Word of Salvation – Vol. 13 No.13 – April 1967

 

Pentecost And Its Relevance For Today

 

Sermon by Rev. F. Channing on Acts 2:1-4

Scripture Reading: Lev.23: 9-21

Psalter Hymnal: 203:1,2,3; 101:1,2; 333:1,2,3,4; 387:2,4

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

The day of Pentecost was meant to be a day of rejoicing!  Under the Old Testament period of history, the Lord God of Israel had declared that Pentecost was to be in fact, the most joyful feast of all the special feasts which He had instituted.

Under the Old Testament laws, on the day of Pentecost the people of Israel were to come together to bring to the Lord a NEW MEAL OFFERING which was to be made of fine flour that had been ground from the new barley of the harvest.  This offering was to take place fifty days after the day following the Sabbath of the Passover….. that would be on our Sunday.  On that day, the people of Israel had offered the sheaf of first ripened corn before the Lord.  It was the first fruits of their harvest.

You can well imagine that no-one could be sad upon the day which was in fact what we would call the FEAST at the END OF HARVEST.  This was a feast of great rejoicing.  The sheaf of ripened grain that they had waved before the Lord just 50 days before, would be but the beginning…..the first fruits of the expected harvest ingathering.  Then 50 days later came Pentecost, and the harvest completed, and the flour being ground from the corn.

That was the manner of the celebration of Pentecost under the Old Testament period.  It was a day of JOY.  But what about us who live in the period of New Testament light?  I believe brothers and sisters, that many of us do not find any special joy upon this day.

Even when we consider what actually happened on the day of Pentecost 19 hundred and thirty years ago in the city of Jerusalem, when the promise of our Saviour was fulfilled, and God sent forth His Spirit upon the men and women who then comprised the New Testament Church of Jesus Christ…. even to contemplate THAT, doesn’t bring us such great joy, does it?  Perhaps some of us would even wistfully look back at that day, nineteen hundred and thirty six years ago, and we would wish that we could experience, at least some of the things which the apostles and disciples of our Lord did experience on that day.  You can’t help but notice, when you read the Acts of the Apostles chapter 2, and the chapters that follow, how there was such a change!  There was NEW POWER to be fearless witnesses of Jesus Christ.  There was NEW POWER and NEW DRIVE to cause men and women to be prepared to pass through the fire and blood of persecution, and yet in the face of such persecution, not to cease to proclaim the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ, the risen and ascended Lord.

But where is that new power today?  Where is that new drive today?  Have we perhaps misunderstood the message of Acts 2?  Was that new power and new drive only for a select few?  Was it only for a special number of the disciples?  Or perhaps the answer is to be found in the teachings of the “victorious life movements”, and the Pentecostal groups who would teach us that the Spirit of Christ was NOT given to all the believers on that day of Pentecost, but only to a select number, who received this second blessing, and who had “prayed through”, to receive this second blessing.  And they would teach us that this second blessing, which is received after conversion, is a blessing which all Christians cannot receive, because all Christians are not ready to pay the price for such a blessing.

To answer these questions, and also to seek to show you the REAL JOY of Pentecost, and I trust, also to help you to see how you personally may experience this real joy of Pentecost, I desire to bring you the Word of God concerning…

THE POWER OF PENTECOST,
THE PRIVILEGE OF PENTECOST, and…
THE PRICE OF PENTECOST!

THE POWER OF PENTECOST.

We have recorded for us, in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles verses 5 and 8, that before the Lord Jesus Christ ascended into heaven He foretold the coming of the Spirit, and the Lord Jesus Christ stated that the disciples would receive POWER, after that the Holy Spirit had come upon them.

Now what exactly was this power of which our Lord and Saviour was speaking about?  We are not left in doubt, because the risen saviour, declared that after the disciples were endued with the power of the Spirit, they would be witnesses unto Him, “both in Judea and in Samaria and unto the uttermost parts of the earth.”  The power of the Holy Spirit would make witnesses of the disciples!  Now it is at this point that so often the people of God have gone astray.  They hear the word “POWER”, and they think of armies riding forth and overcoming enemies…..!  Or they think of dominion, or even earthly power and strength.  Others would say, “Well, you only have to look at Peter on the day of Pentecost to see what the Lord Jesus Christ meant by power….!  Wasn’t Peter’s sermon full of power?”

Yes, that is quite true.  Peter’s sermon was full of power.  But what about the other disciples and the women who also received the Spirit of Power on that day of Pentecost?  What was this power that made witnesses of men and women, and what was this witness that the Spirit would bring in their lives?

The very word that Jesus Christ our Lord used when He said “Ye shall receive power”…. that word doesn’t mean authority, or dominion or ability, but it means DYNAMITE.  It is the word from which we have our English word “dynamite”.  Now if you received in the post a stick of dynamite, what would you do?  Of course you would get rid of it as quickly as possible!  You would say, “We had better get rid of this or else it might wreck our home.”  And this is just what the power of the Spirit of God did to the men and the women who received Him on that day of Pentecost.  He WRECKED their SINFUL LIVES!  According to human standards, He destroyed…. He dynamited the enemy strong-hold within the lives of those men and women.  He broke up the strong resistance to God, within.  And then God began at that moment to REBUILD the lives of those men and women, according to His commandments.

You see, brothers and sisters, conversion, and being baptised BY THE SPIRIT into the BODY OF JESUS CHRIST is not just a spring cleaning of our lives.  It is not just a sweeping out of our lives those few things which we consider to be “not so nice”, and the placing of a few new ornaments in our lives…. conversion and the coming of the Spirit into the life of any man or woman means EXPLOSION and DESTRUCTION within, and the RE-CONSTRUCTION of that life by God, according to the pattern of His Holy Commandments.  Anything less than DYNAMITE in this way, is not the power which Jesus Christ the risen Lord and Saviour, promised to the disciples, and which they did receive on the day of Pentecost.

Now what did our Lord mean when He said, “Ye shall receive the dynamite of the Holy Spirit, and ye shall be witnesses unto Me”?  We have grown so very used to these words being quoted when we think of “personal witnessing”, and “door to door visitation witnessing.”  But is that the only time when we are witnessing for the Lord Jesus Christ?  Doesn’t this “witnessing” have anything to do with meeting one another as Christians?  Isn’t the Christian housewife witnessing of Christ towards her husband and her children and the folks that come into her home?  Are we not witnessing when we meet together in our congregational meetings?  Are not the Christian boys and girls witnessing for Christ when they come together in their Camps, and classes and clubs?  Are they not witnessing for Christ when they are together in their homes with their parents and brothers and sisters?  Or let me put it this way: Are we not always witnessing for CHRIST, wherever we are?

Of course we are!

The Lord Jesus Christ shows us in His Word that even giving a cup of cold water to one of His disciples is witnessing of Him!  And brothers and sisters, we need the dynamite of the Holy Spirit of God to be able to give a cup of cold water to a disciple of Christ, in CHRIST’S NAME!  That compassion, that mercy that is shown in such an action, and the patience that is shown by the Christian housewife towards her husband and her children, and the love that she shows towards those that enter her home…. and the meekness and the longsuffering and the gentleness which should characterise our meeting together in a congregational meeting with our brothers and sisters in Christ, and the selflessness and willingness to give which should characterise the relationship of children in a family ….all these things are the fruits of the Holy Spirit!  The dynamite power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ destroys the power of the works of the flesh of which we read in Galatians 5 vs.19 to 21, “The works of the flesh produce these evil results: impure thoughts; eagerness for lustful pleasures; idolatry, encouraging the activity of demons; hatred and fighting; jealousy and anger; constant effort to get the best for yourself; complaints and criticisms; the feeling that everyone else is wrong except those of your own little group; and there will be wrong doctrine, envy, murder, drunkenness, wild parties and all that sort of thing.”

And the power of the Spirit of Jesus Christ clears away this rubbish out of our lives so that a new foundation may be laid upon which the Spirit of Christ begins to build those very things which bear witness unto Christ, and which the apostle spoke of in Galatians 5 verses 22 and 23: “When the Holy Spirit controls our lives He will produce this kind of fruit in us; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control”.  That is the POWER of the SPIRIT OF PENTECOST!

THE PRIVILEGE OF PENTECOST.

Of course, the big question that now comes up is this: “How can I have this same power in my life?”  And again there are a number of different voices in this world which claim to know the answer!

“Let go… and let God…!” that is one answer.  Stop your fighting against sin …stop your struggling with sin, and let God control your life.  And there are variations of this “Victorious Life” teaching.  Some would tell us that the only way you will know that you do have this dynamite power of the Holy Spirit in your life, is when you speak in “unknown tongues”, or when you receive some other special visible manifestation.  But all these teachings have ONE THING in common… they would tell you, that YOU must give something up, or YOU must do something to receive this power.

But the Israelite under the Old Testament period of history did not GIVE anything to God on the day of Pentecost.  What he did, was actually to acknowledge on that day, that God had given him, the harvest of the barley.  And furthermore the Israelite acknowledged that he expected God to go on and bring the full blessing of all the harvests of the future.

Fifty days before the celebration of Pentecost, the people of Israel had killed the Passover lamb, …the Lamb of Substitute.  Fifty days before the time of our text, the Lamb of God, our substitute, had been slain on the Cross of Golgotha!  On the first Sunday after the Passover Lamb had been slain, the first fruits of the harvest the sheaf of barley-corn was raised before the Lord.  On the first Sunday after His death, Christ Jesus, our Passover Lamb was raised from the dead, as the FIRST FRUITS of them that believe.  Then for the Israelites came the fifty days of waiting, while the barley harvest was gathered in.  And then there was the joyful harvest thanksgiving feast.  All that was needed had been given BY God!

And that is exactly the same with the coming of the Spirit of Jesus Christ on the day of Pentecost.  He was GIVEN BY GOD, to the Church, to dynamite the strongholds of evil within men and women, and to establish the Kingdom of Christ within us.  To establish a kingdom of joy and peace, and mercy and love and long suffering and gentleness, within us.  And by THESE very things we witness unto our Saviour, and we bear witness of His love and grace which has delivered us from the bondage of indwelling sin.

Some people speak about the Church needing another Pentecost.  We can never have another Pentecost, for the PRIVILEGE of PENTECOST is simply this… the SPIRIT HAS BEEN GIVEN to the Church, to indwell the hearts of every believer, and to break down the stone walls, and the iron curtains in our lives… stone walls and iron curtains which would resist the reign of King Jesus!  That is the privilege of Pentecost.  Just as there shall never have to be another Passover, for Christ our Passover Lamb has once and for all been offered, so there shall never be another Pentecost for the Spirit of Power HAS BEEN given.  Paul the apostle wrote to the Romans and said; “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of Christ’s” ….and again Paul said; “Ye have received the Spirit of Adoption whereby we cry ‘Abba, Father’.”  Every true believer in Jesus Christ has received the Spirit Whose dynamite-power destroys the bulwarks of sin and evil within, and brings Christ’s Kingdom in our lives.

THE PRICE OF PENTECOST.

What is the price of this power of Pentecost?  This is what Simon the Sorcerer wanted to know.  You will remember Simon had seen the change that had come in the lives of the people upon whom the Spirit of God came.  And he wanted to have this same power to bestow this Spirit.  And so he said, “I will give you money that I also may have this power to give to others”.  But the apostle answered, “The POWER of the SPIRIT is GRATIS!  Free! – via the merits of Christ the Passover Lamb”!  Our Lord Jesus Christ had already said to His disciples, “How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Spirit to them that ask Him”?  Why then do we not experience His Power more in our own lives?  Why is there not gentleness and meekness between Christian husband and wife?  Why isn’t there more longsuffering and patience between brothers and sisters in Christ?  Why isn’t there more love between Christian boys and girls of a family?  Why are there not more fruits of the Spirit?

I draw your attention to what is said in our text: “Cloven tongues like as fire appeared unto the disciples and they were all FILLED with the Holy Spirit.”  You know what someone means when they say, “I was filled with anger” or “I was filled with envy.”  They meant that anger and envy controlled them.  They were absolutely under the sway of that emotion.  Our text tells us that the disciples were absolutely under the sway and control of the Holy Spirit.  Like as when the fire came down upon the offering of Elijah upon Mt Carmel, and consumed it up …. so the disciples were consumed, and completely taken over by the Spirit of Christ.

In his letter to the Thessalonians, the apostle Paul tells us why it is that men and women do not experience this DYNAMITE POWER of the SPIRIT of Christ.  He tells us why there is so little witness of the fruits of the Spirit.  Paul said, “Men and women can quench…. they can put out the fire of the Spirit ….!” and to the Ephesians Paul said it slightly different…. He said, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit” so that He no longer dynamites the strongholds of evil in your life.

The price of the power of Pentecost is to recognise that our own power is like a penny firecracker under the wall of a city.  It makes a noise and that is all!  The wall remains….!  The bulwarks of evil stand….!  The stronghold of the enemy is intact…!  The price of the power of Pentecost is to recognise this, and then to humble ourselves and ask the Father to fill our lives with the Spirit… that the Spirit will control us by the Word of God and subject us to the commandments of God, and destroy the loved sins and the cherished evils, and begin to build anew in us the kingdom of righteousness and holiness and joy in the Holy Ghost.

Beloved…. only as you understand the POWER of the SPIRIT of Pentecost, and as you rejoice in the PRIVILEGE which is yours through Christ, to partake of that power of Pentecost… and as you come as an empty handed beggar to be filled with the SPIRIT OF JESUS CHRIST, will you have true joy on this day of PENTECOST.

Amen.