Anointing

John Piper provides the following helpful illustration of the Holy Spirit before and after Pentecost:

Picture a huge dam for hydroelectric power under construction, like the Aswan High Dam on the Nile, 375 feet high and 11,000 feet across. Egypt's President Nasser announced the plan for construction in 1953. The dam was completed in 1970 and in 1971 there was a grand dedication ceremony and the 12 turbines with their ten billion kilowatt-hour capacity were unleashed with enough power to light every city in Egypt. During the long period of construction the Nile River wasn't completely stopped. Even as the reservoir was filling, part of the river was allowed to flow past. The country folk downstream depended on it. They drank it, they washed in it, it watered their crops and turned their mill-wheels. They sailed on it in the moonlight and wrote songs about it. It was their life. But on the day when the reservoir poured through the turbines a power was unleashed that spread far beyond the few folk down river and brought possibilities they had only dreamed of.

Well, Pentecost is like the dedicatory opening of the Aswan High Dam. Before Pentecost the river of God's Spirit blessed the people of Israel and was their very life. But after Pentecost the power of the Spirit spread out to light the whole world. None of the benefits enjoyed in the pre-Pentecostal days were taken away. But ten billion kilowatts were added to enable the church to take the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ to every tongue and tribe and nation.

What would it feel like to catch a 40-foot wave and ride it into shore? During a competition at surfing hot spot Maverick's, about 22-miles from San Francisco, a Sports Illustrated story described the incredible rides of a surfer named Darryl [the] "Flea" Virostko:

For his first wave, a 40-footer, he made a beautiful drop, essentially skiing down the face of the wave. The breaking wave exploded in a huge whitewash and Virostko raced ahead of it to safety … On his second ride, Virostko did something few surfers in the world can do. Rather than ski down the face of the 35-foot wave, he used his feet to point the nose of the board straight up and went free-falling … He positioned himself to catch the oncoming barrel and rode inside it. When he emerged from the tube, he surfed the wave to its terminus … On his third wave, Virostko … took off right at the peak of a 40-footer, made a graceful drop and rode it serenely. His [whole body] looked utterly relaxed though he was being chased by a wave big enough to kill.

Imagine sitting on a little board and having a forty-foot wall of water roaring at you and then deciding to stand up on that little board. I don't think anyone who surfs at Maverick's comes away thinking, "That was boring. Maybe tonight I can do something exciting like watch TV!"

A revival is a lot like catching a wave. At different times in history, God has built a wave for the church to ride. We can't manufacture a wave on our own efforts, but we can experience the thrill of getting on our boards and riding it in. That's why surfers use a phrase that also applies to Christians—"If it swells, ride it!" Like Virostko, we can be "utterly relaxed" while we're "being chased by a wave big enough to kill."

Charles R. Swindoll writes in “Embraced By the Spirit”:

By the time I graduated from [seminary], I had many convictions and few questions, especially regarding the Holy Spirit …. But during a lifetime of ministry that has taken me around the United States and to many countries abroad, I have found that the work of the Holy Spirit continually keeps me off balance. I'm not alone in that. Those in church leadership seem afraid the Spirit is going to do something we can't explain. I've found that disturbs many folks … but I'll admit it energizes me.

I've come to realize there are dimensions of the Spirit's ministry I have never tapped and places in this study about which I know very little. I'm on a strong learning curve. I have witnessed a dynamic power in his presence that I long to know more of firsthand. I now have questions and a strong interest in many of the things of the Spirit I once felt were settled. To say it plainly, I am hungry for more of him. I long to know God more deeply and more intimately.

Anglican priest and author Michael Green shares the following story to remind us of the impact of our actions long before our words:

I read about a missionary candidate in language school. The very first day of class the teacher entered the room and, without saying a word, walked down every row of students. Finally, still without saying a word, she walked out of the room again. Then she came back and addressed the class. "Did you notice anything special about me?" she asked.

Nobody could think of anything in particular. One student finally raised her hand. "I noticed that you had on a very lovely perfume," she said. The class chuckled.

But the teacher said, "That was exactly the point. [It] will be a long time before any of you will be able to speak Chinese well enough to share the gospel with anyone in China. But even before you are able to do that, you can minister the sweet fragrance of Christ to these people by the quality of your lives."

Pastor Mike Breaux tells the following story of when his daughter Jodie answered God's call to go into missions work:

During her junior year of high school, Jodie struggled to find a faith of her own. She wanted to know in her heart that all of what she'd been taught to believe was true and that Jesus Christ was real. Honestly, she was headed down a dark road. But God pursued her down that road. She eventually found a faith of her own, and when she graduated from high school, she said, "I don't think God wants me to go to college right now. I want to take a year to go to Haiti, and I want to serve people in a medical mission down there."

I said, "Are you sure you want to do this? Jodie, it's 3,000 miles away from home. It's AIDS-infested and the poorest country in the western hemisphere. And do you know it's controlled by the voodoo religion?"

"I know all that," she said. "But I feel like God wants me to go and help those people."

I said, "Okay. If that's what you want to do, we'll make it happen."

One of the hardest days of my life was putting my little girl on an airplane and watching it lift off, not knowing whether I'd ever communicate with her again.

One night I got an e-mail from Jodie. She wrote: "Dad, tonight has been the most remarkable night of my life. I got called out to this hut to deliver a baby. Dad, I've only delivered one, and that was with somebody. I'd never done this by myself, but I was the only one around. They called me, and I get to this hut, and there's this naked, screaming lady on the dirt floor. I got a flashlight, and I'm thinking, Here I am, 18-years-old, and I'm in a hut in a third-world country with a naked, screaming, pregnant lady. I have a flashlight, and I don't know what I'm doing—but I'm here. To make matters worse, this lady from the voodoo religion walked into the hut, dressed in her red and blue voodoo garb, and began to chant some voodoo incantation in Creole. She put some kind of oil on the lady's head, and when she started to walk away from me and the woman, she stopped at the woman's belly, put some other kind of saave there, and walked the opposite direction—all while chanting this Creole spell. I didn't know what to do. She stood at the head of this woman and stared a hole through me. When I was getting ready to deliver this baby, I just looked back at her, and I started singing. I knew she didn't understand English, but I just started singing: 'Our God is an awesome God, he reigns from heaven above, with wisdom, power, and love, our God is an awesome God.'"

Jodie said that the voodoo lady became completely unglued. She grabbed all of her stuff and ran out of the hut. Jodie wrote, "That night I knew that that baby was going to be born with the blessing of God and not the curse of Satan."

As I read Jodie's e-mail, my fatherly side thought, You get on a plane tomorrow! What are you doing in a hut with a voodoo woman in the first place? But then my heart beat so fast for her as her brother in Christ. I thought, Way to go, Jodie! Way to make a difference with your life! Way to stop floating around accidental-like! Way to put your life in the hands of the destiny-maker! Way to make a splash! Who knows who that little baby she delivered that night is going to grow up to touch and who that person is going to touch—all because of one courageous girl who said, "Okay, God, I want to put my life in your hands; I want to make a difference."

In Mark 8:35 Jesus said: If you insist on saving your life—[if you insist on the comfort of playing it safe]—you're going to lose your opportunity for life! Only those who give away their lives for my sake and for the sake of the Good News will ever know what it really means to really, really live.

Ray is about the trials, challenges, successes, and addictions of the late pianist, singer, and composer Ray Charles. The film shows how Ray compensated for his blindness by learning to hear what others couldn't.

As a blind 10-year-old, Ray enters his home and accidentally trips on the side of a rocking chair. He falls, yells out in pain, and calls out to his mother for help. His mother steps forward, stops, hesitates, and takes a step back. Ray, lying on a rug on the floor, continues to cry for his mother's help.

His mother silently goes back to her work. Ray hears men chattering and a hen clucking. He stops crying, looks around him, and slowly gets up. He hears more people talking, a cow mooing, and metal clanking. He looks into the direction of a kettle of boiling water.

Stretching out his arms, he walks toward a crackling fireplace and feels its heat, pulling back a hand because it is too close. His mother continues to look on, concerned with his every move. Ray listens intently as a horse and carriage go by.

He then hears a cheeping grasshopper close by and walks toward it. He bends down and, fumbling a bit, encloses his hand on the grasshopper. Smiling, he picks it up and puts it to his ear. His mother is taken aback and gives a low gasp.

Ray says, "I hear you, Mama. You're right there."

His mother now has tears streaming down her face. She tells him, "Yes, yes, I am." She kneels in front of him and gives him a hug.

In a similar way, Christians need to learn to "see" and discern the realities of the spiritual world.

Elapsed Time: 01:09:27 to 01:12:02 (DVD scene 13)

Content: Rated PG-13 for depictions of drug addiction and sexuality

[Jonathan] Edwards first encountered God in an intensely experiential way while reading 1 Timothy 1:17: "Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honor and glory for ever and ever." He was overcome with "a sense of the glory of the Divine Being; a new sense, quite different from anything I ever experienced before."

The only language that seemed adequate, as he later recorded in his Personal Narrative (c. 1739), was that of ecstasy: "I thought with myself, how happy I should be, if I might enjoy that God, and be wrapped up to God in heaven, and be as it were swallowed up in him." Deeply moved, Edwards retreated to "a solitary place" outdoors where, under a broad sky, he was again transfixed by "a sweet sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I know not how to express."

The Narrative is suffused with the same vividly empirical vocabulary of sense experience that marks his published works on revival. Edwards wrote it out of a keen, Enlightenment-influenced interest in the psychology of the self. He included not only himself but also his wife, Sarah —always his paragon of true piety. He treated their experiences as models of the way God transforms the Christian's soul: not simply by providing new knowledge, but also by infusing a "new spiritual sense," enthralling the heart and mind. After conversion, what was most real to the self was spiritual reality, created and sustained by God.

Edwards met this new reality most powerfully in Scripture, where he gained his new perception of divine things, —especially the beauty (or "excellency") of God.

"I seemed often to see so much light, exhibited by every sentence, and such a refreshing ravishing food communicated," wrote Edwards, "that I could not get along in reading." So he often lingered "long on one sentence, to see the wonders contained in it; and yet almost every sentence seemed to be full of wonders."

Edwards's Narrative follows the pattern of the classic Puritan conversion narrative. It moves from despair and humiliation to exaltation and a state of grace. As he made clear in other writings, however, Edwards rejected the Puritan notion that conversion would always follow a predictable pattern. God's sovereign and saving ways, believed Edwards, could not be so confidently calculated. God's was, as Edwards later said of the Northampton revivals, a "surprising work."