Sometimes we tie our connection to God to our emotions so much that we start to determine how close we are to God based on how we feel and that is dangerous ground for us as believers. God spoke something in my heart this morning. He said, Chad Everett, the extent to which you are equipped is not determined by how you feel. It seems like a broken record that God’s telling me this over and over. Evidently, I’m a slow learner, but he’s like Chad Everett, the extent to which I’ve equipped you is not to be measured by how you feel that day. We Mt Carmel Church have the fire of God available to us and it does not mean that it will be validated by our emotions that day.
We are finishing up our Fire starter series today, the evangelism series, we’ve been talking about how we’re all evangelists. You’re like, no, not me. Yes, we are, because evangelizing only means this: to announce, declare, tell or demonstrate good news. Just telling people good news. That’s what evangelists do. Anybody got any good news that’s ever happened to them? I’m not talking about any media, but if you’ve ever had good news, this is what we tell people. Maybe you’ve got stuff right now that you’re like, hey, there’s nothing but bad news in my life. We’ve got some good news somewhere. Even if we have to dig for it, it’s in there. And that’s what we got to tell people who tell them. Good News. Make sure you’re doing that. Inviting your three this week. Let them know who you are in God and what God has for them in store this weekend coming up.
We Mt Carmel Church all have the potential to be fire starters. We are initiators. We’re Mount Carmel Church igniters. Jennifer Bach talking about the human causes of fires. Said this. We almost forget it, but wherever people go, we bring fire with us. More than that, we bring fire with us. You know, cause its only human nature, right? We come and we want to see what happens first. Like, well, let’s just see what kind of service it is, let’s just see what the worship’s going to be like. Oh, I’ll see what church is going to be like. Like we’re Monday morning quarterbacks going to evaluate. Well, let’s see if the worship is really good. How about we determined on the front end It’s going to be good, because we’re bringing the fire with us. I’m not waiting to see if anybody else burns. I’m going to come burn. I’m not waiting to see how the service is going to be. I’m going to bring the service with me! This is what God says, about how we should live our lives. When you wake up every day, you wake up with a purpose and you don’t ask permission from your feelings. Say, can I be excited about God today? No, this is going wrong, that’s going wrong, that’s going wrong. Okay, I better tone it down. Hey, bring the fire everywhere you go. We bring it with us. You’re a Firestarter. You’re burning up on the inside. you’re like Chad Everett, I don’t feel like it, I know it doesn’t matter.
Here’s what we’re going to talk about it. I gave you the three ingredients or components, if you will, of a fire. We talked about it. A fire requires a heat source, requires oxygen, and it requires fuel. We found all of these in Matthew chapter three let’s look at it. Verse 11 says, and this is John the Baptist speaking here. 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, Jesus, who he’s talking about, 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, the junk, the impurities out of our life with unquenchable fire. So, notice what’s happening here. John the Baptist is Speaking of Jesus, he said, Jesus is going to baptize you. That word baptize means to immerse, to engulf, means to dip in completely, overwhelm you. When he’s talking about, I’m going to immerse you, I’m going to engulf you. I’m going to overtake you. Every part of you. You’re all going in. What parts He going to baptize in? He’s going to baptize in two things. The Holy Spirit and fire.
The first week we talked about the heat source. That’s the fire. Talk about the benefit of fire, light for direction and heat to add value. The Second Week, we talked about the fuel. Remember we talked about Moses and the burning Bush? If you weren’t here, you need to listen to that. Get on YouTube. Check that out. We learned how God wants us to be the bush, to allow God’s fire to burn in our lives so that other people will turn aside and look and see what God is doing in your life. I gave the most creative, incredible illustration of God speaking out of your Bush last week. You remember that? It took me hours to come up with this, but when we talked about how when we burned for God, the fire inside of us literally speaks to other people and this is what God wants to do.
So now, we talked about fire week one, we Mt Carmel Church talked about fuel week two and today we’re talking about the oxygen. We’re going to talk about what that means. If you look here, he says, I’m going to immerse you. He baptizes you in the Holy Spirit. That word means current of air. Holy Spirit is the word PNEUMA which means current of air, breath, wind, or spirit. Here’s the purpose of oxygen to transport and spread flames. Purpose of oxygen is to build a fire, to feed a fire, to transport and spread a fire. That’s what air does. It is what oxygen does, so let’s go over and see how that’s going to impact us. Go to Acts chapter one. Matthew three was just our launching point. We’re going to Acts chapter one, let’s see what the oxygen has to do with the fire in our life. I’m going to start reading in verse one of Acts, Chapter one. This is Luke, one of the disciples who wrote the book of Acts. Here’s what he says, the former account I made, oh Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which he was taken up, after through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom he had chosen, to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.
Just translating. Makes sure you understand. Jesus is just saying that he appeared to the disciples. You know, this is passion week, Today is Palm Sunday, Next week is Easter and so, we go celebrate this time. The season of Jesus’s walk on the earth, that after Jesus rose from the dead, he appeared to the disciples many times, it says, and he provided many infallible proofs or unmistakable proofs. So, after Jesus was resurrected from the dead, the Bible says in another place, that he appeared to over 500 people, after he was resurrected, over a 40-day period. So, Jesus died on the cross, rose from the dead, and then appeared alive, to his disciples and over 500 other people, over a 40-day period. This is what we’re talking about during that time after he resurrected, but before he ascended into heaven.
Here’s verse four and being assembled together with them. So, he’s hanging out with the disciples. He commanded them. How many know, when Jesus commands something, we need to pay attention. This is not, I suggested, you know, hey, if you think about it. Chad Everett, if you’ve got time, if you wouldn’t possibly mind, maybe? No, that’s not what he’s saying. He commanded them. That’s a strong language. He gave them orders, he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the father. He commanded them to wait in Jerusalem, don’t leave there, but to wait for the promise of the father, which you have heard from me. Now, what’s the promise? They’re waiting on a promise. And the promise is Luke 24 49, I’ll give you what the promises Jesus was speaking here. He says, behold, I send the promise of my father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you’re endued with power from on high. So, he told the disciples, hey, don’t leave Jerusalem. Don’t leave. Hang out. Stay here until you received the promise. What’s the promise? Luke tells us the promise, is going to come from the father and he’s going to endue us, with power. That word power is the Greek word, Dunamis, which means miraculous force or ability. So, we don’t use the word endue a lot. Hey, I endue you today with this, we don’t say that very often in our language. So, what does that mean? The basic definition of endue means to clothe, or put on, or another way they define this, is to submerge into, like you submerge yourself into a pair of pants. I’m just letting some Mount Carmel Church thoughts running around the track there.
So, you got you submerge it. It’s like you go into something, something comes on you, but you go into it. He says, I’m going to endue you, with power. I’m going to submerge you into power. That’s the promise. That’s what he’s saying, is coming. Wait for that. Wait for the promise. That’s what he’s telling them. Now, I want you to do some stuff, you remember he said go into all the world and preach the Gospel. Some of them got antsy and ready to go, but he said, I want you to wait. I want you to wait. Now, here’s what that word wait means, there in verse four. Wait for the promise. He says, it means to stay around, to endure, to remain in a place or state with expectancy, with expectancy concerning the future of it. Have any of you Mt Carmel Church ever waited for someone and you didn’t know whether they’re going to show? Have any of you ever been stood up before? It’s not a great feeling. Is it like, hey, I thought you were going to be there? Any of you ever waited for your spouse or your parents or a friend to pick you up? Anybody ever forgot to pick their kids up? I’ve heard about it happening.
Have any of you ever been, you’ve been supposed to go get someone and they send you a text or call you and say, Hey, where are you? And you say, I’m on my way. And you know you are not on your way. It’s like you weren’t even thinking about them, again, I’m not saying I’ve ever done that, but I’m just saying, I’ve heard examples of someone texting me or people texting someone else and say, Hey, where are you? And I text back. Omw yeah, I’m on my way, and I’m literally just leaving. So, this wait is waiting with expectancy. Not waiting like, they’re probably not showing, they’re probably not going to be here. They’ve left me so many times. I don’t know if they’ll ever come. it’s not that kind of wait.
Scriptural waiting, the word wait is like when your kids are waiting for someone to pick them up and they’re looking out the window, they’re constantly looking, they’ll stand at the front window, pull the curtains apart, and they’ll just look, just waiting for them. They’re waiting with expectancy. They’re looking for them to come. So, it depends on who’s picking them up. They may have to wait longer for some, then others, but they’re looking for them. They’re expecting, this is what He said. I want you to wait for the promise of the father. I want you to be expecting me. This is the way we’ve got to wait for God to work in our life. We got to wait expectantly. We’ve got to wait, knowing he’s going to do something. And you’re like, when God? when are you going to do something? you just wait, He’s going to do it. He’s coming. He’s going to show up. He’s going to do what he said he’s going to do. Just wait. Expectedly keep your head looking out the window.
So, he tells him, wait for the promise of the father. So, what are they waiting for? Look at verse five, for John truly Baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So, it will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So, this sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Sounds like for John the Baptist said in Matthew Chapter Three. So, John says that Jesus is going to baptize you with the Holy Spirit. Now, Jesus says, you’re going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. Not many days from now. I see a pattern. They said, you’re going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. So, verse six therefore, when they had come together, they asked him saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the Kingdom to Israel? He said to them, it’s not for you to know times and seasons, which the father has put, in his own authority. One of my least favorite scriptures in the Bible.
Have you ever felt like that? God’s answer to you is, it’s not for you to know. It’s like, God, I would like to know the times and seasons of when you’re going to come through for me. He says, Chad Everett, it’s not for you to know, just keep looking out the window for me. Look, it says in verse eight, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. Power, this is the same word, that force or miraculous power, when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, same thing engulfs you, clothes you, comes upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me. Now notice what he says. You’re going to have power to be witnesses. Now what does it mean to be a witness? Here’s what a witness literally is. It’s one who can testify to the truth of what someone has seen, heard or known. It’s just telling what you see heard or know. So, what are we supposed to be witnesses to? He says, I’m going to give you power to be witnesses, but what are we supposed to witness about? We’re supposed to witness about what we’ve seen heard and know.
so, I don’t know what you’ve seen, heard or know, but sometimes we get discouraged that we don’t know enough to tell people about God. But God’s not asking you to tell people about things you don’t know. He’s asking you to tell them what you do know. Sometimes we disqualify ourselves. Well, I just don’t know enough. We may not know everything, but we know something. He said, witness about what you know, what have you seen God do in your life? What have you heard God do in your life? What do you Mt Carmel Church know God’s done in your life? Here’s the way I try to encourage myself, sometimes I have circumstances in my life and it goes into one of two piles. It goes in a pile of what I know and understand and there’s a pile over here of what I don’t understand.
And so, when something happens and I don’t understand, I put it over here in this pile of what I don’t understand. I’m curious about it, it’s a mystery to me. I’m not sure why it didn’t happen. I’m not sure why it did happen. It goes in this pile and then when I get discouraged, I can’t allow the mystery pile to take away from what I know, in this pile. I know this is what God’s doing. I know, I’ve seen this time and time again. I’ve heard God do this before. I’ve seen this happen before. So, God, I’m going to take this mystery pile and give it to you and trust you, and I’m going to hold onto what I know, instead of what I don’t know. Sometimes we lead on what we don’t know, we get discouraged because of what we don’t know, it’s okay to have a pile of don’t knows, but don’t get connected to it.
I give it to God. It’s what I call my cares pile. My 1 Peter 5:7 pile, I cast all my cares on to you because you care for me. I want to cast these mystery piles onto you, God, and I’m going to cling to what I know about you, but when I’m discouraged, when I’m sad, when I don’t know where he’s going to come through, I don’t know what it’s going to happen. Here’s what I know. Well, what about this? I don’t know. What about that? I don’t know, but what do you know? Well, here’s what I know. That’s what we got to have, we’ve got to have those and this is what he’s telling you. You got it. Hang on to what you do know. I’m going to ask you just to tell what you know about.
Anybody here? I’ve never been to Niagara Falls, so you can testify about Niagara Falls. You can talk about what you’ve seen her to know. I can’t do that. I’ve never been there. God’s not going to ask you to test about, testify about something that you don’t know. This is why we can grow in what we’ve seen, heard, and know that God can do in our life. This is why we got to keep growing. Don’t get satisfied in your level of experience with God. Keep pressing for more, He wants to show you more. He wants you to see more, He wants you to hear more, He wants you to know more. Why? Because then you’ll be able to testify about more. If somebody wants to know about Niagara Falls, I got to call you, they can tell you I don’t know anything about it, but if I will go the next time somebody wants to talk about Niagara Falls, says, Hey, I know something about that place. I’ve been there.
That’s what God’s asking for us, to do, in our life. It says when somebody needs something, when they bring a life experience across your path, you’d say, Hey, I know some about that. I’ve seen that happen in my life, I’ve heard about that, God’s done this in my life, so this is why we need to be able to testify about what we’ve seen, heard and know. Who do we testify too? He tells us here. He says, I want you to be a witness to me in Jerusalem, in Judea. What does that represent? That’s just their fellow people, right around there, your family, friends, people close to you. You want to be witness in Samaria, Samaria was a neighboring country, so you’d be a witness to the people around you, your neighbors, and also to the end of the earth. That means wherever we come in contact, I brought up a map to give you an idea of what, geographically, we’re talking about. Right there, is your neighborhood, these are fellow Jews. It’s where the Jews were. Samaria represents people that compromise, these was the neighboring country, these are people that worshiped God and worshiped other gods too. So, they were kind of a mixed group. Then you’ve got to the ends of the earth. So, God saying, here’s who I want you to witness to. I want you to witness to those close to you, that think like you, talk like you, and act like you. I want you to witness to them. But I also want you to go people that don’t think like you, don’t act like you, and don’t talk like you. I want you to witness to them. And then, wherever you are, I want that fire of God to shine brightly for the world to see. You’re empowered to be witnesses, wherever you go.
So now look what happens. The disciples are waiting in the upper room, if you read on in this chapter, you find that there was as many as 120 of them in this upper room. So, the disciples are waiting for the promise. Jesus said, all right, you’re going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, go wait in Jerusalem, for the promise. All right so, the disciples are waiting. How many know the disciples have seen, heard, and know some things about Jesus. They walked with him for three and a half years. They’ve seen the dude, raise the dead. They’ve seen the lame walk, seen the deaf hear, seen the mute speak. They’ve seen all kinds of things happen, they knew some stuff, but they weren’t saying anything.
They weren’t talking, they weren’t out on the streets, preaching, they were hiding. John says that they were hiding, for fear of the Jews. In this case, they were more worried about what people thought about them, then they were, about what God said about them. Had they seen some things; did they know some things? Yes, but were they doing some things? No. What was the problem? What was wrong with the disciples? Hey, you walked with Jesus, you remember Lazarus? He walked out in grave clothes; he was dead four days! How many times have we ever thought that the children of Israel were crazy? See things like parting the Red Sea. I mean like, for real, water walls, dry ground. See the fish right there. Hey, what’s up? How you doing? What about the plagues? What’s up, Egypt? You don’t have any lights? We’ve got lights over here. They saw all those things and they still didn’t serve God. How could you see all those things and not serve God? How do we do it, Mt Carmel Church?
Before we Mt Carmel Church throw shade on the Israelites, we’ve got to realize, that God does stuff for us all the time and then, we want him to show us again. Do something else God, do something more, and this is what Jesus said. You people just want a sign. You don’t want a relationship. You want a dog and pony show. You want tricks! I want a relationship with your hearts. God prove yourself to me again. Hey God, I’ll really serve you this time, I will really serve you this time. If you’ll do this one thing, God. I mean we’ve got a laundry list of stuff that God’s done for us, and we want him to prove himself once again. We all do it, but this is what he’s telling us here. It says, listen, it’s not about that. So, they’re trying to figure out how long are we going to have to wait?
go over to Acts chapter two. So, they’re waiting for the promise, waiting for the promise. Now when the day of Pentecost had fully come, so how long were they waiting? I want to throw this in, how long were they waiting? Remember in chapter one it says that they saw Jesus over a 40-day period? Maybe you know this, maybe you don’t. Jesus, after he rose from the dead, he appeared to many people, over a 40-day period. He was alive walking around in the earth for 40 days, hanging out, cooking fish, doing whatever. So, Pentecost, the word Pente means 50, so now this is 50 days after Jesus died on the cross and this is when the day of Pentecost happened. We’re getting ready to have the day of Pentecost here in just a little bit. So somewhere in the neighborhood of at least 10 days after Jesus ascended into heaven, somewhere in that Mount Carmel Church neighborhood, you don’t know an exact time, but we know somewhere around there they’re waiting. They’re having to wait 10 days. So, Jesus tells them, hey, the promise of the father is coming, but I want you to wait for it. Okay, so what about 10 days? You know the disciples are in this upper room having this church service, waiting for the promise. You know the first day that they started that meeting, I bet they were fired up, I bet the praise and worship was so intense, I bet they were shouting the walls down. The promises come coming! Come on, God said, wait for him! We wait for the glory! Come on, endue us with power, Jesus! We wait for you! Come on! Whoa man! We can’t wait! Day One.
How many knows day three, maybe enthusiasm is starting to wane a little bit? Maybe Peter wasn’t preaching quite as intensely, as he was on day one. Maybe they weren’t quite as excited. They’re waiting. God, we still believe, God. We believe, we believe. We believe you’re coming. God, we’re waiting for the promise. How many know day five, day six, day seven, they started saying hey, can we just lay down and pray? Let’s just pray quietly among ourselves, lets everyone get a spot on the floor and lets just meditate. Yes, I just feel like God’s wanting us to be still before him and know that he is God. You know that the excitement wasn’t there by the last days. Maybe the band was getting tired of playing and they were getting a little worn out. Some people were starting to leave because it says he appeared to over 500 people and only 120, were still there.
So somewhere around 380 people said, I’ve got to get out of here. He’s not coming. But those that waited the full 10 days, something happened. The Bible says, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord, in one place, and suddenly. It didn’t say quickly- It said, suddenly! How many of you, has ever wished that God would work quickly? He doesn’t work quickly, He works suddenly. We feel like this, it’s never going to happen, nothing’s happening, and nothings changing, still the same, then suddenly a life changing event happens. Now, there may be 10 years in there, but he works suddenly so I want us to be encouraged. Keep looking out the window, because you don’t know when you’re suddenly moment’s coming. Be ready for your suddenly moment, be ready, and looking for God expectantly. We’ve waited expectedly so here’s what happens, they see him coming. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven. Alright now, I want you to see God’s fire triangle in this passage. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind. That word mighty, means violent, strong force, or energy. So here we’ve got the oxygen, sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind, a violent wind. Now we talked about this wind, this is not a wind like a breeze, Mt Carmel Church.
This is a violent wind. This is a sound, some said it was just a sound and It wasn’t an actual wind. I don’t know whether it was a wind, or if it was just a sound. I just know the Bible says it was a sound as of a rushing, mighty, wind. Maybe there was no air movement at all, but I believe, when the Holy Spirit comes up and because, the Holy Spirit means breath, wind, breeze, there’s something a moving in the air. So, here’s what happened. He says, it’s a sound. So, we got a sound of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them, showed up to them, they could see it, divided tongues as a fire. Now, if you’ve never heard this preached before, don’t get nervous because it says here just plain and simple and I like to describe what it’s talking about because I want to put ourselves in the room. How many liked to have been in the upper room that day? Not everybody obviously, but some people would like to have been in the room, what appeared to them as divided tongues of are. Now the word divided just means to like to distribute individually, so divided mean like fork, tongue like a snake. That’s not what we’re talking about. Don’t get to talking about snakes in church, people get weird. Divided just means each one got a portion like I’m going to divide this up, amongst friends. Now the word tongues, is a Greek word glossa. Now this word is used three different ways in scripture.
Glossa can be described as the physical tongue, in your mouth. It also can be used to describe a language, like speaking a foreign or native tongue. The third way it can be used, is to describe the tongues of fire, like literally a flame of fire. how we say, the flames were licking up of the part of a flame is called like a tongue. What’s amazing, is that all three of these ways are used in this one passage because we have the flames of fire present, we have people speaking in another tongue, and it’s actually touching their tongues. So, we’ve got the mighty wind and we’ve got fire. We’ve got oxygen, we’ve got a heat source, and one set upon how many of them? Each of them, Mount Carmel Church. So, that’s the fuel. The Holy Spirit came and set upon each of them. Now here’s the way I like to picture it. That the flame of fire, the divided tongues, were flames of fire set upon each of them. Here’s how I imagine it. I don’t know that this is the way it went. I just like to try and figure it out myself. Here’s why I believe the fire of God, remember the Bible said it appeared to them, so they could see it. It became visible. It’s what that word means. So, I believe that the flame of fire set upon each of them. I could see yours but I could not see mine.
It’s like is on top of your head. You look around. I couldn’t see it but I could see yours, but I can’t see mine. Why is that significant? Because I think in our life too many times, we’re looking at what other people have and we’re not believing what we have because we can’t see if there’s an act of faith to believe that the fire is on me. I see it on you, but how do I know what’s on me? I got to believe that there are other people can see it in me, other people can point it out to me and say, Chad Everett I see God’s fire on you, but I don’t see it myself, I don’t feel nothing. It doesn’t matter whether you feel it, you’ve got to believe it. And this is what happened; The fire was on each of them, it wasn’t leaving anybody out. Everybody in the room got their own individual touch from God. So, it set upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. So again, scriptural support, where they all filled with the Holy Spirit? Yes, and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance or told them what to say. Now, I’m not going to specifically speak on tongues today as far as the fullness of the topic, but I want you to see what’s present in this passage. So fire is present along with the sound of a rushing, violent, mighty wind. I wrote this down. I don’t want to miss the glory of God because I’m afraid of the presentation of God.
Notice they’re in the room, and they wanted the glory of God. They wanted the presence of God, but he came in a rushing, mighty, wind, a violent situation. A violent expression. We’ve got to be careful that we don’t tell God how we want him to move in our life.
Too many times, Mt Carmel Church we’re okay with God moving in our life, as long as it looks like this, but what if God wants to do more? Well, I’m not comfortable with that. Hey, where is he? He’s saying, listen, I want to move in your life and sometimes it may not be exactly how you pictured it. When the glory of God came on the mountain for the children of Israel at Mount Sinai, fire, thundering, and lightning came down on the mountain and God speaks from the mountain. He said, Moses, tell the people to come here. I want to speak to all of them, and they saw the fire and the lightning and the sounds and they looked up and they were afraid. They said, Moses, you talk to God and we’ll just talk to you, and they rejected the presence of God, because it scared them. Let’s not miss out on the glory of God because we’re afraid of the presentation of God. We were like, oh, well that, that’s just too wild for me. What we can trust Jesus. Maybe you don’t trust me, but you can trust what God wants to do in your life. If he wants to baptize you in the Holy Spirit, you need to trust. It’s a good thing he wants to do for you. He’s not going to scare you. He’s going to do good by you. So, let me clarify this, this was not a Pentecostal or charismatic church experience. This is a Bible experience. There was no Pentecostal or charismatic church. This is the beginning of the church and there was no denomination there. This is not limited to certain denominations. It’s just in the Bible, it was for everyone. The Bible says the promises are to whosoever, to your children and your children’s children, whoever would call upon the name of the Lord. So, this was not an experience that’s limited to certain people. It’s fore told by John the Baptist and by Jesus. Bam! Here it is, Mount Carmel Church. The full impact of an experience with God can’t be determined by the immediate response. What did they do, as soon as they were filled, in the scripture, in your Bible, they’re all filled with the holy spirit and began to speak in other tongues. Now, whether we understand it all or not, we cannot deny that it’s there. It’s in the bible. We can’t ignore it. We can’t look away; we can’t pretend it’s not there. I don’t see it. I don’t see it. I don’t see it. It’s there. Why are we scared of what the Bible says? So, he says, it’s there. So, they began to speak with other tongues. So, what did God touch first 20 filled them with the Holy Spirit. He touched their tongue.
Now I’m all for speaking in tongues and I’d love to teach about, I’ve got CDs on it, you can go on YouTube, I do a lot of teaching about the value of speaking in tongues and what God has for every believer. I like what Paul said. Paul said in First Corinthians said, I wish, that you all spoke in tongues. I speak in tongues more than you all, but he said, you in church, I would rather speak a few words with understanding than then a bunch of words in a tongue, but he said, here’s my conclusion. I’m going to pray in the spirit, in tongues, and I’m going to pray a little in understanding, in the natural. I’m going to sing in the spirit and I’m going to sing with understanding. I’m going to do both. So, here’s what I see in this scripture, that the first thing that was impacted by their encounter with God was there tongue.
why is that? It doesn’t say, and they’re all filled with the Holy Spirit and started rolling on the floor. It doesn’t say they’re all filled with the holy spirit started shaking violently. Maybe they did. It just doesn’t say it. That doesn’t say they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, started doing cartwheels all around the room. For some reason, the first thing that was impacted was their tongue. Why is that? I’m glad you ask, because here’s what I believe. God doesn’t just want to touch our tongues spiritually. He wants to touch our tongues naturally because something happened to the disciples who had kept quiet up till this point, but something happened after they left the room. Their tongue changed. Peter walks out of that room and starts preaching to all of these people and telling them how Jesus is the Christ, the son of the living God, and 3000 people get born again. This is a same Peter that was hiding, denying, even knows Jesus and hiding in the upper room. Something happened when the Holy Spirit come upon him and touched his tongue. He didn’t just speak some foreign language. He declared something out of his mouth. This is why we can’t just think about God touching our tongue spiritually, because if all I want is him to touch me spiritually, and I can speak in some tongues, but I will not tell my neighbor how much Jesus loves them, then my spiritual tongue is wasted.
He wants to touch your tongue in the natural as well as the spiritual, so we can’t just have spiritual bless me services where I want to speak in tongues, but then I won’t witness to anybody about the goodness of God. Okay? Okay, so what happened? What happened to these disciples? What changed them? I’ve got to read this to you. Stay with me for just a moment if you would, because something happens here in the naturally that changes these Mount Carmel Church disciples, that I believe God wants to do here today. Here’s the impact of oxygen has on fire. Fire needs oxygen to burn, just in the natural. When Fuel burns, it reacts with oxygen from the surrounding air through a process known as oxidation. You’re like, I don’t care. Hang on, you will. So, fire needs oxygen, creates oxidation. All fuels have what’s called stored energy.
Check this out, whether it’s paper, gunpowder, or gasoline. Everything has in it a certain amount of stored energy. It’s waiting. It’s inside, but this energy cannot normally be released because it requires something called activation energy. Gasoline in itself has stored up energy, but that energy in gasoline cannot be released without activation energy. I’m going to bring this home to you, I’ll show you what I’m talking about. most combustible materials need to be heated or lit to give them enough energy to react with oxygen to start a fire. But now the earth’s atmosphere doesn’t have a lot of oxygen. It’s only 21% oxygen in the air that we breathe, most of its nitrogen, but if you will increase the percentage of oxygen, then it will burn with more intensity. This is why, if you have pure oxygen, some of you have been around breathing tanks, they have that flammable sticker on them. if you’re around pure oxygen, it’s highly flammable, to the point of combustion, that if you get a flame around pure oxygen, it will explode.
So, here’s what God showed me. The fire and the oxygen of the Holy Spirit in the upper room were the activation energy that turned the disciples stored energy, into a blazing fire that the disciples were in the upper room and they had all this stored energy on the inside of them that they had seen, heard, and knew some things that had this in there, but something about when the oxygen, the wind of the Holy Spirit and the fire of the Holy Spirit came on them and the oxygen level went from 21% in the room to 100% combustion happens. This is why when we’re not burning for God like we’re supposed to; we need to check the percentage of the Holy Spirit in our life.
When we Mt Carmel Church have too much percentage of other junk in our life, we’re not getting a pure burn, but when we’ll increase the percentage of the Holy Spirit in our life, that same fire, that only burned a little bit, will burn with more intensity and has the capability of exploding, and this is what happened with the disciples. They’re in the room, they burning a little bit, they’ve seen some things. They’re worshiping, but then, the wind and the fire came all sudden the presence of God in the room, The Holy Spirit in the room, became a higher level and now it lit that fire on the inside of them and it activated what was dormant.
Here’s what Psalm says, I’ll close with this scripture. The psalmist writes, in the passion translation. You make your Mt Carmel Church messengers into winds of the spirit and your ministers become flames of fire. Flames of fire. Sometimes we realize we got flames of fire on the inside of us, but we don’t know how to let them out. Your friends need it. Your family needs you. Your coworkers need it. We got to let it out. You’ve got to tell them, let the Holy Spirit touched your mouth. Let him touch your tongue so you can speak and declare the goodness of God. Let him speak up. Speak it over your family members, all you’re over your spouses, over your children. God say, Hey, I want to touch your mouth. I want to bring to you a flaming inferno, the stored energy that’s on the inside of you.