This is the Truth Network. On the day of Pentecost, the Bible says that there appeared unto them. Cloven or divided tongues like a fire, and it sat upon each of them. How strange. Was there some spiritual message God was sending?
Well, stay with us, listen, and learn. You're listening to Until He Comes, a blend of prophetic and practical biblical studies with Dr. Greg Hinnant, author of The Second Coming of Christ, His Appearing, His Return, Our Preparation. And now, author and teacher Greg Hinnant. Welcome to the program, my friend.
We're continuing our study of tongues of fire.
Now we've completed the first part of the study.
Now we want to look at another issue. And I believe you're going to be really blessed by the insights that we bring forth in these. Following Lessons. Let's identify and describe the various spiritual fires that were ignited. by the tongues of fire that appeared On Pentecost, it should be obvious to us all that that fire was not a physical fire.
No one was harmed and no property was consumed by it. It was a spiritual fire. And so I believe it contains a spiritual message from Christ, who clearly sent the experience of the baptism of the Holy Spirit on that famous day in that upper room. And what are those messages? What what does he what does he mean?
What is he trying to say to us?
Well, I believe that he was trying to talk to us about these types of spiritual fire. the fire of God that is God Himself. the fire of devotion the fire of light the fire of rapidly spreading faith, The fire that consumes believers' sins The fire that consumes impenitently sinning Christians. the fire that repels those unwilling to commit to Jesus. the fire that consumes heresy.
and heretics. the fire that ignites disciples' hearts and revivals and persecutions. and the fire of signs, wonders, and miracles.
Now that's quite a bit. Today we will only cover the first part of this message and perhaps the second, depending upon our time.
So we want to discuss now the fire of God Himself. When those tongues of fire sat upon each of them God Himself in the third person of the Holy Spirit was Entering them in His plenary presence, His full presence, undiluted, unlimited, not impeded. not quenched Oh, that was an amazing moment. God Himself now resided In those believers? Divinity was imparted to humanity.
God imparted his own intense, zealous divine self. the very nature of God, and his spirit, to men and to women who were hungry for him. You know, I want to make this point. They were hungry for him because they were told to wait for the promise of the Spirit. Jesus was gone now.
He had been ascended for ten days, It had been fifty days since his crucifixion and resurrection.
So You know, the natural evidence could have told them: hey, what are you doing here? This is crazy. What are you waiting for? But they had faith. and they were hungry.
They were thirsty. Friend, Are you hungry for more of God? You know, A. W. Tozer said to the effect that We have as much of God as we want.
And that's true. It's true for a very zealous Christian, and it's true for a totally lukewarm Christian. each has as much of God as they want.
So I guess I'm saying to you to day, while we're studying about the Holy Spirit, Do you want more of the Spirit?
Now understand. When you yield to the Holy Spirit, He doesn't come in to just pat you on the back and say, I'll help you do what you want to do in life. No, not at all. You see, you don't belong to yourself. I don't belong to myself.
Paul was very clear in 1 Corinthians 6 that Ye are not your own. You're bought with the price so glorify God in your body and in your spirit.
So It is with that viewpoint that the Holy Spirit comes in. He comes in to take control.
Now, control doesn't mean he. forces you to act according to his will against your own. No, not at all. Not at all. The Lord is not coercive.
His love is not coercive. And so the Holy Spirit doesn't come in to make you obey God if you don't want to, but He comes in to. Take the control or more accurately the guidance of your life. if you want to live for God. Thank you.
I'm speaking to you today, I believe, by the inspiration of the Spirit, in that I ask. Do you want to live for God? If you want to live for God, you will live for God, and you will receive this. baptism of spiritual fire, the very presence of God Himself, into your soul. which will enable you to walk closely with Christ.
to shine his light wherever you go. to build his kingdom wherever you are, in whatever ministry is given to you.
Now This fire that was burning, Romance us of the burning bush. The burning bush that appeared to Moses in Exodus three, and he said, I will now go see this wonder why the bush is burning, yet it's not consumed. You know, this fire will be like that in you. I think the burning bush is a Perfect type. And foreshadowing of the Christian.
We are just as ordinary as that burning bush. We think, oh, I'm a great palm tree in the Garden of God.
Okay, all right. God can make you that. But I'm talking now about how you see yourself. Do you understand, and do I understand that without Christ, Yes. We're just up.
Just a bush. just an old ordinary desert bush. But Moses saw a bush That was quite ordinary with some something extremely extraordinary. in the midst. The burning.
A glowing. The fire The fervour And it didn't consume the bush, and this fervor I'm talking about won't consume you, it will light you. It will. Causy. to fulfil.
Your destiny, or more accurately, enable you. every step of the way to do so. September the burning bush to the pillar of fire, You know, in the wilderness God led his people by a pillar of fire. by night, in cloud by day. The fire Was not God.
The cloud was not God. God's condensed presence was inside the enveloping cloud and fire.
So that pillar of fire that led them represents this fire we receive. in the baptism of the Holy Spirit. if we let God lead our life. you know Romans eight Verse fourteen says, To as many As let him lead them, they are the children of God. What if we don't?
let him lead us.
Well, We're not living as the children of God. We may be born again, but we're living like we did before. We're living a self-led life. That is displeasing and disappointing to the Lord. He wants us to be just as divinely led to day by the inner pillar of fire that's in you, the Spirit baptized Christian.
Just as divinely let as the Israelites were. In the desert. When they looked up and saw the cloud lift up off the tabernacle and move, they packed their things and moved, whether it was by day or by night, whether they had been encamped one day. or a week or a month or a year. or years.
They obeyed the guidance of the fiery pillar.
So we receive the fire of God's presence for the very same purpose.
So that that inner intuitive Knowing can guide us. through the multitude of decisions we have to make in life many every day.
Now, granted, not all of those decisions are life-changing.
Some of them are quite. Menial, quite ordinary. But Steal, we want the Lord to be leading us in everything.
Now From the burning bush. to the pillar fire. to these tongues of fire at Pentecost God is often manifested as fire.
So this is nothing new. Not at all. No, it wasn't new. This was something that continued the biblical story. Of the fiery presence of God.
And that's what is. Condensed for us in these words in Hebrews 12:29: Our God is. is a consuming fire. God Himself Is a fire. It doesn't say that God sends the fire, God creates the fire, it says God is.
The fire.
So the first thing. the one hundred and twenty disciples received in the upper room on Pentecost Day was God Himself. Moved in. to the bodily tabernacle, And I like to think of it like a furnace. There's two kinds of fire that Come demand.
a furnace fire and a wild fire.
Now we know that wildfires actually have some good purpose. They helped the forest renew itself. but the dispersion Of the various seed and other items that are in, for instance, the pine con, etc., when they explode and they go in all directions. And so. the forest while it is destroyed to the eye as being receded larger.
Grinder and greater than it was before, But generally wildfires are destructive. We don't want them. But a furnace fire is obviously useful and beneficial. In the wintertime, that contained fire, that controlled fire. helps keep us warm and get us through the winter.
So God's Spirit in us should be like that. It should be a controlled burning.
Now the fire can go out. We'll talk about that in a minute. But it should be something that burns all the time. From the day we're born again until the day we're in his presence. There should be an inner, burning, glowing in your life.
Has your fire Gone out. or has your fire diminished? Only you know that question, the answer to it. No one can answer that for you. It's not something that can be visibly detected, at least not Initially.
So How is your inner fire to day? Are you glowing in Christ? glowing and going? Or are you Cold. Callous indifferent.
Not really sure you won't obey the Lord to day. Maybe something else is tempting you, drawing you, pulling you in the other direction. Don't yield to that. Yield to Christ. And every time you obey him, Another piece of fuel, in a sense, is put on that inner fire.
Obedience. keeps the inner fire. Hot. Grow it. all the time.
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Now again, Dr. Hinnant.
Now, all Christian life and work in ministry begins. Here. When God the consuming fire moves in. You see when they built the Tabernacle. And Moses completed it, God moved in.
His presence was so strong the priest could not stand when Solomon. Finish this. his temple according to the devoutly given instruction down to the detail. The God had given David. Suddenly, God.
moved in. And that temple was filled with the presence. And again, the priest could not enter because of the repelling effect of the. Dense Shekanah glory A better word for that would be the Kavad. The heaviness, the weightiness of God's very Presence And then What we're reading here and Act two.
May seem different to you, but it was not. It was a continuation of this pattern.
Well, Jesus was here on this earth. What was he doing?
Well, he was doing many things, revealing God to man? He said, He that hath seen me hath seen the Father. John 14, now. He was showing us the compassion of God. Everything he did was motivated by compassion, whether it was teaching or preaching or feeding the poor or healing the sick and delivering the oppressed.
Everything you did was motivated by compassion. But His primary work, I think it is fair to say, was the work that he did in twelve men and really eleven because one, as you know, betrayed him. and left the company. But for those three awesome years of Christ's ministry. It must have been awesome.
day and night, He was working. in the hearts and minds and attitudes and motives Of these eleven men, He was showing them things in their heart they did not know were there, for instance, when they were arguing which of them. should be the greatest into heaven.
Well he quickly He quickly Set them straight. By asking them if They were ready to Drink his cup. And Experience his baptism. his cup of sufferings, and his baptism of death.
So He worked in them. Why? Because they would be the foundation of the spiritual tabernacle and temple of the Church. Paul makes this clear and Ephesians chapter 2, that we are to be a habitation of God. By the Spirit.
So when Jesus finished his work in the twelve now, of course, they had not received the Spirit yet, so they weren't by any means mature. He came and breathed on them on the evening of the resurrection, and said, Receive ye the Holy Spirit. They did, and they were regenerated, or born again. There was a deep passion. permanent change in the spirit at that moment recorded in John XX.
But here in Acts two, There was much more. Their bodily tabernacle or temple was suddenly filled to the full. were the very presence of God the fire of God's own presence was now glowing in them.
So it was a marked change. This is where Christianity truly began. And it was not unlike, as I just said, what God did when Solomon finished his temple. And it was not unlike what God did when Moses finished the last piece of work on that tabernacle. Because the tabernacle and the temple.
Are just portraits of what God wants to do. In us.
Now in John 1.12 Jesus declared this, As many as received Him, to them gave ye the power, to become the children of God, even to them that believe on His name. who were born not of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
So here this text describes us receiving God.
Now that's quite different from believing a set of fact or doc facts or doctrines about God. That's part of the process. We must hear the Word of God before we be can begin to be a child of God. But That's not the work. That's the precursor.
Your prelude. The work of God begins the day we repent of sin and confess we are a sinner. And with the humility of a child, ask Jesus to come into our heart. And we tell him we want to receive him. And when we receive him, we're born Again not of man's will or flesh, but of Got.
And this is a totally new restart. Then we can receive the mighty baptism of the Holy Spirit, and be filled with this Fire.
Now just have a little part of it, but be filled with it. And then God can do His work through us as never before. There is an empowerment that comes. from this glowing fire of God within us, that nothing else can duplicate or imitate. It is unique.
We see it in the early church. What the Lord was doing through these men was It was just beyond the scope of reason. The Sanhedrin When the apostles Peter and John stood before them. took the measure of them, and they said in Acts chapter four, verse twelve. that they were unlearned and ignorant men, and then they remembered Oh, wait a minute These men had been with Jesus.
What does that tell us? The fire of God in Peter and John post-Pentecost. reminded these evil, but quite well informed. Jurists of Israel of Jesus and the fire that burns in him. You say, wait a minute, hold on.
That's blasphemous. You're saying that Peter and John were like Jesus?
Well, I'm going to say it again, Peter. and John, because Of a genuine regeneration experience because They had now received the fulness of God Himself in them. Yeah. They were speaking and acting in this instance in context with the very boldness that had been seen in Jesus. and friend, that same fullness of the Spirit.
await you and the boldness that comes with it. Not a foolish temerity or overbaldness. Not a fanaticism, But a calm, and we're really quiet. Strong, sure, confidence.
So that you know when you should pray, and you're not afraid to pray when you need to in public, right in front of other people.
So that should you need to, you're confronted with the demon in the course of your work and ministry, you can command that demon in the name of Jesus to depart. and free souls. That's an amazing thing. The power of God is needed in the church today. as never before.
Thank God for excellent. universities and seminaries, But A set of facts about God cannot give us. This fire that I'm talking about, this inward burning. presence of God. And the unmistakable evidences that flow from it.
or I should say from him.
So, this begins when we receive Christ, then we can receive the Holy Spirit. in his fullness. And I would just remind you of what we talked about in previous lessons. That are the five instances of the Holy Spirit baptism in the book of Acts. And the Word of God is.
Our final authority? But we should let it be. Of those five instances, four of them show a clear. distinction in time Between the moment those in question receive Christ. And the moment some time afterward, when they receive.
the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Only in Acts ten, at Cornelius's house, were the two experiences blended into one. But there, The Bible says that as Peter spoke, They that heard the word suddenly. Were filled with the Holy Spirit. And the implication, obviously, is that they heard the word.
Believingly, not sceptically, certainly not in unbelief.
So, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was endorsing. Simultaneously, in that context, I think that's very accurate to say, was confirming. The new birth experience with an additional baptism of the Holy Spirit, just as it is seen in the other four, Instances and x2. in X eight and the next nine and in Acts nineteen, just as it was seen there. in two experiences.
So, Jesus said, Without me you can do nothing, in John fifteen, five. Without Him in us, this glowing fire of the presence of God Without me you can do nothing. Without me living in you without me growing in you. Are you letting the Lord grow in you by submissive trust and obedience day by day? He said, Without me working in you that is You allowing God to change your nature and character and attitudes the way He wants to change them.
without me ministering Without me ministering in you you can do nothing. All the religious world from the day of Pentecost to this moment I wonder how much of it has been done in God and how much it has been done apart from Him. When we do things for God, We better check first that God told us to do them and He is with us as we do them. Then they bear eternal fruit. Without him, we can do nothing.
We can spend our whole lives doing nothing. Don't do that, my friend. Do it he leads. Let the fire glowing within you that is the Spirit's guidance, which will always be in agreement with the Word, and never in contradiction to it. Let his gardens determine what you do.
and how you minister. Paul also said when he Had preached in the churches of Judea. They heard about him and they said, He who has once persecuted us was now preaching the faith he once tried to destroy. And they glorified God. In me, Galatians 1:23 and 24.
Was he saying he was God? No. But he was saying, Yahweh. Shama, the Lord is present. in him and what he told me.
We must have God in us. If we want God's life and power to flow through us, and God in us must be in full measure without impediment of any kind or the checking that comes from sin. or selfishness still being dominant. In our pods. Then we can minister to the needy and do God's work and build God's kingdom.
So my friend, We need this fire of God himself. within.
Next week, we'll talk about the fire. of devotion. If this message has blessed you, tell your friends and please consider helping us stay on the air by sending your tax-deductible donation to Greg Hennett Ministries. Also, remember, you may download the Until He Comes podcast from your preferred podcast app. May you walk closely with Christ and trust and obey Him in your daily tests of faith and patience until He Comes.
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