I remember the day as though it were yesterday - Friday, July 17, 1936.

About 5:45 in the morning I slipped into a seat in aisle three of Angelus Temple's main floor. By 6:00 a.m., when the meeting was scheduled to commence, there were over a thousand worshipers present. The occasion was the third all day "Holy Ghost Rally" --a dawn to midnight marathon of preaching, praying, praising, and singing. Beginning in may these rallies, which captured the attention of the whole Pentecostal world, had become monthly affairs.

The day began with a call to prayer by Aimee Semple McPherson. People came forward to kneel at the altar, on the platform, and in the aisles. Sister started singing the chorus of "Blessed Quietness." Later she asked the audience to "sprinkle the blood" over the auditorium, its walls, dome, floor. Sister led in some singing and gave a brief message. Other ministers followed to the pulpit each hour. I don't remember who they were that morning, except for Aubrey Lee, pastor of the Southwest Los Angelus (85th and Hoover Sts.) Foursquare Church. The only thing I remember that any of them said was when he related how a high society woman in his congregation asked him to baptize her dog in water! I don't recall whether he said what he did.

About 1:30 in the afternoon what i had been waiting for all morning commenced. the invitation was given for all who desired to receive the baptism with the Holy Ghost to form a line at the right hand stairs to the platform. By then nearly four thousand people were present and hundreds poured forward, crowding the aisles to the rear of the auditorium. Within half an hour all seven aisles on the main floor of Angelus Temple were filled with prostrated supplicants. The two ramparts from the first balcony and the long central aisle through that balcony also were crowded with people lying under the power of God.

I was near the beginning of the line, but before my turn came to be anointed the platform was crowded with seekers slain in the Spirit. Finally i stood in the center of the platform. the elders motioned me to turn my back on the audience and face the stage curtains. The pulpit had been moved off to one of the wings. Directly behind me was the console of the organ. I think Twyla Clark was at the console.

"Lift your hands," I was instructed, and I did. then Sister McPherson touched my forehead and said, "Receive the Holy Ghost." What took place in the next few seconds will take many more seconds to relate. As God is my witness, this account is true. I saw a fiery object--I could not tell whether it was a tongue of flame or a ball of fire or what--descending swiftly in an arch until it seemed to strike my head. "Hypnotism!" immediately would chirp the critic. But my eyes were closed. I fell under the power of God onto the organ. i never had shown much musical ability before that, and some people may not think i have any now. But within a year I was playing the piano in those Holy Ghost Rallies in the temple. I give the glory to God. I had taken some piano lessons, but my teachers never had been able to accomplish much with me.

Meanwhile, two of the elders lifted me off the organ and lay me on the carpet beside it in the orchestra pit. I lay there, I believe, about an hour. Several saints knelt beside me and prayed that God would fill me completely with his blessed Holy Spirit. One of them was Dr. B. G. Gurden - God bless his memory. He was promoted to glory about two years later. He's one of the first 'old timers' from Angelus Temple I want to look up in heaven after spending a thousand years or so at the feet of Jesus.

God answered prayer and I spoke, albeit falteringly, with other tongues as the Spirit gave me utterance. Some people might have come up to me afterwards and thrown a wet blanket, saying, "You weren't really filled. You only spoke a few words. You didn't have the overflow!' Thank god no one said that. I've seen people talked out of their charismatic experiences! I knew i had been baptized with the Holy Ghost. The overflow came later, gradually, as I would pray and praise god in the spirit. Does not 1 Corinthians 14 exhort us to seek that we may excel in the spiritual gifts god bestows? "He that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto me but unto God..." "He that speaketh in tongues edifieth himself..."

I cannot explain why god baptizes different people differently - why one man strikes a gusher immediately like pastor Henry Wilson of the Aloha-Huber Anderson Indiana Church of God did in a Thursday night service at my Hillsboro, Oregon Foursquare Church in the late 1950's - and why another has a slow start as Wendell Wallace of the same denomination did that same night. He got up from his knees and asked me, "Did i speak in tongues?" He certainly did, but he had not been satisfied. The next Thursdays night he was back and struck a gusher. I can't explain differences like that, nor why one is filled sitting, another, standing, another, kneeling, and another in bed or prostrate under the power. Seekers who left services disappointed in our Salem church sometimes were filled in their cars on the way home or as soon as they walked into their kitchens. I do not understand it. I do not need to. I cannot explain it. I do not need to. The important thing is to enjoy the experience rather than explain it, to shout "hallelujah" instead of asking "how come"?

I returned to my seat in the auditorium about 3:00 p.m. By then the meeting was way behind schedule. Mrs. McPherson was scheduled to speak several times during the day but when the rally got behind schedule she stepped aside so the other ministers could preach. The meeting resumed. The next preacher took the pulpit although there were still scores prostrated throughout the building receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The final estimates that day, as i recall, topped ranged from 350 to more than 500.

Later that afternoon the about 50 children who had been sitting in individual chairs in the altar area moved their chairs to crowd up against the platform to the right of the pipe organ. Sister asked them to stand and sing a chorus. I slipped down to an empty chair and joined the others after they finished. I had kept myself aloof from that crowd for about three months, because I had been at the beginning unsympathetic to the sudden Pentecostal fervor which had seized the Angelus Temple kids. I had no idea, that Friday afternoon that Sister would within a couple of weeks appoint me usher for the children sitting "down in front"! What a transformation! I had been for almost three months like Michal, David's first wife, who pouted and criticized David's fanaticism when he danced before the ark of the ark of the covenant on its return to Jerusalem. Thank god, I didn't suffer the same spiritual fate.

You see, in the months leading up to April 1936 the spiritual tide at Angelus Temple had been ebbing gradually. Sister McPherson had been away on an evangelistic tour, and the associate pastor - i do not wish to be critical because Rheba Crawford was a great preacher when she preached Jesus, but she had a tendency to go off on tangents and preach politics or social welfare or herself. God help preachers to preach Jesus, to preach the gospel, and nothing else! Sister returned to her pulpit in April, about the same time a group of humble colored people came to the church office inquiring if they could conduct a week of meetings commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the Azusa Street outpouring of the Holy Ghost which actually was the real beginning of the modern Pentecostal movement. "That sounds like just what Angelus Temple needs," replied Rev. Giles N. Knight, one of the business administrators. He was well aware of sister's discontent with the spiritual tide of the church. The anniversary meetings were announced and some in the church complained to the pastor, "Why those folks will roll in the aisles." Sister was so distressed about the spiritual tide of the church that she abandoned her former conservatism about demonstrations and replied, "If they do, I'll get down and roll with them."

I never saw anybody roll in any Pentecostal meeting. Elder and Mother cotton from the beginning of the Azusa Street outpouring came for the anniversary week to lead the celebration. They stayed and ministered for several months.

I remember the first Sunday morning of well. Sister McPherson came into the closing exercises of our junior department Sunday School and asked all of the children to be sure to stay for church. I stayed. But that was the only service I attended that week. I didn't enjoy it. It was quite different. That night I preferred to hear Rheba Crawford and begged a ride with her and her co-workers out to South Gate where she was preaching in a branch church. I looked forward to the next week when the temple would get back to normal after the Azusa revivalists left. But they didn't leave. They stayed for months. And what i didn't realize then was that Angelus temple was back to normal with a great revival spirit after a period of spiritual drought.

Beloved, never give up over drought which may his your church, for revival will return if you want it! Stay put and believe for the best! For a while during the ensuing weeks I got colder and colder. But then God worked a real change in my mind and heart. It had to be god, for nobody said a word to me. I had not complained to anybody. I suddenly began to get hungry for more of the Lord. And God witnessed to my soul that what I needed was what had been neglecting if not rejecting--namely, the baptism with the Holy ghost. When the rally of July 17th was first announced, I just knew that it was a day of destiny for me. I came expecting, believing, determined like Jacob of old not to be denied. That day was the second time I had ever sought the infilling of the Spirit. The first time i received a blessing. But the second time I received the baptism! Hallelujah! Glory to God!

Someone may say, "Raymond, you didn't deserve to get it so easy. I know good saints who sought for years without being filled. You had been critical of Pentecost. You should have had to tarry lots longer. You didn't deserve to receive the Spirit so quickly." Beloved, I can tell you many more reasons than those why I didn't deserve to be filled that day - or any day, many more reasons that my critics might muster. I wasn't perfect in those days. I'm not perfect now. I don't need to tell you folks that know me that. They discovered it long ago.

I did not deserve that blessing. In fact, I shudder when I think about how close I came to missing my baptism that day because I'd been a naughty boy. After our mother's passing when I was four and my sister Elinore was two we lived with my grandmother and her sister. Now I had already received permission to attend that July 17th rally from dawn to midnight - quite a concession to an 11 year old boy at that time. But a few days before the rally my sister and I had a quarrel. I might as well tell the truth. It was a fight. Of course, you understand that it was all Elinore's fault! At any rate, I hit her.

Now generally Grandma Lackey took my part when hostilities erupted between us kids. More than once, to my shame I must confess, I gloated when my sister got spanked for crying when I hit her. But this time Grandma believed I was the culprit and she snapped, "Raymond, for that you can't go to the temple on Friday!"

Parents, don't ever discipline your children that way! You might deprive them of an experience that would transform their lives forever. Never punish by keeping your child out of a church activity. Before long you might find yourself wishing with all your heart that he would want to go to church. I begged grandma to reconsider. She wouldn't. I bawled. It made no difference. I prayed. Then the next day I pleadingly promised, "If you'll let me to the rally Friday, I promise not to hit Elinore again for a whole year!" I kept that promise, by the way, and if you don't think that was a real miracle you don't know how most brothers and sisters get along when there are only two of them. I didn't deserve the blessing of the baptism. But we don't ever get anything from God because we deserve it. If god gave us what we really deserve it would be hell! But instead he gives heaven and happiness and the Holy Ghost. July 17, 1936 transformed my life completely. Before that day i had an inkling that I should preach the gospel. Afterwards I knew I had a call from God.

Have YOU received the Holy Ghost since you believed? This enduement is not just for preachers, apostles, pastors, missionaries. In the New Testament it was required even for waiters of tables as Acts 6