I'd like to lay a foundation for our
meditation in the word of God by pointing
you to several passages.
Firstly in the letter to the Galatians, the
letter to the Galatians chapter 3 at
verse 13, Christ redeemed us from the curse
of the law, having become a curse for
us, for it is written, Cursed is everyone
that hangeth on a tree, that upon the
Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in
Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith.
Let's abbreviate that statement, Christ redeemed us from
the curse of the law, that upon the
Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in
Christ Jesus, that we might receive the promise
of the Spirit through faith.
Verse 26, For ye are all sons of
God through faith in Christ Jesus, chapter 4
at verse 5, that he might redeem them
that were under the law, that we might
receive the adoption of sons.
And because ye are sons, God sent forth
the Spirit of his Son into our hearts,
crying, Abba, Father, so that thou art no
longer a bond servant but a son, and
if a son, then an heir through God.
The first letter of John, first letter of
John and chapter 3, Behold what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that
we should be called children of God, and
such we are.
For this cause the world knoweth us not,
because it knew him not.
Beloved, now are we children of God, and
it is not yet made manifest what we
shall be.
We know that if he shall be manifested,
we shall be like him, for we shall
see him even as he is.
Then the letter to the Romans, chapter 8,
verse 16, The Spirit himself beareth witness with
our spirit that we are children of God.
21, Creation itself also shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption into the liberty of
the glory of the children of God.
Chapter 9, verse 8, It is not the
children of the flesh that are children of
God, but the children of the promise are
reckoned for a seed.
For this is a word of promise, according
to this season will I come, and Sarah
shall have a son.
Sometimes helpful right at the outset to state
precisely what it is we are going to
think about, talk about, and be occupied with.
Not because it is fitting to the season,
but I believe because the Lord has so
led, we are going to be occupied with
the great crisis of Pentecost, and
the immense significance of the Holy Spirit.
It would be difficult to overemphasize the importance
of the Holy Spirit.
We have heard so much, perhaps we know
so much, that the mention of this matter
may fail to stir us as it ought
to on every fresh remembrance.
What we need perhaps as much as anything
is a sense of the freshness of everything
with which we are so familiar.
That particular and peculiar joy that comes with
a sense of freshness in old and familiar
scenes.
I expect many of you know what I
mean when I say that we may be
very familiar with certain scenes, certain places, certain
associations.
We may have been familiar with them perhaps
all our lives, or for many years.
And then we take someone who has never
before seen them.
We take a friend, and as we point
out this and that, describe this and that,
tell the story of this and that, and
we see the freshness of appreciation in the
friend.
How the old thing becomes new to us.
And yes, we begin to see things that
we've never seen before as we point them
out, and under the inspiration of their enjoyment
of something quite new.
That is true isn't it?
Some of us have been overground so many,
many times.
And then we have taken someone who has
never gone that way.
And in their enjoyment and pleasure, or almost
ecstasy, we've been surprised, perhaps a little ashamed,
that we never saw it quite like that.
Or that it had lost its real attraction
for us.
And yet, it's something quite old.
Don't you feel, dear friends, that something like
that, that we need to recover in relation
to the familiar things of the Word of
God.
Then we put it like this.
If you and I were complete strangers to
Christianity, and to the Bible, and were really
very anxious to know the meaning of Christianity,
and the meaning of the Bible, we really
were concerned to know.
So that we sat down, and with all
diligence, earnestness, and thoughtfulness, began to read the
New Testament.
Here is a parenthesis I may suggest to
you, that's a very useful thing to do.
Try and forget that you know it.
And make yourself, imagine that you've never read
that before.
Come to it as though it were for
the first time.
You try it, you find there's a real
value in that.
Well, supposing that you were really doing that
for the first time.
What do you think would be the thing
that would press itself upon your notice, perhaps
more than anything else?
If you took up this New Testament, thoughtfully,
carefully read, read through the Gospels, found yourself
in all that vivid life and movement of
the book of the Acts, and then on
into the remainder, the letters and the consummation,
seeking to get one distinct impression.
What do you think that would be?
I suggest to you, dear friends, that it
would be this.
This, of course, this book is all about
one person.
That person is called Jesus.
That Jesus lived on the earth for a
time, taught and walked, and then was put
to death.
This book, everywhere, declares that God raised him
from the dead.
That is the outstanding thing.
Everywhere.
God raised him from the dead.
But that is not all.
This book is just alive because that
raising of Jesus from the dead has become
a living experience in the people concerned by
the power of the Spirit of God.
Don't you agree that that would be the
thing that would impress you most?
As a stranger to the story, to the
book, God raised Jesus from the dead and
the Spirit of God has made that a
living reality in the life of a whole
multitude, and an ever-growing multitude of men
and women.
The Holy Spirit, for them, was not a
theme and a subject, a doctrine and a
truth to be discussed and argued about, but
an experience.
And an experience of Jesus being alive after
having died.
When you have really put your hand upon
that, and I can see that it makes
very little impression upon you, doesn't strike you
as anything very wonderful, because you're so familiar
with it.
But there you are, having put your finger
upon that, you have put your finger upon
the whole key secret, the wonderful significance of
the Holy Spirit.
Far more, of course, bound up with that
than I have indicated.
Christianity is built upon these two themes.
God raised Jesus from the dead, and the
Holy Spirit makes that a reality in the
lives of believers.
Jesus risen, the Holy Spirit given.
Two great foundations of Christianity.
But it carries you into a very large
realm.
You will see that this has its backward
aspect.
The Holy Spirit throws full light upon Jesus
from his birth to his cross, and explains
everything in his life.
You will never come into the good and
the value of the life of the Lord
Jesus from his birth to his cross without
the Holy Spirit interpreting, explaining, and making live.
You'll only have an earthly story, a bit
of history, and biography.
You'll have no life out of those years,
and all that was in them, until the
Holy Spirit takes up the incarnation, the walk,
the teaching, the working, and the dying, and
makes them live.
We require the Holy Spirit.
He is indispensable to the understanding of the
coming of the Lord Jesus, and his being
here on this earth at all.
Now take one inclusive factor in that.
Why did he come?
Why was he here?
For what did he live, and work, and
teach, and die?
Only one thing.
You might answer it in many ways, but
the one inclusive thing was to bring man
back into a living, conscious union with God.
That sums up the whole meaning of the
life of the Lord Jesus on this earth,
and his death.
Let me repeat.
To bring man into a living and conscious
union with God.
Do you recognize that that is a feature,
the feature of Christianity which distinguishes it from
all other religions in this world?
A living, conscious union and fellowship with God.
But if that is true, if that is
why he came, lived, worked, taught, and died,
it was all in vain until the Holy
Spirit came, and made it real and live.
He came in vain, he lived in vain,
he taught in vain, he worked in vain,
he died in vain, until the Holy Spirit
came.
Therefore, he puts this tremendous importance upon the
Holy Spirit.
It is expedient for you, if I go
not away, the Comforter will not come, even
the Spirit of Truth.
There is no effecting of the meaning of
the life of Christ, apart from the gift
and indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
And the very first thing that the Holy
Spirit does is to make all that for
which Christ came instantly real.
The Spirit beareth witness with our spirit that
we are children of God.
If that does not mean living, conscious relationship
with God, what does it mean?
The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit.
All the meaning of Christ's coming is made
good.
Immediately we receive the Holy Spirit, or it
begins to be made good.
It is taken up and made real.
And what is true of the life of
the Lord Jesus, here is true of everything
else which we need not pursue.
There is no real knowing or living until
the Holy Spirit comes and comes in.
In our readings this afternoon, we have underlined
one word.
I trust that you did it as we
were reading.
The common factor of all that we were
reading, all those passages.
There are many more that can be added.
In John's statement for instance, Behold what manner
of love the Father hath bestowed upon us
that we should be called children of God.
Now are we the children of God.
And you know that it is a basic
statement in relation to the coming of the
Lord Jesus into this world that through faith
in him, believing on him, we should have
the right to be called children of God.
The right to be called the children of
God.
That is why he came.
To constitute this heavenly spiritual family.
Children of God.
And sons of God.
That is the end in view.
Now having just made that statement, dear friends,
we are going to allow the advent of
the Holy Spirit, the day of Pentecost, to
take us a long way back.
You know that the Bible is a book
of crises.
That is, of turning points which contain different
features.
Crisis and critic are from the same root.
And a critic is someone who takes up
a matter at a certain point and indicates
the differences.
How differences of view and interpretation are to
be seen at that point.
And that is a crisis.
It is a point reached where things are
going to change and there is going to
be a difference.
You are going to see a difference from
what has been and what is going to
be.
Now the Bible is a book of crises.
There are four major crises in the Bible
with a great many minor ones between.
The first great crisis is that of creation.
Indeed it was a crisis.
It was the intervention of God in relation
to purpose.
God's reaction to vanity, to what is void,
to what is without purpose and meaning.
Serving no real end.
Now the earth was without form and void.
God intervened and that was a crisis.
And the difference of course is quite plain.
The second great crisis is that of redemption.
God intervening to recover.
The third crisis was that of Pentecost.
The intervention of spiritual fullness as against mere
figures and representations and fragments.
Now to bring in the real and the
full.
For the word full or fullness is always
associated with the Holy Spirit.
By Pentecost heaven intervention intervened unto spiritual fullness.
I could enlarge upon that no doubt very
much comes to you in relation to the
Holy Spirit.
If I only hint at the number seven
connected with the Spirit you know that it
signifies spiritual fullness.
Great intervention of heavenly fullness on the day
of Pentecost.
Then the fourth great crisis of course is
that of the coming again of the Lord.
The intervention for universal restoration and restitution.
Many aspects but that's what it is and
for that crisis we wait.
Now note that every one of these major
crises the Holy Spirit is very distinctly in
view.
Spirit of God brooded over the face of
the people.
Was the agent and the energy of creation.
Everything to do with the crisis of redemption
is in the hands of the Holy Spirit.
The Redeemer is born of the Spirit.
The Redeemer is anointed of the Spirit.
The Redeemer offered himself without spot unto God
through the eternal Spirit all the way through
the work of redemption.
The Holy Spirit was the energy, power, the
agent, the custodian.
It goes without saying the third great crisis
of Pentecost was in the hands of the
Holy Spirit.
He took over everything at that point.
Even the Lord Jesus very, very strongly stipulated
that nothing was to be done, no attempt
made even to preach until the Spirit was
come.
He gave commandment, Luke says, after that by
commandment.
What was his commandment?
Tarry until he be endued.
That was the commandment.
No movement, no attempt at anything.
The Holy Spirit came and he took over
the whole program.
Will it be less in the final crisis
of his coming again?
The coming again, dear friends, will be but
the consummation of the Spirit's work in this
age.
Then he will have done his work.
He will have brought to birth the sons
for manifestation.
He will have effected their spiritual growth and
perfection.
He will, like Abraham's servant, bring the bride
and present the bride to the bridegroom.
So the end of the book of the
Revelation is the Spirit and the bride.
He is in evidence in every connection through
the whole outworking of divine powers.
But when you have said that, about the
four major crises and the many minor ones
between, what is it?
That is, they are in the foreground all
the time.
There are many other intelligences and created beings
in the background looking on, sometimes being agents
and instruments in the great drama.
But in the foreground, or right in the
center of the stage, is a creation called
man.
A unique creation.
A particular creation.
The crown of creation.
He stands right there as the center of
all attention, interest, and activity through all the
ages.
He holds heaven's attention.
The Bible is the story, from one standpoint,
of heaven's interest in man.
Heaven's concern over man.
An active interest.
A great interest.
Time to time we see heaven and heaven's
agents breaking in for men.
They are the incidents.
It's one great story.
Man standing there in the center of the
stage and all heaven looking on, all heaven
concerned, all heaven active.
Look through your Bible again with that thought
in mind.
God has created an order called man.
There is no other order called man.
Order called man.
God is seen from the beginning as the
center of heaven concerned with man all the
way through.
And all heaven is with God in that
himself.
Angels and archangels and heavenly councils are all
concerned with man.
He holds heaven's attention.
It's a great, great statement.
That statement of the writer of the letter
to the Hebrews.
Not unto angels hath he subjected the inhabited
earth to come, but one in a southern
place hath said, What is man?
Thou art mindful of him.
Not unto angels, but unto man.
Heaven is concerned.
And all hell, all hell is focused upon
this particular order of creation.
He holds the attention of the whole system
of evil.
It is focused upon man.
It's a kingdom, but it's a divided kingdom.
It is well that we do remember it
is focused upon man.
It's a kingdom, but it's a divided kingdom.
It is well that we do remember the
kingdom of Satan is a divided kingdom.
Divided in itself.
Jesus said it.
He said it was divided.
He didn't put an if about it.
He said it's a kingdom divided against itself.
A house divided against itself.
It is.
And you can see how in a contradictory
way that kingdom of evil works in relation
to man.
On the one side, it gives itself with
such application, determination and subtlety to degrade man.
To make man less than he really is.
To lower him.
To dishonor him.
Evolution can have that effect.
Rubbing man of his dignity in the mind
and thought of God.
All the terrible history of war.
What is it?
What is it if it is not the
result of a lost sense of the sacredness
of human life?
The sacredness of humanity.
Gun fodder.
Food for the soul.
You see, where evil is most prominent and
God is most rejected, human life is cheapest.
The liquidation of man as though cheapness
to degrade, dishonor and make cheap this great
creation with its destiny bound up with it.
Is one side of the activity of this
divided house.
On the other side in its contradiction to
make man without God something more than he
is.
Man without God something more than is true
of him.
There you get all that goes to make
self-importance.
Self-sufficiency.
Arrogance to arrogate to himself rights and abilities
and authority.
Independence.
Pride.
Whole host of things to make man without
God more than is true of him.
Without God.
The destruction of man, dear friends, the destruction
of man spiritually, morally and finally physically is
the object of that great system of wickedness.
God has a great judgment, the word says,
in store for those who destroy.
Those who destroy.
Which means undervalue his creation.
Now what has all that to do with
the Holy Spirit?
Well we can never understand Pentecost, the advent
of the Holy Spirit, until we recognize that
it is by the coming in of the
Holy Spirit and only so that God gets
the man that he has ever intended to
be.
The purpose of man's creation was that he
should be a child of God.
That men should become sons of God.
Paul says, for ordained unto the adoption to
be conformed to the image of his son.
Pentecost therefore takes us right back to the
original thought and purpose of God in the
creation of man.
And brings that right up to date so
that when you and I or any believing
man or woman receives the Holy Spirit within,
all that God intended in creation starts up,
comes into the first phase of its realization.
It can never be until then.
And you can see, as we perhaps shall
see later as we go on, tremendous change
in the kind of person that resulted from
the day of Pentecost.
You will not tell me that those men
and women before Pentecost are those so closely
associated with the Lord Jesus in his walk
and work, answered to God's thought originally.
But look now.
The Holy Spirit has come on and in.
They are different creatures.
You might say they are a different order
of being.
Change is so great in so many respects
that they pass from one kingdom to another.
Here indeed are the manifestations of Sonship.
Because the Son himself by the Spirit of
Sonship has entered in.
I repeat, we cannot understand the meaning of
Pentecost until we recognize God's intention in making
man.
And immediately you recognize that.
Then you see the key to the coming
of the Holy Spirit.
Everything has been pointing toward that in touches
and activities of the Holy Spirit through the
Old Dispensation.
There are some 88 references, direct references to
the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament.
Do you notice they are partial?
They are indicative.
They are symbolic.
They are representations.
They are pointing on to something.
Now do you see something more in that
fragment from Galatians?
That upon the Gentiles might come the promise
to Abraham?
The promise to Abraham.
What was the promise to Abraham?
Universal Sonship in Jesus Christ.
Wasn't it?
Paul makes that perfectly clear in the letter
to the Galatians.
Universal Sonship by faith in Jesus Christ.
We are all sons of God through faith
in Jesus Christ.
It was a universal thing, thy seed, thy
seed.
It was the stars of heaven, sand, vast,
vast.
But Paul brings it all down and says
the seed is not many seeds, it's one
seed, it's Christ.
The promise to Abraham was Sonship to men
in Jesus Christ.
And now says the Apostle, that is made
good by the gift of the Holy Spirit.
The promise that we might receive the Spirit.
This universe is eventually to be people with
sons of God.
Creation groaning and travailing is subject to vanity
waiting for the manifestation.
People with the sons of God.
Behold what manner of love the Father has
bestowed upon us that we should be called
children of God.
And such we are.
It is not yet manifested what we shall
be, but we know that he shall be
manifested, we shall be like him.
That's John.
And Paul just ups him there and says
yes, for ordained to be conformed to his
image, the image of his son, we shall
be like him.
The consummation of the Spirit's work is in
sons conformed to the image of God's Son.
That is what he is doing now.
Bringing in the sons.
Bringing them to birth, born of the Spirit.
Training them as sons.
God dealeth with us as with sons.
Perfecting sons.
I do wish, dear friends, that this could
come to you with due force.
That you could really get hold of this.
Not just teaching in truth.
It is the most wonderful thing that has
ever been revealed in God's universe.
This is grace.
This is mercy.
This is power.
This is wisdom.
Everything of God, almighty, all-wise, all-knowing,
all-gracious is centered in this.
Bringing many sons to glory.
It holds the center of the stage of
this universe.
Presently, I shall say something more about that
from another angle.
But this afternoon, it's just to get in
view.
The object.
The great meaning of Pentecost.
Oh, how we've limited Pentecost.
How we have put the emphasis in the
wrong place.
Yes, with the best of motives.
Seeing the great importance of the Holy Spirit.
Rightly seeing the great importance.
We have put our emphasis all in one
place.
All along certain exclusive lines.
All the lines.
All the lines and all the emphasis focus
here.
The Holy Spirit of God from creation to
consummation is occupied with one thing.
Making for God a family of sons.
Conformed to the image of his son.
That explains everything.
And all his dealings with us.
The Lord right the object deeply in our
hearts.