William Booth, founder of the Salvation Army (whose motto ‘Blood and Fire’ reflect core beliefs in the death of Jesus Christ and the fire of the Holy Spirit), wrote the hymn ‘Send the Fire’ in 1894. The first verse speaks of his longing for the fire of God in his life through the Holy Spirit:

‘Thou Christ of burning, cleansing flame,
Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!
Thy blood-bought gift today we claim,
Send the fire, send the fire, send the fire!
Look down and see this waiting host,
Give us the promised Holy Ghost;
We want another Pentecost,
Send the fire today, send the fire today!’

The line ‘we want another Pentecost’ begs the question ‘is that possible?’ Many have claimed that the events described in Acts 2 were ‘one-off’, never-to-be-repeated, events. They believe that the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the supernatural miracles described in the book of Acts were simply to ‘launch’ the church, so to speak, and are not needed today. To crave another Pentecost, to talk about the need to be baptised in the Spirit today or to speak in tongues, is regarded by many as unnecessary and even heretical.

As a Pentecostal church, we obviously don’t agree with that interpretation of the Bible. We believe that we are still living in the era of Pentecost, in the times when God pours out His Spirit on all people (as prophesied by Joel in Joel 2:28-32). When Paul talks about tongues and prophecies ceasing, he says that will be ‘when completeness comes’ (1 Cor 13:9), when Jesus comes again. We don’t think we’ve reached that point yet and so we believe that the church today needs the Holy Spirit to be effective in living and witnessing for Christ and therefore we echo William Booth’s sentiments.

Does that mean we will see tongues of fire or hear the blowing of a violent wind? Not necessarily, for the Spirit will come in His own way and in His own time. But the New Testament speaks of Him as the guide, the teacher, the living water and the power behind our witness (see John 14:16, John 16:12, John 7:37-39, Acts 1:8) and speaking in tongues and the gift of tongues are mentioned elsewhere in the New Testament (see Acts 10:44-46, Acts 19:6, 1 Cor 12:7-11, 1 Cor 14:1-25). We should, like William Booth and those early Pentecostal pioneers, seek the fire of the Holy Spirit and His power in our lives today, for we need Him desperately if we are to have any impact on our community and see people won to the Lord. The signs and wonders described throughout Acts (Acts 5:12, Acts 6:8, Acts 8:6, Acts 14:3, Acts 15:12) are needed in our churches in our times. Let’s seek God together, as these disciples did (Acts 2:1), for the blessing of the Holy Spirit to be poured out afresh, not for our sakes, but that others may see and hear the wonderful works of the Lord and thus be saved.

The third of the supernatural phenomena associated with the Day of Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit was the ability to speak in other tongues (or languages) as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:4) The crowd’s reaction show us that this was definitely an unusual experience (they were ‘amazed and perplexed’); Galileans had the reputation for being uncultured (see John 1:46, John 7:52) and clearly had a pronounced accent (see Matt 27:63); historians tell us they struggled to pronounce guttural sounds like K and G and tended to ‘swallow syllables’ as they spoke, so it was all the more astonishing that they spoke in many different languages to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem for the holy festival and were understood by all.

The purpose of this supernatural experience was to alert the people to what God was doing, for people clearly heard the disciples ‘declaring the wonders of God’ in their own languages. (Acts 2:11) This led to opportunities for witness, as Peter responds to the question ‘What does this mean?’ (Acts 2:13) It’s no coincidence that God should choose this method of witness; Jesus is described as ‘the Word’ (John 1:1) and, as John Stott says, “Ever since the early church fathers, commentators have seen the blessing of Pentecost as a deliberate and dramatic reversal of the curse of Babel.” There, the pride and ambition of humankind led to the confusion of different languages (when I used to teach French, I always tackled the question of ‘why can’t we all speak the same language?’ by referring back to Genesis 11!); here, speaking in tongues led to the blessing of the gospel reaching all nations (and the list of nations covered harks back to Genesis 10 where we see the scattering of Noah’s descendants). This multilingual witness coheres with the universal offer of salvation in the church’s message and its consequent worldwide mission and reminds us that the Holy Spirit is given to us so that we can be witnesses, not so that we can hoard blessings ourselves. Howard Marshall reminds us, referring to the crowds gathered in Jerusalem, that “their presence and participation in what happened constituted an indication of the worldwide significance of the event.” Without the outpouring of the Spirit on the Day of Pentecost, the church really would not exist!

Wind and fire are symbols of the Holy Spirit, symbols associated with God throughout the Bible. The word ‘breath’ and ‘wind’ are the same (ruach in Hebrew, pneuma in Greek) and it is not surprising that one of the first signs of the Spirit’s arrival on the Day of Pentecost was ‘a sound like the blowing of a violent wind…from heaven.’ (Acts 2:2) Just as God’s Spirit had come upon the valley of dry bones as Ezekiel prophesied, bringing new life from dead bones (Ezek 37:1-14), the Holy Spirit’s arrival is likened to the wind which cannot be seen but which can be felt and experienced (see also John 3:8), bringing new life and power to people.

Fire is a symbol of God’s appearances to mankind in the Old Testament. Moses experienced the wonder of the burning bush from which God spoke (Ex 3:1-22) and God guided His people through the wilderness by a pillar of fire at night (Ex 13:21). When the Law was given, Mount Sinai was covered in smoke because the Lord descended on it with fire. (Ex 19:18) Elijah saw the prophets of Baal defeated when the fire of God descended on his sacrifice. (1 Kings 18:24, 38-39) John the Baptist predicted that Jesus would baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire (Luke 3:16). Jesus said that He had come to cast fire upon the earth (Luke 12:49). The final place of judgment is the lake that burns with fire forever and ever. No wonder the writer to the Hebrews tells us ‘our God is a consuming fire.’ (Heb 12:29) Fire symbolises purity, for the heat of fire consumes the dross, as well as zeal (we are required to be zealous for God rather than being cold or lukewarm.) It also brings light into our lives.

These two symbols, therefore, illustrate something of the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives. He is the wind who brings new life and who sweeps away all that is old and not of Him; He is the fire who purifies, brings light to us and inflames us with zeal. We simply can’t do without Him.

I’ve just welcomed my second granddaughter into the world, an event which could be summed up in the phrase ‘She’s here!’ After many long hours of labour, the news that she had safely arrived was a great blessing to me. Her arrival inevitably and irrevocably changes our lives and we are glad to be able to adapt and learn to live with her presence because she belongs to us in a very special way.

In the same way, the Holy Spirit’s arrival on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 2:1-13) irrevocably changed the disciples’ lives and His presence with us and in us provides the fuel for our Christian living (John 14:17, 1 Cor 6:19). His dramatic arrival – with the sound like a rushing wind and what seemed like tongues of fire resting on people’s heads (Acts 2:2-3) – on the Day of Pentecost (a festival celebrating the first harvest as well as being associated with the renewal of God’s covenant with Noah and Moses and the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai) can be said to be the birthday of the church – a time when the disciples stopped being simply a group of followers of Jesus and became, as He had prophesied, His witnesses to the entire world. (Acts 1:8)

The Holy Spirit had previously ‘rested’ on people (e.g. on Saul, 1 Sam 10:10; on leaders in Israel, Num 11:25). Jesus had even breathed on His disciples to receive the Holy Spirit (John 20:22), but the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost signified a new era, one which continues to this day.

Our everyday lives need to acknowledge and reflect the fact that the Holy Spirit is now here! Just as I can’t ignore my granddaughter’s arrival, but have to change how I live to take her into account, so we need to allow the Holy Spirit to fill us on a daily basis and change how we live, growing His fruit (character) in our lives. (Eph 5:18, Gal 5:22-23) He is God and we must seek not to grieve Him (Eph 4:30) or quench Him (1 Thess 5:19). Instead, we need to learn to walk by the Spirit (Gal 5:16) and witness to Jesus through the words He gives (Luke 11:11-12).

One of the first words my older granddaughter learned (way before giving me a name) was ‘more!’ Coupled with ‘again!’, these are key words in a toddler’s vocabulary. She is gradually learning the value of manners (‘more, please!‘), but this desire for repetition (often to the point of mind-numbing boredom on the adult’s part – how many ‘Wheels on the Bus‘ videos can there be?!) is a key factor in the the child’s learning armoury. The endless repetition of games and puzzles (she will complete a puzzle and instantly pull it to pieces and do it again or want to read a favourite page of a book over and over again) is the way children learn skills and meanings.

Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Bible, is so called because it means ‘second law’. In it, Moses ‘proclaimed to the Israelites all that the Lord had commanded him concerning them.’ (Deut 1:3) East of the Jordan, he began to expound (explain, set forth) the law. (Deut 1:5)

We may feel, as we’ve ploughed through the giving of the law in Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers that we don’t need a ‘second law’, that the familiarity of some of this is boring, that we want to move swiftly on to the action of the battles in Jericho. As adults, we tend to avoid repetition, flitting like butterflies from one thing to another as ‘proof’ of our development.

Psychologists tell us, however, that habits are formed through continuous repetition; few skills are automatic or instinctive, but must be learned. God, in His wisdom, gives us a second chance to absorb the law in the book of Deuteronomy. It behoves us to pause and digest it, noticing fresh aspects, new nuances, different facets, rather than rushing ahead of ourselves.

A teacher knows that learning involves setting forth a new truth, giving pupils the time to work on this independently to check understanding and then recapping what has been covered to reinforce its truth. Deuteronomy is the ‘recapping’, the summary (albeit a long one!), the driving home of all we’ve absorbed so far. As such, it’s a vital part of our understanding and spiritual growth.