 a real blessing. But let's get into our study. Galatians chapter 3, I want to take you through verses 1 through 14. I chose to entitle this particular installment of a verse by verse study, having begun in the spirit. You're going to see why I chose to entitle it as we get into our study in just a moment. Let's begin at verse 1. I'll read verses 1 through 5. We'll get into our study. Galatians chapter 3 verses 1 through 5, having begun in the spirit. Paul writes, Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly portrayed among you as crucified. This only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law, by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish having begun in the spirit? Are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain? If indeed it was in vain. And therefore he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you. Does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? Now notice how he speaks to him at the very beginning, that word foolish. Isn't that a wonderful word? Would you like somebody to refer to you in that way? I don't think I'd appreciate it much, but that's how he says it. He begins by saying, Oh foolish Galatians, that word foolish means without understanding. It speaks of being unwise or even mentally lazy. It speaks of being careless. And he's saying to them, you are foolish, you're unwise, you're lazy, you're careless because you've been carefully taught, yet you've been open to deception. You have heard the word of God clearly communicated to you. And yet you're open to these false teachers who have entered in, who are bewitching you. You had the gospel message clearly presented to you. Jesus was clearly portrayed among you, he says, as crucified. So you clearly saw the meaning of the cross, and you understood the heart of the gospel. Yet, he's saying, you're being moved away from the truth, and you're embracing something different. You're failing to truly listen to the truth of Jesus Christ. And as a result, Galatians, he says, you're being moved away voluntarily. The writer of Hebrews in chapter four, verse two, wrote, the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it. They didn't combine the word of God with faith. They heard the good news, but it wasn't beneficial to them because they heard it, but they didn't act on it. They heard the Bible. They heard the word of God. They heard the gospel, but they're not doing anything about it. I received a phone call today. A young man called me up. Actually, I gave the staff the week off, but I come in so that I can hold that over them. No, I come in to work. And so, you know, there was, we had, we usually have one staff member here in the case of emergencies and all, and so the guys decided to rotate days that they would come in some of my fellas. And so we had one of my guys here, but I was here and I was preparing a study for a, for Sunday morning. And, and as I was behind my, my screen and I was preparing my study, the phone, my phone begins to ring. And as I'm looking at my phone, there's a name on the phone that I didn't recognize, somebody who's calling on a private line. And we just had our phones, we just put in new phones, a new phone system and they're tweaking it. And so as I'm looking at it, I see this name and I decide, well, I ought to answer the phone. So I answered the phone. And I said, you know, hello, you know, I don't say what my staff is trained to say, how can I serve you? I just said, hello, what's up? No, I said, hello. You can talk to me. And there's a voice on the other end of the line. Hello. I was just calling. I was listening to the radio program. I wanted to order one of the, the tape I just heard. I said, do you want to give a million dollars to? No, I didn't either. I said, I said, really? I don't ever take phone orders. I don't know how to do this, right? So that's cool, you know, good. What tape was that? He says, this was the one today, it was the one that he was talking about this and that. And he begins to talk with me. And I said, well, to be honest with you, I said, I don't take orders, the orders, I don't do that. And the person who usually does that is off today. I said, if you can give me some information, I'll make sure to get it to him. And he says, oh, okay, I said, this is Pastor David. He goes, you're kidding. I said, no, no, this is, he said, oh, really? And I said, so you, you wanted the tape from me? He said, in the tape today, it spoke to my situation. Long story made short, I stayed on the phone visiting with him. I said, how can I help you? You know, because he began to explain the situation that he was having. So I said to him, how can I help you? What can I do to help you? And so we spent some time, you know, talking on the phone and he began to pour his heart out to me. Started sharing his situation. And as I was listening to him, he said this. He said something like this. He said, you know, I've been a Christian for a while. I know what I'm supposed to do, but I, I'm not really being blessed right now. I, I know what to do, but I just find it hard to do. And he's saying in my mind, I know to do right, but the desire is there, but the ability to perform that which I desire is not. And I said to him, listen, I said, you know, Jesus in the gospel of John chapter 13, Jesus said, if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. You see the problem is, you know what you're supposed to do, but you're refusing to do it. The word blessed means overjoyed, or you can rejoice in this. If you know these things, you will have joy if you do them. See the problem we have is we know things that we refuse to do. We know more Bible than we act on. We understand it in our head, but we don't put it into practice in our life. And I was sharing with them, I said, listen to the Hebrew, knowing something is more than simply having a mental ascent or a gathering of information. To the Hebrew, to really know something is to obey it. To really know something is to do it. That's why Jesus said, blessed are you, if you do it, it's not simply having the information, it's acting on it. I have to say that's a common theme amongst many Christians that I've encountered and it's been common in my life as a young believer. I heard Bible studies that I was supposed to act on that I simply wouldn't act on. And in refusing to act on those things for whatever reason, fear or lack of faith or you name it, whatever it was, I would quench the spirit of God in my life because I wasn't giving him room to move. I wasn't taking him at his word. The Galatians have heard the Gospel. They've heard that they can be free in God. They can have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. They've heard this, but they're not mixing it with faith. They're being deceived. They're not combining it with faith. And so, because of that, the deceivers are entering in and are leading them astray and the Galatians voluntarily are following after them. Listening and doing. Hearing is so important because hearing includes with it the act or the response of obedience. When Jesus was speaking to his hearers, he warned them to listen very carefully, but also to do what he said. He encouraged them to hear his word and to with faith and discernment act upon it. In Luke chapter 8 verse 18, he said, take heed how you hear. In Mark 4 verse 24, he said, take heed what you hear. Take heed how you hear and take heed what you hear. You see, no ritualism, no legalism, no regulation can do more for man than Jesus did when he died on that cross. Jesus' death is a one-time event with continuing effects into the future. Hebrews 10 verse 10 says, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. In 1 Peter 3 18, the apostle writes, Christ died for sins once for all. The righteous for the unrighteous to bring you to God. What had happened is they stopped believing and applying basic gospel truth, and by neglecting their foundations, they compromised the gospel of grace. They began to follow their fleshly need to improve themselves instead of applying grace. They began to work. The efforts seemed to be to them something they needed to put into their salvation. This works orientation seems to be something that happens to new believers quite often. It's interesting as a person sitting in a pew like tonight, you hear a message that says to you, listen, God loves you. Jesus Christ died on a cross for you. What he requires from you is not your efforts because by works you can't be saved. What he requires from you is to trust him. To say, God be merciful to me, I'm a sinner. I believe that Jesus died. I believe he was buried. I believe he was resurrected. I want to follow him. I need a new life. Forgive me. Then the grace of God overwhelms you and you realize, God's grace is sufficient and his mercy is great and his love knows no bounds and he has saved me. So by grace, you're saved. But as you sit in a Bible study and you start going through the Word of God, some of the weaknesses of your flesh are exposed. You may have older believers who encourage you to live a better life and because you went to church and you heard some things that caused you to be convicted and you've got an older believer who's saying, you have to put those things aside. What happens is you can become guilty, have a bad conscience and then in frustration you can go about trying to improve yourself. Try to make yourself better and as you do that you begin to abandon the grace that God gave you the day you got saved and then it leads you to a place called legalism where you start being very, very rigid in the way that you live. Paul is speaking to a group of people who heard the gospel, they heard the good news, but they are voluntarily turning away to something different. That's why in verse one Paul asks, who has bewitched you that you should not obey the truth? Who has bewitched you? What an interesting word. The word bewitched means to be charmed. It means to fascinate in a misleading way. You can use flattery. You can use false promises. Bewitching. So he's saying, who could wink to you? Who bewitched you? Well, the answer is the false teachers who crept in. You saw that in verse four of chapter two when it says, this occurred because a false brother in secretly brought in who came in by stealth to spy out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus that they might bring us into bondage. And so the ones who entered in, the ones who are bewitching, the ones who are hoodwinking them are these false teachers. And so he's addressing that now. Notice verse two and he asks the question, this only I want to learn from you. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith? What a great question. Did you receive the spirit by the works of the law or the hearing of faith? The gifts of the spirit, the presence of God within your life comes by faith. It doesn't come by works of the law. When he said, did you receive that word, receive means to take to yourself to lay hold upon, to appropriate for yourself. Did you take this for yourself by the works of the law or by faith? You know there's a great, a great, what's the word? Deception, a great, there's a spirit of deception that I see is overcoming many in the church today. And I think I can speak with some experience. I've been ministering for a while now and I think I can speak with some experience about this. And that is this. Listen carefully because I don't know how clearly I can make this and I don't want to try and repeat myself, especially if I'm unclear. I'm trying to be clear. Calvary Chapel Ministries, this ministry here, Calvary Chapel Ministries is built on the premise that God's word is sufficient, the Holy Spirit empowers us and when you get saved, when you open your heart to Christ, that the Holy Spirit comes and makes his lodging within you. 1 Corinthians 3.16 says that you are the temple of the spirit of God and the spirit of God dwells in you. You are the temple of the spirit of God. The spirit of God dwells in you. So Christianity is not a system of do's and don'ts. Now that doesn't mean that we don't have the New Testament revealing to us the things that God wants us to do and the things that he doesn't want us doing. What it is to say is that you got saved not because you began to follow some laws and some rituals and some regulations. That is the heart of every man made religion that you can get close to God if you fast a lot or if you pray a lot or if you give a lot. That is the heart of every man made religion that you somehow have to deserve and earn credit with God to get to heaven. That's the heart of man made religion. There are people who have gotten saved I've encountered who are still in bondage to that mentality that now that they're saved they have to do a lot of things to please God and that's simply not true. He requires us to love him that's what he wants. He says love the Lord your God with all your heart that's what he says and yet here I am trying to show him how much I love him by doing something trying to clean myself up and there are a lot of Christians I know who take that route they're gonna make themselves better by doing the difficult thing. Then there are others who call grace something that is really more licensed they do whatever they want because I'm gonna go to heaven. Both of those things have one thing in common and that is this there's no love for God involved in either doing sinful things or working hard. The Pharisees were absolutely masters at working hard that's why the disciples of Jesus would look at them and ask the question you know when Jesus said your righteousness needs to exceed the righteousness of the Pharisees and the scribes that's why it closed the door on their own righteousness because as they looked at the Pharisees there was nobody else in their society that was as righteous. The outward appearance of righteousness they would broaden the hem of their garden they had thick phylacteries that they would wear with scripture before their eyes and and the people saw them and and they realized that these were very righteous people and so the disciples who knew that they in no way could match the efforts of a Pharisee were absolutely blown away that Jesus said your righteousness has to exceed theirs how can mine? The Apostle Peter and James and John Andrew they could say how can my exceed them we're fishermen Matthew could say how can I I'm a publican how can my righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees when their entire life has been yielded over to memorization of the law how can I be better than that the entire society regards them highly for what they are the problem is is Jesus said they're also hypocrites their works are all seen to be seen by men their prayers on street corners would be so that people could admire them their giving was so that people would say how generous they are their fasting was so that people would say how holy they are he said they receive the reward by the attention they receive from those who say these things and so there are a lot of Christians who forget that they need the holy spirit the power of the holy spirit I wake up in the morning and my habit is that God fill me today fill me with your spirit I want to walk in your spirit I don't want to make myself better I want to walk in your power I want to walk in your love I want to walk as one who's been born again I want to walk in your spirit if I'm walking in your spirit I will not fulfill the lusts of my flesh so I want to walk in your spirit today you see and that's what Paul's so upset about legalism guys legalism quenches the spirit of God in your life legalism will cause you to become bitter and angry legalism steals the joy of knowing Jesus Christ it steals it from your heart that day you got saved I don't know if you had joy but I sure did the day that I got saved I had such great joy this this this Monday was my 40th anniversary of committing my heart to Christ and I woke up you know Monday morning and I was laying there and I wake for Marie to wake up and she wakes up and I start to tell her I say you know I was just thinking what I was just thinking today's my 40th anniversary of getting right with God and and I was remembering and all of a sudden I hear I felt like I was in church you went to sleep when I was speaking I started busting up it was so funny but I was realizing you know what and I've been realizing it for the last couple days look at what God does by his grace look what he does by his grace it was not by works of righteousness which we have done but according to his mercy he saved us and he washed us with regeneration and renewed us with this holy spirit it's his work in our life it's his goodness towards us but here we go we're going to codify the things of God we're going to live by these rules and these regulations and in doing so we will take God in his spirit and we'll move his spirit away from our life and we will do all these proper things which will make us proper Christians so Paul says I want to learn this from you did you receive the spirit by the works of the law are they here in a faith in John 7 38 Jesus said he who believes in me as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water in Luke chapter 11 verse 13 Jesus said if you then being evil know how to give good gifts to your children how much more will your heavenly father give the holy spirit to those who ask him the holy spirit was received we received by faith the spirit of God and he goes on in verse 3 are you so foolish having begun in the spirit are you now being made perfect by the flesh in other words can you by your efforts can you gain more than God gave you by his spirit are you completing God's work for him by living according to the law he says in verse 4 have you suffered so many things in vain if indeed it was in vain can't you see that all that has happened to you is worthless if you have not embraced the grace of God and he says in verse 5 therefore he who supplies the spirit to you and works miracles among you does he do it by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith is God honoring the law when he performs works among you did God baptize people in the spirit or work miracles as the law was preached is he not demonstrating grace when he performs these works because it is all God's grace in 1st Corinthians 12 11 Paul said all these are the work of one in the same spirit and he gives them to each one just as he determines when i got saved i was taught to do this and i have to tell you i got saved in a revival not a revival meeting have the stereotype of revival meetings you know where the preachers up they're screaming and yelling no i'm saying a revival a genuine move of the holy spirit it was called the jesus movement or the jesus revolution we were jesus people we had jesus music it was all about jesus christ and when i got saved i was told i was told by those who who brought me to christ open yourself up to the spirit of god open yourself it was a genuine work of the holy spirit where god was moving in wonderful ways and and and i saw god do some wonderful things he transformed people in amazing ways amazing ways and i believe he still does and i believe he still can but i believe also that we have kind of like canned him we put him in a box and we've said oh no you did that 40 years ago but you you're not doing that now i don't believe that at all i believe that god wants to do a work a revival but what happens after a while we who have been walking with the lord we can harden we can become old wine skins we can begin to quench the holy spirit and not expect him to move anymore i want god to move in this last generation i want to see god move in the young people i desire that with all of my heart i want to see the lord grab hold of the 20s and the 30s and and and the younger people and and grab hold of their hearts and deliver them the way he did us we didn't have 10 step programs we had one step you come to jesus christ and he cleans you up that's what happened in my life i didn't have anybody take me aside counseling me out of my depression i received the holy spirit the work of the spirit in my life who brought joy to me and forgiveness i didn't have anybody trying to talk me out of that i had people encouraging me to get closer to god through that work of the spirit it wasn't simply the reading of the bible it was it was the acting on the bible it was understanding i have become brand new in Jesus christ he has done a work he has washed me he's cleansed me i'm no longer a drug addict i'm no longer an alcoholic i'm no longer running after every woman that that i desire i'm no longer doing these things i remember the day i got saved i was at the hollywood palladium and there were 4 000 young people seated around me and i remember when i got saved i was so blessed because there were these young women seated in front of me when i got saved and for the first time i could look at them with with purity i could look at them with pure eyes i could look at them like there were sisters because for me normally women were simply what you went after to be honest with you they were just prizes conquests they were they were simply something that you desired to have but not to necessarily remain with and i remember i remember very well as these girls hugged me when i stood up and gave my heart to the lord i remembered rejoicing in my heart that i could hug a woman without wanting to take her to bed to me that was just amazing it was amazing god gave me purity to be able to treat women with dignity and to love them as people and not objects to you maybe that was an a big thing to me it was because the lord did a work in me by his spirit that sense of being right with god that came through the grace of god and then that power that came into my life by the spirit of god who transformed me from a guy who had been i was either drunk or loaded almost not every but almost every day for the last year before i gave my heart to christ just before i got saved i bought a kilo i had it up in my in my bedroom i sold enough to pay for the kilo and i kept about 16 bags for myself and i would get up in the morning every day i would roll three joints i would smoke one i put two behind my ears and i would take a drive in my Volkswagen i'd finish one and i'd pull out the second i'd smoke that one then i pull out the third that's what i did then i'd go home to get more i started my friday nights by drinking a half gallon of wine and a quart of beer that's how i started my friday nights and i was 18 years old and i was 19 years old that's what i did that's how it was i enjoyed it and then god grabbed hold of me not because somebody came and said you gotta stop doing that god got hold of me when somebody said to me god loves you and he can change your life he can forgive you of your sins he can cleanse you and give you purpose in life give you a reason to be alive and that's what happens when you get saved it wasn't rules it wasn't regulations it wasn't you can't do this and you can't do that it was if you fall in love with jesus christ and you open your heart to him he will change you from the inside it wasn't religion i connected with god that's christianity and paul is upset because these galatians who knew what the gospel meant were being bewitched by legalists who were saying oh you can't possibly really know god unless you have been circumcised you can't really know god unless you're under the yoke of the law how can you really know what grace is if you don't understand what law is that's why paul's saying i have to ask you did you receive the spirit by the law or did you receive the spirit by the hearing of faith he goes on in verse six just as abraham believed god it was accounted to him for righteousness therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of abraham and the scripture foreseeing that god would justify the nations by faith preach the gospel to abraham beforehand saying in you all the nation shall be blessed so then those who are of faith are blessed with believing abraham what is he saying he's saying salvation has always been granted on the basis of personal internal spirit faith the old testament states saints were saved through faith not by holding to rituals and traditions undoubtedly the judizers had used the old testament to convince these Gentiles these galatians that they needed to hold fast to the law so paul is going to prove to them that people have always been saved by faith in god and he begins by pointing them back to the father of the Jewish nation abraham now god had called abraham out of ancient an area called mesopotamia which is iraq is part of that now and god had said to him that he would bless him and be with him in a very special way when you take notes genesis 12 one through three tells us that the lord said to abraham leave your country your people your father's household go to the land i will show you i will make you into a great nation i will bless you i will make your name great you will be a blessing i will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you i will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you now part of this covenant between god and abraham included the right of circumcision that is made clear in genesis 17 verse 10 circumcision the cutting away of the foreskin that signified a need for a cutting away of sin from the heart sin is passed on from generation to generation and therefore a clean break must be made so circumcision was brought in to symbolize that now undoubtedly these judaizers are stating that circumcision is necessary to be saved and so if abraham they would think received the covenant of circumcision and as a result god blessed them they're not not gentiles also received circumcision to be part of god's promises to abraham that's what they would be saying well the answer is no faith is what saved abraham not the right of circumcision because paul in romans 4 9 through 11 said is this blessedness only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised we've been saying that abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness under what circumstances was it credited after he was circumcised or before it was not after but before and received the sign of circumcision a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised so then he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised in order that righteousness might be credited to them so he was already declared to be righteous before he received the right of circumcision but the judoisers judoisers are saying to be saved you got to be circumcised paul would say that's not true to be saved you need faith in christ because he produces that that inward cleansing that comes to the blood of jesus christ and the and the holy spirit and in him according to colossians 2 11 you are circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature not with the circumcision done by the hands of men but with the circumcision done by christ that's why he says in verse 7 therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of abraham in other words only genuine believers have a relationship with god because they have faith now it's interesting in verses 8 and 9 how he speaks concerning the scripture foreseeing that god would justify the nations by faith and he preached the gospel to abraham beforehand saying in you all the nation shall be blessed so then those who are of faith are blessed with believing abraham the good news of salvation by faith was foreshadowed by how god saved abraham abraham was delivered out of idolatry and he had ancestors who were idolaters but god sovereignly delivered him and when he called him abraham responded and so he was delivered to have a relationship with god now in verse 10 as as many as are of the works of the law under the curse it is written cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them but that no one is justified by the law in the sight of god is evident for he says the just shall live by faith yet the law is not of faith but the man who does them shall live by them christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us for it is written cursed it is everyone who hangs on a tree that the blessing of abraham might come upon the Gentiles and christ jesus that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith if you're going to trust in the law he says you need to keep every command if you're going to trust in the law that places you under a curse god's condemnation because you cannot keep the law but the bible in deuteronomy 27 26 says curses the man who doesn't uphold the words of the law by carrying them out so he's saying if you're going to live by the law you have to obey the law in its every point every point you have to be blameless and of course by the law shall no flesh be justified there's no way you can be blameless because the law is not simply a codified way of living but it actually is used by the lord to expose the sinfulness of sin it actually defines it because before the law came you might have been very very enamored with adultery but then you hear thou shalt not commit adultery and you find yourself to be condemned by that you might like to lie and steal but you hear the law and the law says you are not to lie you are not to steal and it awakens in you a reality an awareness that this is part of your nature and that's why you can say who's going to deliver me from this body of death so the law has a purpose it awakens to us in such a way that we are able to identify what is wrong with us and then the law leads us to the one who can heal us Jesus Christ it's a it's a tutor it's a schoolmaster who delivers us to messiah Jesus who was able to to obey every aspect of the law never breaking it lived it perfectly and thus was able to die on my behalf because i can't so paul is simply saying listen if you want to be under the law remember what the law says cursed it is a man who doesn't keep it and so if you relations want to be under the bondage of law you need to remember what the law states and you will be cursed because you're not keeping it he says in verse 11 that no one is justified by the law in the sight of god is evident why because the just will live by faith but verse 12 the law is not a faith but everyone who does them shall live by them again the law pointed to jesus but is fulfilled in him as the one who kept it perfectly if you rely on the law for salvation you must perfectly follow every command verse 13 christ is redeemed us from the curse of the law that word redeemed means to be bought it was used speaking of purchasing a slave's freedom he's saying that jesus bought us out of slavery we were slaves to sin we did the will of the enemy but jesus paid for us and the price was his blood he redeemed us he says from the curse of the law in other words for the punishment demanded for failing to keep it and the punishment due is death the wages of sin the bible said is death but jesus set us free from that cursed he said is everyone who hangs on a tree jesus died on a cross that's a picture of a tree it's a picture of him taking our condemnation a criminal who was executed would usually be executed by stoning but then he would be tied to a post and would hang until sunset as an open expression of rejection by god jesus was there hanging on a cross openly for us taken upon himself my penalty but he goes on to say in verse 14 that the blessing of abraham might come upon the Gentiles in christ jesus that we might receive the promise of the spirit through faith the curse is lifted by placing faith in jesus christ we joined the family of abraham the family of the redeemed through jesus christ we receive and i want you to notice this the promise of the spirit promise joel made that promise there various old testament passages that speak concerning a promise of the spirit but this promise was fulfilled on the day of pentecost and jesus had said in luke 2449 i send the promise of my father upon you tarry in the city of jerusalem until you're endued with power from on high in ax chapter 1 verses 4 and 5 being assembled together with them commanded them that they should not depart from jerusalem but wait for the promise of the father which says he you have heard of me john truly baptized with water you shall be baptized with the holy ghost not many days from now the holy spirit the baptism the spirit coming upon you and empowering you i really believe that part of the problem that many christians have today is they simply have not opened themselves up to the power of the spirit of god have you have you opened yourself up have you gotten up and said god in jesus name i need your feeling i need your power i want to be filled by you i want that promise to be fulfilled i want to receive from you you have said in your word you give the spirit to those who would ask lord i need more power i want more power i think the problem much of the problem people have with that concept is because they've seen so much abuse in the name of the spirit and it causes people to take several steps back saying it's kind of weird is it going to make me do weird things brand new christian i would go to bible studies the way i used to go to parties my friend bill tells me there's a revival going on in a small church in long beach right off cherry i get in my car we load it up with jesus freak kids we drive from norwalk get on the freeway we make our way into long beach we arrive at the place it's a small church with wooden sides slats very small and we walk in it's an african american church having a revival and they have this southern preacher there guy was built like a like a linebacker football player and he had blonde hair and he had a pompadour one of these hairdos that kind of stood straight up and swept back it looked like the hood of a 53 Chevy if you've ever seen one of those there was a drum set at the base of the platform and he would scream this guy was screaming at us and then when he got all worked up he would go sit down and start playing the drums in the middle of his quote unquote message he'd just start playing the drums then everybody would get up and dance around i'm a brand new christian and i'm thinking it's clean fun i don't know if it's right or wrong i've never seen anything like that so we're all just dancing around in the pews i'm doing it too then he'd get back up and he'd begin to yell i don't remember a word the man said then he'd go back down and play the drums and we'd get back up and do the holy hokey pokey we did that for a long time then some lady stands up and says i'm from pocoyma and at my church we march behind the flag the church flag christian flag we have christian flag in here somewhere right over here so somebody grabs the flag and they start marching around the church i get in line and we're all marching around the church we'll never have a holy march here by the way so all of this is going on i'm a brand new christian i don't know if it's right i don't know if it's wrong everybody's doing it i'm just going along with them then they say if you want more of the holy spirit come to the front to the you know to tarry here on the bench the kneeling bench my friend bill and all the rest have already received the baptism the spirit i i didn't even know really what that was but i wanted everything god has so i i want more of jesus so i'm going kneel down this is long bench there and all these people are kneeling then and i'm out there for 45 minutes 45 minutes and we're supposed to be screaming and asking god to work and and i've got all these Protestants next to me and i was the next catholic i knew i could out kneel any Protestant any day of the week and i remember just kneeling there you know with my back straight because i was taught to keep your back straight it was crazy the noise and the flesh and everything it was just crazy and and i'm saying oh god feel me oh god feel me oh god please begging because the evangelists say beg him beg him oh god oh god we are all doing this and then they get us all up and make us stand in line and i i remember coming up and standing in line and he says now tell everybody what just happened and i'm thinking nothing nothing happened i'm tired but nothing happened and i'll never forget this because i'm now a Christian and i don't want to lie but how do you disappoint people because they're expecting to hear oh the heaven opened up i saw the dove land on me spun me around 300 times i don't and i'm just there and these people are saying these things and i'm and i'm in line and my friends are in the front and i'm looking at them and i'm oh lord what am i gonna do coming up one at a time i'll never forget i came and stood behind the pulpit just like i am right now and i looked out at this audience they're all waiting expectantly to hear a word and i said this i'll never forget what i said i said i really can't put into words exactly what i just went through and they look back at me like yeah nothing happened to me either you know that kind of we connected everything you don't need to do i was told to do will not your heavenly father give you the spirit if you but ask not beg not sweat not cry not roll around not terry ask ask in faith why why do i want your spirit to work in me jesus because i don't want to give myself over to my flesh because i don't want to go into a self improvement program of some sort that will make me feel righteous when i achieve certain things and i do certain things because i want to your gifts to work through my life and i want your fruit to blossom within me and because especially because i love you and i want to be a tool in your hand that you can use and if your holy spirit is being quenched by me you're not going to be able to work through me so fill me with your spirit that i might be able to please you and you simply say god in jesus name i desire this promise of your spirit to work in me that i might be a blessing to others that i might honor you ask