Acts 2:47 - August 31, 2009

Acts 2:47: “…Praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.”

Pentecost – Part VIII

Today we conclude our brief tour of Pentecost before we return to the Psalms – but though this is the docking of this ship, may these reflections simply serve as one more encouragement in your journey to a continual Pentecost. As you continue on in the open seas of life, may the mighty Spirit of God blow afresh and carry you on your way to the glory and fame of Jesus!
Of course, much more could be said about Pentecost for the church today – but let us conclude by highlighting some of the historical fruit of Pentecost to encourage us on our way.
A first fruit is boldness to preach with authority and conviction. How the church needs young and old, fully committed, Christians who “cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20)! This is what the Spirit does. And this doesn’t mean that you need to become an ordained minister or a leader in the church in order to preach boldly. Far from it, God wants people to “take it to the streets,” as the Matt Redman song goes. Peter who had just days before denied Jesus in fear for his own life, now empowered by the Spirit spoke the wonders of God in Christ in the very same local where he denied Jesus! That is the power of the Spirit! Later in the face of severe threats by the authorities, the Apostles prayed to God to enable “your servants to speak your word with great boldness” (Acts 4:29).
A second fruit is what accompanies the first – conviction and repentance leading to salvation. On that historic day of Pentecost, Peter preached to the people and they “were cut to the heart;” they repented from their life of sin and about three thousand were brought into salvation (Acts 2:36-41). The great revivalist Charles Finney expresses the pairing of these fruit: “The Spirit of God came upon me with such power that it was like opening up a battery (a row of cannons) upon them. For more than an hour the Word of God came through me to them in a manner that I could see was carrying all before it. It was a fire, and as a hammer breaking upon the rock, and as the sword that was piercing to the dividing of soul and spirit.” Hallelujah! Would that the Spirit of God come upon us in such this way!
A third fruit is the simple testimony of the improbable growth of the early church. The existence of the church is a historical impossibility without the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, his ascension to the throne of God as king and lord over heaven and earth, and the consequent pouring out of his Spirit upon his people. With the Spirit, that feeble group of disciples burst forth onto the stage of history to change it forever! Within that generation the Gospel had spread across the known world. Within the first 300 years it was actually illegal to be a Christian, and many knew persecution, abuse, mistreatment, slander and murder. And never did the church respond in kind – but always with love. As the second century church father Tertullian said, “the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” Only by the power of Pentecost! Closer to our own time, the Spirit’s coming has launched worldwide mission and renewal movements all over the globe in impossible scenarios. The community of Moravians in the eighteenth century, which created an atmosphere of 24-7 prayer for over 100 years, pioneered missionaries to unreached places all over the globe – years ahead of the great Protestant missionary awakening in the nineteenth century. The 1906 Azusa street revival launched the modern day Pentecostal movement – which has become the fastest growing and sustained expression of Christianity in the 20th and 21st century, from a small handful of hungry Pentecostal-seekers, to several hundred million worldwide! Hallelujah!
And the list of fruit could go on – healing power, demons demolished, hearts healed, captives set free, lives that are truly changed, and so forth. What is in no doubt is that we need more of God’s Spirit, and so we simply conclude with a prayer: “Oh God, prepare us, make room in us for the coming of your Spirit in a fresh way in our day. Send your Fire Oh God! Hallelujah. Amen!”