeting tonight, take out the bitterness, take out the critical tongue, take it out, Lord, because bitterness and sweetness cannot pour out of the same fountain. If we've been baptized with the Holy Ghost, our tongues should be dipped in oil. Oh God, take out the bitterness, help us, Lord, to speak a good word in season to the weary heart, help us to encourage and edify and exalt and lift up others. Oh God, help us not to act like prophets, help us, oh God, not to belittle or to criticize, help us not to touch God's anointed or do his prophets harm, but help us, oh Lord, to know that we've been baptized with love. Forgive us, forgive us. Now, I've confessed humbly, day and night, that I needed this message, because ministers are just as guilty as anybody else, and I want you to do the same thing tonight. I wonder how many there are that would say, Mr. Wilkerson, I needed that tonight, and I want you to pray that I'll allow him to baptize me with his love. I need a new baptism of love. I need to see that the Holy Ghost baptism that I have is a baptism of love, and I want that love to operate through me in my home and all over, everywhere I go and all that I do. I want a new taste of love. I want you to stand for my prayers right now.