HOLY GHOST AND FIRE

Luke 3:16 – John answered, saying to all, “I indeed baptize you with water; but One mightier than I is coming, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to loose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.

I love to read about the early days of the Pentecostal movement that flowed out from the Azusa Street Mission in Los Angeles, California. There were so many testimonies of people being filled with the Holy Spirit, receiving their heavenly language, and being transformed to an almost unrecognizable new person. Revival was in the air and Pentecostal ministries and churches were being established all over the world. One of these early ministries and church planters was Sister Aimee Semple MacPhaerson, the founder of the Foursquare Gospel Church. Here is something that was described by George Lloyd in Sister Aimee’s book entitled, ‘This is That’.

“And as the holy anthem broke forth, Sister McPherson seemed to float toward the piano, with uplifted hands and transfigured face, and commenced to play and sing in the Spirit. We had heard spiritual songs before, but never like this; never such tones from a piano had our ears heard before, and as verse after verse of the holy anthem was given to our Sister with tongues and interpretation, and the saints who were in the Spirit would all join in the glorious chorus, “we were transported with ecstasy, and we were in the Spirit and were singing the New Song without any effort on our part. Oh, the precious, heavenly music! Who can in any way describe it? We could only compare it to an aeolian harp with its rising and falling cadence, and its sweet, blended harmonies, only far sweeter and more pure in tone than the finest pipe organ, for this was the Holy Ghost playing upon God’s great instrument not made with hands. Glory to Jesus!”

The Baptism in the Holy Spirit was an integral part of the early church described in the book of Acts. From the initial outpouring of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost there was a supernatural power resting on those early Christians that enabled them to turn their world upside down as well as gave each of them strength to live a different kind of life in this fallen society, Sister Aimee had experienced this power as a youth in Toronto, Canada when Robert Semple (whom she married) preached the full gospel in Toronto. Aimee received the baptism in the Spirit and became one of the foremost pioneers in the Pentecostal movement. I think its time for that fire to fall again on this generation.