The Pattern of Pentecost # 2

The Pattern of Pentecost # 2

After Pentecost the Spirit of God was poured out without measure (John 3:34). The breath became a mighty wind. And the energizing presence of God became incarnate in human personality. And Pentecost is a pattern, a model to be reproduced again and again and again. 

I one time read of a mission in Africa, and the Spirit of the Lord died in the hearts of the missionaries and of the converts. And even the tribal chief stood up and said, "When I worshiped my heathen gods, I was happy. But now having become a Christian, I am miserable and I renounce my Christian faith." The mission stopped. The missionaries in despair, in hurt, began to cry aloud unto the Lord. And the same thing as at Pentecost happened: the Spirit of the Lord was poured out upon the missionaries. The Spirit of God was poured out upon the tribe. Even the tribal chief was preaching once again. And in their language they had a saying "Joy is killing us!"

I have seen that in my own ministry. In one of the meetings I held in one of the great cities of America, the meetings were wooden. They were dull. They were disappointing. And on Saturday night the congregation spontaneously met in intercession, in appeal in prayer, in asking God with fervent soul and heart. And the next morning, Sunday morning, you would have thought you were in Jerusalem when Simon Peter delivered his message at Pentecost! (Acts 2:14-40).

It is repeated again and again and again. In the twentieth chapter of the Book of John, our Lord said to His apostles as He breathed upon them, He said, "Labete." Lambono is to receive is to take labete is the imperative form of it, labete. "Take the Holy Spirit" (John 20:22). God has poured out His presence upon us without measure. And it is just for us to receive Him, to open our hearts to Him, to give the issue of our lives to Him. And God answers powerfully and dynamically, gloriously from heaven.

Pentecost is repeated again and again and again - in the second chapter of the Book of Acts, Pentecost (Acts 2:1-47). In the fourth chapter of the Book of Acts, after having prayed before God, there is another Jerusalem Pentecost (Acts 4:31-35). I turn to the eighth chapter of Acts, there is a Samaritan Pentecost (Acts 8:5-25). I turn to the tenth chapter of Acts, there is a Caesarean, there is a Gentile Pentecost (Acts 20:34-48). And it continues through the centuries. There is no generation but that somewhere there is an outpouring of the Spirit of God. There may be darkness and doubt and death in one place, but in the same time there will be light and the glory and the presence of God in another place. There is no exception to it in the history of the Christian age!

For example, when the church at Jerusalem became deadened by legalism, the Spirit of God was poured out upon the church at Antioch and at Ephesus. And when the church in Thessalonica and Philippi waned in their love for the Lord the church at Milan was alive with the presence of Jesus. When the churches of Carthage and of Alexandria became bogged down in theological minutiae, the churches of Gaul were aflame with the power of Christ. When that pontifical court at Avignon became corrupt, the churches in Germany became aflame with the presence of God. When the churches of France were darkened in superstition, at that same time the stars of the Reformation were rising in Switzerland and Germany and in England. And when the fields of Italy became worthless stubble, a great revival was taking place in Bohemia under John Huss and under our great Baptist preacher Hubmaier. There is no time, there is no age but that somewhere there is a mighty outpouring of the Spirit of God.

And in this present moment when liberalism and doubt denying the Word of God has emptied the churches of the western world, look around you today, here in the First Baptist church of Dallas, under Dr. Truett for forty-seven years, and now under my ministry, fill this sanctuary at an 8:25 service, fill it again at a 10:30 service. The presence and power of God! There is Pentecost always. It is a pattern to be duplicated, to be repeated, to be modeled again and again and again.

The heart of it lies in the preacher. It lies in the ambassador from heaven, in the emissary from the courts of the Lord. Oh, what a tradition in which the preacher stands: Peter and Paul and Ignatius and Chrysostom and Savonardola and Huss and Hubmaier and Wycliffe and Wesley and Jonathan Edwards and - down to the generation just before us - a Scarborough and a Truett and to our day! O Lord, what a tradition!

Oh dear, what could be more thrilling than the memory of these great men of God who have preceded us? And I think of this own pulpit here in which the inimitable George Truett stood behind this very desk for forty seven years preaching the gospel of the Son of God. In the power of the Holy Spirit, John Wesley said in his diary: "I went to America to  convert the American Indian, but who will convert this heart of mine?" And in Aldersgate Chapel listening to an exposition of the Book of Romans, he writes in his diary: "My heart was strangely warmed." And John Wesley rose in the power of the Spirit, and that was the birth of the Methodist Church.

Dwight L. Moody, praying and pleading with the power of God to fall upon him, walking down Wall Street, in New York City, ran into the shelter of a neighboring office and there prayed God to stay His hand lest he die - the power of the Lord God was upon him.l Charles G. Finney, those who listened to him said his words were like barbed arrows, they were like a hammer that would break the hardest heart to pieces, they were like a sword that would cut to the soul. In the town at that time of Rochester, 50,000 population, Charles G. Finney in his meeting had 100,000 conversions. The whole of upper New York found the Lord.

~W. A. Criswell~

(continued with # 3)