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God’s Character & Covenant (Christ Church)
Christ Church on June 19, 2025
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The Spirit of Wind & Fire | Pentecost Sunday (Christ Church)

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INTRODUCTION

As we celebrate the Pentecostal gift of the Spirit to the church, which is how God created the church in its new covenant form, we should make a point to pay close attention to the way His arrival is described. And that means paying thinking carefully about the wind and to the fire. At that glorious day of Pentecost, the wind was heard and the fire was seen.

THE TEXT

“I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire” (Matthew 3:11).

“John answered, saying unto them all, I indeed baptize you with water; but one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose: he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire” (Luke 3:16).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In these two passages, John the Baptist says basically the same thing, but we should still take note of the differences. In response to inquiries about whether or not he was the Christ, John replied that his baptism with water was nothing compared to the one who was coming. The coming one would baptize with the Holy Spirit and with fire. In Matthew, John says that his water is “unto repentance,” and that he was not worthy to carry the coming one’s shoes. In Luke, he says that he was not worthy to undo the latchet of the coming one’s shoes. Because we are told that everyone was abuzz with the question about whether John was the Christ (Luke 3:15), there is no reason to assume that these are different renderings of the same quotation. John was no doubt asked the same question more than one time, and the gist of his answers was always consistent.

THE FEAST OF WEEKS

In the Old Testament, this festival was called the Feast of Weeks (Lev. 23:15; Deut. 16:9). The Greek name for it was Pentecost, from a word meaning fifty. The festival was calculated as landing fifty days after the wave offering that was lifted up at Passover. The celebration was over the conclusion of the grain harvest—it was a harvest festival, which God marked by bringing in a harvest of three thousand souls.

This fulfillment was inaugurated on the day of Pentecost when the disciples were all gathered in “one place” (Acts 2:1). The chances are good that this was the same place in which the Last Supper was held, which means that we have a “type scene” in which the conclusion of the Lord’s earthly ministry and the beginning of His Spirit-inspired ministry are bookended. “THE former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach . . . ” (Acts 1:1).

A MIGHTY RUSHING WIND

When the Spirit was poured out, the first thing we are told about it is that it sounded like a “rushing mighty wind” (Acts 1:2). Remember that the Greek word for Spirit (as in, the Holy Spirit) is the same word as the word for breath or wind. The Holy Spirit could be called, without irreverence, the Holy Wind. The sound was “from heaven” and it says the sound filled the house where they were sitting. This is what the Spirit loves to do—He loves to fill. The room was filled, and then the people in it were filled (Acts 2:4). Notice that this was the sound of such a wind—it is not that the furniture was blowing about.

It was a mighty wind that brought the plague of locusts to Egypt (Ex. 10:13). The enemies of God were driven like dust before the wind (Ps. 18:42). The Lord’s wind will unite the ancient nations (Is. 11:15). But the image of wind refers to more than just power—it means life in the Old Testament (Job 12:10), and the Spirit of life in the New (John 3:8).

We are told not to be drunk with wine, but rather to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). But it was this filling that made people wonder whether or not they were drunk (Acts 2:13).

THE PRESENCE OF THE GOD OF FIRE

The sound of wind came, but the appearance of that of cloven tongues of fire, resting on the heads of the disciples. Think of each of them as an altar, and the fire of sacrifice burning on the top of the altar.

The Lord appeared to Moses in a flame (Ex. 3:2). The Lord was a pillar of fire for the Israelites (Ex. 13:21-22). The glory of the Lord was a “devouring fire” on Sinai in the sight of all Israel (Ex. 24:17). The fire of God comes in judgment. “And the light of Israel shall be for a fire, and his Holy One for a flame: And it shall burn and devour his thorns and his briers in one day” (Isaiah 10:17). “For our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29).

Fire also communicates holiness. “A fire goeth before him, and burneth up his enemies round about” (Psalm 97:3). It is a holiness that cleanses. “But who may abide the day of his coming? And who shall stand when he appeareth? For he is like a refiner’s fire, and like fullers’ soap” (Mal. 3:2). We should want to receive the gold of God, the kind refined in fire (Rev. 3:18).

NOT MESSING AROUND

The prophet Amos declared “woe to them that are at ease in Zion” (Amos 6:1). Having been given the gift of this wind and this fire—meaning that we have been given the gift of a Person who is like

this—we need to take care to keep in step with the Spirit. We are told to keep in step with the Spirit . . . “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit” (Gal. 5:25, ESV). But what does this mean? At a minimum, it means wind and fire.

“Who gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Titus 2:14).

“As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent” (Revelation 3:19).

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Ship and Tabernacle (Christ Church)

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INTRODUCTION

Isaiah prophesied from around 740 to 687 B.C. during the reign of four kings: Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Ahaz was a wicked king who locked up the doors of the temple in Jerusalem, burned his sons in fire, cut the vessels of the temple to pieces, and made Judah a vassal state of the Assyrian king Tiglath-pileser by paying him for protection (2 Kings 16:8, 10). Ahaz’s son, Hezekiah, came to the throne at twenty-five years old and called for a recovery of the Passover festival in Jerusalem. That assembly of joy was so grand the like had not been seen since the days of David and Solomon (2 Chronicles 30:26). But the Assyrian threat was looming. They took Samaria in the sixth year of Hezekiah’s reign. And by the fourteenth year of his rule, the Assyrian king Sennacherib had come against Judah and Jerusalem.

THE TEXT

“Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities: thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken. But there the glorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams; wherein shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby. For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us. Thy tacklings are loosed; they could not well strengthen their mast, they could not spread the sail: then is the prey of a great spoil divided; the lame take the prey. And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity”(Isaiah 33:20-24).

SURVEY OF THE TEXT

In the face of the Assyrian threat, Judah must look upon Zion, the city of their festivals. It will be a place of peace, a tabernacle that will not be folded up. Not a single tabernacle peg will be removed; and unlike the cords on the Assyrian war ships, not one of her cords will be snapped (v. 20). The tabernacle of Zion will remain because the LORD Himself will supply it with streams of water that no Assyrian oars will touch (v. 21). The LORD, Judah’s Savior-King, will not permit their ships to come upon His holy habitation (v. 22). Their cords will forsake them, not supporting their mast. Their sail will not be spread to catch the wind. And the result will be that the predator becomes prey The lame inhabitants of Zion will plunder them (v. 23). Those inhabitants will not say that they are weak because their sin is forgiven (v. 24).

A PLACE OF STREAMS AND FESTIVALS 

Jerusalem was a festival city, a place of bread, meat, and drink. And this meat and drink was the very thing Sennacherib threatened to cut off, “Thus saith Sennacherib king of Assyria, ‘Whereon do ye trust, that ye abide in the siege in Jerusalem? Doth not Hezekiah persuade you to give over yourselves to die by famine and by thirst’” (2 Chronicles 32:10-11)?

But these threats fall flat when God feeds His people with bread from heaven, when He satisfies their thirst with water from a Rock. Isaiah’s prophecy was not only that the LORD would give them rivers, but that the LORD would be unto them a place of rivers (v. 21). Sennacherib laid siege, but he could not get to the Rock from which the water flowed. The Gihon Spring has its source in the City of David. Water still flows out of the rock that is Zion.

STAKES AND CORDS

The stakes and cords of the tabernacle speak to its stability, contrasted with the faulty tacklings of the Assyrian ships. The same Hebrew word [hevel] lies behind the tabernacle’s “chord” in verse 20 and the ship’s “tacklings” in verse 23. Not one of the tabernacle’s hevel will fail but the Assyrians’ hevel will forsake them.

The tabernacle cords tied down the different parts of the tabernacle to the stakes. These cords are a reminder of feminine glory, which has a way of holding things together. It was the wise-hearted women who wove the cords of the tabernacle, “And all the women that were wise hearted did spin with their hands, and brought that which they had spun, both of blue, and of purple, and of scarlet, and of fine linen” (Exodus 35:25).

The stakes of the tabernacle were of brass (Exodus 27:19). And those stakes, Isaiah prophesied, would be driven in as sturdily as Jael drove the stake through Sisera into the earth.

SAILS IN THE WIND

Zion’s tabernacle is contrasted with the Assyrian ship. What you want is wind in your sails but the Assyrians would have their sails in the wind. Their sail would not spread. This sail not only served the practical function of moving their ships. It was also a banner or a sign. The word for sail is nēs, which often means sign or banner. When Moses grew tired lifting up his arms at the battle against Amalek, he was assisted by Aaron and Hur. After the victory, Moses built an altar and called it Jehovah-nissi, “The Lord Is Our Banner” (Exodus 17:15). The pole that held up the snake in the wilderness was a nēs.

But while Moses’ raised hands and the raised snake did not fail, the banner-sail [nēs] of the Assyrians would. And so those who sought to spoil would be spoiled (Isaiah 33:1). The lame plunder the plunder.

THE INHABITANT SHALL NOT SAY

The payout of this deliverance is that even the beleaguered inhabitants of Zion will not say, “I am sick,” which includes “I am not wounded. I am not weak. I am not famished and I am not thirsty.” For those inhabitants have their sin forgiven by the King of Zion. He was bound with cords but broke their bonds apart. He was pierced with stakes only to become “a nail in a sure place” upon which all of God’s promises are secured (Isaiah 22:23). For “he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed”(Isaiah 53:5).

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Not Incredible at All | Easter Sunday

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INTRODUCTION

The philosopher Leibniz put the problem into a nutshell when he asked “why is there something rather than nothing at all?” That is one of the fundamental questions, is it not? But for the believer, because God is the eternal I AM, the idea that there could ever be nothing is nonsensical. It could have been the case that there was no created thing, but an absolute vacuity is absurd. God is the living God, and He is the answer to all our questions.

THE TEXT

“And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made of God unto our fathers: Unto which promise our twelve tribes, instantly serving God day and night, hope to come. For which hope’s sake, king Agrippa, I am accused of the Jews. Why should it be thought a thing incredible with you, that God should raise the dead?” (Acts 26:6–8).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

The apostle Paul had been arrested, and was being kept as a political prisoner because of pressure from his enemies in Jerusalem. His imprisonment was in Caesarea, down on the coast of the Mediterranean. The governor was a man named Festus and he had arranged for the visiting king, Agrippa, to hear what Paul had to say for himself. His puzzle was how to frame his letter to Caesar because Paul had appealed his case to Caesar, and Festus did not know what to say about it (Acts 25:25-26).

In the course of his defense before Agrippa, Paul uttered the words of our text. Paul said that he was being judged for the hope of the promise that God had made to his Jewish fathers (v. 6). God had promised resurrection to the Israelite nation, for the fulfillment of which they looked in hope (v. 7). It was because of that hope as fulfilled in Christ, Paul said, that he was under these accusations. He then asks a very pointed question—why should we consider it incredible that God should raise the dead (v. 8)? This is a question we really ought to consider more carefully than we do.

THE ASSUMPTIONS OF AUTONOMY

What the autonomous unbeliever and skeptic wants to do is raise doubts and questions about every platform except the one on which he is standing.

Let me illustrate it this way. Suppose there is a small tribe living on a small island in the midst of a vast ocean, and they have lived there time out of mind. Now suppose one of them one day invents a telescope and he sees, off in the distance, another island with people walking around on it. When he announces his discovery to the tribe, their tribal skeptic scoffs and says that it is impossible for people to survive on an isolated island like that—such a stupid idea shouldn’t be entertained for a minute. But then an astute teenager asks, “What about us then?”

Christopher Hitchens and I were once on Joy Behar’s television show, and all the infidels were making fun of me, the fundamentalist, for believing the Bible. In the Bible, they scoffed, animals talk—serpent in the garden, Balaam’s donkey, ho ho ho. But then I said, “We are animals. And we talk.”

Materialistic atheists like to mock believers because we believe that the dead can live again. We believe that life can come from death. My point here is that so do they. They believe that there was an inexplicable instant when inorganic matter suddenly became organic matter—life from death. Christians are the ones who believe that it can happen twice. Everyone thinks it happened once.

We believe in magic, and so do they. The thing that distinguishes us is that we believe in a magician. They think the tricks know how to do themselves.

BACK TO THE FAITH OF PAUL

The promise to the fathers was that God would raise the dead at the end of human history. The message of the gospel is that He determined to give us an earnest payment on that resurrection, right in the middle of human history. God gave us a preview of the end, and He did this two thousand years ago. We know that it will happen, and we know this for the excellent reason that it has happened. And what has happened can happen again. Because God has promised it, it will happen again.

“Having therefore obtained help of God, I continue unto this day, witnessing both to small and great, saying none other things than those which the prophets and Moses did say should come: That Christ should suffer, and that he should be the first that should rise from the dead, and should shew light unto the people, and to the Gentiles” (Acts 26:22–23).

Christ’s resurrection was not a stand-alone affair. He descended into the grave, and then reached under human history to take hold of the Last Day, and He pulled it up behind Him when He rose from the dead. The conquest of death that was to happen at the end of all things has already occurred.

Because it has already occurred, we can walk in the reality of Christ’s life, what Paul calls newness of life. We are born again and justified through our participation in the resurrection that has happened, and because of that we look forward to the resurrection that necessarily will happen. This is a glorious already/not yet.

SEE FOR YOURSELF

So this is not incredible at all. The Scriptures teach us that faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God (Rom. 10:17). We were dead in our transgressions and sins (Eph. 2:1), and it is the raised Christ who transforms us from that condition of death. Just a few verses down—“Even when we were dead in sins, [He] hath quickened us together with Christ, (by grace ye are saved;)” (Eph. 2:5). It is easy to say that we would believe if we had been there at the empty tomb two thousand years ago. But the proclamation of the empty tomb is powerful. The tombs of sin and death are still emptying. Believe, and yours will be one of them.

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A Crown by Faith (Christ Church)

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INTRODUCTION

In the triumphal entry of Christ into Jerusalem, we see that the cross is very much in view. At the same time, it is still appropriate to call it a triumphal entry because the resurrection is equally central. We might even say that the death of Christ is surrounded by resurrection.

THE TEXT

“On the next day much people that were come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees, and went forth to meet him, and cried, Hosanna: Blessed is the King of Israel that cometh in the name of the Lord. And Jesus, when he had found a young ass, sat thereon; as it is written, Fear not, daughter of Sion: behold, thy King cometh, sitting on an ass’s colt. These things understood not his disciples at the first: but when Jesus was glorified, then remembered they that these things were written of him, and that they had done these things unto him. The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record. For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle. The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (John 12:12–19).

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

In the previous chapter, Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead (11:44). This caused many to believe in Him, and His enemies began plotting His death (11:49-53). But six days before the Passover, Jesus had come back to visit the man He had raised (12:1-3). This caused an enormous stir, and a big crowd gathered in order to see Jesus—not to mention Lazarus (v. 9). The chief priests were so worked up by this that they even started plotting on how they could kill Lazarus (v. 10). But many believed in Jesus, and dispersed (v. 11). This is what created the huge crowd that welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem (vv. 12-13). There is no indication in the Scriptures that this was a fickle crowd, easily turned. This is not the same crowd that a short time later was calling for Christ to be crucified. It was no weather vane church. This was the true church in embryo.

PALM BRANCHES 

Psalm 118 is rich in messianic allusion, and these people picked a really appropriate psalm. It is a triumphant declaration of life— “I shall not die, but live . . . he has not given men over to death” (vv. 17-18). Jesus was entering Jerusalem, and the psalm says, “open to me the gates of righteousness . . . this gate of the Lord, into which the righteous shall enter” (vv. 19-20). Then comes the passage about the stone the builders rejected, which of course refers to Christ (1 Pet. 2:7; Acts 4:11; Luke 20:17; Mk. 12:10-11; Matt. 21:42). Then there is the cry, “Save now, I beseech thee, O Lord” (v. 25), which is what Hosanna means. Then comes the verse which the crowd cried out—“Blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord.” The psalm explains a great deal, including the palm branches. According to at least three translations, v. 27 speaks of the festal procession as carrying branches to the altar.

ANSWERING THE PSALM 

Jesus answers the crowd’s appeal to Psalm 118 with a reference to Zechariah (9:9-11). The rejoicing that met Jesus there was righteous and appropriate. Rejoice greatly, the prophet had said. Jesus identifies with this by bringing salvation into Jerusalem, and He does so as a lowly

King. But His humility does not diminish the glory of His kingdom, because His dominion will be from the river to the ends of the earth (v.10).

The central thing here is that Jesus is entering Jerusalem by faith. He is receiving the garland before the race. He is crowned before the conquest. He comes in a great act of faith, and liberates prisoners from the waterless pit, and He does so by means of the blood of the covenant (v.11).

LATER ON….

The disciples did not understand how important all this was at the time. But later on, after Jesus had been glorified, it all came together for them. They recalled what the Scriptures said, and they recalled what the multitude had done (v. 16). Who testifies that Palm Sunday happened this way? Who is qualified to speak to it?

John says something fascinating here. “The people therefore that was with him when he called Lazarus out of his grave, and raised him from the dead, bare record” (v. 17). And this is the reason why the crowd was there in the first place—they had heard about Lazarus. “For this cause the people also met him, for that they heard that he had done this miracle” (v. 18).

Everyone there was involved in that glorious event because of a raising from the dead. This was a great testimony—by faith—to the reality of resurrection.

THE WHOLE WORLD HAS GONE AFTER HIM 

The impact of this entry into Jerusalem was profound. Moreover, the triumph was not imaginary, or illusory. The events that the next few days would manifest are the means that God chose to bring salvation, not only to Jerusalem, but also from the river to the ends of the earth. The crucifixion of the Christ was an apparent defeat only; this is how God chose to overcome the wickedness of our grubby little world. What a glorious reversal!

And this is why the Pharisees, just like Caiaphas in the previous chapter, spoke far more wisely than they knew. “The Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Perceive ye how ye prevail nothing? behold, the world is gone after him” (v. 19).

And glory to God, why yes . . . yes, it has.

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