Holy Pentecost!

Pentecostal Flames caught by the camera of Randy Timmerman

Pentecost Sunday.  This is the day Christians remember the beginning of Christ‘s Church on earth.  Jesus‘ followers were crammed into the upper room of a house, wishing to know what was to become of them. They were frightened and confused.  they had no direction and felt as those they had no one to guide them.  Then a wind howled through the room and tongues like fire descended upon the believers and they were filled with the Spirit of God and were empowered and began speaking in tongues and could remain hidden no longer so they spilled out onto the streets and the people came running to them by the thousands to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior.

The photographs in this post are undoctored in any way.  They were originally published in “Revival Fire in The Mountains” in which I described the event itself. The fire in the picture above looks huge but was, in fact, very small.  It was just big enough to stay lit, in fact.  Notice the flames resting on the worshippers.  Look closely and you will see that they rest on some but not all of the worshippers.  It’s Pentecostal fire, my friends: the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Of this there can be no doubt.  Ask any of the hundreds of men and young men who were present that evening and they will tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the Holy Spirit came down like few had ever experienced and of them, not in a very long time.  These photos are evidence of what all witnessed and experienced that evening.  There is absolutely no question of this.

I was blessed to help out that week and one of my duties was to assist the campers in checking in.  One after the other expressed the troubles they experienced in the weeks preceding this Territorial Rendezvous.  Not a few felt it was a God thing that they even made it.  Jobs had been lost.  Family issues reared up.  Others fought off the inexplicable urge to simply not come and even quit the Royal Ranger program altogether.  All knew in their hearts that they had to be there that week.  No one knew why.  Me?  There was no good reason that I or my son made it there either except that we felt we needed to be there and a good friend knew it was important as well and made sure we got there.

There was an expectancy in our hearts.  Randy, the leader who was in charge, followed his heart in not over planning.  “We’re going to let God be God this week,” he kept repeating to the leaders as they arrived. I know for a fact that this was very much a faith statement on his part.  He hoped and prayed that it would be a good week.  This event almost didn’t take place at all. The original host site balked.  The second site was in danger of bursting into flames and this one was far away for many of us. As  men arrived after weeks of personal trials and days of travel, the sense of relief and blessing to have merely arrived was evident all around the camp.

A Flame as if From Heaven by Randy Timmerman