How I Was Baptized in the Holy Ghost – Part 1
“I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.” (Mark 1:8)
I have heard many people say that they desired the baptism of the Holy Ghost, but they never received it. They are saying that this group is teaching that the baptism in the Holy Ghost is this and the other group is teaching it is something else and so on. These people are saying that they are confused, because the churches are so very different. The truth of the matter is that they are not sincere in their heart. For if I am confused, all I have to do is apply the Word of God and prove for myself what the baptism in the Holy Ghost is. Jesus says in Luke 11:10-13, “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened. If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? Or if he shall ask an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?”
When I received the blood, I was translated out of the kingdom of dead men into the kingdom of living. I became alive. All of a sudden I realized that God is here. I began to feel Him, I began to experience different things and I began to grow, because all living things grow. If a man or a woman is not growing in the Spirit, he or she is dead. Don’t let anybody fool you, they are not alive. Anything that is alive is growing. Some grow fast, some slow, but they grow.
Therefore when I received Jesus, what else was there to want? I never heard anything about the baptism of the Holy Ghost. I had no idea what these words meant. Seven months after I received Jesus, I went to God hungry and I said to Him, “Lord, I have been preaching the gospel and I have probably about three hundred souls in heaven by now.” I figured out that the crown that is set for me in heaven must be a very large magnificent one with 300 stars in it. So I went to God and said, “Well, Lord, it is time for me to go home. If there is nothing more for me here, let me die and go to heaven.” It was so natural for a naive young Christian to follow this line of thought. I had no idea of why I was saved. I was ready to go to heaven. I didn’t know Jesus Christ wanted to come into me.
When I said to him what I said, he popped right into my mind, “Peter and John at the gate Beautiful.” Do you remember the story from the gate Beautiful? There was a man sitting there begging for a morsel of bread or for money to buy bread. He was a crippled person. Peter and John walked by and as he was begging they said to him, “We don’t have any silver nor gold, we don’t have any money, but we have something that we can give you.” Before the man could make up his mind as to what the thing was he could get from them, they said, “In the name of Jesus Christ rise up and walk.” You know I am very imaginative. All those bones that never moved! Can you imagine the screeching and the creaking? Then, he looked down and saw that he was really standing! You didn’t have to ask him to dance. You didn’t even have to play music for him. He was leaping and dancing and praising God. Peter and John had the power of creation. They had the power to create just like God issued the power into Adam. They had the power and they gave it to this man who was dying. (Acts 3:1-10)
God is saying to us, “What is it that you want in your life?” If you don’t have the Holy Ghost and you don’t want the Holy Ghost, you are sick, spiritually sick. For the Holy Ghost is the very life of God quickening your soul. And if there is such a thing available, I cannot understand anyone who wouldn’t want it.
Going back to my story. I didn’t know what this baptism was, but I said to Jesus, “If you give me what Peter and John had, I will stay.” He replied shortly, “All right.” Immediately, He threw me into a vision. In this vision I saw a long lane and down to the far end of it there was an explosion. It took some time for the sound of it to come to my ear. When this explosion occurred, he said, “That is the 7th.” This all happened sometime around the end of January, so the next 7th that would come would be the seventh of February. Then, in the middle of the lane there was another explosion and the sound of it came to me much quicker this time. Jesus was standing behind me and talking into my ear. This time He said, “That is the 14th.” After that, there was a silence. So I looked around and saw Him leaving way out there. He turned around, put His hand to His mouth and said, “And then…” A great explosion right under my feet! It threw me away. I got out of this vision gasping for air. It was as if God was playing with me. I asked Him, “God, what is this you are doing to me?” I had no idea what was meant by the explosion. It was only afterwards that I learned that ‘dynamite’, a word for explosion, is also the word for the Holy Spirit.
I was determined to wait until the 7th and see what would happen. But, you know, it is a crime to be carnal, and all of us have some amount of carnality in us. I figured in my mind that some wonderful things were going to happen and I remember very well what I thought. I hope you will not laugh at me when I tell you what I thought. You know, people don’t talk their private thoughts and therefore when you see them, you think, “This is a wonderful person.” You don’t know what they really think. But I will tell you what I thought. I thought that some aunt or uncle or somebody was going to die and leave me some money. So all day on the 7th I kept looking. I was working out in the bushes experimenting with plants and animals, and I got to watch the train, which brought in our mail. The mailman came and went. Nothing for me. The next train came from the other side. Nothing for me. The day went by and nothing was happening. I left my work disappointed and went to my little house a disappointed person. I said, “Well, I should just go down on my knees, pray a disappointed prayer and go to bed.” The 7th was gone and nothing happened. So I knelt down beside my disappointed bed and began to pray.
Immediately, I was gone in another vision. Do you know that the baptiser is Jesus? Do you know that when you are waiting to receive the baptism of the Holy Ghost, you should be looking to Jesus? Some of us are looking to get the strange tongue and consequently, we never get baptized, because we are actually driving the Spirit away. When you want the baptism of the Holy Ghost, look to Jesus. Call upon Jesus and He will baptize you. He is the One who is going to come down and trouble the waters.
So in this vision I was walking with Jesus. I cannot explain to you how good it felt. It was so sweet! It was so glorious! It was like being in heaven. Jesus Christ was walking beside me to my left side and He was talking to me and talking to me. He was telling me something, but I couldn’t understand one word of what He was saying, because He was speaking some different language. However, it was so sweet and I was feeling so good! Jesus was talking to me and I didn’t really care what He was saying. He was so close; I could not only see Him, I even felt Him. We got to a bunch of African tall neck daisies that were standing up very straight. As He got close by to them, they all bowed their heads. It was so glorious! The aroma of them was so heavenly! It was something I would like to smell again. I believe I will smell it again when I get to heaven. There is no perfume in the earth so pleasing that can compare to it. Such a glorious scent! Jesus came to three little steps and went up. I was about to follow Him, but He turned and said, “No.” He stopped me from going after Him. “But…” I was quick to say, yet, “Turn back,” was His reply. Oh, again, I was disappointed, because I didn’t get in. I turned around to go back and when I did, everything He was saying and I didn’t understand came right into me. As soon as it did, I was out of the vision, kneeling by my bed.
Even though the vision was over I still heard Him talk. I began to look around. I was not asleep, I was not in a vision, I was kneeling on the floor and Jesus was talking in my room in the same language He was talking before. Where was He? I got curious. I began to search for Him. Do you think a person can search for the Holy Ghost? I had absolutely no understanding of what it was! I went to the cupboard. I went into the kitchen. I searched everything inside the little house. I even looked under the bed, but there was nobody else in the house. So I said to myself, “It must be somebody outside.” It was dark out there, but I walked around the house and came back in. All of a sudden it occurred to me that the voice was the same tone, the same level when I was inside as well as when I was outside. I, then, came to a conclusion, “The voice is on me! He must be on me somewhere!” Can you imagine God sitting down, looking at me and waiting for my mind to tell me that this was what was going on? I had asked for the thing that Peter and John had, but I didn’t know what it was. Yet, I realized the voice was on me. I opened my shirt looking inside, but there was no movement in there. “Oh, my God, what is this?” was my question.
If you ask for the Holy Ghost, you are going to receive the Holy Ghost. Some people are afraid that when they ask for the Holy Ghost, they are going to receive some other spirit. According to the Word of God this is impossible. If you ask for the Holy Ghost, God is going to give you the Holy Ghost.
The voice was down under my shirt. I began to be frightened. I was in this wilderness house alone and didn’t know that God did things like this. All of a sudden there is this talking going on inside of me. Tell me, wouldn’t you be frightened? So I asked God, “My God, what is this?” He answered me, “Open your mouth and pray aloud.” Pray aloud! I was in my room alone; there was nobody there to hear me. Why would I pray aloud? I didn’t see any sense in doing it, but ‘pray aloud’ was the order so I opened my mouth to say, “Our Father,” as it was in my mind. But when I opened it, my tongue went, “Hababalasha…” I began to talk the same thing that was down in me. Somebody can ask you, “When you receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit, do you talk in tongues?” You don’t have to care about that. All you need is the Holy Ghost. Stop caring whether you talk in tongues or whether fire goes through your nostrils. Some say you will talk in tongues, some say you will shout, some say you will sing, some say you will dance, some say you will prophecy. I believe you should do all these things.
I was a person very much in charge of my tongue. Yet for that moment I lost control of it. So I stopped. When I did, He started talking again inside me. I said, “Wait, let me open my mouth again and I am going to say ‘Our Father’ this time.” And again, “Hababalasha …” came out of me. I tried again and again however with the same result. Brethren, instead of rejoicing I began to get frightened. I said to myself, “I’ve never been mad before so I don’t know what madness really is. This is probably how people get mad, because I can’t control my tongue.” Actually, to be honest, I think the devil said it to me. The moment the doubt came in I saw the door behind me open and a person came through it. He was dressed in something like a prisoner’s suit – light, dark, light, dark, light, dark. When I saw him, he came right up behind me. Disquiet took over my whole body. My knees began to knock on the floor and I couldn’t control my limbs at all. It was the most awful feeling I could have ever had. A complete terror came over me.
I am going to deviate a little now and tell you that I saw the same spirit take hold of people under the Toronto blessing. I am sure you have heard about this revival in Canada and America when the people stiff out, shake and cannot help themselves but slip to the floor. It is the same type of feeling that took me. When you see somebody fall on the ground and fluttering, cast the devil out of him. With God it is different. When He slains you, you receive His visions and you are blessed. Then, when you rise up, you are not the same person any more. However, the thing you see happening in the churches at this time is not of God.
This spirit that came into my room showed me a vision. If you can see visions, you are going to see the visions of God and you are going to see the visions of the devil. Some people believe that every vision they see is of God. It is not true. If you see the visions of God, then you will see the visions of the devil and you have to differentiate between God and the devil.
In this vision I saw a large tent with many cars in the parking lot and many people in the tent. This spirit said to me, “I will make you the greatest healer in the world, if you accept it.” I didn’t know it was the devil. At that time I had no experience of discerning between God and the devil, but I was going to get it quickly. If I had any kind of a selfish desire to be a healer, I would have been gone. I said to him, “Wait a minute,” still trembling. “I was just with Jesus and felt so good. It was so peaceful and so heavenly. You say you are coming from God and offering me healing power, yet my whole being is disquieted. If it’s not God, I don’t want it.” The moment I said it he disappeared. I knew then that it was the devil. He knew, and I don’t know how he knew, that God was going to give me the gift of healing and he wanted me to accept him and his healing. Do you know that Satan can heal? I experienced it on both sides of the fence. One time, Satan oppressed one individual I knew and they took him to a man who worked for Satan. The man said, “If you make a sacrifice, an oblation to Satan, I will take the devil off of you.” The money was paid and the deal was done. The man got healed. The greatest blessings of all happened some time later when he accepted Jesus and was delivered. He turned completely away from the devil and today he is a saved man. I thought to myself, “Suppose I had accepted it.” Do you know what would happen? You would have duCille with the big tent, people falling down on the ground, healings going on and no God. Another spirit would have taken the place where God should have been. I trust you understand what I am saying. The prophet can miss God. When I look at the television and see some of the preachers heal, I realize that it is not God but another spirit.
After I rejected the satanic offer, the Lord came back to me. I said to Him, “God, please tell me what this is.” Immediately, adding to the terror, the many color bed spread that covered my bed started rising up in front of me as I was still kneeling on the floor. I was not sleeping and I would not close my eyes anymore. Out of the bed spread an ancient scroll with an ornate handle on both sides and the paper in the midst began to roll down. It rose up to my eye level and I was able to read: 1 Corinthians chapter 12, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brethren, I would not have you ignorant. Ye know that ye were Gentiles, carried away unto these dumb idols, even as ye were led. Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost. Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are differences of administrations, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to every man to profit withal. For to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another the word of knowledge by the same Spirit; To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit; To another the working of miracles; to another prophecy; to another discerning of spirits; to another divers kinds of tongues; to another the interpretation of tongues.” (Verses 1-10) The moment I read the word ‘tongues’ there was a quickening in my body, the light came to me and I said, “Oh, God, this is tongues!” That was the 7th.
You don’t have to go through all the experience I went through, because you are in the church that has understanding. All you have to do is to ask God in the name of Jesus and receive in the name of Jesus. But unless you believe that you are going to receive, don’t ask. Some people keep asking, because they think some magical thing is going to happen. But receiving the Holy Ghost is not magic. It is the Word of God and it says, “And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” (Matthew 21:22) God cannot lie. Whatever God says must be so. And He knows that we need the Holy Ghost so that Christ would be formed in us.
Sonlight Devotional 