Keion Henderson - Surprised By Strength

This is what God told me to talk about; you won’t see this coming, but God says to tell the people that they are about to be surprised by strength. Touch anybody you can reach and tell them, «Surprised by strength.» You may be seated in the presence of the Lord. What we are witnessing in this text is the greatest shift that the church has ever seen. It has nothing to do with denomination, nothing to do with personalities, and nothing to do with war. What we are about to witness is a shift of seismic proportion that was initiated and propagated in the chapter before the one we just read. In Chapter 2, there is an event that just took place: we call it the Day of Pentecost. For those of you who don’t know what Pentecost is, it is the day that the Holy Spirit descended upon the church. Why Pentecost? Because the Greek word «Pentecost» translates to the English word «50.» So, Pentecost means 50. Why 50? Because when Jesus was resurrected, the Bible tells us that seven Sundays later, which is equivalent to 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus, the Holy Spirit descended upon the church. Hallelujah! They said that when they heard the sound of a rushing wind, they saw what appeared to be cloven tongues of fire, and every man-whether they spoke Japanese, whether they spoke Hebrew, whether they spoke English, whether they spoke Spanish, or whether they spoke Mandarin-the Bible says that they all began to speak in an unknown tongue, yes sir, as the Spirit gave them utterance. Are you with me? Yes sir. When they began to speak in unknown languages, the Bible says that 3,000 souls, all right? Yes sir, were added to the church in one worship experience. Don 't let anybody tell you that the Day of Pentecost cannot be repeated; there is only one Day of Pentecost. Hereafter, all we do is celebrate the original day. Now, the shift that I’m talking about — stay with me in the first 5 to 10 minutes of this because I have to get you ready for what I’m going to say-the reason why the Day of Pentecost is so amazing is that before this day, the Holy Spirit didn’t dwell in people. The Spirit of God dwelt in what was called the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark of the Covenant was a chest that was gold inside, wood in the middle, and gold on the outside. The writer describes it this way: it was inlaid with gold, it had shittim wood in the middle, and it had gold on the outside. The reason why it was gold, wood, and gold is that the Ark of the Covenant represents the Holy Trinity. Gold represents divinity, and wood represents humanity. So, gold, wood, gold represented Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, and inside of the Ark of the Covenant were three things: number one, manna that had fallen from heaven that did not spoil; the tablets that Moses wrote with the Ten Commandments; and Aaron 's rod that budded inside of the Ark. Now, what does that mean? Aaron’s rod stemmed from a tree. Whenever you detach a stem from a tree, it should die. But somehow, in the presence of God, a detached limb was able to still grow. Because when you are in the presence of God, it doesn’t matter what you detach from, as long as you’ve got Jesus. Touch somebody and say, «I don’t need anybody else!» The Ark of the Covenant was the piece of furniture that was in the Tabernacle, behind a tent, behind a curtain, behind a veil, which was called the Holies of Holies, and no one could behold it except for the high priest, and he couldn’t behold it until the Day of Atonement. The Day of Atonement was the day that the high priest would sacrifice a lamb for the sins of Israel. We no longer need a priest to sacrifice for us; because when Jesus Christ came, He became the high priest, and we no longer need to sacrifice bulls and lambs because Jesus is the Lamb slain before the foundation of the world. They had to slay a lamb every year, but Jesus sacrificed Himself once, and it is for eternity, because He is the Alpha and He is the Omega; He is the beginning and the end. This Ark, this piece of furniture that represents the presence of God, has gone through a difficult time. It was taken from the Tabernacle of Moses by the Philistines and kept for seven months, placed on a shelf next to an idol named Dagon. It was taken from there by Saul’s son Abiathar, and from there, David wanted it to go to the courts of Jerusalem. He sent it to the house of Obed- Edom, but when he found out that Obed-Edom 's house was blessed, he took it from there because I don’t care how good some people are-they can’t stand to see you blessed when they’re struggling. He took it from there, and it ended up with Zadok and Abiathar, the priests under David, and they took it, and it went back and forth. Somewhere around 586 BC, the temple was destroyed, and from there, we lost sight of the Ark, and we don’t know where it is. Are you all still with me? I need you to hear me; the temple was destroyed and the Ark was lost. Now, why did I go through this historical lesson?...