Word of Salvation – Vol. 14 No.17 – April 1968
Pentecost… And Togetherness
Sermon by Rev. J. J. C. Westera, B.D. on Acts 2:1
SCRIPTURE READING: Acts 2: 1-13
PSALTER HYMNAL: 83; 61 (after Law); 266; 388; 467
“When the day of Pentecost had come”, says our text, “they were all together in one place”. The day of Pentecost was a special day, of course. Every Jew knew what was meant by it. It was the fiftieth day after the Passover, and it was the day of a special offering to the Lord. At the end of the harvest two loaves of bread were offered to the Lord to express the gratitude of the people for all the blessings they had received during the days of labour – of ploughing, sowing etc. After all, it was the Lord who had been with them, and had given them power and health and wisdom to do their work.
We may take this as an example. When we succeed in our work – whatever it is – we must thank the Lord. After all it is He who strengthens us and helps us.
Pentecost tells us that we have to be GRATEFUL, and that we must not forget the Lord as the Giver of all good. If any one of us does not know HOW to thank God, he must read the Old Testament and see what God asks of his people. Not because He needed it. What do you think the Lord will do with loaves or lambs or bullocks? No: He did not need them. But He wanted his people to be thankful, and to make them realise that they depended ON HIM, and on HIS BLESSINGS.
When the Lord asks for our offerings, He likes us to know that we depend on Him… and that He likes to use our gifts to make us happy and to make our lives fruitful. It is a great thing to work for God and for His kingdom. But never think that God depends on you, or that He needs you. Your work in God’s kingdom is done ― and your gifts are always given ― out of love and out of gratitude for what He has done for you. Do you give to the Lord? What do you give? The more grateful you are, the more you will give. If you give your heart to the Lord the rest will follow.
The day of Pentecost was a special day. It “had come”, says our text.
Strange, don’t you think?
Not that that day, as such, was strange. Every Israelite knew that it was Pentecost on that day. You could count it out on your fingers: 7 times 7 days after Easter and then it was Pentecost. No; that was not strange. That was according to the rule, to the law of God. But what was strange was that the Holy Spirit was poured out on that day, and that the first harvest of PEOPLE was brought in. The first-fruits of Jesus death and resurrection…! Strange that they should have celebrated this feast for ages already ― and now the fulfilment had come.
Or is that so strange? When we look back we say: this is God’s plan. This is His will. The Holy Spirit was sent by Him on a day which was calculated long before.
Has the Holy Spirit a fixed day? Has He a fixed way, too? Or is everything that the Holy Spirit does a surprise? An unexpected thing? As though we can’t count on Him? Is that what we read in John 3, in that conversation of Jesus with Nicodemus during the night? “The wind blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know whence it comes or whither it goes; so it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”
Is that what we think of the Holy Spirit and of His work? Never knowing where He goes; never knowing what He does? Do you think this is true? Do you think that we must explain the words of Jesus to Nicodemus in that way? No: we must not…!
Many people think of the Holy Spirit in a completely wrong way.
Our text says that the Holy Spirit does have a fixed day, and a fixed way, too! We celebrate Pentecost today in the year 1968. Do you think that this differs from Pentecost of 1950 or 1884? Or is it just the same?
Is there progress in the work of the Holy Spirit? Does He count by years? By days? Or is that nonsense? Is His work of hundreds of years ago the same as today? Maybe we don’t see the difference but that does not mean a thing. We MUST see it – and must listen very carefully to Him as He speaks to us in His Word.
He has told us, you know, how He works and where He goes. The disciples were told beforehand to go to Jerusalem, and to wait there for the promise of the Father.
We are told that the Holy Spirit is there, wherever we wait for the promise of the Father. The Holy Spirit is there, wherever we are obedient to His Word. He is working there, wherever we are gathered in the name of Jesus and pray for His coming. Was it a fixed day on which the Holy Spirit was poured out? OF COURSE IT WAS! It was the day of His coming to His people!
It was the day of His “settling-in” in the church of Christ. That had never happened before, and that will never happen again! It is impossible that it can happen again just as it is impossible that Jesus Christ can be born for the second time. He was born on that special day in that special year, in that special place, under those special circumstances – and it will never happen again.
That day of Jesus’ birth was foretold ages and ages ago. It was predicted in Paradise to Adam and Eve, and during Old Testament times to many people, to many prophets – and they had to pass the message on to others. God told them how Jesus would come soon, and that He would be born in the city of David.
But the people were deaf and blind. On the day of Jesus’ birth they did not know what had happened. That was not God’s fault. The people had only themselves to blame. They were not ABLE to listen. They were warned but even that did not help. Isaiah was sent by God to tell the people about their hardness of heart. “Go and say to this people: Hear and hear, but do not understand; see and see, but do not perceive. Make the heart of this people fat, and their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.”
Do you think that it will be different with the Holy Spirit? The day of Jesus’ birth – His day – had been foretold from before the foundation of the world. It is up to us to listen. It is up to us to know this, and to be aware of His coming and of His work lest we miss out or seek Him where He is not, and take for His work what is not His work at all!
The Holy Spirit has His special day and His special way. He did come in that special year which was calculated by Himself and by the Father and the Son. It pleased the Triune God to do it then and then, and there and there, and so and so! Let us be attentive and let us wait for God’s promises as He has uttered them, and as He will fulfil them.
We commemorate the day of Pentecost, realising that He came to dwell in our hearts and minds and that He does so IN HIS OWN WAY and in the way of the Father and of the Son. He says nothing but what Jesus and the Father want Him to say.
Jesus said to His disciples in John 16: “When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth, for He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that He will take what is mine and declare it to you.”
The Holy Spirit will not be poured out for the second time. That special day of Pentecost will not be repeated. The Holy Spirit HAS come and, since that day of His coming, He dwells in the midst of God’s people and reigns in their hearts. He leads His people into all truth.
We are praying for that. We are praying that the Holy Spirit may work in the hearts of us and our children. We are praying that the Holy Spirit may work in the hearts of many who are not brought in yet, but who are chosen by God. We are praying that He will make us ready and prepared to work for Him, so that we may be willing instruments in His hands.
Aren’t we too selfish? Aren’t we too carnal? Aren’t we too earthly-minded? Do we lift up our hearts to God? Were not the two loaves at the Pentecost Feast tokens of gratitude and love to God? Don’t we want to say to God that we love Him and that we love our neighbour, and that we will seek them both – God and neighbour – so that God may be praised forever, and the fruits may be brought to Him?
We read in the Pentecostal message that the disciples were filled with the Holy Spirit. That is the way the Holy Spirit comes and works. Our hearts and minds must be filled with Him, so that we too may speak the words of the Spirit. The more we are guided by Him, the more we WILL speak HIS word.
It is not good when the Word of the Holy Spirit is not known by us anymore! It is not good when the complaint is heard more and more that we can’t read the Bible. It is not good when we are not interested in studying the Bible. It is not good when there are many families in our churches where the Bible is not read any more or very irregularly. It is not good when we do not hunger and thirst for the Word of God. May the Holy Spirit work in our midst and bring us back to the Bible!
We don’t ask for the signs and tokens of Pentecost. They will not happen again. They belonged definitely to that special day of His coming.
The first Pentecost IS different from the Pentecost of 1968. There IS progress in the work of the Holy Spirit. When He was busy with the foundation of the Church, with the beginnings of Church history there in Jerusalem, and later on in Samaria or in Antioch or in Joppa, then those signs and tokens were there to accompany His coming – to underline it, to prove it. These signs disappeared after a while. They were not there continuously or constantly. They belonged to that special day of the Holy Spirit. We grieve the Holy Spirit if we ask for them again. It would then be evident that we DON’T believe, and that we are NOT aware of the work of the Holy Spirit in our days.
Our text gives an answer to some questions which may turn up here. How does the Holy Spirit work? What is He doing today? Do we know? Can we know?
“They were all together in one place,” it is said in our text. Well, one of the things the Holy Spirit does is that He brings us together. First of all, He binds us to God the Father and to God the Son, who became flesh. He shows – us and convinces us – that we belong to the Father and to Jesus. We are one. He assures us that nobody can separate us from God!
Jerusalem was not a very kind city to Jesus and His disciples. Not unlikely, the disciples were together because of their fear of the Jews. They were already distinguished from the Jews, and were already marked as belonging to Jesus.
The Holy Spirit makes us disciples of Jesus and children of God. That is His work. It will become evident to us that we belong to the Father and to Jesus – and that we are separated from this world. We don’t belong to it. We may be in it but we are not of it. That is just the thing that marks us. We are of another world. We are born of God, and are given to Jesus by the Father. Therefore we are baptized. To assure us that we are engrafted into the Christian church, and distinguished from the children of unbelievers.
We may understand it or not, we may like it or not, but that is what happens to us when we are baptized in the name of the HOLY SPIRIT as well.
He is busy to work that out in us – and we must be busy and WILL be busy, because He started His work in us, and will accomplish it. He makes us Jesus’ own, and He makes us children of God. That is the first thing.
But there is also that other thing: He makes us ONE BODY.
“They all were together in one place.”
“All” is a word that we often read in the Word of the Spirit. In verses 1-4 of this chapter we read it three times. Here it means that nobody was missing. They were ALL there. The Holy Spirit takes care of that. When He gathers God’s people together He gathers them ALL. Not one is lost. The whole body of Jesus is COMPLETE!
That is very comforting. It is possible with us as families that some of our own children go astray. How much we miss them! But here, NOT ONE is missing! And how we enjoy this completeness! How we enjoy this unity and this communion! More than all other fellowship, more than all other gatherings.
It is not right when we miss out on Sunday, when we as church meet and seek each other’s fellowship in the Lord. It does not only mean that we miss each other. It also means that we miss the Holy Spirit and His work.
We don’t realize this – otherwise we would be more faithful in our churchgoing; more faithful in our community singing and in our united prayers. How great it is to be one as husband and wife, as parents and children, as friends and relatives! But it is much greater to be one as church, as body of Christ.
It is exciting to be united by one idea, hobby or game. It is exciting to play together, to work together. But the most exciting thing is to be united by the Holy Spirit, by one faith. The most exciting and the most wonderful thing is to worship together, and to serve together the one Lord and God, Father and Son, in that one Holy Spirit, who brings us together and KEEPS US together; who makes us the holy body of Christ, the bride of Jesus.
We like to see a bride beautifully dressed for her bridegroom, on the day of their wedding. How much more will we rejoice when the bride of Jesus Christ is fully united with her Bridegroom? Even today we may rejoice in this fellowship and unity.
Jesus prayed for it in his high-priestly prayer. The Holy Spirit works on it and we too are busy with it. We seek it with all our heart.
We grieve the Holy Spirit if we don’t.
This age is the age of ecumenicity. The seeking of Christians one for another. Maybe we don’t always do it in the right way. But nobody can deny that it must be done, and that the Holy Spirit is working here, too.
Jesus will come back and will take His bride – His Church – up to Him. He will do that after the Holy Spirit has fulfilled His task, and has brought us together. He uses all kind of ways. He can unite us by means of persecution, by means of oppression, or even by means of false teachings.
We must pray that the Holy Spirit will be like a storm, like a fire in our days. The signs may not be there anymore – but the power of the Holy Spirit is still the same. He purifies, He prunes; He tears the dead branches from the tree. Many may be misled by wolves in sheep’s clothing; many may be seduced in countries like China and Russia and in all other countries of our modern world. Don’t we live in the post-Christian age? In the age of the by-gone faith? It may be true. Nevertheless, we believe in the Holy Spirit. We believe in His work of gathering.
The World Council of Churches may not be the answer; nor any of the other Councils or Synods or associations. Who does expect that they will give the answer? Nevertheless, they do tell us that the Holy Spirit is busy gathering His church, uniting those who are of Jesus Christ.
We are divided as Christians but not all divisions are wrong! Sometimes we can’t hold fast to each other because the other does not obey and does not listen to God; does not want to be bound by His Word and His Holy Spirit. We must obey God more than men. We must listen to Him more than to ourselves.
We can be jealous when we read that the disciples were all together in one place. Are we too big in numbers? Are we too spread out over all the world? Who will take care of our unity? Our ecumenicity? It is easy to criticise, to condemn the endeavours of bringing Christians together. But one thing IS necessary: that we seek one another in the name of the Lord, and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
He will lead us into all truth also in the truth of unity which IS there, but which we have not found yet.
If we don’t grieve over this, but are satisfied with the situation we are in, we prove that we have not yet understood what the Holy Spirit is aiming at.
Of course we MUST seek this unity first of all, with all those who are -with us- members of one church, one local church. There must be more love in our circles to each other. We may be of different backgrounds, of different character; we may have different customs.
Nevertheless, we must be one in Jesus Christ through the Holy Spirit!
What did Paul say to his friends in Corinth? “I appeal to you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no dissensions among you, but that you may be united in the same mind and the same judgment. For it has been reported to me that there is quarrelling among you, my brethren. What I mean is that each one of you says, ‘I belong to Paul, or I belong to Apollos, or I belong to Cephas, or I belong to Christ.’ Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?”
Are we too cold?
Shouldn’t our hearts be burning within us?
Where is the flame of love, of true love for Jesus and His Church?
Where is that noise that fills the whole house?
Where is the fire in each one of us?
Have you ever read the legend of St. Patrick – the British monk, the apostle of Ireland? It tells how he miraculously kindled a fire on a frosty day. In verse it goes like this:
St.Patrick as in legends told
– the weather being very cold –
in order to assuage the weather,
collected bits of ice together.
A very unlikely way to soothe the weather! But listen to what follows:
St. Patrick breathed upon the pyre,
and every fragment blazed with fire!
Isn’t that what we need? The breath of God – is to make every fragment, every member, blaze with fire?
Come, Holy Spirit, heavenly dove,
With all Thy quickening powers;
Kindle a flame of sacred love
In these cold hearts of ours.
Amen.