Tongue of Fire

Do you really know the power from on High, or is it a show that is put on during the Sunday service.

Do you know the power of the Spirit during your weekday, driving your car, at home by yourself. Do you really seek the Lord with all your might. Has the Power of God been so strong that you ask God to quit pouring out His Spirit upon you because you think that your about to burst wide open with His Glory and unspeakable Love. Is it sometimes hard to speak to people after Church because His power is still upon you. Well if this is you Praise God!!! But if it is not you, nor never has been, let us change this.

The 120 in that fateful upper room waited for the promise 10 days after seeing Jesus during the 40 days after His Death and Resurrection. 10 days of seeking and prayer for the promise of the baptism of fire spoken of by John the Baptist. 

 

The True Power of Christianity

By William Arthur, a few clips

Waiting on the Power of the Promise

10 days

Friday it wears away, and no "baptism of fire!" The Saturday sets in: its hours are

filled up as before with prayer; but no answer. And now dawns the first day of the week, the day

whereon he rose, the first Lord's day he had passed on his throne of glory. How did they spend that day? Surely they would fully expect that the blessing they sought would be delayed no longer. He said: "Not many days." This was the fourth day; it must come today! But the evening steals on, and all their prayers might have risen into a heaven that could not hear. Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday pass. Their faith does not fail; still in the temple "praising and blessing God," or in the upper room in a prayer and supplication," they continue of one accord. Though he tarry, yet will they wait for Him.

Just Me

Waiting - Who waits anymore for anything… I waited for a year for this Baptism of the Holy Spirit. I sought, I fought, I Prayed, When I was at home, I would lock myself in my room and dig into His Word. Some Preachers would just say speak it,(Tongues) but I rejected that. I wanted to know the Power of God that I read about in the book of Acts. The Rivers of Living Water flowing from within,(John 7:38) the power that burst the old wineskin,(Mark 2:22) to have your face shine as in the likeness of Moses coming from the mountain. (Exodus 34:29-35)

It finally happened and oh boy did it happen. I was at home, alone reading His Word Out Loud, when the power started to rise up within me and was getting stronger and stronger. I could not hold it back, it burst out like a mighty river. Yes I did speak in tongues I could not help it if I tried, it was too powerful. The power was so strong, that I begged God to Please Stop, at the time it was just to much for me. It was just like what Mark said, if I was an old wineskin I would have split wide open. Wow His Glory and Love is so unspeakable, that is why you will speak in tongues because we cannot put into words the glory that flows from His Throne...

Waiting

This is waiting. Some speak of waiting for salvation as if it meant making ourselves at ease, and dismissing both effort and anxiety. Who so waits for any person or any event? When waiting, your mind is set on a certain point; you can give yourself to nothing else. You are looking forward, and preparing: every moment of delay increases the sensitiveness of your mind as to that one thing. A servant waiting for his master, a wife waiting for the footstep of her husband, a mother waiting for her expected boy, a merchant waiting for his richly laden ship, a sailor waiting for the sight of land, a monarch waiting for tidings of the battle -- all these are cases wherein the mind is set on one object, and cannot easily give attention to another.

Jesus is Lord

The Lord has died that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations. He has finished the work, risen from the dead, and led captivity captive. The heavens have received him. The angels proclaim him. Us he took from our homes. How he taught and trained and practiced us -- all, as we now see, for this work of proclaiming his love and the pardon it brings to all mankind! Here we are, unfitted for every other calling.

Delay?

'Tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high'? We have tarried ten days. Why does our Master delay? The world needs the sound of his gospel; we are waiting to bear it forth. He is exalted at God's right hand, and all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth; yet does he look down upon the world sleeping a sleep unto death, and upon us waiting to blow the trumpet! Is not his instruction, his commission, enough? We are ordained, after much teaching: may we not go? No; we must abide by his word: 'Tarry until ye be endued with power from on high.' "

We Don't Know

We know not how long they had that morning urged their prayer, nor whose voice was then crying to Him who had promised, nor what word of the Master he was pleading, nor what feelings of closer expectation and more vivid faith were warming the breasts of the disciples.

Sound of Wind

But "suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind." Not, mark you, a wind; no gale sweeping over the city struck the sides of the house, and rustled round it. But "from heaven" directly downward fell "a sound," without shape or step or movement to account for it -- a sound as if a mighty wind were rushing, not along the ground, but straight from on high, like showers in a dead calm. Yet no wind stirred. As to motion, the air of the room was still as death; as to sound, it was awful as a hurricane. Mysterious sound, whence comest thou? Is it the Lord again breathing upon them, but this time from his throne? Is it the wind of Ezekiel preparing to blow? Shaken by this supernatural sign, we may see each head bow low.

Tongue of Fire

Then, timidly turning upward, John sees Peter's head crowned with fire; Peter sees James crowned with fire; James sees Nathaniel crowned with fire; Nathaniel sees Mary crowned with fire; and round and round the fire sits "on each of them." The Lord has been mindful of his promise. The word of the Lord is tried. John was a faithful witness. Jesus was a faithful Redeemer. He is now glorified; for the Holy Ghost is given. Jesus "being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this."

Burst with Joy

They only who have felt such unearthly joy need attempt to conceive the outburst of that burning moment. Body, soul, and spirit, glowing with one celestial fire, would blend and pour out their powers in a rapturous "Glory be to God!" or "Blessed be the Lord God!" Modern believers -- not those who never unite in simple and fervent supplications to the throne of grace, but those who meet and urge with long-repeated entreaty their requests to God can recall times which help them to imagine what must have been the peal of praise that burst from the hearts of the hundred and twenty, when the baptism fell upon their souls; times when they and their friends have felt as if the place where they met was filled with the glory of the Lord.

Cloven Tongues

The fire is not a shapeless flame. It is not Abram's lamp, nor the pillar of the desert, nor the coal of Isaiah, nor the enfolding flame of Ezekiel. It is a tongue; yea, cloven tongues. On each brow glows a sheet of flame, parted into many tongues. Here was the symbol of the new dispensation. Christianity was to be a Tongue of Fire. It was a symbol of their "power"; the power whereby the new kingdom was to be built up; the power for which they had so long to tarry, and so eagerly to pray, when all other things were prepared; for which the whole arrangement for the world's conversion was commanded to stand still. The appearance of this one symbol was the signal that former ones had waxed old, and were ready to vanish away.

Power of the Tongue

In strict keeping with this spiritual stamp of Christianity was the symbol which, once for all, announced to the Church the advent of her conquering power; the power by which she was to stand before kings, to confound synagogues, to silence councils, to still mobs, to confront the learned, to illuminate the senseless, and to inflame the cold; the power by which, beginning at Jerusalem, where the name of Jesus was a byword, she was to proclaim his glory through all Judea, throughout Samaria, and throughout the uttermost parts of the earth. The symbol is a tongue, the only instrument of the grandest war ever waged: a tongue -- man's speech to his fellowman; a message in human words to human faculties, from the understanding to the understanding, from the heart to the heart. A tongue of fire -- man's voice, God's truth; man's speech, the Holy Spirit's inspiration; a human organ, a superhuman power. Not one tongue, but cloven tongues. As the speech of men is various, here we see the Creator taking to himself the language of every man's mother; so that in the very words wherein he heard her say, "I love thee," he might also hear the Father of all say, "I love thee."

Bless the Lord

Blessed be the hour when that tongue of fire descended from the Giver of speech into a cold world! Had it never come, my mother might have led me, when a child, to see slaughter for worship, and I should have taught my little ones that stones were gods. "Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things! And blessed be his glorious name forever; and let the whole earth be filled with his glory. Amen and Amen!"