Wind and Fire

Acts 2.1-13
This passage teaches us about the power that God makes available through his Holy Spirit. Every Christian needs that power.
These events occurred on the day of Pentecost, an Old Testament festival. It was the final great day of a harvest festival that lasted 7 weeks and celebrated God’s generous provision for his people – not least his rescue from slavery and poverty in Egypt. It was also the anniversary of the giving of the Law at Mt Sinai.
With the completion of Jesus’ mission, the Old Testament symbols began falling to reality. You don’t need symbols if you have reality. This is why we don’t need crosses or doves or special outfits or smoke and mirrors in church life and worship. We have Christ. We have the Holy Spirit. We have the Word of God and spiritual gifts. These are real; they are life-filled and are life-sustaining. When Christ stepped out of the tomb he put away the need for symbols.
Colossians 2.16,17 Therefore let no one pass judgement on you in questions of food and drink, or with regard to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath. These are a shadow of the things to come, but the substance (the reality) belongs to Christ.
One astonishing and powerful evidence of symbols being taken over, was what happened in the Temple on the afternoon that Christ gave up his life at the cross. Jesus cried out: “It is finished!” and gave up his spirit to God. At that moment in the Temple sanctuary – that is, the holiest part of the Jerusalem temple - something powerful happened: a symbol literally fell and gave way to reality. The Temple sanctuary was a place encrusted with symbolic representations of God’s holiness and human need of forgiveness. This included a MASSIVE embroidered curtain that closed off the holiest room of the Temple into which the high priest could only enter once a year to offer a sacrifice for the sins of the people. At Jesus’ death – the sacrifice to end all sacrifices – this massive curtain ripped from top to bottom, exposing the hidden room.
Why? Because a perfect justice-and-holiness-satisfying sacrifice had just been made. Believers now had direct access to and acceptance with God. There was no longer any need for a Temple programme to represent God’s holiness, love and justice. Christ had at that very moment brought it!
And now, at Pentecost, the celebration of God’s generous provision - was being fulfilled with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit who would provide Christ himself in believers’ lives. Your life.
On that Pentecost day, the disciples were all together in the one place. They were in the upper room of a large rented house in Jerusalem – about 120 of them. We know that they were engaged in certain activities:
• they were praying and reading the Old Testament
• they were recalling all that Jesus had taught them
• they were fellowshipping together and encouraging each other - preparing themselves for what would come next.
They were doing what Jesus told them: Waiting for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, who would empower them to be his witnesses – starting from that very room – out in ever-increasing circles across the world.
Then suddenly the Spirit was poured out on them.
The Spirit of God penetrated the world of natural human senses. The disciples heard something, saw something and spoke something that gave evidence that the Holy Spirit had come, as Jesus promised.
• A sound like rushing wind is heard blowing right through the house where they were meeting.
• Then flames of fire appeared and seemed to hover over each person.
• They were filled with the Holy Spirit and worshipped God in languages they didn’t know.
These three, wind, fire and word frequently appear in the Bible to describe the work and presence of the Holy Spirit:
The prophet Ezekiel (37) describes a vision from God in which the Holy Spirit comes like a wind that breathes life into a valley filled with the dry bones of a long-dead, defeated army. He incarnates them, bringing them back to full life and fighting strength. If you want life and energy and release from deadness and boredom – you need God’s breath – the Spirit blowing through you.
The prophet Isaiah (4) describes the promise that when Christ rescues his people he will do so with a spirit of burning (meaning that filth will be consumed and lives will be purified by the fire of the Spirit). He goes on to liken the Spirit to a flaming fire of protection hovering over the city of God’s people. If you want release from habits and sins that pollute your life – you need fire – the fire of the Spirit to refine and purify your life and drive away evil.
The Spirit of God is always present when God is speaking to and through his people.
Peter quotes the prophet Joel who spoke of a time when the Spirit of God would come on men and women and they would speak messages from God. The Holy Spirit enabled the believers to exalt and praise God in languages that spoke to all the different people groups represented among the crowd of onlookers. If you want to find your voice - to know what you believe and speak it with confidence – you need the Spirit to loosen your tongue.
And so, early on the morning of the day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God came upon the body of disciples and gave evidence of his arrival with sound, sight and words.
So what did all this mean? Is it normative? Is this what every Christian should experience?
Notice these things that teach us of our need of the Holy Spirit:
1. First, the timing was no accident. Jesus had explicitly told his disciples to wait for this Spirit-baptism. This was the fulfilment of all that he promised in John 14-16 when he explained to the twelve disciples how he would continue to work with them through the Holy Spirit. He said he wouldn’t leave them as orphans. He said they would receive a Comforter and Teacher who would lead them into all truth.
2. Second, the day was significant because this happened on the anniversary of the giving of the law to Moses on Mt Sinai. That law as given on stone tablets, but the Spirit brings God’s law into people’s lives and writes it on their hearts. Ezekiel & Jeremiah both prophesied about this: Ezek 36.26,27 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.
3. Third, this was the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus had promised. This was the empowering needed by disciples so that they were equipped to be Christ’s witnesses.
4. Fourthly, the idea of baptism means immersion – complete saturation – being flooded by the Spirit. This event fulfilled both John the Baptist’s and Jesus’ words that believers would receive a life-saturating immersion in the Holy Spirit. Not just a religious component to their lives, but an entire soaking that left no part of their lives untouched.
5. Fifthly, the sound of the wind fulfils Jesus’ description of the Holy Spirit that he is not controlled by people (Jn 3.7 You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.” The wind blows where it wills. The Holy Spirit is not controlled by men’s programmes or willpower or preferences. He takes the initiative in his own ways and in his own time.
6. Sixth, the flames of fire indicate that he is the source of energy and judgement. He sets people and circumstances alight with conviction and burning desire - and he purges what is unworthy of God. The Holy Spirit keeps on progressing our holiness so we become more and more like Christ.
7. The Spirit-inspired languages tell us that the Spirit is loosening tongues and enabling people to speak the very words of God and that his message is for all peoples and languages. His gospel will flood the world.
Is this then a blueprint or a pattern that all believers should expect to happen to them?
The answer is NO, it is not what happens identically to all Christians - because plainly it didn’t happen to all (even in the book of Acts). So it is not normative in the sense that it is required that every believer has an identical experience to what happened here. For example, the Ethiopian who came to faith in Christ and was baptised by Philip, did not experience wind, fire and the gift of tongues. And Lydia and the women who met for prayer at Philippi didn’t. But in both those cases, the Holy Spirit transformed their lives. The Ethiopian continued his journey - changed from confusion and uncertainty, to joy and assurance in Christ. Lydia had her heart opened and then she opened her home so that it became the meeting place for the dynamic new Church that grew there.
This Acts 2 event was a unique and exceptional circumstance. This was the day the Church age burst into life. It was the day that the Holy Spirit brought and deposited in the lives of believers, what Christ had won for them by his death and resurrection. This was the arrival of the dynamic power that would set the church off on its world-shaking and life-transforming mission.
Even in the world of sport, you don’t have an Opening Ceremony for every game of rugby that is played week in and week out! The opening ceremony is the signal that the World Cup event is underway. That doesn’t mean that regular rugby games aren’t important. There would be no world cup without grassroots rugby.
We need to avoid the danger of playing down the significance of what happened at Pentecost. You can’t ‘dumb down’ Pentecost and explain it away as if it was like church-as-usual!
It is useless trying to ‘manufacture’ evidence of the Holy Spirit. You can’t contrive a Pentecostal experience by using techniques, lights, music and emotional appeals. The Holy Spirit decides how and when to add sensory evidence of his presence! When the Spirit of God is poured out on an individual, a small group or a whole church, it won’t be like any ‘normal’ activity. T
Remember Elijah’s experience. He was looking for evidence that God was with him. He was running from enemies and ended up in a cave where he experienced a tornado, an earthquake and a bush fire rushing past the mouth of the cave, but the Lord wasn’t in any of those. The Holy Spirit presented himself as the quietest and gentlest breeze in which Elijah heard God speak encouragements to him. Strong power isn’t always noisy or explosive. The power of a glacier is immense – yet it is deep, slow and certain.
The coming of the Spirit at Pentecost was extraordinary but it was real, not imaginary. It was indicative of how the Spirit works, but it wasn’t prescriptive so that unless you experience exactly that you haven’t experienced the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is for every Christian and he will sovereignly choose when and how this will best bring glory to Christ in your life. The Spirit of God acts like wind in that he blows in the direction and intensity that he wills.
You can read about the experiences of reliable Christians who have experienced a whole mind-body-spirit experience of God’s Spirit. And YOU can expect that experience in your life at some points.
It won’t be your regular experience and if you do have an all-consuming experience of the Holy Spirit, he will show you what it means. Just take care that you don’t make the experience of others your normal. And watch out that you don’t seek the experience. It is Christ that you are seeking and the Holy Spirit brings glory to Christ by taking what is his and making it known to you. Allow the Holy Spirit to deal with you as he sees fit.
For example: Remember Paul and Silas in prison. Aching in body from a severe beating, but joyful in heart because they recognised the impact the gospel was happening on the town of Philipi. Filled with the Spirit, they sung praises. That was a baptism of the Holy Spirit. They weren’t in a joyfilled meeting with fine music! Your Spirit-baptisms may well occur our of pain and suffering.
How then should we apply what we learn from the baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost?
1. Wait for the Holy Spirit like the disciples did. In their waiting they were: Praying, reading God’s word, fellowshipping with each other, and prepared to receive whatever God had planned for them. They were expecting to be Christ’s witnesses.
2. Being baptised in the Holy Spirit means being immersed in him – saturated by his influence. It is the starting point for all effective Christian work. Where the Spirit is there is freedom – not grinding duty or fearful anxiety. Seek the Spirit’s filling. Ask and you will receive.
3. If the Spirit of God came as a fulfilment of the harvest of first fruits and of the giving of the law – then evidence that we have been baptised with the Holy Spirit will be: fruitfulness (the fruits of the Spirit) and lives that love God’s law – his word will be written on our hearts so we have a heart of flesh not stone.
4. The Spirit adds his influence and power to get God’s work done. He can’t be manipulated. So we should get on with stepping into all that we learn from God by faith and keep yearning and pleading God’s promises that we might have power to be his witnesses.
5. God’s righteousness is not served by man’s anger. When there is judgment and consuming of sins in us or in other required – we had best rely on the Spirit to do it!
6. The announcing of the good news in languages that people could understand encourages us to get on with broadcasting the gospel far and wide. It is obviously the Spirit’s intention for the good news to connect and spread widely. Remember that at the tower of Babel men and women tried to assert their united power in front of God. God struck them with confusion of language. They broke apart into a disunity of competing nations. At Pentecost, God came down to people and ‘undid’ the Babel of confusion. He revealed his intention to bring people of all nations together under one Head – to unite everything under Christ. Spirit-led gospel living and speaking works to that end.
We all need the baptism of the Holy Spirit. His influence will vary in intensity and frequency according to the purpose of God in our lives and for the Church. It is rather like the tide. The tide rises and falls washing and refreshing the beach. But from time to time there is a spring tide which overwhelms the beach. Here’s the point: There is NEVER a moment in your Christian life when the Holy Spirit is not present. He doesn’t come and go. However:
You need the gifts and the filling of the Spirit to achieve ANYTHING of spiritual value.
So, keep up the fight against the old habits of the ‘flesh’ – be killing sin or it will be killing you. Keep feeding your spiritual desires – stop starving yourself of God’s Word. You must keep asking/praying for the filling of the Holy Spirit for ALL activities in your life. He will work in greater or lesser conscious intensity in your life – as he wills. The baptism of the Spirit will occur as God wills and you should be sure to have all barriers down so that he can flood our lives and envision and encourage us for greater initiatives. Unlatch the flood gates of your life. Have no sealed chambers where the Spirit of God cannot flood in. Remember this: The mind controlled by the flesh is death. The mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace! Praise God, who gives us everything we need for life and godliness because of the Lord Jesus Christ and that he delivers those needs through his Holy Spirit.