Like a Mighty Wind

SERMON: 2009-04-21--ac0913--like-a-mighty-wind SOURCE DURATION: 00:36:31.000 PROPOSED CUTS: 1 CONFIDENCE: 0.98 APPROVED: false REASON: Candidate 0 is spoken sermon content (theological exposition). Candidate 1 marks a clear transition into sung material (a hymn/worship song), making candidate 0 the last segment of the sermon. Acoustic segmentation found sustained music at the end edge and moved the boundary to the adjacent transcript segment. ACOUSTIC EVIDENCE: available ACOUSTIC MUSIC INTERVALS: 00:32:12.580-00:36:29.580 ACOUSTIC SPEECH OVERLAP: yes ACOUSTIC BOUNDARIES APPLIED: end Inline CUT markers identify each proposed audio boundary after the relevant word. --- ORIGINAL TRANSCRIPT WITH PROPOSED CUTS MARKED --- Well, back in 1971, an Indonesian evangelist by the name of Mel Tari wrote a book that he entitled "Like a Mighty Wind." It almost immediately became a Christian bestseller because in this book he highlighted the experience of Indonesian Christians when revival broke out on the Indonesian island of Timor. On that island in 1965, the revival began, I believe September 26, in an evening service in a small Presbyterian church in the city of Soi, a city of about 5,000 people. That revival was accompanied by a number of extremely unusual though very biblical manifestations. They heard the sound of the rushing of a mighty wind. They saw flames of fire that couldn't be quenched. They spoke in other languages. They saw water turn to wine. They in fact even saw the dead raised in that revival and evangelistic teams able to cross a 30 foot deep river of water sinking in no deeper than their knees. These stories are well attested to, not only by Mel Tari, as told in his book, but by other witnesses to this revival. And what was even more remarkable than just the manifestations of the Holy Spirit in that Indonesian revival is the dramatic conversions that took place the first year alone. The Reformed Church Presbytery of Timor reported 80,000 conversions to Christ. Half of these were former communists and within three years, that number climbed to 200,000 converts, 15,000 people were reportedly permanently healed, and 200 evangelistic teams of laypeople were dispersed throughout the island of Timor and the surrounding Indonesian islands. And if you're familiar with the island of Timor, then you will know that it's been in the news in the last 10 or 20 years because East Timor has gone through a declaration of independence. It used to be a Portuguese colony. The western end of the island was originally a Dutch colony, and so Mel Tari and his people had been evangelized largely by Dutch and I think probably American missionaries. Now the book, Taito, Like a Mighty Wind, comes of course from this scripture that we have read together, Acts 2 verse 2, where the Bible says, "Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting." If you read that in the King James Version, it is a rushing, mighty wind. And as we begin then this morning to look at the phenomena associated with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, by looking at this verse, I want us to note a number of things. First of all, in this verse the emphasis lies on wind. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven. The very first symbol of the outpoured Holy Spirit is the symbol of wind. And you don't have to know your Bible very well to understand why that is because throughout scripture wind and spirit are used interchangeably. In fact, in both the Hebrew and the Greek, it is the same word translated wind or spirit. In the Old Testament it's the word ruach, which could be translated wind or spirit. And in the Greek it's the word nouma, and you'll recognize that from pneumonia or pneumatic or pneumatology, which is the study of the Holy Spirit. And many times when the Bible translators are translating the Bible, they don't quite know, is this verse talking about the wind or is this verse talking about the Holy Spirit? And the reason that these two are used interchangeably, I think, is twofold. First of all, both are primarily invisible. I mean, take the air. You can't see it, except maybe under very unusual conditions. You can't see it, you can feel it, you can touch it, you can smell it sometimes, and you can certainly see its effects, but you cannot typically see it. The Lord Jesus picks up on that, of course. When he says to Nicodemus in John 3 verse 8, "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 who is born of the Spirit." You can see the effects of the wind, you can see the effects of the Spirit, but most of the time, with rare exception, you cannot see the Holy Spirit. Every so often, he takes the form of a dove in the Gospel stories, but mostly you cannot see him. Wind and Spirit are both part of the invisible world, if you will. And then secondly, they are both life-giving. What was the very first thing the Lord God did after he created Adam out of the dust of the ground? Well, the Bible says, "He breathed into his nostrils what? The breath of life, and he became a living being." We are all air-breathing mammals, and you deprive us of oxygen, we're good for how long? Maybe three, four, sometimes a little bit longer, minutes? But that's the end of us. Air comes into our lungs, it's a marvelous process, isn't it? Our lungs transfer it to our red blood cells, our red blood cells carry it throughout the body, and they feed that oxygen to every living part of our bodies. And thus it is with the Holy Spirit. He is the breath of life, and even as oxygen gives us life literally, the Holy Spirit gives us life spiritually. And there are many examples of that in Scripture. There's not only the example that I've already related about Adam coming to life because God breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. There is the example, too, in Ezekiel 37, where Ezekiel has that vision of the dead bones representing the decline of the people of Israel and how God comes along and he says to Ezekiel, "Prophecy over these bones." You'll remember the story, how the bones started to come together and how God put sinews upon the bones and Ezekiel continues to prophesy and the breath of God comes into these reassembled bodies and they arise as the mighty army of God. But the example that struck me most powerfully this week is the example of Abraham and Sarah that we just read earlier from Isaiah the 51st chapter. Listen to these verses again. Listen to me. You who pursue righteousness and who seek the Lord, look to the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were hewn. Look to Abraham your father and to Sarah who gave you birth. When I called him, he was but one and I blessed him and made him many. Now here's the context. God is prophesying through Isaiah to the people of Israel that the shame of the humiliation of their exile is coming to an end. And God says, "Those of you who are looking for righteousness, those of you who are looking for me," he says, "I want you to look to the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were hewn." And I love that word picture because God is saying, "Look where you came from. Look at the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were hewn." Well what is the rock from which they were cut or the quarry from which they were hewn? It was Abraham and Sarah. Abraham and Sarah are the founding parents of the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. What was Abraham and Sarah's problem? You will recall they were unable to have children and Sarah was long past her childbearing years. And God says, "Remember how I came to Abraham and Sarah, long past their childbearing years, and I breathe into them the breath of my Holy Spirit to enable them to miraculously conceive new life, the child Isaac, who becomes then the carrier of the promised blessing." And you say, "How do we know it was the breath of the Holy Spirit who made these dead bodies come alive and conceive life?" Well, one reason is because we're told in the New Testament that Isaac was born after the Spirit. But already here in the Old Testament, God gives us an inkling of what it is that he's going to do. And he does it by the way he changes the names of Abram and Sarah. You will recall that in Scripture, Abraham is originally called Abram, and that name means exalted father, and I've always thought that was kind of an ironic thing for Abraham. Can you imagine Abraham going around with a name that says exalted father, and somebody meets him on the street and says, "Well, how many kids have you got?" "Well, I haven't got any." "Well, when do you plan to start your family so that you can be an exalted father?" Well, you see, we've got this little problem. My wife can't have any children, and we're well past the years when having children is a normal thing. So God comes along and he changes Abram's name, as you know, to Abraham, and Abraham means father of many. And similarly, the Lord does the same thing with Sarah. Her original name is Sarah, which may or may not mean princess. People are not of one mind on that. But her name is changed to Sarah, which does for sure mean a person of royalty, the mother of many nations. Now here's what I want you to get at. You look carefully at the name Abraham, and you look at the name Sarah. How does God change their names? Well, the names are changed by the addition of an H. In Abraham's case, an H and an A. Now you pronounce an H, what do you get? You get "ha." What does that remind you of? That is breath. It is a breath consonant. And it's God's way of saying to Abraham, "You know how you're going to become a fertile nation? You know how you were but one and I'm going to make you many? It's not because you've got it in yourself. It's not because you're so smart. It's not because you're so strong. It's not because you're so fertile or capable. No, I am going to come upon you with the breath of the Holy Spirit, and by the breath of the Holy Spirit, you're going to come to new life and you're going to become the father of many nations." And when Isaiah says, "Look to the rock from which you were cut and the quarry from which you were digged," he is saying to the people of Israel, "Listen. You may be wherever you are, but you're never so far gone that God by His Holy Spirit cannot breathe new life in you and bring you to resurrection glory." See, that is why the Holy Spirit manifests Himself as the wind. He is not only invisible, but as the invisible third person of the Holy Trinity who embodies all the victory of Jesus over death and hell, He can breathe life into any situation and to any circumstance at the word of the Lord. That's why the Holy Spirit blows and they hear this sound of the wind. Now notice it goes beyond that because not only is it the sound of the wind, but it is a violent wind, or in the King James, a rushing, mighty wind. Other translations have a violent blast of wind. The wind, of course, is just air that is moving and one of the characteristics of wind is that it can have a huge dynamic range. It can be so steel as to be imperceptible. You'll recall maybe as a child, you know, sticking your finger in your mouth and putting it up in the air to see which way the wind is blowing, if it's blowing at all. The other day, a couple of weeks ago, I got up early in the morning one of these very cold nights that I looked across the river and there was this big plume of steam and/or smoke rising up on the other side of the river, straight as a pillar. Hardly ever see that because there's almost always some breeze that scatters it. So the wind can be steel and often the Holy Spirit is the still small voice of God. But you know, just as well as I do, that same wind can pack a terrific wallop. If you've ever been in a tornado or if you've ever experienced a hurricane or seen the footage on television or the pictures in the newspaper, then you know that same wind that can be so quiet as to be imperceptible wallops an incredible deal of power that blows away everything that isn't nailed down and often a few things that are nailed down. And so when here in the book of Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit manifests Himself symbolically, not only in the form of the wind, but a violent wind. God is really trying to communicate, I believe, two things to us. The first is that there is an emphasis on the power. There is an emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit because, again, it is a mighty rushing wind. It blows everything away that stands in the road and it is similar in language to what the Lord Jesus uses when He says, "From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing and forceful men lay hold of it." While often the Holy Spirit speaks in the still small voice of God, there are also times when He comes in glory and He comes in power and He blows everything out of the way that hinders the coming of God's kingdom. The picture that comes to my mind is a blast of wind that just blows away all the dirt, that blows away all the garbage, that blows away every obstacle to the coming of God's kingdom. Think of the power that was released when God spoke the word of creation and the whole universe sprang into being. The power that was released when the Lord Jesus was raised from the dead by the Spirit of God, the power that's going to be released on that last day when the trumpet of God sounds and everybody that has ever died is going to come to life and will head towards judgment, either inheriting God's kingdom or being cast out forever into utter and absolute darkness. See, it doesn't matter how dead you or I may find ourselves, it doesn't matter how deep our sense of inadequacy, how overwhelmed we are by the challenges of life, how deep the pattern of sin, or how cold our hearts. When God sends the wind of the Holy Spirit, He can blow all of that away and bring us into a place of victory and glory. That's what happens when revival comes. When revival comes upon a group of people, the normal laws of nature seem to be suspended, and God does in a moment what often other times seems to take forever. It's like He sweeps the skies clear, the demonic is pushed back, the Holy Spirit comes, and you get that foretaste of the kingdom of heaven, and people begin to experience an immediacy of God's presence that is often unparalleled in their experience. It represents the power of the Holy Spirit not only, but it represents an element of unpredictability. Because one of the characteristics of wind is that not only do you not know where it's coming from or where it's going to, it can also change very fast, particularly when it's a violent wind. All of a sudden you've got a blast coming out of this direction, then you get a blast coming out of another direction, then you get a blast that just blows everything away, and then all of a sudden the wind is quiet. And again, there is deliberate usage of that imagery in Scripture, because much as we would like to nail down the Holy Spirit, much as we would like to bind Him and have Him act in ways that suit our particular personality and prejudice. You go through Scripture and you look at the history of revivals historically, and you discover that the Lord God very seldom fits preconceived notions. In fact, He often blows our notions out of the water, and He can sometimes come with a force and with a power that is unprecedented, and He blows away the cobwebs. It's not that He is a God without structure, but in the course of blowing, He blows where He wills. Historically revivals happen in the most diverse places, and you can't say, "Well, this place is going to experience revival, or this place is going to experience revival, or this person is going to get hit by the Holy Spirit, and that person will not." God is free to do whatever He wants to do, wherever the wind blows, says Jesus. That is how the Holy Spirit operates, and our job then, when those sorts of things happen in our own lives or in the lives of other people, is a twofold job. On the one hand, we are to discern, because we're not to believe every spirit, but we are to discern what is the Spirit of the Lord and what is not the Spirit of the Lord. And once we discern what is the working of God's Holy Spirit, our hearts are to be open, and we are to receive Him and walk it out with Him. And if you read Mel Tari's book, a lot of people ask the question, "Why does God choose a little island like the island of Timor where people are extremely primitive, and why does He manifest Himself in that way among those people?" And he says, first of all, because we had those needs, and secondly, because we were simple enough to take Him at face value and to believe what He wanted us to do. And I won't take a lot of time for this, but allow me to read just a couple of paragraphs as to how revival came to this island, and you'll recognize yourself in places as we read this. I recognize myself in places. I think you will, too. Here's what he says, "I belong to the Presbyterian Church." That is, of course, the Reformed family of churches. And he says, "We had everything in order. When we went to church, everything was written down on paper. The pastor read one part, and we read the other part. We knew when to stand, when to sit, when to pray, and when to sing. I really thanked God for and appreciated that order in my church." He says, "We also had love," or I should say, "We had a little bit of love. When someone smiled at us, we smiled back. We learned to love people if they loved us, and if they didn't love us, then we didn't love them too much, either." But he says, "In my church, we had no power at all. When the revival came, God gave us all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, as well as power and love and order." He says, "I will remember that night of September 26, 1965. About 200 people were gathered of all ages in our church praying together. As we were praying, suddenly something strange took place. If you will read in your Bible, Acts chapter 2, you will find out what happened in my church. We had known this Bible portion for many years, many of us had memorized it, but we had never experienced it in our own lives. That night, as we were praying together, suddenly the Holy Spirit came, as He did on the day of Pentecost. In Acts 2, we read that He came from heaven like a mighty rushing wind. And that night, as I was sitting next to my sister, I heard this mighty rushing sound. It sounded like a small tornado in the church. I looked around and saw nothing, I turned to my sister, I asked her, "Do you hear a strange noise?" She replied, "Yes, I do, but forget about the sound and let's pray." She began to pray, and at the same time, I heard many others begin to pray. You must know that in our church, we always prayed in absolute order, one by one. For one person to pray in our church was enough, since everything was written in front of us. If many were to pray, we had to write a whole bunch of prayers. But that night, those Presbyterians started to forget the written order and the prayers in front of them, and began to pray in the Spirit. At first, one by one, and before, I knew that they all began to pray at the same time. And I said, "Oh my dear Jesus, what's going on in this church? They have forgotten the written order," I said. Now, get this line, as they were praying, I looked at the pastors. My, what an anxious look they had on their faces. They were sitting in front of the church on the platform, and they didn't know how to handle these 200 people. They too heard the mighty rushing wind. I looked around again, and there was still nothing moving. It was only a sound. And then I heard the fire bell, ringing loud and fast. Across the street from the church was the police station, and the fire bell. The man in the police station saw that our church was on fire. So he rang the bell to tell the people of the village to come quick, there was a fire. In Indonesia, especially in Timor, we didn't have fire trucks. We just ring the fire bell, and the people realize there is a fire, and they come from all over the village with buckets of water and other things to help put out the fire. When they got to the church, they saw the flames, but the church wasn't burning. Instead of a natural fire, it was the fire of God. And because of this, many people received Jesus Christ as their savior, and also the baptism of the Holy Spirit. He goes on to say these phenomena drew a crowd of a thousand people in that little village of 5,000. And he says, in conclusion in this chapter, and I'm skipping quite a bit, he says in the first three months we had about 70 groups of laymen that were going out and preaching the gospel from village to village. And when they went out, great signs followed them, and thus started our Indonesian revival. And if you will read the history of other revivals, you will discover in many instances the sound of the rush of a mighty wind. Many instances where tongues of fire appear, and many instances where people's lives are powerfully and gloriously transformed. When I tell you that story, what we have to be careful with is this. It is not the phenomena that make the change or the transition. It's easy to read stories like that and say, "Lord, why don't you do that here?" But remember the symbols that are represented by the wind and by the fire. The wind is life-giving. The wind is violent because it can blow out of the water anything that gets in the way. And this morning as we join together in the celebration of communion, here's what counts. That Holy Spirit has been given to the church. That Holy Spirit and his unpredictable power to create new life wherever he wants to create it is available for you, and it's available for me. And I'll tell you a little something, Dave Botting and John Roper and myself, we get together usually twice a week to pray and talk and plan for upcoming services. And this week when we met together on Thursday, it was a most unique experience that we had because all of us individually came to that get together having experienced the same conviction from the Holy Spirit. And you may think we're out to lunch and maybe we are, but you can judge that. We all experience the same conviction from the Holy Spirit that something is shifting in the heavenlies, that God is driving back the darkness, that he is releasing the power of his Holy Spirit, and that the lame will walk and the blind will see and the poor will hear good news and God's kingdom is coming with a new level of power. Why? Because we see the first fruits of it already. Any number of people in recent weeks have been coming to us unbidden talking about the stirring of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. Some being called to intercessory prayer that I would have never thought were called to it, some being called to demonstrate manifestations of the life of the Holy Spirit in ways that I certainly wouldn't have dreamed of. One man came to me not very long ago and said that after years and years of struggling with a particular addiction, all of a sudden God moved and he's free in ways that he has never been free before. It's going to change his life forever. And my prayer is that the drip of the Holy Spirit, that early rain will just multiply, flood like a mighty river. Because you see when the Holy Spirit comes in power on the church, he not only fills the church with all the church needs, but he has more than enough so that they can be rivers of water to the ends of the earth. And as Dave and John and I were praying about that on Thursday, I had a brand new strengthening conviction that in spite of all the struggles and difficulties that we sometimes go through individually and corporately, that God wants to take his message of healing and hope. Minister it not only to our own lives, but flow from here to the nations. And it's not because we're so smart, it's not because we're so good, it's not because we're so righteous, it's not because we got it all together, but it's because in union with Jesus, God gives us the Holy Spirit who blows like a mighty wind and brings life and light and healing wherever he goes. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 START at 00:32:12.580; remove through 00:36:31.000] Come and cleanse me, come forgive me, Lord I need to meet you there. In these problems, healing mercy, offer freedom from despair. And I am going to that river, Lord I need to meet you there. Precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender every care. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. Come and join us in the river, come find life beyond compare. For he is calling, he is waiting, Jesus longs to meet you there. Precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender every care. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. Precious Jesus, I am ready to surrender every care. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. Take my hand now, lead me closer, Lord I need to meet you there. I am going to that river, I am going to that river, Lord I need to meet you there. I am going to that river, I am going to that river, Lord I need to meet you there. Feeling mercy flows with freedom from despair, so I am going to that river, Lord I need to meet you there. [CUT] [PROPOSED CUT 1 END at 00:36:31.000; resume after this marked segment]