“reviving The Bonfire”

Reading - Acts 1: 8; 12 - 14; 2: 1-4

After this, Peter, full of the H.S., addressed crowd with gospel message.

Reading - Acts 2: 37-38 and …. vs. 41

I. The Fire of H.S. Was Never Meant To Go Out.

In one community -- the Village atheist was not a bad man. He just didn’t believe. He wasn’t interested in church…and there was only 1 in the area. And this church was,-- well, mostly a social club. Heartlessly and spiritually dead—no conversions or decisions for Christ had been made for some time. One day the church building literally caught on fire, and everyone, the whole town ran toward to help extinguish the flames…including the village atheist! Someone noticed the village atheist and hollered out: “Hey, this is something, this is the first time we’ve ever seen you running to church!” The atheist replied, “This is the first time I’ve ever seen the church on fire!”

- I’m sure if LWBC were on fire, we’d also get a lot quick attention. But if our church were on fire spiritually, if we were all truly filled with Holy Spirit -- we’d be catching attention. We’d be drawing crowds of people from all around. Not only would we be attracting crowds, -- people would be getting saved.

- In Rev. 2: 5 Jesus threatened the church at Ephesus, saying, “Repent and do the things you did at first. If you do not repent, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place.”

- I’ve heard stories about how it used to be years ago here at LWBC. But to recall the past -- is like trying to farm today -- like it was done in the 1940’s & 50’s. Any farmer still farming like that is no longer in business. Focusing on the past -- ruins the present, and destroys the future! We cannot go back, -- but must look at what God is doing today.

- Some say, what we need around here are few new converts, that’ll set the church on fire! Well, I believe that's all backwards. What we need -- is some Holy Spirit fire. Then souls will be saved.

- We need to get right with God.

- We need a revived passion for God.

- We need repentance, and the destruction of all our idols.

- Then the Holy Spirit will come upon us.

Then there will be new life, -- souls will be saved, -- the church filled. We’ve had nearly no new conversions, none I know of here this morning.

- However, my desire is -- that we see our past changed. My desire is that no one in our area will ever be able to say, they haven’t seen a church on fire (spiritually).

- I want to see God’s church aflame with the power of the Holy Spirit.

- I want to see the fire of the Holy Spirit alive in this place.

- I want to see us draw a crowd of amazed and perplexed people.

- I want to see people cut to heart, crying out saying “What shall we do?”

- I want to see people come to repentance and being baptized.

* But Where Does It All Begin?

II. A Fed Fire Keeps Blazing.

- Let’s look at what the first Church did. They prayed fervently together. Acts 1: 14 says, “They all joined together constantly in prayer. Jer. 29: 13, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”

- This is what the first church did. By vs. 15 there was already 120 passionate believing prayer warriors. Then look what happens in Act. 2: 1-4 (Read Passage) When we seek God -- with all our heart, when we lay our lives before God, when we surrender our will to God, transformation takes place. And that’s exactly what happened.

- Before Pentecost, before formation of the Church, there was a group of fisherman, ex-religious leaders, tax collectors, former prostitutes, sceptical brothers of Jesus, and a number of other disciples. They were a scarred and hopeless band until Jesus gave them direction. They lacked faith, they didn’t understand God’s plan. But after the filling and empowering of the Holy Spirit they were an inseparable power house God used to change lives.

- The power of the Holy Spirit comes to those who passionately seek Him. And God’s power came upon them. In vss. 5-11 we see that through the power of Holy Spirit this church became quite an attraction.

- People from all over town came running.

- They were drawn to the power of God’s present in these

peoples lives.

- They wanted to know what’s going on.

- They were amazed and perplexed.

The door of opportunity presented itself, and Peter along with the other apostles stood up to address the crowd. As Peter spoke they were cut to the very core of their hearts. Scripture tells us about 3000 people accepted the message, were baptized and added to the church.