The Spirit of God 5/24/42
Scripture: Acts 2: 1-21 (Moffatt)
Test: Acts 2: 4 ...“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.”
One of the things that makes the reading of the Bible interesting to me, is the fact that there is so much in it that I do not understand. Not only is it a source of inspiration and guidance, but it also stimulates curiosity. If I could live, in my day, through some of the experiences chronicled in those days by the writers of the Biblical accounts, what would by my interpretation of those experiences?
This interesting account of Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus, is such a passage. There are tantalizing elements of mystery about it which I do not at all understand, and which it were evidently hard for the writer to describe.
Something happened, he seems to write, which was accompanied by “a sound from heaven like a violent blast of wind, which filled the whole house where they were seated.” They saw “tongues of flames.” People spoke “in foreign tongues.” These are words in which he attempts to describe the experience. Further, he says that each of those present of many races and tongues, heard the disciples speak out in his own language!
Some of our very literal-minded brethren, who emphasize the “gift of tongues” in their religious experience, have in the past been so sure that they themselves have received the gift of tongues, that they have immediately set out for foreign lands to become missionaries. I have heard of some of those who arrived years ago in Korea, without funds and without any special training for their work, confident that they could speak Korean and preach the gospel immediately to the Koreans. They soon had the painful experience of finding that the Koreans did not understand their babblings. There was still no way to reach the people with their message except through interpreters, or the patient time-consuming process of studying a new language.
Usually the experienced missionaries of the established denominations had to come to their rescue and take up a collection to get them back home.
It is not so simple to understand - this mysterious experience of Pentecost. That is one thing that makes it such interesting, and tantalizing, reading.
Apparently the people who witnessed the experience did not understand it either. Some just passed if off with the comment, “O, they’re drunken - they are full of new wine.” Peter challenged that remark with the comment that it was only nine o’clock in the morning, a very unusual time of day for drunkenness, unless it be that of some habitual sot. The answer is not so easy!
Of one thing I am sure, however. Something happened to those disciples! Something tremendous in their lives; something transforming.
Remember that these are the same folk who had been fascinated by Jesus’ personality, had followed him faithfully and loved him deeply - but had never completely understood him. These are the same folk who scattered in terror and despair when their leader was put to death. It had taken days for them to get together and patiently, prayerfully, to rebuild their visions and a measure of hope.
One thing that reassured them powerfully was another mystery - a mystery, yet a powerful reality - theirr conviction that their Lord was not dead, but living! However, even that had not made missionaries of them; the irrepressible fanatics, if you will, that were never to be defeated again. It was this mysterious experience of the coming of the Holy Spirit upon them that sent them out “on fire” with the zeal that carried Christ’s gospel all over the world. It was this experience that put a power into their words which brought people into the Christian fellowship by the thousands. It was this experience that enabled them to face persecution and death at the hands of a hostile civil government and a hide-bound ecclesiastical organization.
Something undoubtedly happened with a spiritual power that was at once explosive and lasting. There, in the reborn hearts of those men, was born the living church of Jesus Christ. Pentecost is the church’s birthday. How can you describe, adequately, an experience so profound? But something mighty happened!
There are those who maintain that one must ask questions about the literal descriptions of such an experience; that the only right way is to accept them word for word at their apparent literal value for what they seem to say. But with this viewpoint I do not agree. The greatest experiences of human life are too mighty to be trusted entirely to human words. “What has God tried to make his people understand through these words?” That is the spirit in which I wish to read my Bible.
Furthermore the Pentecostal experience was not vouchsafed only to those disciples alone who were gathered together in that place on that great day. It has been repeated in the lives of thousands ever since!
The man who had the greatest organizing genius of them all, a man of superior training and ability, was a man named Saul, who had never been among the apostles and had perhaps never seen Jesus in the flesh. But, while on his way to Damascus to help annihilate those dangerous, crazy Christians whom he had heard were there, Saul had an experience that changed him from Saul to Paul; from persecutor to defender and promoter of Christianity. If, as some maintain, Peter was the church’s first “bishop,” Paul was certainly the church’s first powerful missionary.
Others have followed in similar experience; others by the thousands; those known to us are too numerous to mention - people like Francis of Assisi, like Martin Luther, like John Wesley, like Dwight L Moody, like Ozora Davis; yes, people like you folk seated about this room, who by the Holy Spirit have caught, through Jesus Christ, a lasting vision of God and whose will is to be loyal to that vision forever.
If Christmas is the festival of God with us; and Easter perhaps the festival of God for us; Pentecost is the festival of God in us.
This Holy Spirit has enabled people through the centuries to suffer and endure all manner of hardship for righteousness. It has survived all manner of persecution and violence. It has lived for generations, when necessary, in the catacombs of Europe. It lived, mysteriously, through 300 years following the time when the first Catholic church of the Orient was officially forbidden, and was wiped out by the sword. The first Protestant missionaries to Japan in the last century were amazed to discover that that spirit was still present, harbored in the hearts of people who for many generations had never known the organized church and who must nurture the spirit in absolute secrecy from their government.
Is the Holy Spirit alive today? Many have unthinkingly said “No.” “It is dead;” “the church is dead.” Many of the Russians have said “worse than dead; it is opium to the people.” Hitler said it is decadent; only a nuisance. The Russian said, “Wipe it out.” Hitler said, “Make it over and fit it into the propaganda machine.” The Japanese militarists said “Watch your step; you will be tolerated only in line with the principles of an empire.”
But is the church docile, decadent or dead? Look and listen! The voice of the French Catholic church is heard in stronger and stronger condemnation of totalitarian, anti-Semitic, and collaborationist tendencies. One of the hopeful signs in France is the reported refusal of Protestant youth to discriminate against Jewish and foreign members.
The new-born united Christian church of Japan clings to its roots like a reed bent low in a furious storm. The young church of China is today a greater force in the life of that vast nation than at any time in history.
What happened in Germany? The Nazi war of attrition against the church continues unabated. Nazi officials were recently told, “The people must be liberated from the churches. It is in the interest of the Reich to maintain and intensify the division of the churches.” And what is the answer? An archbishop of Freiburg said in a Lenten letter, “It is today maintained that Bismark failed to gain the final victory in the Kulturkampf (that is the church conflict of his day) because he did not have ‘sufficient power.’ We permit ourselves here to ask: who has ‘sufficient power’ to become Lord over the Church? Many people have thought they had it, and .... have found out their error; for the divine word of our Lord, so often put to the test, that even the devil and his train cannot prevail against the church, still holds good.”
The church was not dead, nor even conquered, in Germany. It is not today. And what of Norway? We are informed that the courageous and intelligent struggle of the Norwegian clergy has greatly strengthened the national spirit of resistance. Quisling had to back down from his ultimatum that pastors rescind their resignations. The text of the forceful letter of resignation sent individually by the Norwegian Bishops to the fascist authorities on February 24, has arrived from London. The concluding paragraphs deserved to be engraven large in the records of religious groups:
“The Bishops of the Norwegian Churches would be disloyal if they continued to participate in an administration which in this way, without any trace of religious justification, violates the community’s rights and adds insult to injury. For that reason I hereby state that I am resigning from my office. In other words: What the State has committed to my charge, I relinquish.
The spiritual calling which has been ordained to me at the altar of God remains mine, by God and by right. To be the mouthpiece of the Holy Word, to care for the congregations and to be the spiritual father of the priests, is and continues to be my call. I shall in the future attend to this as far as is possible for one who is not an official. But to continue administrative cooperation with a State which uses violence against the Church would be to fail in that which is most sacred. Together with Luther, we have tried to be loyal to authority as long as it was consistent with the Scriptures. But as for Luther, so for us, too, the moment has arrived in which we must follow our convictions, and maintain the right of the Church against the injustice of the State. The form of the State may change, but the Church and its Fathers-in-God know, that against what Luther calls tyranny, stands God Himself in the power of His Word and Spirit. Woe to us, if we were not to obey God more than man.”
Do you wonder, my friends, at the report that Hitler now claims the ecumenical church of Christ to be his number one enemy? It is the enemy of every evil end for which his philosophy stands, and every evil means which he uses!
I tell you that the Holy Spirit moves in the hearts of people today. Let no mysteries hide from you the fact that something happened at Pentecost, the birthday of the church. And it is still happening mightily in our day. And millions of hearts say, Amen. So be it.
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dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, May 24, 1942
W.F.H.R., Wisconsin Rapids, June 19, 1942
Wisconsin Rapids, September 12, 1954