Discovering the Way V and VI, Baptism In the Holy Spirit

This is North Way tape number 544. These messages on Discovering the Way were delivered by Pastor Jay Passavant of North Way Christian Community on September 17th, 1986. Who can tell me what these are? All right. There's a lot of fancy names, but we'll just call them glasses, all right? Spectacles. When have you seen pictures of the glasses or spectacles of 300 years ago? All right? They have a little different design to them, but fundamentally they're what? The same. Now if I were to stand up here with a good old kitchen fork, which I meant to bring in and forgot, that looks exactly the same as it has for centuries. And the reason is you basically cannot improve a kitchen fork. I mean, I've never been to restaurants that have these real long fancy ones where they stick in your mouth and you just like the old standard kind. You can't improve upon it. I mean, it has a basic design and that's the best way to go with it. Well, beloved, as we start tonight in these two subjects, particularly as we come to water baptism, I want you to know tonight you cannot improve on what God has done for your salvation. You cannot make more of your salvation than what God has already given you through the blood of Jesus. And it's important tonight that as we begin this little study on water baptism, and it will be brief, that none of you come to this thinking, well, I wonder if God will love me more. I wonder if somehow my standing before God will be improved if I'm water baptized. You'll never be more acceptable to God than you are by virtue of the fact that you've received salvation by grace through faith. So as strong as I'm going to be from here on out about the need to be baptized, I want you to know it doesn't improve it. A fork is still a fork. Glasses still look like glasses. And salvation is not improved by water baptism. However, your walk will be greatly affected by your obedience in this matter. Now, I mentioned here in the introduction that in Hebrews 6, 2, the word baptisms is plural. Talking about baptisms. And there are several baptisms in the New Testament. But it's interesting that in the book of Ephesians, in chapter 4, it says that there's one faith and one baptism. Ever thought about how to reconcile those two? You see, there is the baptism into the body of Christ. There's the baptism in the Holy Spirit. And there's the baptism in water. And you could add to that there's a baptism in fire, which I won't get to at all tonight. But I want to talk about those other three baptisms. And I want to show you how those three baptisms are really one baptism. I have an overhead here that you may have seen before, Nancy. You want to go ahead and flash that up. The first one, the first baptism we want to talk about is something we touched on last week of repentance, where the Holy Spirit is the agent who baptizes us into the living body of Christ. This is where we are joined in to the body of Christ. 1 Corinthians 12, 13 talks about that. And the Holy Spirit is the one that baptizes. When you became a believer, the Holy Spirit baptized you, immersed you into the body of Christ. That's how you become part of the family of God. That's the only way. The Holy Spirit baptizes you into the body. Secondly, there's the baptism with water. That's okay. Water is the medium. That's what we're baptized into. And an elder or a qualified disciple is the one that does the baptizing. That's the agent. Now really, you don't need to have any particular credential to baptize. We were taught that, some of us growing up, that only priests or ministers could baptize, but the Bible doesn't say that. And then the third kind of baptism we're going to talk about tonight is the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the medium in which we are baptized. And the Lord Jesus Christ, He is the agent. He is the baptizer. Now, can you put the whole thing up there? Can we see it all at once? Probably not. I guess the screen's just a little too close. Anyhow, there you see the three kinds of baptisms, primarily, that the New Testament talks about. And all three of those really are one baptism because just as God is three persons in one, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, so these three baptisms are essential for us to have one immersion into God. That's what the Bible's talking about. And tonight, I just want to really deal with two of these. The baptism, first of all, baptism with water. Now, to be baptized by definition, now listen to this. How many of you were infant baptized? Just wave up to God. That was me down there, Lord. I didn't know what was happening, but it was a heck of a time. Okay, we'll talk about that maybe. To be baptized, the word baptism or baptisto in Greek, that's one of those words that's literally transliterated into our language, means to immerse, submerge, or surround. That's what the word means. It was used primarily in classical Greek of clothes that were dyed in a vat. When you took a piece of cloth and you were going to dye it, you submerged it. You baptized it in the dye. So you get the picture. When the Greeks thought about baptisto, they thought of taking and immersing something down inside the liquid. Therefore, even by definition, you can see that the mode of baptism that is so clearly implied in the scriptures, and the only kind that's ever referred to, I might add, is baptism by immersion. Now, this may be a shock to a few of you who are newer in the Lord, but there is no reference in the New Testament to infant baptism. And I won't have time tonight to develop why infant baptism arose as a doctrine that the church, and really the Protestant church along with the Catholic church by and large, has adopted unto itself. But it mainly has to do with the covenant theology that God loved the children of believers. And therefore, by sprinkling them, they too would enter into the covenant of God's love. And if you need a lot more explanation than that, then you'll just have to dig it up. We do have a tape on that. There's three or four tapes in the tape library on this subject. But tonight, I just can't get to any more than that. Now, what does it mean? What is the meaning of water baptism? Well, beloved, we all know that our old nature, our sin nature, ruled in our body. And it was dead toward God, but it was alive to ruling over our body. We talked about that last week. Our old nature ruled in our body. Now, turn to Romans chapter 6, and we won't be able to turn to many scriptures, but I do want you to see this. Romans the 6th chapter. Now, it is in your notes, but just look at it in your own Bibles just so you know I didn't twist the words around. Alright? Now, see, right in the context of the sin nature ruling in our lives, Paul uses these words. This is the most profound scripture in all the Bible about baptism. Romans chapter 6. Here we go. What shall we say then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may abound? By no means. We died to sin. How can we live in it any longer? Or don't you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. We were therefore buried with Him through baptism into death, our old nature, baptized, buried into death, in order that just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. Verse 5. If we have been united with Him in His death, we will certainly also be united with Him in His resurrection. Somebody say hallelujah. That's a promise from God. For we know that our old self was crucified with Him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin. Now beloved, are you getting the picture already? This one scripture is telling us why baptism is so important. Because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. So what baptism means is that the relationship that we established with God through the cross of Christ by faith is then released as a power in our lives over the sin of our old nature by obedience and the step of baptism. Now folks, despite the clear teaching of scripture on this subject, many of you have not yet been baptized as believers in Jesus. Many people, many people who have a glorious experience of salvation get kind of confused on this subject. Don't search it out. Don't study it. And therefore their Christian life starts to show the signs of inconsistency and struggle because they have not availed themselves of the power that this scripture talks about as we move in obedience to the Lord. You see, listen, salvation is a process. Do you know that? We are saved, but we are being saved. The kingdom of God is at hand, but the kingdom of God is yet to come. There is a very important understanding there. Many people think, you know, they came up one morning at North Way and they prayed with an elder and they got a booklet and they were saved. But I want you to know that that's not the end of their life. They're to walk it out. They're to grow more and more in love with God and understand His purposes and His plans for their life. To know the reality of His indwelling presence. Every four years we have a presidential inauguration. All the hoopla. What was it? Was it President Reagan's first inauguration or second that it was so cold they couldn't have it? It was bitter cold and they couldn't have outdoors in that time. But what happened there? Well, he had been elected president and he had come to the point where he was officially installed in that office and from that point he discharged the power that he received when he was officially installed by whoever it is, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, right? And so, you see, really for us, if you will, our baptism is our inauguration in the walk of faith. It is then that we are officially released. Released into power. And then the rest of our lives is without. Isn't that neat? That's a beautiful picture of how we live out our lives. And the Bible says here, notice, look folks, how many of you know that this doesn't just happen? Verse 6, that the body of sin might be rendered powerless. How many of you feel that there is no power of sin in your body? Some of you are in sin right now. I can tell that. I hate it when he says that. How many of you know that it takes faith and communion with God to live out this power? But beloved, this says to me that we need never sin. We need never to sin. Because the power of sin has been broken in our lives. Now, I won't have time today or this evening to talk about the force of the symbolism of water baptism. But I do mention there under Roman numeral I and letter B that the baptism is very symbolic. Obviously, we saw the picture of dying with Christ and being buried with him and raised again. But also, Colossians chapter 2 and verse 11 tells us that water baptism, let me read it for you here. It's in the bottom of your page if you want to read along. It says, In him you were also circumcised. Remember, that was the Old Testament sign of receiving the covenant of God. In him you were also circumcised in the putting off of the sinful nature, not with a circumcision done by the hands of men, but with a circumcision done by Christ, having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God who raised him from the dead. Beloved, you all know, don't you see the beauty of God in this? Thousands of years before Christ, the Jews received circumcision as a physical sign of their relationship to God. That was what God told Abraham would be the sign of the fact that he was chosen and his seed was chosen to receive God's favor. That was the symbol of that. In fact, most of you know that the Nazis, that was one of the things that they used to look for in order to identify the Jews to exterminate them during the Holocaust. But in the New Testament, it is no longer a circumcision of hands. It is no longer a physical one, but a circumcision of the heart which is received, look at it, through baptism as we're buried with Christ and raised with him through faith. Do you see the power? Now, if I had time tonight, I could develop the clear analogy here and the tremendous power of the covenantal seal that baptism is. If you've not been baptized, then you've not received the covenantal seal of God in your life. You say, well, I'm still a believer. I still love God. I know I'm still saved. And all those are true. But you've cut yourself off or you've ignored a tremendous source of assurance and a release of power in your life. And by the way, you might note that that verse right there, Colossians 2.11, is the basis, really, the only theological basis of infant baptism. You see, just as the covenant was passed down through the children, they were circumcised on the eighth day as Jews, well, so too, baptism of children was lifted out of this here in Colossians 2.11 as being symbolic of the fact that they too had received the covenant promise of their parent's Heavenly Father. But anyhow, that's the only place that I can even direct you for some theological backing along with some experiential kinds of things, narratives and acts and so on. Let me go on and talk now about what happens as we are baptized in water. And I've already told you that it's a seal of the covenant. I told you that it gives you a release of power over sin in your life. And by the way, folks, how many of you have been baptized? That means you've all been re-baptized? Right? Because you all put your hand up and forget. I mean most all of you. Well, we'll talk about that in a minute. Rather than have you think that this is a superfluous teaching because you've already been convinced, I want you to know something. There is strong evidence through the structure of the New Testament language that baptism is to be an ongoing experience of faith for all who are in Christ Jesus. In fact, in many different instances, I think it's here in Romans 6.14, or 6.4 rather, that we are in the continuous present tense to be being baptized with Him. Be being baptized. Live as a baptized one. Be living in the reality of your baptism. What does that include? Well, let me show you what happened when Jesus was baptized. Turn back with me to Matthew 3 in verse 16. This is really an exciting story, but I can only touch on it. I think one of the teachings that I did on baptism on a Sunday morning, I used this passage. When the Lord Jesus was baptized, and by the way, isn't that a good reason to be baptized? I mean, He who knew no sin was baptized to fulfill all righteousness. Tremendous point there that we don't have time to develop. But it says, as soon as, verse 16, Jesus was baptized, He went up out of the water, and at that moment, three things happened. Heaven was opened. He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and lighting on Him. And a voice from heaven said, This is my Son, whom I love. With Him, I am well pleased. The power of God begins to operate by faith in your life in those three particular areas. And I have seen this personally in many different people's lives. First thing that begins to happen is that the spiritual realm, the heavens, are opened. You begin to see things in reality that perhaps before you didn't understand. Why? Because you've been baptized and opened to the realities of God. The heavenly realm is open. Number two, I see many people begin to move in a new anointing of the Spirit's abiding in their lives. A new release of power. I've said many different times that when you are baptized, you should come out of that water and if you haven't ever received the fullness of the Holy Spirit in your life, you should anticipate right then that the Holy Spirit is going to come upon you. Notice, it didn't say that you just saw the Holy Spirit lighting on Him, coming down and resting on Him. Number three, you heard the Father's voice. And people will tell you as they're baptized and take a step of obedience, they begin to hear God more clearly. How many of you want to hear God more clearly in your life? Amen. Baptism will do that. It opens your ears to hear. It washes them out a little bit. Now all this is by faith, beloved. And let me say, I can hear, I know some are thinking, I was baptized and nothing opened up for me. I didn't feel any more anointed than when I went in. I haven't heard anything from God. I remember some guys, some men that I was going to seminary with who invited some others to go to a Bill Gothard seminar. And they said, this was when Bill Gothard was really just starting to get a reputation. He had his seminar in Long Beach, California in 1972 is when Carol and I went. And these men from seminary invited some other folks from seminary. And they said, this is the greatest thing. You've got to go because it's going to change your life. And these seminary students, you know, most seminary students are just really hungry for self-righteousness, you know. And they said, yeah, sure. And they went down to Bill Gothard and they sat through whatever it is, you know, 114 hours of teaching and five days or whatever. It's just intense input. And after those four or five days, the seminary students said, see, I told you, it was worthless. And they started to criticize and pick it apart. Why? Why did it happen to them? Because they went into it with no faith. They went into it with no anticipation. They went into it critically, defensively. If we approach baptism with, you know, a prove me, prove it to me, God kind of attitude, that's what we'll get. It won't be glorious. It won't be powerful. It won't be alive to us. We've got to have faith as we move into it. Now, let me touch very quickly. Why should I be baptized? Well, first of all, probably the most important reason that I can see is a commandment from Jesus Christ. Go into all the world baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Teaching them whatsoever I have commanded you. And then in the book of Mark, Jesus says in verse 16, and I want to pick this up and read it to you. In verse 15, whoever believes and is baptized will be saved. Now, I need to say there, I don't believe those who say that if you're not baptized, you're damned. There's not a consistent teaching in the scripture. And there are those who say that, by the way. There are a lot of people who say if you don't do it this way, or if you don't speak in tongues, you're not saved. The Bible doesn't teach that. And they're just lifting something out and they're building a whole doctrine on it. And if I had time, I could explain why that isn't so. So it's a commandment. And beloved, your growth in salvation, remember, salvation is wholeness. That's what that word means. Soteria means wholeness, health, fullness, peace. Your growth in salvation is dependent upon your obedience to the commandment of Christ. Let me say it again. Your enjoyment of the benefit of salvation is conditioned on your obedience to the word of Christ. How many people say, I believe in Jesus, I love God, and I love to sing, and I love to go to church, but I'm not sure about baptism. And you know what? I have no real patience for people who just throw out commandments of God because they don't even want to take the time to dig into them. I have a feeling, Jim, if Jesus were standing here and he said, my son, my word says to be baptized, what would you probably do? Well, you know, gee guys, it's not real clear. I know a lot of people that just were baptized a couple times and it didn't help them at all. We would get right on it. But Jesus isn't right here, you say. Beloved, his word is right here in its plain. What must we do to be saved? Repent. Be baptized. Acts 2.38 for the forgiveness of sins. Hebrews 10.22 is sort of a heavy verse and one that I don't know if I can satisfactorily explain to you tonight, but it says this. Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. You see, to be baptized, our conscience enters in and we are assured of our forgiveness. Don't you enjoy freedom from guilt? Do you? I'm so glad that I'm not guilty anymore before. God said to me, and he's told the universe, that son is not guilty. And I'll tell you, baptism focuses the reality of not guilty on your life. It speaks to our conscience. I obeyed God. I heard his word. I pleased him and I did what God said. Acts 3.21 says something very similar. Number three, we should be baptized because it shows humility of heart. It demonstrates a humility of heart. Now, what I mean by that is this. There is something in all of us that does not want to expose to the world our convictions. How many of you have heard the term religion is a private thing? That's usually the number one put off of our culture. I have my religion, young man, and you have yours. We have a track for that, don't we, somewhere? I'm sure we have a track for that. But anyhow, you see, baptism requires us to go public. That's why I would never baptize one person if I could possibly help it. I shouldn't say never because there might be a case where, you know, if it was a death scenario and the person said, I repent and I want to be baptized. But, I would always make it a public testimony. That's why we invite you all to come every Sunday that we have baptism. But, you know, a fraction of a fraction do come. But it's still public. And there's something in us that needs to be laid to rest of our pride and of our fear. And we just fall into the arms of those who are baptizing us and say, God, I'm going down with you. I'm laying my pride in the waters. I'm laying my fear right there in the water. And then I'm coming up again. And I'm on my way. Interesting story. I don't have time to get into it. 2 Kings 5, 8-14. Name and the leper. Remember that story? Name and the leper. Great, mighty, warrior, king, type of person. He was a leper. And all I'll just tell you is this. He scoffed at Elisha, Wisconsin. He scoffed at him. We have beautiful rivers where I come from. You want me to go down to this muddy old river? Why? And what's the lesson of that story? He had to humble himself and be obedient. And he went down to that muddy river and came up clean and white and free from leprosy. Well, when should I be baptized? This Sunday. What about re-baptism? Alright. If I was baptized as an infant, should I be re-baptized? Now, this is a question that many, many folks ask. If you're not asking it tonight, you probably will encounter that question eventually by someone that you're going to lead to the Lord this year. Should I be re-baptized? This is a delicate question because I don't want to in any way give the indication that I demean the sincere care and effort of parents to bring their children into a relationship with God. And most of the time, infant baptism is an expression of the parents that they want their child to know God. And interestingly, most of it is superstition in a way. You know, it's fear that if I don't and he dies, he's going to go to hell, which is not what the Bible says at all. But, that aside, that I don't want to make any kind of light of the intent of the parent's heart in that. Everything that I can come to terms with in the New Testament of what's involved in baptism, that is, faith toward God, identification with Christ. The Bible says we are buried with Him. All of it points to this fact that we need to participate with our own volition in the act of baptism in order to have it be meaningful and powerful in our lives. Now, if you would argue and say, well, Jay, I feel that my infant baptism was valid, that God saw that back then, and that applied to me. I won't argue with you if you can tell me that you somehow have faith toward that act as if it were, I mean, obviously, you didn't have volition in it, and obviously, you didn't have faith in it, but if somehow God has given you faith to see that act years before as valid in His eyes to fulfill these conditions of faith toward God and identification with Christ, if you can convince yourself of that, then I can't argue with you. And that's what I tell people. But that is a long leap of faith. Now, the other side of re-baptism is this. Someone came up the other night when we were at the baptism under the stars and said, you know, I've been really struggling with sin in my life, and I want to get baptized again. Well, I said, well, when were you baptized? Well, about a year ago. But I really think God wants me to be baptized again because I've had a bad year. Beloved, there is never a need, once you have gone into those waters with faith, committed your life to Christ, you've been buried with Him, and you've been raised with Him, and you never go back in and do it over again. How many times was Jesus crucified? Once. How many times do you need to be buried with Him? By faith. And so I had the privilege of assuring that brother that we could apply the blood of Jesus over that bad year that he's had, and he could have the same victory and the same strength that he remembered those days right after he was baptized. Finally, let me urge you then to live as a baptized person. If you've been baptized tonight, go back and remind yourself tonight, let this teaching tonight just remind you of what God wants to do in you through that baptism. Refresh yourself in that experience. Ask God to once again open the heavens. Ask God once again to anoint you afresh with the Holy Spirit. Ask God once again to let you hear the Father's voice saying, I'm well pleased with you. Live as a baptized person. Crucified with Christ. Paul said, it's no longer I that live, but Christ that lives in me. Live baptized. If you want to get in the shower in the morning and just say, Lord, I'd like just to get washed off of all the... You know, if you need the water for some reminder, that's okay. I won't tell anybody. But let your faith rise up and operate in you. Glory to God. I feel, beloved, that as a church, Scott and I, we've talked so many times and we're anxious just as soon as possible to get that baptistry in this building. We want to do that and it's going to be... We've got a place all picked out. We know what we're going to do. It's going to be neat. I can't wait for the first day that we have a baptism here on a Sunday morning. Because we have heard such wonderful testimonies. We have heard... You've missed so much if you haven't been there. This Sunday we're going to do it again. Praise the Lord. I'll take about two or maybe three questions and then we're going to go on to Part C tonight. Okay. You're first. Does the mode matter? Were you... But it was with faith toward God and you understood it? Yeah, I would have to say no. I'd have to say that the important thing was that the water symbolized for you that. If you ask me my preference of what I think the Bible says, I would definitely say immersion. But I would not say that it invalidates your experience. There are some cultures where they don't have enough water to immerse. So they just take a cupful and dump it. That's still effective. Okay. Feel better? Great. All right. Gene? Yeah, absolutely. Now what I would pray you do from this point on, as God gives you more understanding, let your faith begin to... You can look at that as like a deposit that God put in there and you didn't even know it. Now you can start to draw on that and say, Lord, I'm just going to go back. All that was happening in me and I haven't even known it. I started enjoying the benefit of God. But yeah, the validity is still there. Was there another one? Yeah, Larry? Oh, I've got a great answer for that one. I was hoping you'd ask that one. The question was, you said why do we, right? Yeah, basically. Because we, our elders are pretty adept at slipping both of those names in. The question was, why do we baptize or why does the church, the believing church, seem to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and not in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ? Because, yeah, in the epistles in the book of Acts. Now this is such a neat thing. Unfortunately, I did not get time to make an overhead for this. Let me see if I can recount it and if it doesn't help you enough, I'll have to make a handout for next week. The name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit which appears in Matthew 28, 19. That's the Great Commission. Baptizing in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Jesus gives that. The name Father in the Old Testament, God was called by the name thousands of times, 6,800 times in fact, Lord. Lord. That's the word you'll see more than any other referring to God. It's Lord. It's Adonai, Lord. You don't see Father as a title and you never heard the Old Testament Jews calling God Father. In fact, when He appears as Father in the New Testament, they couldn't even handle that. It was such a holy, it was a title that they, but then His name was the Lord. Then, so that was Father. Then Jesus, Jesus was the name that was given to the Son. We know His name. The Bible says His name shall be called Jesus. And, so in the Father, we see the term Lord. In Jesus, obviously we see the Son. And in the Holy Spirit, we see the Christos, the Anointed One. You see, the Holy Spirit, Jesus was called Jesus of Nazareth until He was anointed by the Holy Spirit and then He became Jesus, the Anointed One, Jesus the Christ. So, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Lord, Jesus, Christ. See that? And so, really what we're doing, when we baptize in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ, we are baptizing in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and thereby fulfilling both Jesus' injunction and what we see in the Gospels. So, we can go either way and be right. I like that kind of thing, don't you? Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Let's go on tonight. Stand up. I just borrowed five minutes of the baptism in the Spirit time. I'm not sure that was going to be good. Hallelujah, Lord. Praise God. Amen. Let's just lift our hands before the Lord and just praise His name. Father God, we thank You tonight, Lord, that we've been redeemed, that we've been washed by the blood of the Lamb, God. And Father, as we pause for this moment, we say, Lord, let us live as baptized ones, Lord. Let us live out baptism in our lives day by day, God. It might be pleasing to You, Father. And we thank You for the miracle of transformation that's happened to us because of what You've done. And Lord, we look forward to the day that it's completed and we're raised with Christ. In Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, praise God. One lesson to go and not nearly the time. Lesson six. The baptism of the Holy Spirit. Oh boy. This is... This is not good. This is not good to have 25 minutes to teach on this subject. I was telling Scott as we prayed before the service, I have ten separate messages on this subject that I've taught over the last five years. And there's just no way I can begin to do justice to the subject. You know that tonight. So those of you who are here waiting for a deeper, hidden revelation of the baptism, I'm just going to be touching what I believe is God's... the highlight of this tonight for those who maybe have not ever come to terms with this. I want you to know I spent... Just to give you an idea, this might encourage a couple of you. I spent about two years in my experience as a believer trying to come to terms with what it meant to be baptized in the Holy Spirit. I mean, I was Presbyterianized and Seminaryized to the teeth. And then some of my Presbyterian Seminary friends got a feel of the Holy Spirit. And I knew there was something happening. And I began to search. And it was an exciting thing, but it was also a time of great change in my life. And that was about 14 years ago that that took place. You see, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, beloved, is an essential reality that we must come to terms with. Monday night, I sat in Three Rivers Stadium. I had the joy of being taken to the football game, if you call it that, by my son, who had managed to figure out a way to get two free tickets to the football game. So he needed a ride. And we... We sat in the stadium, and I said, Now, David, this is the most people you've ever seen in one place, in one time. And you know, all these fans, and 52,000, or whatever it is, people just, you know, all wall-to-wall. And we were looking up there, and we were kind of down near the field, so we had a real good perspective of the magnitude of all these people. And I had him looking up, and just when