PENTECOST

JESUS having ascended up into heaven now sitteth at the right hand of His Father as Lord of lords, and King of kings. He has now been fully accepted by the Father as Mediator, Savior, and Redeemer, of God’s elect family. God has put His seal of satisfaction and approval upon Christ’s finished work and exalteth Him to His throne in glory above. Does Jesus, now that He is so highly exalted as King over all God’s kingdom of grace, forget His poor people that are still here on earth? We sinful mortals make all sorts of promises in order to obtain honor and glory among men and then having gained our goal we forget those promises that we made, as well as the people. But, not so with Jesus. He is the ever faithful covenant keeping God. Not one word spoken by Him ever falls to the ground. Not one promise has ever failed and never will.

While here upon earth with His disciples, Jesus told them all things that would come to pass concerning himself as the promised Messiah how that after He had suffered, died and risen again, He would go back to His Father in heaven and would then send another Comforter unto them, in His place, even the Holy Spirit. This is not a new invention of man. It is of God for we read of this blessed Comforter being promised to Israel by the prophet Joel in Joel 2:28 to 32; and it was prefigured in the yearly feast when Israel after reaping the harvest, in the promised land, should then number fifty days thereafter—see Lev. 23:9-16. Let these two suffice as evidence of God’s covenant love and faithfulness.

Those promises were fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus, the promised Messiah, arose from the dead, and ten days after He had ascended into heaven, as related in Acts 2:1 to 4. The promised Comforter is the Holy Spirit, the third person in the glorious God-head. And Jesus has obtained the blessed Spirit from God the Father on behalf of His Church, thereby making it possible for spiritually dead sinners tot be quickened with power divine and made a new and living soul in Christ Jesus unto eternal life.

When the apostles and disciples of Jesus were with one accord in one place at Jerusalem, “there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” Then: “there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Here is the divine power, the great gift of God, through Christ, to the Church. This makes life to abound. This loosens the prison bars; opens the doofs; gives utterance. So it did to the apostles and disciples on the day of Pentecost. Behold how they all spoke in many tongues, even to every nationality, in so much that they were all amazed and confounded, not able to understand it. The poor unlearned fisherman from Galilee along with the other poor disciples of Jesus received this gift of tongues from Jesus. He bedewed them with this gracious power enabling them thereby to understand those precious truths which He spake to them while with them here, and which they understood not at that time. And now they are qualified as pastors, teachers, prophets, etc., for the preaching of the gospel. Now they are enabled to preach and expound the wonderful works of God unto all nations in their own language. This is most wonderful indeed. But it again proves to sinful man that God is good to all and delighteth not in the death and destruction of man but that man should repent of his sins and live. This is one of the reasons why Jesus gave the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. The Church of Jesus Christ can not live of itself. She derives all her life, root and sap, blossom, bud and fruit from Christ her glorious Redeemer. And Christ now applies His benefits to His Church by the outpouring of the blessed Spirit. So the Spirit takes the things of Christ and reveals them to the hearts of all those that should be saved. To such only as should be saved! I thought you just said that God is good to all? Yes, God is good to all! He sendeth salvation to every nation and tongue under heaven. Is not that being good to all nations, or to all peoples? There is not a nation in all the world, but that God will redeem some poor unworthy sinful worms of the dust from among them. That word all is not meant universally as poor blind men do preach and would fain have us to believe. Nay, God does not teach man so in His Holy Word. Christ died for His own. He prayed not for the world, but for those whom His Father had given to Him in covenant engagement which covenant was made in eternity between God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost. Now, the covenant engagements are in Christ’s hand as the Redeemer of His Church and He works in them by sending the Holy Spirit into their midst and in their hearts. Thus poor fallen man is quickened by the grace and Spirit of God to a new life. The cloven tongues like as of fire sits upon each of them, that means, the Spirit of God dwells in them and they speak a language which is understood in every tongue. It is a spiritual language and heavenly. Its origin is the same in every soul upon which it is sent down. Its purpose and aim is the same in such souls—the glory of God and complete unworthiness in self. That is after the pattern of Christ Himself. He came to do His Father’s will, not His own, and in that form of a servant, He humbled Himself, yea, even denied Himself and left crown and throne in heaven and came to earth to redeem His own. Surely all His own are then shaped, formed, and molten after His image spiritually in His own time and way. And this image is wrought in His own by that divine power of the God-head—the Holy Ghost. Oh most glorious gift! Well, this blessed Spirit is indispensible and most essential to every real sinner without which no man can be saved.

Are you a real sinner before God? If you are, then it is only by the Holy Ghost revealing your sinnership to you. That is a concern for every one of us, especially when we consider how many religious people there were gathered at Jerusalem at that occasion. All of them professing religion and busily engaged in keeping the feast of the fiftieth day after their departure from Egypt. It concerns us as we read in Acts 2:12 & 13 how they (the multitude of worshippers, not the world without a profession) “were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine.” Well my friends, what class do you belong to? Have you a profession of religion and yet are you accusing such real quickened sinners with being drunk? Are you such mockers?

Your case is pitiful indeed for you are yet without Christ in all your so called religion. And most assuredly you have not the Holy Spirit dwelling in you as yet. But we do not despair of you. This same Spirit lives today for God is unchangeable. His love, grace, and mercy are still the same towards fallen mankind in Jesus the second Adam. God has mercy in store for rebellious, hard hearted, and stiff-necked people and one arrow shot from His bow of mercy into such a heart of stone will make such a prick in that heart that it will cry out: “What shall we do? How shall we act? To whom shall we go?” And Peter answers: “Repent, and be baptized, every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost”; and not only to those Jews, but “to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.” This blessed Spirit of God is mighty and able to, and does add to the Church daily such as should be saved. Oh mockers, and all who are amazed, may this blessed Spirit be given you in power that you may not merely ask in amazement and confusion: “What meaneth this?” but that you may really be so pricked in your hearts with a true conviction of your sins and convinced that Jesus is both Lord and Christ. Oh may this blessed Spirit so quicken your spiritually dead souls that you may not only cry “what shall we do?” but that you may do it gladly as those three thousand souls that were added unto the Church in one day. Then your tongue will be cloven, as it were for you shall be able to speak the language of heaven which is known and spoken by all God’s dear children here on earth by this same Spirit.

Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, saying: “this is that which was spoken of” namely; “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh”; “And, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Dear children of God you have found this to be true. Your souls have received this Spirit of God through Jesus the Lord and only Saviour. May you be quickened to stand up in your Spirit and lift up your voice in one accord to glorify and exalt thy Lord and King on high. With words and deeds show forth His glory. May the Lord bedew thy soul with His blessed Spirit abundantly that as the true Church of Jesus Christ ye may praise God, and have favor with all the people. May the Spirit of God lead us to follow after the things which make for peace and things wherewith one may edify another. “Seek righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, for he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God, and approved of men.”

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