“Fight the good fight, hold on to faith and a good conscience - because some have rejected these and shipwrecked their faith.” Chapter 2 begins, “I urge then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone - for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness. This is good and pleases God our Saviour, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the Truth. For there is one God and one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.” Paul makes it quite clear that the end goal of our prayer is Salvation! So often we get away from the basic truth of the Gospel, which is to bring men to Salvation.
You will receive Power!
Today the Baptism of the Holy Spirit seems to have lost the significance of the Biblical experience. When people are prayed over to receive the Holy Spirit and they then speak a few words in tongues – that’s not it! Jesus said, in Acts 1:8, “You will receive POWER when the Holy Ghost comes on you!” Do we really understand the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?
The Glory of God
I want you to know the Power and the Glory of God. He is so big, so powerful, no place on earth can contain Him. And yet, the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary, and she carried within her the very essence of God. What couldn't be contained by the whole of creation, was carried in the womb of a humble woman who submitted to the plans and purposes of God. Like Mary, we carry within us the majesty and splendour of God.
The Power of God revealed on earth
Thirty years ago God gave me a prophetic vision concerning Russia and Ukraine. It was in 1986 that God spoke clearly. He told me that the Iron Curtain that had separated East and West Europe for so long would be melted by the Power of the Holy Spirit and that a new great move of the Spirit would sweep across the whole of Europe, uniting East and West, that this would not be an act of man, but a sovereign act of God moving in such demonstration that we would recognize it as only God's Power.
Only the Gospel can change the world
The only thing that can change the world is the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Asked to pastor a church at 18, just three months after starting Bible College, and holding my first Tent Mission a few months later, I have seen the Power of God and miracles of healing from the very beginning of my ministry. After 72 years of ministry, why do I carry on with such passion? It is because I believe that all the Power of God is in the preaching of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! (Romans 1.16).
The latter rain of the Spirit
We need a spiritual re‐awakening! Pentecost was the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples. The significant sign of the arrival of the Holy Spirit was and is speaking in tongues – and a very strong move of evangelism. We all know what happened on that first Day of Pentecost, but let’s look in Acts 2:16, where Peter speaks to the gathered crowds. Peter’s meaning and understanding of Joel and the outpouring of God’s Spirit must encompass what Joel refers to as the ‘former’ and the ‘latter’ rain!
You will receive Power!
If you want to be effective in ministry, you MUST be filled with the Holy Spirit! There is a danger today that we do not understand the reality of what the baptism in the Holy Spirit means. In Acts 1:5 Jesus said to His disciples, “You have been baptised in water, but you’re about to be baptised in the Holy Ghost!” – It was to be the power to change their lives.
Revival and Persecution
Revival and Persecution arrive together. What caused the early Church to expand beyond Jerusalem? How did this Pentecostal Fire 2000 years later, reach you and I? The persecution of the early church caused the greatest missionary revival ever seen. Without this persecution, the early church would’ve stayed in Jerusalem, instead it compelled it to go into all the world.
The Glory and the Fire of God, Part 1
Seeing the problems in the world today, I want to look at what happened in those famous verses, so often linked with revival, when Solomon had finished building the Temple. 2 Chronicles 5.13-14 tells us, when the musicians were as one, praising and thanking the Lord, and saying, “He is good and His mercy endures forever,” – the House was filled with a cloud, so that the priests could not stand to minister, for the Glory of the Lord had filled the House!