Tongues of Fire

The Attempt to Ascend

Turn the pages of your bible to Genesis 11:1.

Have you ever wondered why it is so hard for man to submit to God?

Have you ever wondered why mankind is so driven to the supernatural.

Not just sin, but the darkside of the supernatural.

Ecclesiastes 3:11 (ESV) - 11 He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man’s heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end.

We can find some concrete answers in the story of babel.

Genesis 11:1–9 (ESV)

1 Now the whole earth had one language and the same words.

2 And as people migrated from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar and settled there.

3 And they said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks, and burn them thoroughly.” And they had brick for stone, and bitumen for mortar.

4 Then they said, “Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth.”

5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of man had built.

6 And the Lord said, “Behold, they are one people, and they have all one language, and this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them.

7 Come, let us go down and there confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech.”

8 So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city.

9 Therefore its name was called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth. And from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth.

Babel:

After the flood, God repeated the command he’d given to Adam and Eve to cover the earth in Genesis 1:28.

God wanted Adam and Eve to fill the earth and to multiply.

The plan and purpose of God was to spread the knowledge and rule of God everywhere.

Rather than make the world like Eden. The people the descendants of Noah wanted to bring God down at one spot.

Therefore, they decided to build a tower to avoid being scattered.

Ziggurats

Ziggurats were divine abodes, places where Mesopotamians believed heaven and earth intersected.

The purpose of the ziggurats was to provide places where people could meet the gods.

In other words, the tower of Babel was built to bring the divine down to earth. Why?

Because gods were perceived to live on mountains.

Talk about greek and roman mythology.

Those who built the tower of Babel wanted to do so to “make a name [shem]” for themselves.

It was the same sin of Lucifer who notoriously and rebelliously said, “I will be like the most high.”

And the sin of Adam and Eve who wanted to be like God.

Deuteronomy 32 Worldview:

The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible

Deuteronomy 32:8 (ESV)

8 When the Most High gave to the nations their inheritance, when he divided mankind, he fixed the borders of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God.

Heaven Came Down

Acts 2:1–4 ESV

1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The Power of the Holy Ghost

Talk about Lester Sumrall’s story.

Talk about the evidence of speaking in tongues.

Talk about William Seymour and the Azuza Street Revival Mission.

It’s the fire that connects us to the throneroom?

Divine Commissioning

1. A sound of a mighty wind (Violent).

2. The appearance of divided flames of fire (Cloven Tongues).

The whirlwind is familiar from divine encounters of Elijah (2 Kgs 2:1, 11) and Job (Job 38:1; 40:6)

The Hebrew word translated “wind” can be translated as “Spirit” (ruach).

The spirit gives life.

Genesis 2:7 (ESV) - then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

Romans 8:9–10 (ESV) - 9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

Fire in the Old Testament represented the presence of God, a visible manifestation of Yahweh’s glory.

Tongues of fire - God’s truth speaking through a man’s voice. It represents man’s speech by the governing of Holy Spirit’s inspiration. The superhuman power of God working in and through man!

It wasn't just one tongue, but cloven tongues because of the variety of languages that men speak in different countries

The wind and fire in Acts 2 signified that the believers in the upper room were being commissioned by a divine encounter.

They were being chosen to preach the good news of Jesus’ finished work on the cross.

The tongues are emblematic of their speaking ministry.

We must preach the word!

Back to Babel

There are two key terms in this passage that connects back to Babel. It’s a parallel:

The flaming tongues are described as “divided or cloven” (Greek: diamerizo).

The second term, suncheo means “confused.”

Suncheo (v. 6), is the same word used in the Septuagint version of the Babel story in Genesis 11:7: “Come, let us go down and confuse [Septuagint: suncheo] their language there.”

The multiplicity of nations represented at Pentecost is another link to Babel. Each nation had a national language.

We find this in Acts 2:9–11 had been disinherited by Yahweh when they were divided. They were brought back together spiritually speaking at Pentecost.

(Septuagint: “When the Most High divided [diamerizo] the nations, when he scattered humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the nations”).

At Pentecost the tongues are “divided” (diamerizo) or, “distributed” among the disciples as they are commissioned to preach the good news to the multitudes at Pentecost.

Jews who embraced Jesus as messiah would carry that message back to the nations. Therefore the nations would again be Yahweh’s.

The Nations:

Talk about Ephesians 6 and principality struggle.

Talk about diversity

Talk about the nations

Revelation 2:26 (ESV)

26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations.

Conclusion: We Have to be Baptized in the Holy Ghost! Acts 2:38