Wildfire in our ranks

If we truly want the Holy Spirit to ‘spread like wildfire in our ranks’, we need to get on our knees in prayerful expectation and real repentance, said Captain Sammy Millar, during her powerful talk at last month’s New Zeal service. This is an abridged transcript of her sermon.

One of my own earliest encounters with the Holy Spirit was as a 15-year-old. As a child, I’d been taken to the Army by a friend of my mum’s. I grew up knowing Jesus and had a real sense of belonging in the Army.

But at the age of 15, because of a number of circumstances, I was in a really low place. I started to withdraw from my church family, and I was angry with God and with the people around me.

My corps officer at the time showed up to my house to deliver a Christmas hamper to our family. He asked me how I was, and I said I was fine. He kept asking until I finally shared …

Standing under the carport of my house, my officer prayed for me. As he prayed, I felt the physical presence of the Holy Spirit. I can’t describe what it felt like in my mind—kind of like a swirling, my body felt warm and almost electric; there was a gentle breeze that surrounded me. It was like a physical weight was lifted from me. I felt a peace I hadn’t had in a long time, and a renewed sense of hope that things were going to be ok.

My circumstance didn’t change for a while after that encounter, but my ability to face the circumstance changed.

At different times, the Holy Spirit has ministered to me through encounters where I have experienced inner healing, or the empowerment I needed for different situations. But it hasn’t always looked the way I expected.

The Spirit of God is not dormant, the Spirit of God still moves among his people today, setting people free, breathing life into dry bones, renewing hope where there is despair, healing the broken (emotionally, physically, mentally and spiritually), bringing comfort to the grieving, advocating for the vulnerable, purifying and making holy with the fire, empowering for his purposes and filling his disciples (us!) with passion and zeal, restoring broken relationships, reforming communities.

If we want to see the Holy Spirit spread like wildfire throughout the ranks, we need to position ourselves in prayerful expectancy.

Wind and Fire

When the Feast of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Without warning there was a sound like a strong wind, gale force—no one could tell where it came from. It filled the whole building. Then, like a wildfire, the Holy Spirit spread through their ranks, and they started speaking in a number of different languages as the Spirit prompted them. (Acts 2:1–4)
In Acts, the disciples are immersed in the Holy Spirit and the encounter sounds like a violent wind and looks like tongues of fire resting on the disciples.

The wind of God or breath of God symbolises the presence of God. It’s the breath of God that infused life into creation in Genesis; it’s the breath of life that resurrected Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, bringing them to their feet and raising them up—a vast army. This breath that brings creation to life and has the power to raise a mighty army, now fills the place where the disciples gathered.

Then, tongues of fire separate and rest on each of them. Fire also symbolises the presence of God—the same presence that spoke to Moses from a burning bush, that led the Israelites as a pillar of fire at night, that came like fire called down by Elijah to consume his enemy. These flames of fire—the presence of God—rests on each of the disciples.

And they begin to speak in different languages, declaring the wonders of God. The baptism of the Spirit empowers them to witness to others. So Peter begins to speak to the people, declaring the gospel and bearing witness to the truth of Jesus Christ.

Prayerful expectancy

The coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost was the fulfilment of a promise Jesus had given his disciples. He told them they would receive an advocate—so the disciples were in a time of waiting for the fulfilment of the promise. They were expectant.

The word translated ‘expectant’ throughout the New Testament is the Greek word ‘prosdechomai’. It means to wait for the fulfilment of a promise.

In Luke 2, Simeon is described as a man of the Holy Spirit, who was led by the Spirit and who lived in prayerful expectancy. Anna worshipped day and night, with prayer and fasting expecting the fulfilment of the coming Messiah and his Kingdom.

And in Acts, we find the disciples carrying this same sense of prayerful expectation. They were waiting expectantly for the promised Holy Spirit. ‘They all joined together constantly in prayer,’ says Acts 1:14.

If we want to see the Holy Spirit spread like wildfire throughout the ranks, we need to position ourselves in prayerful expectancy.

We need to note that expectation is not entitlement. There’s a danger here that we might confuse the two. Entitlement is about me, expectancy is about God. Entitlement is about what I’ve done and what I deserve, expectancy is about what God can do and acknowledges our need and dependency for God’s grace, mercy and his Spirit’s empowerment.

I believe that a prayer movement born from the grass-roots level will be a powerful and mighty force for the Kingdom of God. History has proven again and again, that revival is born out of labouring prayer movements. It only takes a few people to come together and start praying, to see an increase in salvations and communities transformed. Expectancy waits for the fulfilment of the promise.

A call to repentance

If we want to see the Holy Spirit spread like wildfire throughout the ranks, we need to repent.

On the day of Pentecost, when Peter addressed the crowd, he ended his address with a call to repentance, saying, ‘Repent and be baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.’ (Acts 2:38)

As we join together as a territory for the New Zeal Season of Encounter, we need to repent. We’ve heard this call to repentance before as an Army—and we’ve gone to our knees and asked God for forgiveness, but not a lot has changed. We continue holding on to the things that keep us comfortable. We refuse to step out of our apathy. True repentance is turning away from those things that are stopping us from forging ahead and looking to Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is a consuming fire. But I wonder: if the Spirit is moving outside of the nice little box we’ve created, or the Spirit is beginning to consume the things that aren’t aligned with his purposes for our movement, do we suit up like a fire fighter to protect ourselves from the flames? We know that being transformed from the inside out can be painful and uncomfortable, so we suit up and we make every effort to contain and extinguish a move of the Spirit. And then when it seems the embers are out, we pray again: ‘Send the fire today’.

On the day of Pentecost, the pouring out of God’s Spirit looked like a bunch of drunk people. That’s pretty out of the box!

We need to repent for resisting the Spirit of God, and containing and extinguishing the flame. We need to repent from the fire retardants that slow the spread of the fire within the movement. These include apathy, pride (we’ve become proud of our name, the shield and what it’s grown to represent), cynicism, comfort, tradition, self-confidence, and putting God in a box.

I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit is moving in pockets around the ranks, but we need him to spread like wildfire. Without the Spirit we won’t see revival.

We need to put our apathy, comfort, tradition, religion, the boxes we’ve created for God to fit within, on the altar to be consumed by the living God. To truly repent and turn from these ways which have become engrained, we need a Holy Spirit encounter.

We need his Spirit, changing us from the inside out—changing the way we do things—with holy courage to step into the discomfort and to forge ahead: Spirit-led, Spirit-filled, reclaiming our name and living out our purpose.

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By Capt Sammy Millar (c) 'War Cry' magazine, 13 July 2019, p20-21  You can read 'War Cry' at your nearest Salvation Army church or centre, or subscribe through Salvationist Resources.