Tongues Of Fire DevotionsSample

Pentecost Gave Us the Keys

By Reinhard Bonnke  

The Christian age is the power age. In the Old Testament, we read of the God of wonders performing marvels at the Red Sea, and under Elijah and Elisha. But not much more stands out in the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament except that on occasion, the power of the Holy Spirit fell upon a few individuals and the prophets. Then Jesus gave Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven! Those keys are not jangling from Peter’s belt at his post beside the pearly gates—the keys are the gospel of Christ crucified and the Holy Spirit. He opened the kingdom—and today we have the same keys. Peter saw what nobody on earth had ever seen before: three thousand people in one day turning in repentance and being born again by the Holy Spirit. Then the apostles went out and put the power of those keys to the test. The dead were raised; the deaf, blind, and crippled restored to full health; multitudes turned to Christ, and a new thing arose in the world: the church of Jesus Christ.

Pentecost is the giving of the Holy Spirit to the world in manifest form. It is God at work in the physical and material world. We only know of one form of the Spirit, and that is in manifestation. There is no “resting” Spirit, no Spirit in quiescence. The essence of Pentecost is the moving of the Spirit—the mighty wind from heaven and the flaming tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit is only known at work. There is no Spirit without movement, any more than there is a wind without movement. A wind that does not blow is not a wind at all. Wind is never quiet, or just an atmosphere. The Holy Spirit is a gale, and nobody can stand still in a force-eight gale and talk politely about the atmosphere! Where the Spirit is there is action, the miraculous—God in operation!

Any talk of miracles as “belonging to the past” denies the very purpose and nature of the gospel, as well as the character of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is sent to work in this world. Deny the miraculous, the power of the Holy Spirit, and you deny what Christianity is supposed to be: God’s power in action in the present age of living men and women. That is what makes this age the Christian age. Perhaps we ought to call this the Holy Spirit Age! Let us live in this age to the full!