My Testimony of Being Filled with the Holy Ghost

When I was a boy from age 13 to 15 I sought for the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.  During this time I tried to hang on to God with one hand and a part of the world with the other.  I was listening to rock-n-roll music.  One night at the Polk County Campmeeting I was sitting outside of the tabernacle on one of the benches that were stationed next to trees throughout the grounds.  While the preacher was preaching God spoke to me and said, “Son, if you will give up that rock-n-roll music I will fill you with the Holy Ghost.”  I went home that night and my Mother and I broke those records and threw them in the garbage.  That was a Friday night.  The next morning there was a prayer meeting scheduled at the tabernacle.  Our family went and I headed to the altar determined to receive the Holy Ghost.   Those Holy Ghost filled women gathered around me and prayed Heaven down.  In those days, when you sought for the Holy Ghost it was a serious thing.  I knew that either God was going to fill me with the Holy Ghost or those women were going to kill me.  I have heard young ignorant preachers make fun of the way the past generation prayed for people to receive the Holy Ghost by reciting things like: “One prayed for God to send the fire, and another prayed for God to send the rain; one told the seeker to hold on, and one for them to turn loose.”  Every time I hear such preachers mocking I reply that we cannot knock the way they prayed for they surely saw more results than we are seeing today.  I am sure that some of them prayed that way for me.  Oh, what a blessed day!  God gloriously filled me with His Holy Ghost.  I have never been the same since.  That very same morning at that same altar God also filled Sister Susie with Holy Ghost – she has been a dear friend of our family for all of those years and I have had the privilege to be her Pastor for over 20 years.  There may have been others, but I do know that on that day two lives were forever changed when the Great God of Heaven filled us with the Holy Ghost.