Download Pentecost Power By David G ((HOT))

A main theme for this issue is missions. One article describes how COVID-19 is changing Christian missions. Read it with the mindset that we serve an unchanging God who is the Great Physician and far more powerful than any pandemic. If even the gates of Hades will not overcome his church, a disease, regardless how severe or the number of variants, will not consume it.

Yours, Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor, for everything in heaven and earth is yours. Yours, Lord, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all (1 Chronicles 29:11).

Download Pentecost Power By David G

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Think about it. Gratitude is not the only emotion we might choose to express in response to the events of any given day. There are reasons for gratitude, yes, and also reasons for fear, for anger, for frustration, grief, for regret, for apprehension. Each and all of these colors our experience, makes its appearance on the stage of our lives, and perhaps each has a place and role to play from time to time. But we choose how much stage time to grant each of these emotions by giving them expression, and as we do so we give them power in our lives.

It is the gift of the Holy Spirit that brings us interior power to live according to the commands of the Lord, which leads to joy and freedom The outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles led to their personal transformation and the explosive growth of the early church. This podcast discusses how to unlock this power, received in baptism and confirmation, in our own lives, in order to stimulate growth in Christ and fruitfulness in mission.

These early Christians held property in common, submitted themselves to one another, studied scripture and learned from the apostles, praised God, lived in gratitude and generosity. And their numbers continued to increase. God used their obedience to begin reconciling the whole world to himself. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead was now at work within them, to effect nothing less than the complete restoration of his created order, a process still underway.

In other words, Peter says, we have entered the last days: the Messiah has come, he has accomplished redemption on the cross, he has risen and ascended to the right hand of God, and the interval before he returns in glory will be marked by an incomparable outpouring of the Holy Spirit on men and women, old and young, slave and free, near and far. And the people of God in this period are to be a people born of the Spirit, baptized in the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit to bear witness to "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ." We live in the latter days of the Spirit. We live in the days that Isaiah (44:3) and Ezekiel (11:19; 36:26f.; 39:29) and Joel (2:28) prophesied and longed to see. There are no more decisive turning points in redemptive history that must happen before Jesus returns to establish his kingdom. This is it. These are the days of Pentecost, the days of the fullness of the Spirit, the days of worldwide mission.

Now let me suggest an analogy to illustrate the experience of the Spirit before and after Pentecost. Picture a huge dam for hydroelectric power under construction, like the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, 375 feet high and 11,000 feet across. Egypt's President Nasser announced the plan for construction in 1953. The dam was completed in 1970 and in 1971 there was a grand dedication ceremony and the 12 turbines with their ten billion kilowatt-hour capacity were unleashed with enough power to light every city in Egypt. During the long period of construction the Nile River wasn't completely stopped. Even as the reservoir was filling, part of the river was allowed to flow past. The country folk downstream depended on it. They drank it, they washed in it, it watered their crops and turned their mill-wheels. They sailed on it in the moonlight and wrote songs about it. It was their life. But on the day when the reservoir poured through the turbines a power was unleashed that spread far beyond the few folk down river and brought possibilities they had only dreamed of.

Well, Pentecost is like the dedicatory opening of the Aswan High Dam. Before Pentecost the river of God's Spirit blessed the people of Israel and was their very life. But after Pentecost the power of the Spirit spread out to light the whole world. None of the benefits enjoyed in the pre-Pentecostal days were taken away. But ten billion kilowatts were added to enable the church to take the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ to every tongue and tribe and nation.

So here's my answer to why the experience of the Old Testament saints is valuable for us today. If these saints experienced privileges and powers in the Holy Spirit before the dam was opened, how much more should we in these billion kilowatt days experience these things or more. A survey of Old Testament spiritual experience is needed to wake us up to our privileges in these last days that were inaugurated at Pentecost. The church today is so sleepy that some of us have even fallen behind the Old Testament saints in our appropriation of what the Spirit has to give.

In one sense, all craftsmanship and artistic ability is a gift of God, just like our breath is. But the text says that God called Bezalel by name and filled him with his Spirit. And I think there was and is today a special touch or filling of the Holy Spirit that elevates the work of an artist or a musician or a craftsman from mere technical skill to divinely empowered ministry that exalts God and builds faith.

Seventh, the saints of old experienced victory over fear by the presence of the Spirit. When God wanted to encourage the people to rebuild the temple after the exile, he said, "Work, for I am with you . . . My Spirit abides among you. Fear not" (Haggai 2:5). Just think, if Jews returning from God's judgment in Babylonian exile can take heart that God's Spirit will protect them, how much more fearless should we be who have the overwhelming assurance of God's love and power in Jesus' death and resurrection! Old Testament saints knew then and Christians know today that victory over all threats and obstacles belongs to God. Zechariah 4:6 says, "Not by might nor by power but by my Spirit says the Lord of hosts."

Finally, the Holy Spirit gave some in the OT a gift of prophecy. For example, when Moses gathered with the seventy elders of Israel at the tabernacle, it says in Numbers 11:25, "The Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him and took some of the Spirit that was upon him and put it upon the seventy elders; and when the Spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did so no more." Evidently, God only gave a brief taste of prophetic powers to the seventy elders. It seemed to point to something more that might come in the future.

If the golden altar [the layer] on which was only of the thickness of a denar lasted for many years and the fire had no power over it, how much more would that be the case with the transgressors in Israel who are as full of good deeds as a pomegranate [with seed], as it is said in Scripture: Thy temples are like a pomegranate, and R. Simeon b. Lakish remarked, `Read not, `Thy temples` but `Thy empty ones` [signifying] that even the worthless among you are as full of good deeds as a pomegranate [with seed]`. Eruvin 2.1-3

The empowering Holy Spirit frees us and sends us to receive each moment and circumstance of life as it is. The whole of life becomes an opportunity for ever-deepening theosis. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus counsels his disciples:

Today is the Day of Pentecost. On this day the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of divine power, came to the disciples, and there was no mistaking it. For it was accompanied by an experience which pounded the senses. Divine power was invading them: an intense catastrophic experience. It sounded like the rush of a violent wind. Tongues, as of fire, rested on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. Read More

God's new thing will be a new thing of the Spirit. Every new work, every awakening, every revival in history has rediscovered the dynamic of the Holy Spirit in the Christian's Life and in the operations of the church. I have to tell you today, I have never heard of a revival where the Holy Spirit was ignored - and certainly no revival has ever been when the Holy Spirit was preached against or denied. I know even here today there will be some theological differences concerning the work of the Spirit, but I hope we will all agree today that the dynamic of the Spirit is an essential to utter Christian existence; and indeed an ongoing and deepening experience of the Spirit is vital for personal growth and for kingdom expansion, wherever it is in the world. We cannot do it without the Holy Spirit. Whatever our doctrinal semantics are, it is obvious from a casual reading of the book of Acts, particularly chapter 2: one, that these believing disciples were deficient in power before Pentecost. Jesus told them: 'Don't lift a finger until you are endued with power from on high'. Two, these same disciples were transformed dramatically after Pentecost. Three, they had been equipped at Pentecost with abilities that were essential to fulfil the great commission of Christ.

So we read Mark's summary, I believe, of what is the Acts of the Apostles. Mark 16:20: 'They went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen'. God was with them, and it was marked by the unction - they moved under the anointing of the Holy Spirit in everything that they did. Whatever your doctrinal persuasion is today, and unbiased reading of the New Testament must conclude that the power of Pentecost was that very spreading flame that caused the raging furnace of the Gospel to sweep over the then known world. I want to say to you this afternoon: your Christianity is either supernatural, or it is superficial. You need the power of Pentecost to live your Christian life as an individual, and you need the power of Pentecost to do the work of the Gospel. This truth of the power of the Spirit is at the heart of every move of God - it always has been, it always will be - and God's new thing, it will be right in the centre of it. e24fc04721