The Pattern of Pentecost # 1

The Pattern of Pentecost # 1

Acts 2:1-8

"When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. It filled all of the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven parting tongues like as of a fire, and as a flame. It arose on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there was in Jerusalem devout men out of every nation under heaven. And they were all amazed and marveled and said "How hear we every man in his own tongue wherein we were born? The glorious good news of the saving of our souls from damnation and hell?

There's no one of us but that prays for a life experience, a like outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God upon us. We sang just a moment ago: 

"Lord, send the old-time power.
The Pentecostal power!
Thy floodgates of blessing,
On us throw open wide!
Lord, send the old- time power,
The Pentecostal power!
That sinners be converted,
And Thy Name glorified!

Whatever the cheap veneer of so-called culture and however cold and insensitive our hearts may appear to be toward God, there is always underneath in every human soul a longing and a thirsting and a hungering after the Almighty. It is universal.

I one time read of an evangelist who was invited to fill the pulpit of an aristocratic, formal, cold liturgical congregation. And being warm-hearted and Spirit-filled, he concluded his message with an invitation. And when he did so, down the aisle came a ragged, dirty, filthy, street woman. And when she came forward, the quartet in the choir, back of the preacher, stood up and left. They walked out the back door of the choir. The preacher thought that he had offended that elite congregation. But instead, the quartet came back and around and put their arms around that dirty street woman with many tears and welcomed her back into the kingdom of God.

And the preacher learned afterward that she, that dirty woman, had once been a member and sang in the quartet, had fallen into sin and into disease and into poverty. But that day, on the Lord's Day, undoubtedly, clandestinely, secretly had come back into the church, just in memory of the days gone by. Under the power of the Holy Spirit, she had answered the appeal of the pastor and was there at the front, coming back into the arms of our Saviour. That is universal: the heart hunger for God.

Down in the human heart (crushed by the tempter),
Feelings be buried but grace can restore.
Touched by a human hand, warmed by kindness,
Cords that are broken will vibrate once more. 
(Fanny Crosby)

O God for a revival! There are no problems in national life or human life that cannot be solved by a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God. All of the things we face in the dissolution of the life of our people - drugs and crime and violence and diseases - all of them are solved and are made to disappear in a great outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord.

I have read many times of the tremendous revival in Wales under Even Roberts. And in those days and in those years, the jails were empty - not one in a jail! And the whole creation in which those people lived was filled with the love and the presence of the Lord God.

The need of our land is for revival,
A freshet of grace from above,
Repentance toward God and forgiveness,
More trusting in God and His love,
The need of the church is for revival,
A blessing from above.
Fullness of Spirit and witnessing,
More trusting in Christ and His love.
(William Leslie)

A great outpouring of the Spirit of God!

This passage in the second chapter of the Book of Acts introduces us to a new dispensation, a new era, a new age - the church age in which we live. It was prepared on a certain date, at a certain time, in a certain place from the beginning of God's creation. It was foretold by the prophets; for example, Joel 2:28-32 prophesies of this outpouring of the Spirit of the Lord. And he lived eight hundred years before Christ. It was a marvelous gift of the ascended Lord in His intercessions in heaven. In John 16:7 He said to His disciples, "it is expedient for you that I go away. If I go not away He that comforts, the Holy Spirit, will not come, but if I go away, I will send Him unto you that He may abide with you forever."

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit of the presence of God, heretofore in all of the revelation of the presence and work of the Lord God heretofore before Pentecost, the working of the Spirit of God was always intermittent. It was here. It was there. It was now, it was then. Sometimes upon matter; the Book begins: "And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep". Sometimes upon men: the first judge was Othniel, the nephew of Caleb, and the Spirit of God fell upon him. Intermittently the Bible says of Samson that at times the Spirit of God fell upon him. Intermittently the Bible says of Samson that at times the Spirit of God moved Samson in the camp of Dan. Sometimes the Spirit of God would fall upon David, sometimes upon Saul even, sometimes upon Elisha "The spirit of Elijah doth rest upon Elisha', but always intermittently.

~W. A. Criswell~

(continued with # 2)