Waking the Giant

Rev Gideon Lee

This morning is Pentecost Sunday so we want to talk about the fire of the Holy Spirit. I also want to thank you for praying for me and my family. We were away on a camp, with more than 400 attending. Over the week I preached at my old church, Glad Tidings in Klang. 

The title of my message is "Waking the Giant". How many of you know what is Pentecost? What is that event that we are celebrating? It's about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit as recorded in the book of Acts. "Pentecost was a Jewish thing, long before it was a Christian thing. There were three great Jewish festivals to which every male Jew within twenty miles of Jerusalem was legally bound to come. Those three were Passover, Pentecost and the Feast of Tabernacles.

Pentecost literally means: "the fiftieth." Another name for Pentecost was: "Feast of Weeks." It was so-called because it fell on the fiftieth day after Passover ... a week's worth of weeks (seven days, times seven weeks, equals forty-nine days)

The feast had historical significance, in that it represented the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. And it had agricultural significance, in that it commemorated the first barley harvest."

The Pentecost historically is related to the time when the Ten Commandments was given to Moses and it is also the time of the first harvest of barley. During the time of Pentecost, what would you see? Imagine travelling back in time to the day of Pentecost. You'll see a lot of people coming back from everywhere. God used this time for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. 

Acts 2:1-21

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

5 Now there were staying in Jerusalem God- fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6 When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7 Utterly amazed, they asked:“Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8 Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs–we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12 Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

13 Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine. ’”

Peter Addresses the Crowd

14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd:“Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These men are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

17 “ ‘In the last days, God says,

I will pour out my Spirit on all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy,

your young men will see visions,

your old men will dream dreams.

18 Even on my servants, both men and women,

I will pour out my Spirit in those days,

and they will prophesy.

19 I will show wonders in the heaven above

and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire and billows of smoke.

20 The sun will be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood

before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.

21 And everyone who calls

on the name of the Lord will be saved. ’

I want to talk to you about waking the giant. In the year 1811, Napoleon Bonaparte at the height of his reign, it was said that he gathered his generals, and they were looking at the map of the whole world. Then he paused for a moment and pointed to a section of the map and said we better leave this place alone because it is a sleeping giant. The nation that he pointed to was China. But today we know that China is wide awake. They are an economy of their own. They are trying to move away from the US dollar. China as an economic giant has woken up. As an army, they can rival any of the super powers. Religiously, China is also on the way to become a Christian nation. In 15 years, it is said they could have the biggest population of Christians. In fact they are sending missionaries to Europe and that is the birthplace of Christianity. If there is a sleeping giant that is waking, it is the church of God. 

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was such a powerful event but sad to say the church is sleeping. Maybe we are too complacent or we don't care about the church. I don't know. How many of you can agree with me that we have not reached our full potential. 

If I can ask of God to do it again, pour out the Holy Spirit on our church. We need to arise and shine. We need to up our game and we need to move. We need to wake up. 

Speaking in tongues is the language of God, we are speaking to God but it may be a language of some tribe in the jungle, I don't know. 

We will wake the giant when the church start with prayer. 

If you notice in Acts 2, they were in one accord and in prayer. Nothing happens without prayer. It begins and ends with prayer. 

I'm not even talking about corporate prayer but our prayer life. How is your prayer life? Do this self check yourself. Even as a pastor, I have to find time to pray. I hope prayer will be part and parcel of our life. It was a part of the early church. 

Acts 2:42

The Fellowship of the Believers

42 They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer.

Prayer was an integral part of the church and it should be so in our life too. In National Geographic, I saw these divers that went to look for abalone. They like fast moving water and where the water is clean. The diver will need to go down deep to fight the current and there are a lot of predators like sharks. They have to use a flat screwdriver and pry the abalone off the rock and put it in their netted bags. On the boat are generators that pump oxygen for them so they last longer than if using oxygen tanks. 

They have to be careful the propeller do not cut the oxygen lines and the lines must not be entangled or the oxygen is cut off. Our life should be like this. We are in the world but not of the world and the lifeline that we have is prayer. Everything begins with prayer. We need to wake up and start praying.

If you have family, set aside a time once a week to have a family altar. To spend some time in prayer. There will be a difference. Prayer will help us understanding what is happening around us better. Our church needs to pray more. 

Second, we will wake the giant when we as a church recapture our original purpose. 

Sometimes I feel that as a church we need to understand why we are here. Why are we here? Look at our objectives behind. We are released to do great exploits for the Lord. 

This morning, who are you? You are the son of a living God. Are you suffering from an identity crisis? If we are the son of a King, we should live like the son of a king. We are to be the salt and light. We have to wake up. Even in the cell, I told Sis Melinda in Christian education to focus on the Christian and witnessing. We are not a club. We say our hallelujahs and amens and that's it. We ask what the church can do for us and that's it. 

Last but not least, we will wake the giant when we begin to serve God with absolute passion. 

Are we serving God with absolute passion? Are we? 

Acts 17:6

But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out, “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too.

Are we turning our world upside down or rather right side up? All of them suffered a martyr's death. Peter was crucified upside down. Thomas was sawn in half. Are we turning our world right side up?

I'll end with this. William Booth is the founder of the Salvation Army. He was saved in a chapel in Nottingham. It became a place of pilgrimage for those who wanted to see the origins of the Salvation Army. There was this Chaplin who went and wanted to pray in that chapel and he asked permission from the pastor. The pastor heard what this Chaplin was praying for. He heard him pray "Lord, do it again". We don't know what he meant at that time. This is what I would pray too today. Lord, do it again. I pray we will not be a sleeping church. Don't miss what God wants to do in our church. Let's spend more time in prayer. Let's understand what God wants to do though our church. One day it may be illegal for us to be Christians. I pray we will still serve him and give our life for him one day. I pray we will not be a sleeping church. 

I want to spend some time to pray for those of you who are not baptised in the Holy Spirit. It does not mean that those who are filled in the Holy Spirit is better than those who have not. The day you are saved you have the Spirit in you but I pray that the Lord will baptise you in the Holy Spirit to give you that empowerment. It's for every believer. This is a free gift from God. You cannot own it but you must desire for it.