Changed into another man

We talked about the complexity of the subject of the gifts of the spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit and we have been working, as you know, these Sundays on all that subject. I was thinking of continuing with the same topic but even though I worked on it this morning in the service in English, but I have felt the Lord, I have been debating myself with another text that I think is more appropriate for us, for the Latino, Hispanic congregation because I feel that there are many here who already have more understanding about this dimension and many of the things that I have been working on I can deal with you in a different way.

But I want to go to a passage that illustrates in a very eloquent and very specific way what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is, the typical effects of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And that towards which we should aspire when we are looking for that filling of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. What I want you to do with me is to do a case study, as they say in English, a case study that illustrates many of these principles that we have been expounding in recent weeks.

Where we are going to find it is in a very unusual place, it will not be in the New Testament, nor will it be in the Book of Acts where there are obviously cases of the baptism of the Holy Spirit because it is the book that focuses the most in the acts of the Holy Spirit at the beginning of the church. But I'm going to go rather to the Old Testament and we're going to study a person who was baptized in the Holy Spirit or by the Holy Spirit and who had his own experience that illustrates many of the principles that we've been talking about about the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit.

And I find it useful to go to the Old Testament because it shows us something and that is that the Holy Spirit is nothing new in the life of God's people in the first place. It's not like at the moment in the Book of Acts the Holy Spirit turned on the light bulb and began to act on the human stage. The Holy Spirit has been working in human life since before the creation of the world. It says in the book of Genesis, in chapter 1, that the spirit of the Lord was resting on the waters, on the formless chaotic creation that God later proceeded to order in his creative acts in the book of Genesis.

But the Holy Spirit was already there as if resting on creation in its potentiality. And it's been there, we see it throughout all of scripture at different times in the Old Testament and then we go into the New Testament and we already begin to see it in a much more evident, more abundant, distributed way, the presence of the spirit in the people. general of God, instead of only as we said before, in some specialists, prophets, kings, priests.

The difference, remember this, in the new economy of the spirit that the Lord Jesus Christ unleashed with his death on the cross, and on the day of Pentecost, is not in the action of the Holy Spirit, because as we say it is on all the pages of the writing, not even in its descent on men and women at specific times. No, the big difference that we see starting with the book of Acts is, as I say, that before the Holy Spirit was for a very select group and now it is for every believer. Amen. For every son, daughter of God who can potentially enter into that endowment of power, that initiation into the life of power and intimacy with the Holy Spirit.

And the effects of the anointing of the Holy Spirit have always been the same: power, access to the supernaturality of God, transformations and changes in the person who receives it, initiation of ministries, effectiveness in serving the Lord, access to instruments that help us They help in our deficiencies in the spiritual life, I was going to say Christian, but we are going to see a case in which this is not a Christian but a character before Christ, long before Christ.

If you already know who I'm going to talk about, he earned a 100 on the exam even before starting it. I'm talking about Saul, King Saul. He was a very interesting character. And one of the things I like about the case of Saul is that Saul was a very imperfect man before he was baptized in the Holy Spirit and after. Which also tells us something, and that is that the baptism of the Holy Spirit is not a magic key that makes you absolutely perfect, but simply that it strengthens you in your humanity and penetrates all areas of your being and gives you a much more powerful capacity. But we're still human and we're still making mistakes and we're still in need of the Lord's grace, but we do have increased effectiveness in serving God.

So, we go to the first book of the prophet Samuel, in chapter 10, and we are going to see here, we are going to study according to the Bible. And you will remember that the people of God before Saul as the first king of Israel, the people of God had been directed by judges that God from time to time also raised up and trained with supernatural power, and also there we see cases where the power of God descends on exceptional men to bring about deliverance in times of oppression by the people of Israel and to judge and direct the people of God before there was formal rule by kings.

For example, we have Gideon, or we have Samson, who are two characters who were visited, and it would also be interesting to study those cases and see how these characters also had a visitation from the power of God and God enabled them beyond their weaknesses and deficiencies. to be able to carry out a task of liberation and government over the people of Israel.

But there comes a time when the people of Israel themselves ask God that they want to have a king like the other nations. There is a lot of cloth to cut there but we are not going to go into that. They want to be like the other nations and have a formal king who guides them in war and governs them and they go to Samuel, the prophet Samuel, and they tell him, "Samuel, we think you have to retire now, man, you're done." a little advanced in age and you have done a good job but now we want a formal king.” And Samuel is directed by God to specifically anoint Saul and Samuel talks to Saul, God provides an encounter with him. Saúl is walking around, his father lost some donkeys and his father sends him to look for them and find them. A small detail, a vignette of the agricultural life of that time. Saul goes looking for the donkeys but he does not know that God is orchestrating things for a frontal encounter with his destiny and with the destiny that God has for him.

And I believe that there we have a first teaching. That many times God uses the circumstances of life, one never knows when God is going to use something specific for us to have an encounter with the Holy Spirit. Many times they invite us, look, there is a vigil in the church, as there was this Friday, or the service on Wednesdays or there is a special event that some brothers are going to gather to pray in a house. Oh yeah, I'm tired. And maybe that is the moment that God chooses for you to have an encounter with the Holy Spirit because those who are willing and eager and diligent, God will find them.

Many of us say, well, if the Lord wants to visit me, he knows that I am present, he knows my address. But you have to seek, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you, ask and it will be given to you. God honors the diligent, God honors those who are. One thing I see in the Bible is that God usually meets his servants when they are working and doing something. You don't find him flattened there on a bed watching TV. You find them working, on many occasions and don't put me there because I won't be able to preach what I came to preach this morning. But it is true, to the diligent God honors, to the striving and brave.

Saul is in his father's diligence and then we enter chapter 10, Saul meets Samuel and then in the verse he says:

“Then Samuel took a vial of oil – frankly I don't know what a vial is but I imagine it was something that had oil in it, a vessel, a nice word to say a vessel with oil or a receptacle with oil, because oil it has always been a symbol of the Holy Spirit, the anointing of the Lord. The oil in the Old Testament or in the world of the Old Testament was used to refresh, it was used to turn on the lights, oil was used in those times, not gasoline but oil. It has been a source of energy.

The oil has been used in many ways, it was used to heal wounds, to cook, to light lamps, it was used to refresh the feet of the traveler who were already dry because they were sandals that were used in those times, it was anointed with oil. The oil was also used to refresh people's skin, women used the oil. That is to say, the oil was like a symbol of life in many different ways, of energy, of health, of freshness and it is not surprising that those life values that the oil had were transferred to use it as a symbol of the application of grace. , the life and power of God over a person. And that's why we talk about anointing, that beautiful Pentecostal word, the anointing of God.

"So, Samuel takes that oil content and pours it on his head." At that time it was not like a very discreet droplet. No, this was that they plugged you with oil. You came out of there dripping oil wherever you want. If you had clothes that were stained, that's your problem. I also believe that something worthy is the abundant measure of God's anointing that falls, without measure, when God's anointing falls it is abundant and without reproach, says the Bible. Whoever lacks wisdom ask God that God gives abundantly and without reproach.

That is, Samuel pours the oil on Saul's head. And again, why the head? Here I am going to enter, as I see here, the head is the seat of reasoning, it is the place where decisions are made, where one governs life, the brain, the mind, the head, and on that place the oil is poured and that from there it goes down through the whole body and fills and saturates the whole person.

And that is also interesting because the idea of the baptism of the Holy Spirit is the idea of immersion. Baptizo, the word that was used in the original Greek, is to immerse someone in something. When the Bible speaks of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, it is referring to a saturation, an immersion in... it is not just a minimal, decorative thing, but it is a saturation, it is an invasion of the Holy Spirit. That is why yes, I believe that to some extent and at some point in the life of every believer there has to be at least one experience before you die, where you feel that the power of God has visited you, that you have had a frontal encounter with the supernatural. Be it a dream, be it a vision, be it a prophetic word, be it a powerful emotional moment, be it a touch from God in the time of worship, be it a moment when you feel something that you cannot explain in rational terms and that you know that it comes from God.

I believe that every believer should long for and seek that immersion, that moment of crisis in his life, a frontal encounter with the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So, you have to look for that, don't be content with just a pleasant experience. That's good, but the Bible says, those who believe in me will flow rivers of living water from within. And the word says that this was what he said about the Holy Spirit that was going to fall on those who followed Jesus Christ.

Why did the Lord speak of rivers of living water? You have seen a river alive as it is in those National Geographic movies when those people are with those little rubber boats that are going through some streams, currents and strong ones that the water jumps everywhere and they are jumping from one place to another Those are rivers of living water. Or have you seen the Caribbean Sea, for example, on one of those beaches when it hits a reef and water flies everywhere, that's living water. It is not the placid water of a pretty little lake, where you sit with a book to read and there is no danger of getting wet because the lake does nothing but be pretty and be there in front of you. No, rivers of living water run, jump, drench and attack.

The Holy Spirit is always related to dynamism, to effusiveness, and I believe that every believer who moves in an area and in a Pentecostal paradigm should aspire to that effusiveness, to that dynamism in his life. Don't be content with just ordinary life, God satisfies those who are hungry, God gives water to those who are thirsty. The Holy Spirit visits those who are looking for it and wanting it and longing for it.

I remember how I told you, when I was 14, 15 years old, about 10 years ago more or less, that I used to go... I used to go everywhere to look for someone to drench me with the Holy Spirit and baptize me in the Holy Spirit. , in Brooklyn where I lived. I went to the African American and Hispanic churches seeking a visitation from the spirit of God. and I believe that God honors that, that desire for power. He who seeks finds. He who asks the Lord will find. That is why the Lord told the disciples, do not leave Jerusalem until you are endowed with power from on high and they went into the upper room and were there crying out until the Lord visited them.

And I tell you, brethren, the Lord may visit you one day when something lays hands on you and it may be... you're going to have to search in your own way. So for me, I rather take an attitude of, hey, I bless you, I give you the floor, we help as much as possible, we provide different opportunities, but ultimately you are responsible for your own blessing. You have to cry out, search, touch, do what you have to do but don't be content with a mediocre and average life. Search until you find. The Lord honors those who have an appetite for his blessing. There are all those desperate characters in scripture that show us one thing, and that is that if you ask and ask and ask and bother the Lord, he will give you. And sometimes he acts lazy, as the Mexicans say, so that you look for him and then at the given moment he blesses you abundantly.

I say that no one who insistently seeks the Holy Spirit will stop being blessed, no one. Because it is an immersion, it is a filling and everything that has to do with the Holy Spirit is associated with that dynamism, that search, that immersion.

So, he poured that oil on his head and it says here, in verse 1, “and he kissed him – a kiss of initiation, of affection, it's like God's approval in a sense given by the prophet Samuel to Saul and it's like a paternal kiss of initiation in his ministerial career.

“…and he said to him, has not the Lord anointed you prince over his people Israel?” It is a rhetorical question. What he is saying is, Jehovah has anointed you as prince over his people Israel. And I imagine that for Saúl that was something totally strange. Me? If I was looking for some donkeys around a little while ago for my dad, and that God has chosen me to be king over Israel?

There is something interesting here too, and it is that, brothers, God loves to use ordinary people. God delights in using the little ones of the town to do great things. I think you must be saying, glory to God, amen, right now, I am saying something very deep, very powerful. God has chosen you and me, ordinary people to do great things in the Kingdom of God.

God doesn't need people with Phd's, yes doctorates, glory to God, he can use them, but what God needs is an open and willing heart and an ordinary person who knows that God is powerful to do great things. Anyone here can do feats in the God Realm. never be intimidated, never be frightened by the fact that you do not have this or that, if your heart pleases the Lord, God can do impossible things and the smaller the person, the more inadequate sometimes the more God glorifies using them and God desires to use them more.

Why did God use Abraham at the age of 100 to be the father of faith? Why do you use virgins who could not give birth and use elders and use the little ones of the earth as we see in the book of Corinthians, that Paul says, there are not many of you who are great or renowned or well educated or anything, but God chose the little ones of the world to shame the great ones of the world. God chooses whoever.

Saul was a man with feet of clay. Saul was an incredibly flawed and flawed man. And if you study the biography of Saul and how he ended up unluckily, you will see that there was nothing to qualify him to be a vessel for God to use as Israel's first king. However, God chose him and so there is a sense of intrigue when Samuel asks him, because when he kisses him maybe like Saul... he knew who Samuel was. Samuel was a famous man in Israel, he was the great judge Samuel, already at the height of his ministry. And this man anoints him with oil, kisses him and I imagine that Saul looked at him like… why are you doing this? Has not God anointed you as prince over Israel? I am doing what God has commanded me to do. Even though he was a terribly flawed man.

And here begins something very interesting. Again, look at that and don't let this detail escape us as well, there's a moment of impartation. There is a moment of induction, there is a moment of initiation when Samuel pours the oil on him, nothing happens, it does not say here that there were trumpets and thunder and all that, nor that Saul threw himself to the ground. No. an anointing, a liturgical act almost, one might say, of initiation. That is valid in the kingdom of heaven and I believe that likewise…

That is why I believe that in every search for the Holy Spirit there must be that moment in which there is an imposition of hands, there must be a moment in which someone can symbolically transfer the anointing they have received into your life and you must consider that moment the moment of your receiving and if you hesitate and ask yourself, well, will I have received it or not, this or that? You died in the movie. You have to believe, you have to receive.

I believe that many people have already received the anointing and induction of the Holy Spirit, but since they continue wondering, hesitating and looking for the other Pentecostal who is more anointed than the other who anointed him 3 days ago, searching here and there. Look, if you already have it, move on it now. But there has to be a specific time when we receive.

It is like when you receive Christ as Lord and savior. There are people who receive Christ and they receive him in a dramatic way, they cry and feel emotional things and they know that the Lord has touched them. There are others who open their eyes and for the moment they are seeing the world in colors, before they saw it in black and white, after receiving Christ. There are others who simply receive it like this, a formal act of receiving because they are perhaps more formal and they receive the Lord Jesus Christ and they know that he has entered their hearts, because the Bible says that it is so and from then on they walk steadfast even though they do not be with a lot of emotion but they are sure they did it.

But they are not questioning themselves, will I have received it or not? when you receive Christ, receive him and that's it. Now, live in Christ and continue to develop Christ within you and may he develop within you and take over your life more. But live confident, mark that day. If you receive the Lord today write that day on the back of your Bible or somewhere, 'today I received Christ as my Lord and savior and now I am a child of God and I live within it and now I am going to develop Christ further and more into my life.'

This is what happens to us with the Holy Spirit, when God touches you, when there is that moment of confrontation you believe it, you receive it and now then a course is unleashed, a race to go looking for more expression of that fullness and the security and the evidence that Christ lives within you. That is the most important part, because brothers, why do I say this? Because there is so much controversy in the Christian world about when the Holy Spirit is received, whether tongues are the evidence or not. There are denominations like the Assembly of God that are based on the idea that tongues are evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And even the Assembly of God is in process and fluctuating, brothers. There are Assemblies of God churches that you don't know if they are Methodist or Pentecostal. They are in a lot of flux in that sense and I already believe that many of them do not even believe in that doctrine that they have there in their scriptures.

Others believe not, that you simply receive and already believe it and live in it. And I believe that the thing is in how you live that fullness and that experience of the Holy Spirit in your life, how you put into function and in action that conviction that you had a day when they prayed for you, you received the Holy Spirit and then you move into that experience.

Again, speaking of my own experience, I know that yours is different, many of you who have been through this experience. I think that I have already told some, I have even said it from the pulpit but some of you who are here, many of you may not have heard it, how am I speaking of myself... because one has to speak of one's own testimony many times. In the year 82 when this church was starting at the [Inaudible] Gospel Center and I began to attend church there, and as I tell you, from a young age I had sought the filling and the baptism of the Holy Spirit in many different ways and there was been here and there, and then I had a parenthesis in my life for a time in which I was not very involved in the things of the Lord, and at that time, in 1982, God had started to move again in my life and was preparing my life and Meche's life also in another way, because she was in Puerto Rico and God had to bring her here so that we could have that frontal encounter and from then on we would continue in the ministry.

I remember that afternoon, again God was working and preparing the foundations of the ministry that we were going to have. I was in my second or third year of graduate school, and that afternoon that I got to church and I got there early, because I worked for the Department of Social Services in Lawrence and I got in after work, I came straight. The service started at 7:30. I had time, I was alone at the [Inaudible] Gospel Center in the big room they have and God was working in so many ways. I had talked through dreams in my life and a number of things about the calling on my life and other things.

I remember standing there waiting for the service to begin I don't know exactly all the little details of what went through my mind, but I said, wow, I know the Holy Ghost is real, I know the baptism of the Holy Ghost is real, and I've been looking for it all these years and I'm not sure if I have it or not and I'm already tired of that swaying and zigzagging everywhere, today I'm going to solve this problem once and for all. And I got down on my knees, I remember well, in front of one of the chairs at the [Inaudible] Gospel Center and I cried out to the Lord and asked Him to baptize me with the Holy Spirit.

Again, since I am not the most emotional and expressive person in the world, although you may have thought that it is different, that I am the opposite because of my expressiveness and my human warmth, many complain of the opposite. But God did not move in me, let's say through tears or emotional outpouring or other things. I simply made a transaction, a deal with the Holy Spirit at that moment, and I said, "Lord, I have sought you and who knows if I already have everything that you have promised within me, and I receive the Holy Spirit, I I receive the Holy Spirit within me and I consider myself…words like that more or less, I consider myself filled and baptized in the Holy Spirit.”

And then what I did was something very simple, I opened my mouth and I began to speak in tongues. Again, it was not a supernatural thing in the sense that I started shaking or that a little angel appeared and started moving my little tongue in a way. No, I just opened my mouth and started speaking in tongues. In my case, a complete, complex, fluid language, which until today has not stopped flowing in my life and whenever I can speak it, as I speak in French or Italian, whatever, or Spanish or English, I I speak in my conscience and I use it because it is a language that God has given me. And when I stood up from there, I stood up like a general saying, 'I'm never going to doubt my experience with the Holy Spirit again.'

And from then on, God has done beautiful things in my life and our ministry began to flow, God was preparing other things, there were great things that God did in our lives at that time and here you see us, 35 years later, still serving the Lord. And after that I have had many different experiences with the Holy Spirit, emotional, overwhelming experiences, revelations, provisions, miracles, encounters, things that have terrified me, struggles that I have had and that God has given me victory, the Lord has move. And I consider that our life is a life of continuous miracles, of continuous provisions.

One of the things that I find many times when talking to other people about our ministry is that sometimes I frankly get embarrassed and shut up because when one starts talking about all that God has done in these years and when I look through my life from the beginning there in Alma Rosa in the Dominican Republic… why are they laughing? You know but this is the Pink Soul from 50 years ago, my sister. Alma Rosa is now a much more modern town, in those times... how God has worked, brothers, and the truth is that it is one miracle after another, one provision after another, and sometimes I am afraid that people will think that one who is showing off or throwing it away because there are so many miracles, so many provisions, even this ministry.

Because it is that when one moves in the power of the Holy Spirit, miracles accompany one. For me, miracles are daily, daily life, they are scattered everywhere, because I believe that life in the spirit, the supernatural becomes natural. Write that down and live it. When one is filled with the Holy Spirit it's like, okay, there it is, glory to God, that's good, thank you Lord. And you keep living one miracle after another, one provision after another because you become a magnet for God's blessings.

And I believe that if I got closer to the Lord, the more God would flow, the more things God would do and will do with the help of the Lord. Because that's life. But I simply believed, I moved within it, I appropriated it, I confessed and I began to move with the confidence that God is with me and that his spirit accompanies me in everything. And that's what I want for your life too. I declare that over your life.

We have not gone that far from what you think of the passage. “Has not the LORD anointed you to be prince over his people Israel? And so here Samuel begins to prophesy about Saul. The prophecy accompanies. It is one of the powerful gifts of the Holy Spirit. He says, today, he says to Saul, after you have departed from me you will find two men at Rachel's tomb in the territory of Benjamin, in Selsa, who will say to you, “the donkeys you went looking for have been found. Your father has already stopped worrying about the donkeys and is grieving for you saying, what will I do about my son? – interesting – Seek first the Kingdom of God his justice and other things will come in addition.”

The material concern that Saul had for his donkeys was resolved in a moment, they were found. That was a simple excuse to take Saul to meet Samuel. When you seek above all the filling of the Holy Spirit, all other things come naturally. There are people who, oh, I can't go to church on Wednesday because tomorrow I have to get up, Thursday, at 5 in the morning and I can't waste that energy going to church, so I have to go to bed at 9 at night to be able to be well at 5 tomorrow on Thursday.

Look, invest in the Lord. Invest in the Lord. Give to the Lord and he will take care of providing you. That is why many of us live tired and downcast and listless. If we invested more in the Lord and in the spirit of the Lord, God would give us energy, strength. It is what we confess in the song, the boys get tired and get tired, the youngsters falter and fall but those who hope in Jehovah will have new strength, they will raise wings like eagles, they will run and they will not get tired, they will walk and they will not get tired. Invest in the things of the Lord and the rest will come in addition. Seek the Holy Spirit, seek the filling of the spirit, invest in prayer, fasting, give to the Kingdom of God and all those things will come in addition.

Saul stopped to look for the Holy Spirit and the donkeys that had brought him were already found, and that was a simple excuse for what God wanted to do in his life. And so Samuel prophesies, and these encounters that will characterize Saul's journey now, are also typical of the spirit-filled life, and I'm going to show you why.

Then he says, “And as soon as you go on from there and reach the oak of Tabor, you will be met by 3 men going up to God in Bethel, one carrying 3 young goats, another 3 turtle doves, and the third a vessel of wine, who, after they have greeted you, will give you 2 loaves of bread, which you will take from their hands and after that you will arrive at the hill of God where the Philistine garrison is and when you enter the city there you will find a company of prophets descending from the place high and before them, psaltery, tambourine, flute and harp and they also prophesying.

How interesting. The Lord is now bringing this man who has been marked and sealed with the anointing of the Holy Spirit into company and encounters with anointed people who are also filled with the Holy Spirit. And it is taking you to places that are characteristic places of God's presence and God's acts before.

For example, Bethel, how many know where Bethel was and what kind of resonance did Bethel have? Bethel was where the Lord found Jacob, for example, when he was running from his brother Esau. Bethel was an eminently Spirit-filled place. Abraham also visited Bethel and stopped there and worshiped the Lord. Bethel was a place charged with the energy and meaning of the visitations of the power of the Holy Spirit.

I don't want to exaggerate but wasn't it in Bethel where Jacob had that dream? right yes? A very powerful visitation from the Lord, that place was a magnetized place, charged with the presence of God. he said, wow! how terrifying this place. It is nothing other than the house of God and the gate of heaven. And there these men are there and going to Bethel making a pilgrimage. Tabor was also a place of spiritual significance. And certainly that Philistine garrison was also a sign of spiritual warfare and also a very important place in terms of God's plans for the future of Israel.

And these men are men who are worshiping the Lord, prophesying, seeking God's anointing, going on a spiritual mission and the Holy Spirit wants to put this man, who is just beginning in the ways of the Holy Spirit, in contact with those powerful places. and symbolic, with those men full of the power of God, who have experience in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

And that is something very important, brothers, when God visits you it is important that you associate with communities, with individuals who know about the power of God. do not go to a church where they are saying that the gifts already ended in the year 130 AD and that from then on they no longer exist. Don't associate with churches where two boiled choirs, a half-baked sermon and let's go home. Do not associate with places that deny or do not cultivate the anointing of God. Look for communities, look for individuals who have experiences with the Holy Spirit, people who can…

Let me say something, in the Kingdom of God many things are caught by contagion, not necessarily by teaching. There are people that simply rubbing against them gives you a special anointing. I believe in that. I think that 10 minutes of conversation with an old lady with a high Pentecostal bow tie serves you for 10 hours with a theologian who doesn't know what he's talking about. Not that I have anything in case there is a theologian here in the church, but brothers, there are people who have the power of God, they have been like Moses on Mount Sinai and their faces reflect the glory of God.

Look, stick with people who have the Holy Spirit. Look for those people who know the experience and connect with them. Even if their breath stinks, these people are anointed, stick with them. Sometimes elegance does not necessarily go with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes we believe that a person has to be dressed in a 3-piece suit to have... No, sometimes any ragged old man out there has more of the Holy Spirit than many people who are preaching in churches.

The places where you go, the people you associate with, what you hear and receive, but that is truly anointed, because there is a lot of false anointing. Let me tell you right now in these times there is a lot of simplification, a lot of exaggeration, a lot of ignorance disguised as spiritual depth. No, true, genuine people, biblically anointed and filled with the Holy Spirit. Find those places and hit people. Just rub your body against theirs.

As they say in English, more is caught than taught. Many times more is grabbed than what is heard. There is spiritual contagion. I am a witness to that. When you live in places where the Holy Spirit is glorified, is lifted up and exalted, there is something that happens in your life. Imparting, imparting the anointing, the filling of the Holy Spirit. You see why I married her. There is that filling, that impartation of the power of the Holy Spirit. Stick with people who have that anointing. Live in places, environments, atmospheres where the presence of the Holy Spirit is.

And that's why I think Samuel tells him, look, when you get to such a place you're going to see this, you're going to find these men who go to such a place. They are there. Another thing, he says, “after this you will come to the hill of God – another place, a height, a high place – where the Philistine garrison is and when you enter the city you will find a company of prophets…”

It was a group of anointed men in the filling of the Holy Spirit. It was a priestly community, one could almost say. They were Pentecostals before the word was used. “…a company of prophets coming down from the high place and before them psaltery, tambourine, flute, and harp and they prophesying.”

It was an environment saturated with worship and praise. Do you know that worship and praise go hand in hand with the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Where there is the filling of the Holy Spirit there will be adoration and praise and where there is powerful and strong adoration and praise, the filling will be present. It is not possible that the power of God is moving and there is not an exuberance and enthusiasm in worship.

It is like saying that there will be fire without heat. When have you seen a fire that doesn't burn? If there is fire there is light and there is heat. If there is a Holy Spirit, there will be vibration, there will be effusiveness, there will be dynamism, there will be explosiveness. I believe that the adoration was done for all the instruments, the more well-coordinated instruments, the better. worship must be effusive, in front of them tambourines... do you think that those people went to a funeral dragging their feet? No. They were jumping, they were worshiping the Lord, they were praising the Lord. God made the instruments to be worshipped, and in a church where the Holy Spirit is, there must be that abundance of music and worship and prophecy.

When he says here that they were prophesying, what does he mean? The word prophesy is a very complex word. People often believe that prophesying is just saying, so the Lord tells you such and such. No, prophesying can also be speaking in the spirit and declaring the great things of God. Worship the Lord out loud, effusively, declare the greatness of the Lord. These men were worshiping and praising the Lord, "blessed be the name of the Lord, glory to Almighty God who will defeat the enemies of the Lord," they were worshiping and declaring the greatness of the Lord. It was like a parade of worship and power.

And to that environment charged with the power of the Holy Spirit, Samuel directs Saul. Verse 6, “Then the spirit of the Lord will come upon you with power.” If you want a definition of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there you have it. When the Holy Spirit of God comes upon you with power. Notice how interesting, first there is a formal imparting of power, when Samuel pours that vial of oil on him. And here comes another moment in which there is an activation of what was done in an official and formal way, now it is given in a way with power, it was given in an explosive way.

“He will come upon you with power and you will prophesy with them.” Here I believe that at some point I spoke about the democratization of the Holy Spirit, when the spirit of God moves in human beings, the gifts that were previously for specialists now become for everyone. The moment Saul enters into that induction of the Holy Spirit, only the prophets prophesy, but what happens? That now this lay man, who has not gone to seminary, filled with the Holy Spirit is also going to prophesy like the specialists in prophecy. And that is also something very typical of the Pentecostal environment, where the laity are activated and entered into the service of the Lord, where the boundaries between the ordained pastor and the anointed layman, between the man and the anointed woman, are often blurred and eliminated. of the Lord.

Brothers, say amen, glory to God. there is a democratization. What does the Bible say about Christ coming to break down the walls of separation? It says that there is no longer a man or a woman, nowadays, many parts of this city have taken that very seriously, but the idea is not that, the idea is that those qualitative divisions that men are superior to women, that the one who is anointed with the Holy Spirit is eliminated, whether he is a man or a woman, whether he has a skirt or not, God uses him for his glory within the Holy Spirit. Those who seek the Lord are enabled to minister in the Holy Spirit. The old man bears fruit as if he were young, the young man receives wisdom as if he were old. The servant moves with the dignity and ministerial wealth of a lady of high society. And the person of high society recognizes that he is nothing before God and that he must lower himself before an anointed person who is of little education, because the spirit that she has or he has is the same as he has.

God blurs the barriers and removes them and then all by the same spirit are made one in Christ Jesus. And Saul, who did not prophesy and who did not know what the word prophecy was eaten with, is now for the moment enabled to move with the endowment of the Holy Spirit.

These men are prophesying and he says, "and you will also prophesy with them." Because the Lord visits him with power. The Holy Spirit is within him, why not? wherever there have been great revivals throughout history and if you study them, you will see the same thing. The laity are activated and the religious specialists feel threatened and often try to kill the revival because they want to always be the first to earn their salary and monopolize the Holy Spirit and that people look for it everywhere. That happens many times. The Lord is an incredible democrat. That one knows what democracy is.

Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is blessing and there is prophecy and there are all the gifts of the Holy Spirit in manifestation. “Then, the spirit of Jehovah will come upon you with power and you will prophesy with them and – here is one of the things that I like the most – you will be changed into another man.

Wow! "You will be changed into another man." What does that mean? you will be changed, you will be something different from what you have been up to now. And what does the baptism of the Holy Spirit do if not change us into another man or another woman? It is when God takes a small, insignificant, totally incapable person and turns them into a giant of the spirit, through the Holy Spirit that is within them.

When the Holy Spirit dwells, manifests, moves within an individual, that person has to be changed. Our church was changed decades ago when we entered the move of the Holy Spirit. Many of us who have experience in the Gospel when God visited us with his power and we entered a Pentecostal mentality, we were changed. The disciples in the book of Acts, imagine those disciples terrified, terrified when Christ is crucified, hidden, discouraged, Peter turned back to his fishing and the others were over there defeated, those two disciples on the way to Emmaus saying, "Oh, we we thought that he was going to be the Messiah, that God had promised.” A complete defeat. Shy people, eminently ineffective.

When the Holy Spirit fell on them on the day of Pentecost, those frightened little boys became giants and revolutionized all of Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit began to work in them and he says that they upset, those who upset the earth, said one of their enemies. Those frightened disciples became testifying men and women. The frightened and defeated Peter tells the Sanhedrin, "It is more important to honor God than you, so decide what you are going to do with us because we are not going to stop preaching this Gospel."

The healings begin to flow, the power of God is manifested. There is a great evangelistic harvest, there are works of power. Because? Because they had received the Holy Spirit and had been changed into other men and women. When the fullness of God breaks into your life there are changes, there are transformations.

And Samuel tells him, "And you are going to be changed into another man." And here is the final word, “and when these signs have happened to you – another expression that I love – do what comes to your hand because God is with you.”

Hallelujah! Brothers, take this advice: find yourself a pencil and paper and write, do whatever comes to hand because God is with you, and put it on the front of your fridge. And put a magnet on that sheet and read it every morning when you get up to get milk to make your coffee in the morning, before going to work. Do what comes to hand because God is with you.

When the infilling of the Holy Spirit is in a human being…and what does the baptism of the Holy Spirit do if not give us the ability to undertake things and undertake things in the name of the Lord? Do what comes to hand, undertake things in the name of the Lord. God told Joshua, “Look, I am commanding you to strive and be brave. Do not fear or dismay because I will be with you wherever you go.

That same idea, I am with you, my power is with you, and what comes to hand? It comes in handy for the wife to be a good companion to her husband. It is convenient for the husband to be a man who earns the respect and admiration and love of his wife and his children. The one who works as a chef in a restaurant is assigned to make the best meals anyone has ever made. To those who work in a hospital, be the person who most reflects the love of Christ and the competence of a professional in the entire hospital. To those who drive a taxi, drive it with such grace and such respect that everyone wants you to pass through its streets.

To the worker that you punch that machine as if it were an altar to God, 100 thousand times a day, consecrating each blow of that machine to the Lord. To the shoe shine that you shine your shoes, that people have to put on sunglasses to be able to look at them. Do whatever comes to your hand, visit someone who is sick, call someone you haven't seen in church for a long time and pray with them. Whatever comes to hand is saving to buy that little house that you long for so much. Whatever comes to hand is to develop more and more of the character of Christ in your life every day with the power of the Holy Spirit. What comes to hand is when God sometimes puts you a very humble, very simple task in front of you and you believe that God has called you to heal the sick for multitudes in Africa and God tells you, no, look, I want to that you simply speak to that person who is addicted to drugs and that you tell him, God sends you and he has a better position for your life, and that you invite him to church.

That is what comes to hand. Whatever comes to hand is the tasks of life, the assignments that you have in your life, tackle everything as it is a sacred duty, a sacred task, that you must perform in the most excellent way. There are women that God has told them, look, I want you to be the best mother in the world and that you take those 3 children that I have given you and turn them into men and women who bless the world and who are filled with the Spirit Holy and who love the Lord. And that is your task. That is what has come to your hand.

And then you perform that job as if you were a general, as if you have the most transformative assignment in the universe. Don't be envying the executive who wears a 3-piece suit to work and comes out with a briefcase that weighs 17 pounds and wow, that's a lioness. No. in your house, blessing those children, who knows if not one of those will be the next president of the United States, or the next evangelist who will convert millions of souls. You do not know. Perform your task, whatever comes to hand with the anointing of the Holy Spirit, with deliberation, determination, with a sacred gift from the Lord. Everything in the world is sacred, everything you do if you dare to believe it is sacred and it is a gift that God has called you to execute in your life, anything.

If you are a student, study and give those books... because that is your task at this time in your life, become the best scholar, the best professional and get excellent grades and glorify God with your work. All work is sacred. Nobody tell me that you have to be a pastor to be a minister of the Gospel. No. You are a minister in your work, washing dishes, cooking, driving a taxi, a truck, you are a minister of the Holy Spirit. You are an antenna that God is sending his messages to do something.

I want many of you not to tell me that you want to be pastors, amen, if God calls you, amen. No, stay in the secular world, work, make a lot of money and tithe as much as you can then bring it to church. Imagine if we were all starving pastoralists, where would the money needed to get things done go? I'm not playing. People are needed in the secular world working filled with the Holy Spirit, being anointed ministers of the Lord in the workplace, in the marketplace, doing what God has called us to do. Do what comes to hand with the power and filling of the Holy Spirit.

Do what comes to hand because God is with you. Hallelujah! And I end with verse 9, there is still a lot of cloth to cut here, but it says that "it came to pass that when he turned his back to walk away from Samuel, God changed his heart."

I don't know how that happened, how that transaction would have been in the spiritual world. His spiritual heart system was completely changed, his heart changed, from an insignificant spiritual tadpole to a giant who could lead Israel, as a warrior, as a captain, as a governor.

Then he made his mistakes, but that's another matter. We can talk about that at another time also because again, if you depend only on the power and the supposed filling of the Holy Spirit and you do not cultivate your character, you do not cultivate the character of Christ, the fruit of the Holy Spirit, you do not study the Bible, you do not If you read the Bible, if you don't submit to God's treatment of your character and temperament, if you don't let God shape you, and if you don't adopt the defensive weapons of the Gospel, the devil will trip you up, no matter how anointed you are. No matter how many languages you speak, how much you prophesy, how much you tithe, it will be better that you also strengthen your back because the armor of God also covers the other parts of the being.

Nobody tell me that a soldier who walks... all ahead but what if they hit you from behind? I believe that we have to be armored for 360 degrees of our lives and there are many Pentecostals that fail in the defensive area. Their tongues are sometimes long and there is a lot of prophesying and a lot of everything, but they do not have the fullness of character and the fruit of the Holy Spirit, and the devil is always hitting them and whipping them everywhere.

Saul neglected his character, he neglected obedience, humility, putting God before men and in those things he failed and in the end that was his fall because it is a balance. Remember what I told you last Sunday, God has given us power, love and self-control, it is a balance. The Christian life is a combination of different nutrients, 360 degrees, it is the totality of God's revelation that we have to seek.

This part of the anointing and filling is very important, but there are other dimensions that you also have to look for, biblical knowledge, solidity, surrender to the Lord, humility, confession of your inability and undeserved character of everything that God gives you, love for your brothers, good treatment of others, sincerity, transparency, all these things are required in addition to the sword, the spirit of the word.