The role of a gate is to provide a separation between one realm and another realm. If you're going to go through the gate, the idea is you live in the realm beyond the gate, so the baptism of the spirit literally means to be immersed into the realm of the spirit, or to be able to engage with God, in a level of intimacy and spirit connection you never had before that experience. So the first one that comes is this dramatic manifestation of God, but it's just like it was, and similar to the Old Testament. God is setting up, hey, this is my engagement to you. You are coming into intimacy, and in order to be intimate, you need to talk, so a language is given, a language to be intimate with God. That's a great thing isn't it aye? So God wants us to be filled with the spirit.
Now the idea is not just that one time alone you enter that gate and you get in; well that's it, I've done that. Been there, done that, now what's next? You know, well there's a lot next, but it actually means learning how to live and enjoy and experience that realm, so God wants us to be filled with the Holy Ghost. Acts, Chapter 4, they prayed, and they were filled with the Holy Ghost. The Bible says: be filled with the Holy Ghost. God wants you to be constantly filled with the Holy Ghost. If you're not filled with the Holy Ghost, you'll be filled with something else. It's really as simple as that isn't it? So like for example in Ephesians 5:18 it says: don't be drunk with wine wherein is excess, but be filled with the Holy Ghost, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; halleluiah, filled with the Holy Ghost.
Now let me just go into that verse just for a moment. Be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess. What is it gets you drunk? Is it trying, or is it the wine? Think about that. Do you have to try and make yourself drunk? You don't try to make yourself drunk. Drunkenness, or the loss of balance, laughter, all that goes with that, is the consequence of receiving something into yourself. In other words, there's no effort to get yourself drunk, you just drink, and you'll get drunk, isn't that right? Have you noticed that Richard? [Laughter] I see you nodding. I never found it very difficult to get drunk at all. I still wouldn't - just keep drinking, you get drunk. You just keep drinking, and you get drunk. What do you do when you're full of wine? You get drunk, and you get out of your mind, and you say things, and you babble, all sorts of stuff - not good. Not good.
Now the Bible says: don't be drunk with wine. It says rather be filled with the spirit, so now a lot of people try to put on the life of the spirit. Christianity is all a big trying hard. The Bible tells us, it's not about that at all, it's about being filled with someone - filled with the Holy Spirit. If you are filled with the Holy Spirit, then the natural - there's certain things are going to flow out of your life. You can't pin the oranges on a tree. You know, I couldn't go over the road to that oak tree over there, and pin some oranges on it, and try and fool anyone that it was anything but an oak tree. [Laughter] It's true isn't it? You cannot pin it on. You actually grow it. Joy is a fruit of someone expressing their life in you. Peace is the fruit of someone expressing their life in you. I believe many Christians really struggle, because they don't know how to get filled up with the Holy Ghost.
Their experience is not one of being filled. Their experience is one of struggling, and trying hard to be good enough, to be a good Christian. Would that be right? How many enjoy that experience? Its blimmin' miserable! It is miserable trying to be good, and here's why it's so miserable trying to be good; because you're forever blowing it. It's such an effort all the time to be trying so hard to look good, and be good, and here's why: because all your efforts are energised by the flesh and they can never produce the things of God. What is needed is the understanding of how we can be filled with the Holy Ghost, filled with the Holy Spirit, day after day after day. So normally the problem is this, it's that we don't really believe what God's word says. We believe what we feel and experience, and we in other words, believe in the things around us, rather than believing in what God says.