A Wind from Elsewhere

The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going.  –John 3:8

When the Old Testament ended, God stopped speaking to men for six hundred years. People lived, and people died for six hundred years, and there was no word from God or any prophet – not even a letter written. Why?

The pollution of the people’s souls had taken over. The worship had become polluted. The sacrifices were polluted. There was no power in them. They were only rituals that people went through. They did it for the titles. They did it to look and act spiritual. It had nothing to do with connecting with God.

Key Points

1. There was a time when the people’s sacrifices were given the right way, with the right spirit. But then they began to worship other gods, and their worship became polluted with sin and idolatry. It began to fill the church. They became corrupt in ministry.

2. Then Jesus Christ showed up on planet earth. For the first thirty years of His ministry, He never preached a sermon. He never healed a person. He never taught a lesson. Sometimes we want to instantly be in the place that God called us to be in, doing the thing God has called us to do. But Jesus had to wait thirty years before He could be obedient, learning how to submit and how to be quiet and listen. You will go through a season like Jesus, and you will have to wait.

3. It was almost as if there were no solution to the sin problem in the church. There was no solution for what the church had become. It was like there was a need for a mighty wind from elsewhere to sweep in and carry away the pollution of sin and dead religion. The wind needed to sweep down and push out the fog of sin, iniquity, and idolatry.

4. That is why it is so important to read about the “rushing, mighty wind” in Acts 2:2. It “sat on each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them the utterance.”

5. A wind came down from elsewhere. It was a wind that cleansed everything, that made everything fresh and alive, and that swept out dead religion. It was a wind that brought joy to their hearts and a wind that brought power and anointing to their words. It cleansed men like Peter who cursed and denied Jesus.

6. The wind from elsewhere removed the doubt and fear and put boldness in his spirit. He was not ashamed to proclaim and preach about Jesus being crucified and raised from the dead.

7. Pollution in our lives—drug addiction, alcoholism, trouble in the marriage, trouble with the family, and all kinds of things. There is, humanly speaking, no way to fix it, and no way to make it right unless we allow God to intervene.  If drugs bind you, if you are bound by alcohol, or if you are bound by sexual immorality, then you need the wind from elsewhere. It will take all of that pollution and sweep it out.

8. Suddenly, there will be a joy and a freedom that comes to you. Someone who has been a drug addict will say, “I have never been this high before. What is this?” It is a “rushing, mighty wind” from elsewhere.

Final Thoughts:

That wind did away with religion on the day of Pentecost. It sweeps away our old ways. It sweeps away our old thinking. It sweeps away our bitterness, our inability to forgive, and our angry spirits.

A mighty, rushing wind from elsewhere can cleanse our hearts. It can cleanse our spirits. It can cleanse our minds and our bodies from addictions and filth. It can remove the pollution of pornography and uncleanness. It is the only solution.

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