"After His Passion: A Wind"

Our preparation for Pentecost must begin with the understanding that the first Pentecost is what gave the Church its power. The Holy Spirit came as a mighty rushing wind - but do we still want the wind today? We must, if we want to be the agents of change the first Christians were.

Today we are largely sequestered in our individual homes. But soon we will be tabernacling together again. When that happens, will we welcome the wind, which is a condition for the awakening we say that we want?

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Scriptures

Joel 2:28-32
“And it will be that, afterwards,
   I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
then your sons and your daughters will prophesy,
   your old men will dream dreams,
   and your young men will see visions.
Even on the menservants and maidservants
   in those days I will pour out My Spirit.
Then I will work wonders in the heavens
   and the earth—
   blood and fire and columns of smoke.
The sun will be turned to darkness,
   and the moon to blood,
   before the great and awe-inspiring day of the LORD comes.
And it will be that everyone
   who calls on the name of the LORD will be saved.
For on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem
   there will be deliverance,
   as the LORD has said,
and among the survivors
   whom the LORD calls.” (MEV).

Job 38:22-30
“Have you entered the treasuries of the snow?
   Or have you seen the treasuries of the hail,
which I have reserved against the time of trouble,
   against the day of battle and war?
By what way is the light diffused,
   or the east wind scattered upon the earth?
Who has divided a channel for the overflowing waters,
   or a path for the thunderbolt,
to cause it to rain on the earth where no man is,
   on the wilderness in which there are no people,
to satisfy the desolate waste,
   and to cause the bud of the tender herb to spring forth?
Does the rain have a father?
   Or who has produced the drops of dew?
From whose womb came the ice?
   And the frost of heaven, who gives it birth?
The waters harden like stone,
   and the surface of the deep is frozen” (MEV)

Key Points

• Pentecost is the defining event of our faith tradition. But lately it seems as though we want the name "Pentecostal" without the life-changing wind of the Holy Spirit.
• Wind, after all, makes a mess of things and make us uncomfortable. Maybe we've become too comfortable, sitting in our pews, singing songs and listening to lessons.
• If that is the case, these unusual times may be exactly what the Church needs! Maybe we need to be shaken from our complacency and to rediscover the power of Pentecost in our own lives, so we can bring it to others.
• We’re in the middle of 50 days of power, between Easter and Pentecost. But a powerless Pentecost has become the norm rather than the exception.
• Pentecost means enduement from on high but it also means banishment from religious organizations. Pentecost brought the favor of God but also produced the hatred of men. It brought both great miracles and great obstacles.
• Why do we have to hang a sign that we are Pentecostals? Maybe because when they get inside they find professional pew-sitters.
• Churches like WHC and its CHN churches around the world have had enough. There are people who are ready to trade their academic degrees for revelation knowledge. Somebody is ready to preach what ought to be preached to whom it ought to be preached to!
• The Church once was excited about the power of the Holy Spirit, and it can be again. That reality will begin with a renewed understanding of our absolute dependence on the Holy Spirit for the power we need to live a life that becomes the Gospel.
• Charles Haddon Spurgeon said it this way: "Without the Spirit of God we can do nothing. We are as ships without wind or chariots without steeds. Like branches without sap, we are withered. Like coals without fire, we are useless. As an offering without the sacrificial flame, we are unaccepted."
• From A.W. Tozer: "The average Christian is so cold and contented with his wretched condition that there is no vacuum of desire into which the blessed Spirit can rush in satisfying fullness."
• Oswald Chambers put it this way: "If this (life) is all there is, if the hope of going to heaven is all there is, if there is no power for godly living, if there is no power over demons, depravity, disease, & death, then I've got a hold of the wrong end of the stick."