Today is Pentecost Sunday, the fire of God. At the ascension, when the Lord commanded his followers to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth, he promised, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. John the Baptist was the voice of one crying in the wilderness, prepare the way for the Lord, make his paths straight. Jesus is the word, but John was the voice. John said, I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I'm not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fan is in his hand and he will thoroughly clean out his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn. but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. Hebrews 12, 29 says, for our God is a consuming fire. When the Lord made his covenant with Abraham, he revealed himself as a burning torch. God revealed himself to Moses through the burning bush. The children of Israel were led through the wilderness by the presence of God manifested by pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night. Just think of the practicality of that. In the day in the desert, the cloud provides shade. Shade by day, light by night. In the coldness of the night, the closer you were to the presence of God, the warmer you were in the coldness. So fire by night, shade by day. When David built an altar to the Lord and offered sacrifices, calling on the Lord, God answered him from heaven by sending fire on the altar. When Solomon finished praying after dedication of the temple, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering on the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. The prophet Elijah challenged the false prophets of Baal to a contest on Mount Carmel. They would each build an altar, and lay on it wood and a sacrifice. And the God answers by fire. He is God. The hundreds of false prophets called on Baal, dancing, crying aloud, cutting themselves with knives until the blood gushed out of them for hours. But there was no voice. No one answered. No one paid attention. There was no fire. And it came to pass at the time of the offering of the evening sacrifice that Elijah the prophet came near and said, Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, let it be known this day that you are God in Israel, and I am your servant, and I've done all these things at your word. Hear me, O God, hear me, that this people may know that you are the Lord God, that you've turned their hearts back to you again. Then the fire of the Lord fell, and it consumed the sacrifice, the wood, the stones, the dust. It evaporated the water that was in the trench. Now when all the people saw this, they fell on their faces and they cried out, The Lord, He is God. The Lord, He is God. When Isaiah saw a vision of the Lord enthroned in heaven, high and lifted up, and a train of His robe filled the temple, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory. And the posts of the door were shaken. So I said, woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of glory. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a live coal, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth with it and said, behold, this has touched your lips. Your iniquity is taken away. Your sin is purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, whom shall I send? Who will go for us? And I said, here am I, Lord, send me. Do you have a vision of the holiness of God? Do you have an understanding of the depravity of man? Take off your sandals for the place where you're standing is holy ground, God said to Moses. Do you repent of your own sinfulness? The first thought of Isaiah after seeing a vision of the Lord was to recognize his own sinfulness and the sinfulness of those around him. Have you experienced the fire of God purging a sin like a live coal taken with tongs from the altar? Have you heard of the call of the Lord? Whom shall I send and who will go for us? And have you answered, Here am I, Lord, send me. When the Lord Jesus commanded his followers that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name to all nations, he promised them power from on high. When the Lord commissioned his followers to be as witnesses to the ends of earth, he promised, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. The church was born in the fires of Pentecost. Pentecost, the birthday of the church. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all of one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind. And it filled the whole house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. and they went out and proclaimed God's word with boldness. When the Sanhedrin threatened the disciples severely that from now on they were to speak to no man in this name, the name of Jesus, Peter and John answered, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God you judge, for we cannot but speak of the things which we have seen and heard. We must obey God rather than man. We read in Acts 4 how the disciples united in prayer Now look at their threats. Grant your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word. And when they had prayed, the place where they assembled together was shaken and all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God with boldness. This is always a symbol, a symptom, a sign of the Holy Spirit's presence. Boldness. proclaiming God's word with boldness. Saul, the persecutor of the church, encountered the Lord Jesus in a blinding flash of light, which shone around him from heaven. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, I am Jesus whom you are persecuting. Saul the persecutor became Paul the Apostle, the missionary of Christ. Later the Apostle Paul would warn in 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 19, do not put out the Holy Spirit's fire. Do not quench the Holy Spirit. Sort of speaks of taking a bucket of water and pouring it over the fire, like at the end of camp and scouts. You've got to douse the flames, make sure there's no chance of this fire being rekindled. Pour a bucket of water over the fire, quenching the fire. we are commanded, don't quench the Holy Spirit's fire. The Apostle John had a vision of the Lord Jesus while in exile on the Mediterranean island of Patmos. I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day, John writes, and I heard behind me a loud voice as of a trumpet, saying, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last. John had a vision of the Lord Jesus standing in the midst of seven lampstands, symbolic of the church. His eyes were a flame of fire. His feet were like fine brass, refined in a furnace, and his voice as the sound of many waters. Brass is symbolic of judgment, and so here you've got the judge. His feet are like fine brass, his eyes blazing fire. He discerns the thoughts, the motives of the heart. He had in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth was a sharp two-edged sword. His countenance was like the sun, shining in its strength. And when I saw him, I fell at his feet as dead. Now this is John, the apostle, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the best friend of Jesus on earth, the disciple who was so comfortable with the Lord, he could lie with his head resting on the Lord's shoulder during the Lord's supper. But when he saw the risen Christ, he fell on his face like a dead man. What chance do all these atheists have who say, When God comes, I will ask him, and why did he do this? And why didn't he do this? And how could he allow this? Well, they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of back-chatting God on the Day of Judgment. If the Apostle John, the best friend of Jesus, could fall on his face as a dead man when faced with the risen, ascended Christ, the Lord of Glory, Then, I would say, all these smart-mouthed, foul-mouthed, back-chatting pagans, they would be calling for the mountains to fall, and they'd prefer an earthquake to bury them than to face the wrath of the Lamb on the Day of Judgment. John writes, But he laid his right hand on me and said to me, Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last. I am he who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of Hades and of death. This winnowing fan is in his hands. God is a consuming fire. Have you experienced the baptism of fire? Have you had a vision of the holiness of God? In the army we'd speak out of baptism of fire being the first time you come under real fire. We'd have training exercises with live fire because machine guns firing over while you're crawling under the barbed wire and to feel real bullets going overhead but you know there was a barbed wire between you and it you're pretty safe it's on a fixed trajectory they would do some live firing sometimes around us while we're doing practicing to try and prepare you but nothing prepares you for when you know it's real and you feel metal flying past you, things exploding, concussion, so on, a baptism of fire. And in fact, this is the main thing that the training prepares you, that when the real thing comes, that you won't freeze, paralyze, and like a rabbit in the headlights at night, just frozen while a poor traveller tries to break in time or swerve or whatever, because You get paralyzed and that's a normal reaction of a human being. The moment you experience some metal flying past you and you know, they're trying to kill me. This is personal. Now that's a baptism of fire in a military sense. But there's a far greater baptism of fire that the Lord is speaking about, that John the Baptist was prophesying. Have you seen a vision of the holiness of God? Do you know what it's like to be led by the Lord? Have you experienced his anointing? Have you been purged and purified by the fire of God, like a live coal taken from the altar to touch your lips? Oswald Chambers, in my utmost first highest right, the Holy Spirit must anoint for the work. Fire me. Nothing but the fire of the most Holy Spirit of God can make the offering holy and unblameable and acceptable. Andrew Murray, the South African Dutch Foreign Minister whose labors were blessed by heaven, by Heaven Sent Revival where I was ministering last week in Wellington. It was wonderful to go back and see the congregations associated with the great 1860 revival. Well, Andrew Murray wrote over 200 books and booklets which have been translated in more languages than any other writing from South African. He's doubtless the greatest South African author and certainly devotional revival author in history. And his 200 titles have never been out of print for over 140 odd years. And Andrew Murray wrote, the one thing needful for the church, the one thing which above all others men ought everywhere to seek for with one accord and with their whole heart is to be filled with the Spirit of God. The great Baptist prince of preachers, Charles Spurgeon, wrote, Oh God, send us the Holy Spirit. Give us both the breath of spiritual life and the fire of unconquerable zeal. You are God. You are our God. Answer us by fire, we pray to you. Answer us both by wind and fire. And then they will see you to be God indeed. The kingdom comes not. The work is flagging. Oh, that you would send the wind and the fire. And you will do this when we are all of one accord, all believing, all expecting, all prepared by prayer. The reformer of Geneva, John Calvin, described the church as the fellowship of the flaming heart. His personal emblem was a heart aflame in the hand of God. His motto was promptly and sincerely in the service of my God. Today, many people speak of the Presbyterians as the chosen frozen. having the truth on ice in the deep freeze. Pious puddle, holy huddle. But John Calvin's vision was a flaming heart. The fellowship of the flaming heart. That's what real Calvinism should be. On fire, Holy Spirit fire. Doctrinal steel no backbones, Holy Spirit fire in our bellies. Are you on fire for Christ? In the book of Revelation, the Lord Jesus revealed to the Apostle John his words of rebuke for the church of Laodicea. I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, neither cold nor hot, I will vomit you out of my mouth. It's such disgusting words that most Bible translations speak about spewing you out of my mouth. But the word in the Greek is vomit. And it's by saying, lukewarm Christians make God sick. You can be refreshed by a cold drink. You can be refreshed by hot tea, hot coffee, hot soup, hot chocolate. But lukewarm anything is not nice. And who wants lukewarm anything? God doesn't want us lukewarm. Be hot, be cold, but do not be lukewarm. Lukewarm Christians make God sick. We need to repent of half-hearted, worldly, superficial, materialistic, lethargic, self-centered, apathetic, cowardly, yellow-bellied, spineless, cheap grace, and easy-believerism, which, sad to say, characterize all too many of what claim to be Christians today. We must repent of being even jellyfish, filleted of spine. We need doctrinal steel in our backbones and Holy Spirit fire in our hearts. Is not my word like a fire, says the Lord, like a hammer that breaks the rocks in pieces? There are mountains of ice to melt. There's huge obstacles and false doctrines raised up against the knowledge of God. We're to smash those with the word of God and we to melt that ice of so many who seem encased in coldness. Ezekiel saw the fire of God. Daniel describes God's eyes like fire. Hosea describes God's coming inferno. Joel wrote of God's fiery presence. Obadiah saw the fire of God in the midst of his people. Micah saw the mountains melt like wax before the fire of God. Nahum foresaw the day of God's fiery judgment. Zephaniah saw the fire of God's holy jealousy. Could you imagine a table mountain on fire, the whole mountain sort of dissolving, melting like wax? That's what the power of God could do. Zechariah saw God's burning presence like a blazing wall with his glory revealed within. Malachi spoke of God's refining fire to purge, purify, and strengthen his people. We know in South Africa that gold must be purged by fire. They need to burn off the dross to receive the fire. If gold needs to be purged by fire, how much more our faith? On the road to Emmaus, after the crucifixion of Christ and his resurrection, the disciples were walking and talking and they didn't realize it was the Lord until he revealed himself after praying at the table with them. And then they said after he disappeared, did not a heart burn within us while he talked with us on the road and while he opened the scriptures to us? Have you heard the word of God? Has your heart burned within you? The Lord God required that in the temple, a fire shall always be burning on the altar. It shall never go out. This perpetual flame spoken of in Leviticus 6 was to communicate God's purifying, penetrating, powerful presence with his people. Jesus taught his followers, you are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it in a basket, but on a lampstand it gives light to all in the house. Now, remember when the Bible speaks about a lamp, or a torch, or a light, it's not talking about the incandescent light bulb invented by Thomas Edison. It's speaking about a burning torch, like a stick that's been wrapped in cloth and dipped in tar and set on fire and that's put on the lamp stand. It's just the lamp and the light was always a burning light. until the 19th century when they invented the incandescent light bulb, and now we've got LED and fluorescent. But remember, in the Bible, a light is always a burning, whether it's a candle, a torch, it's something that involves flames. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven. Jesus said, if anyone thirsts, let him come unto me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the Spirit, which those believing in him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. Three of the greatest natural forces in the world are fire, wind, and water. And these three forces reveal something of the power of the Creator. A flood is an awesome thing to face. We think of when we were at Back to the Bible mission, 2015. Pouring, pouring, pouring rain. drenching rain, and we had to get across. As the Crocodile River overflowed its banks, the bridge was buried, and they were terrified. In fact, as the general said, I'm not afraid of any man, but I fear God. I fear the forces of nature that God has created. And they were looking at the possibility of the Bible College itself, which is set pretty high, being drowned. They were setting up sandbags. Because you could see hippos being washed down the river. It was a massive flood, a colossal amount. In fact, the toughest river crossing I've had was not in Sudan. It was actually over there in Arbiton at Back to the Bible. There's no doubt the danger. There were vehicles that rushed in at other bridges, like the police were trying to stop the people, the vehicles coming, and a taxi went right around the police, went straight in and started to float, went on its side, turned upside down and just kept floating down the Crocodile River. Gone. Packed full of people. There's a whole Pentechnicon which thought it could get across at another bridge, just washed away. The power of water. Bahrain experienced a flood recently. The Americans now know with the floods that washed away New Orleans, for example. The power of water, of course the Dutch can tell you, they had in 1950s, the North Sea dike break, and vast amounts of destruction caused. Water is very destructive. We know from the Lysander fires what fires can do. And we know something about the power of hurricanes and when roofs go flying off and so on. Fire, wind, and water. On the day of Pentecost, the fire of God, the wind of the Holy Spirit, and the living waters of Jesus Christ moved in great power, and the church was born. Because of the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, we do not need to trust in our own abilities, but in his power alone. Nothing that God has commanded us to do is impossible. As we read in the book of Acts, the Lord went up, the Holy Spirit came down, the disciples went out. A handful of disciples in upper room went out and changed the world. Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord. As missionary to China, Hudson Taylor wrote, the power given is not a gift from the Holy Spirit. He himself is the power. Today, he is as truly available and as mighty in power as he was on the day of Pentecost. Hudson Taylor launched the first International Faith Mission, which before the end of that century was the largest mission in the world, with over 900 missionaries in the field in China, one of the toughest mission fields in the world, all by faith, all by the grace of God, by the power of His Holy Spirit. Do you know what it is to have the fire of God's Word burn within you? Do you know what it is to have the wind of the Holy Spirit lead and guide you, lifting up on wings of eagles, to run and not grow weary, to walk and not faint? Do the living waters of Christ flow from your heart? that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height, to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do exceedingly, abundantly, above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Let us pray. We thank you, Lord God, for your mercy. We thank you for your grace. We pray that you, Lord God, would keep us, that you would protect us. We pray, Lord God, that you would enable us to be more faithful to your word.