Meditation for this evening, let's turn again to
the Book of the Acts, chapter two, the
second chapter of the Book of the Acts.
I might say that, God willing, these evening
studies will continue in this Book of the
Acts, picking out certain important passages, and by
that I'm not saying that the rest of
it isn't important, but taking passages of scripture
which I believe are relevant to the day
in which we live, and which have a
message for us now.
We're living in the now generation.
They're reminding us of this every once in
a while, that they're more interested in the
here and now than they are in the
there and then.
They forget that it's possible to be interested
in both, and so tonight we want to
minister in both directions, now and here, and
there and then.
The second chapter of the Book of the
Acts, And 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, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like
as of fire, and it sat upon each
of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout
men, out of every nation under heaven.
And when this was noised abroad, the multitude
came together, and were confounded, because that every
man heard them speak in his own language.
And they were all amazed and marveled, saying
one to another, Behold, are not all these
which speak Galileans?
And how here we every man in our
own tongue wherein we were born!
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers
in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, and
Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, and Egypt,
and the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and
strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes, Cretes, and
Arabians, we do hear them speak in our
tongues the wonderful works of God.
And they were all amazed and were in
doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?
I'd like to use these last three words
as my text this evening.
What meaneth this?
Evidently here was something so different and so
unique that they had never heard the like
of it in history before.
Last night, you'll remember, as we were looking
into chapter one with some of the related
passages, we pointed out some of the unique
features of our Christian faith.
The fact that the founder of our faith
was born of a virgin, and that this
was not something which was discovered after it
happened, but it was something predicted 700 years
before he came.
Indeed, we could go back even further than
that to the book of Genesis, where God
himself said that the woman's seed was to
bruise the serpent's head, so that in a
sense you could say it was predicted 4
,000 years before it took place.
But put in exactly those terms in the
seventh chapter of the book of Isaiah, that
a virgin should conceive and bear a son.
This was unique.
Then we pointed out that it was also
pointed out where he should be born, in
Bethlehem, and that Daniel gave us the time
of his birth, so that here are three
lines of prophecy running over one person at
one time in one place.
It can never happen again.
It's conceivable that somebody might come along and
say, I'm born a virgin, and I was
born in the town of Bethlehem.
But he's just too late.
It had to occur at a certain particular
time.
And here's a wonderful thing when you see
three lines of prophecy running over one person
in one place at one time.
It can never occur again.
This is unique.
And so we went on to show that
the death of our Lord was unique.
His resurrection was unique.
But last night we concentrated on his ascension
to glory, which was also unique.
Well, tonight we come to another unique feature
of our Christian faith, and that is the
coming of the blessed Holy Spirit.
And here again, the timing is perfect.
The Lord Jesus had predicted that he was
coming.
In that very first chapter from which we
read last night, he said, Ye shall be
baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days
hence.
And here we find this prophecy of our
Lord's being fulfilled, and the Holy Spirit comes.
Now there are three things I would like
to just point out and make as clear
and simple as I can tonight with regard
to the coming of the Holy Spirit in
answer to this question in this verse which
we read here in verse 12, What meaneth
this?
Now let us notice, first of all, how
the Spirit came in the beginning of the
chapter.
We notice that the setting was perfect.
They were all with one accord in one
place.
In other words, they were conditioned for the
very thing that the Holy Spirit was about
to do.
And what was that?
The Holy Spirit was about to baptize all
these believers into one body.
That's the first answer to the question, What
meaneth this?
He was baptizing these believers who were one
accord in one place, he was baptizing them
into one body.
This had never been done before.
The Holy Spirit had other functions in the
Old Testament.
Sometimes people get the idea that the Holy
Spirit never had anything to do until this
present dispensation.
Nothing is further from the truth.
The Holy Spirit is the first member of
the Holy Trinity which is named by name
in the Bible.
In the very first chapter of the Bible,
he's the first person of the Holy Trinity
that is singled out by name when you
read that the Spirit of God brooded or
moved upon that chaotic scene depicted in the
second verse of Genesis 1.
Then in the sixth chapter of Genesis, again,
we have reference made to the Holy Spirit.
He was striving with men.
And God said, My spirit shall not always
strive with men.
We turn to the book of Exodus, and
we find that the Spirit of God fills
men to build the tabernacle.
They were filled with the spirit of wisdom,
which is none other than the Holy Spirit.
David certainly must have had the Spirit because
he prayed in Psalm 51, Take not thy
Holy Spirit from me.
And according to Peter in his first epistle,
the Old Testament prophets had the Holy Spirit,
because Peter says they prophesied of things by
the Spirit of Christ which was in them,
which signified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and
the glories that should follow.
So the Holy Spirit was in those Old
Testament prophets.
And the Holy Spirit must have been regenerating
men in Old Testament times.
Otherwise the Lord Jesus would never have said
as he did to Nicodemus, speaking about the
new birth, Understandest thou not these things?
Yes, men must have been regenerated by the
Holy Spirit in Old Testament times.
And the Lord Jesus challenges Nicodemus with the
question, Art thou a master of Israel, and
knowest not these things?
The unique work of the Holy Spirit in
this age is that he takes believers in
the Lord Jesus, you and me.
He takes us and baptizes us into one
body.
And this is true the moment we accept
the Lord Jesus Christ as our personal Savior.
This is something the Holy Spirit does for
us.
We find that this baptism of the Holy
Spirit is brought out here in three stages
in the book of the Acts.
Here in chapter 2 we have it on
a distinctly Jewish congregation.
We turn to chapter 8, and there we
have the Samaritans introduced.
And that's not a fresh baptism.
That's merely an extension of the primary baptism.
And when you come to chapters 10 and
11 of this book, you find this is
further extended to take in the Gentiles.
This is not a new thing.
It's merely an extension.
We sometimes illustrate it this way.
These United States of America started with 13
states, but from time to time other states
were added to the Union.
Until today we have 50 of them.
But the government didn't have to go through
the process of becoming a new government every
time a new state was added.
So there's no such thing as a repetition
of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
It's merely an extension of it that it
takes in these others.
And this is what I believe is one
of the great subjects of this book of
the Acts.
So this is the answer number one to
the question, what meaneth this?
But as I said, we'd like to point
out how this Holy Spirit came when he
did this.
You notice in verse 2 of our chapter
he says, "...suddenly there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind."
A tempest, as it is in the original
language.
A terrific force.
Something that could be felt when he came
in.
And you say, why did he come that
way?
He didn't fall that way upon the Lord
Jesus.
We were reading yesterday morning, talking about how
John knew that the Lord Jesus Christ was
the Son of God, because he saw the
Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove,
coming down very silently, very softly upon him,
and it abode upon him.
But here we see the Spirit of God
as a mighty rushing wind.
What's the idea?
Well, you know, there's another being in the
universe of God who is called in the
second chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians,
he's called the Prince of the Power of
the Air, the Spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience none other than the
devil himself.
And here the Holy Spirit, who is, shall
we say, the direct opposite to the devil,
comes into this scene, and he comes in
with a force that makes even this one
move to one side.
Do you know, dear friends, that this is
the reason why we Christians who live in
a world like this, over which Satan is
the God and the Prince, do you know
how high it is that we can triumph?
Because greater is he that is in you
than he that is in the world.
That's why.
He comes in with a force which is
irresistible.
He makes himself felt.
And I believe this is true not only
in a corporate sense, but in an individual
sense.
You remember when the Apostle Paul was writing
to the Thessalonians?
He says, Our gospel came not unto you
in word only, but in power, and in
much assurance, and the Holy Ghost.
How it came.
You remember the first night or the first
day that the gospel gripped you?
And if you're here tonight and have never
had this wonderful experience, I trust that somehow
through the working of the Holy Spirit tonight
you may know something of this terrific power,
the gospel coming to you in the power
of the Holy Spirit.
Yes, he comes like a mighty rushing wind
to displace the one who would keep his
word from operating in your heart and mine.
This is the way he comes.
Then we notice a second effect here.
You notice it says here, It filled all
the house where they were sitting, and there
appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a
fire, and it sat upon each of them.
Now, of course, we believe that this phenomenon
was a temporary thing, that it happened and
that was it.
And Luke, the divine historian, the divinely inspired
historian, gives us a record of this, that
he not only came in this sensible form,
but he came in this visible form.
It was something that made his presence visible.
Ah, yes, you say, if we only had
something like that today.
We have it.
You know, dear friends, occasionally we look into
the face of some person who is really
under the guidance and power of the Holy
Spirit, and his face fairly radiates.
It glows.
I remember one night in the city of
Albuquerque, New Mexico, I was saying farewell to
a dear brother who was leaving us in
Albuquerque to go back to his home in
San Diego, California.
It was before the days of air travel,
such as we know it now.
It was even before the days of air
conditioning in the trains, so that my brother,
who was taking advantage of an empty seat,
he didn't have a bus that night.
He was going to ride all night sitting
up.
And we were talking through the open window
of the train while waiting for the train
to leave.
We were improving the last minutes, and our
conversation was about the Lord Jesus Christ.
And my friend was bewailing the fact that
he would have to do without Christian company
the rest of the journey.
He says, you know, Carl, it's going to
be a lonely trip tonight without you, because
we were close friends and we loved to
talk about the Lord.
But sitting right behind him was a man
whom he couldn't see.
And the more I talked about the Lord,
and the more my friend talked about the
Lord, the more this man's face began to
get radiant.
Why, his eyes nearly popped out of his
head, and finally he couldn't keep himself any
longer, and he shouted out, Hallelujah!
My friend nearly went out of his seat.
I said, Ed, there's your friend right there.
And they had a wonderful time that night.
That man had one of the cloven tongues
of fire on him.
You know that?
You know, dear friends, this is one of
the best advertisements that I know of for
our Christian faith.
You know, some people get the idea that
in order to be a good Christian, you
ought to have a face long enough to
eat your oatmeal out of a quart jar,
but it isn't so.
It isn't so.
The Lord wants his people to be happy.
You know the old Hebrew hymn book, and
you've got a copy of it right there.
Hymn number one in the old Hebrew hymn
book says, Blessed or happy is the man.
Psalm 1.
That's how God starts his hymn book.
He wants his people to be happy.
He wants them to be radiant with what
they have.
And you know, dear friends, sometimes this speaks
louder than anything you could say.
I remember one time traveling on a ship
where I was told that I couldn't have
any meetings.
I couldn't even have private Bible studies with
people who were interested.
It was against the rules.
I said to my wife, I said, Well,
at any rate, we can show we've got
something.
You know, we weren't on that ship more
than two days.
When a man sidled up to me one
day, he said, Say, mister, he said, I've
been watching you and your wife.
He said, What is it you've got that
I don't have?
I said, I don't know.
It can't be money.
Couldn't be that.
Oh, no, he said, You've got something money
can't buy.
He said, When I noticed you two people
talking, you've got that book.
He said, I suppose that's the Bible.
I said, Yes, that's what it is.
And I said, There's where the secret is
right in this book, too.
There it is.
Oh, beloved, what an advertisement for our Christian
faith.
Last night, you remember, we were talking near
the close, yesterday morning, rather, talking near the
close of the meeting about what it means
to, with open faith, to behold us in
the glass, the glory of the Lord, and
to be changed into the same image from
glory to glory.
And God help us to manifest more of
that in a world such as we live
in.
You know, dear friends, we're living in a
queer world.
I never dreamed when I was a young
man, a boy, seventy years ago, and I
was beginning to think about my surroundings.
Sixty years ago, when I was looking at
things in the eyes of a teenager, I
never dreamed we'd come to this.
I never dreamed we'd come to a day
when young people who should be full of
pep and energy without anything should be having
to take things to give them pep.
Friends, my doctor told my father, he said,
that that boy didn't have asthma.
He'd jump over the moon.
We had energy.
We didn't need any pills to give us
energy.
And when it comes to spiritual energy, dear
friends, there's only one place you and I'll
find it, and that's right here.
And this will send forth a glow that
I believe will answer to what we have
in this passage of scripture tonight, the glowing
tongues of fire that were there.
They were glowing.
That was an evidence of the presence of
the Holy Spirit.
And I believe that's a phenomenon which can
be present today and is present today in
congregations and in individuals where the Spirit of
God really presides.
Then there's a third thing here.
You notice it says here in verse 4,
and they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost.
Now somebody says, yeah, that's wonderful.
It's not only wonderful, dear friends, but it's
something that we're told we have to have.
And I want you to keep your bookmarks
here in Acts 2, and we're going to
go first of all to Ephesians 5, Ephesians
chapter 5, to read about this being filled
with the Spirit.
Just to show you that this was not
simply a passing phenomenon, but it's something that
God intends should be true of His people
throughout this whole dispensation in which we live.
Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18.
And be not drunk with wine wherein is
excess, but be filled with the Spirit.
Now notice, He doesn't say be prayed to
be filled with the Spirit.
He doesn't say work yourself up into a
frenzy, but He says be filled with the
Spirit.
Now how do you do this?
Well, let's look at the next verse, because
this is a continuation of that very sentence.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your
heart to the Lord.
That simple, isn't it?
Have you ever thought of what a wonderful
gift has been given to the Christian church
in the psalms and hymns and spiritual songs
that we have?
I have a collection of old hymn books
that I've been making now for something like,
oh, I guess some 40 years ago I
began making this collection of old hymn books.
And I've got some real old ones.
I'm amazed at the richness of the poetry
we find in these hymn books.
I've had in college courses, of course, to
read other poetry.
We read the Canterbury Tales by Chaucer.
We read the Fairy Queen by Spencer.
We read Shakespeare's plays and so on, and
more modern authors after them.
And they were real poets in those days.
But you'll find nothing that can excel spiritual
poetry.
It's tremendous.
If you haven't bathed your soul in it,
you've missed something.
I know these are days when they say,
oh, we're too practical to be poetical.
Dear friends, you have to be poetical to
be practical.
Do you know why?
Because this is the very word God has
used of this creation which he made.
Do you know that when the Bible tells
us about the things that are made in
Romans 1, he uses the word poem?
Do you know that in the first verse
of Genesis in the Greek translation of the
Old Testament, the word poiema is used to
denote the creation?
Do you know that in Ephesians 2 and
verse 10, where it says we are his
workmanship created in Christ Jesus unto good works,
the word workmanship is poem?
This is it.
God intends it to be a poem.
And this is the thing he wants you
and me to be occupied with and have
our souls filled with it.
And how wonderful to begin a day with
some grand old hymn of the church.
Some grand old hymn that exalts the Lord
Jesus Christ.
Oh, I tell you, many a day has
been begun with a song like that, and
God has blessed it.
Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and
spiritual songs, making melody in your heart.
You don't have to sing so loud you
wake up everybody in the house, you see.
It's making melody in your heart to the
Lord.
But then let's go a little further.
Verse 20, Ephesians 5.20, giving thanks always
for all things unto God and Father in
the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
The sentence goes even further than this, but
we'll stop there tonight.
Yes, you say, brother, but you still haven't
given us any practical way outside of this
reading these hymn books, as you point out.
Is there really a practical way of being
filled with the Spirit?
Now it so happens, dear friends, that we
have a parallel passage to this one we've
just looked at in Ephesians 5.
And you know, parallel passages are the most
helpful things that you can get.
This is one of the blessings of the
four Gospels, that you have an opportunity to
put parallel passages alongside of each other and
gain fresh light on them.
I could give you a dozen illustrations of
that tonight, but I'm going to give you
this illustration tonight, a parallel passage to Ephesians
5.18 and 19.
Turn, please, a few pages over in your
Bible to Colossians chapter 3.
Colossians chapter 3, verse 16.
Colossians 3 and verse 16.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,
singing with grace in your hearts to the
Lord.
Do you get it?
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly.
That's the parallel to the expression in Ephesians
5, to be filled with the Spirit.
How do you let the word of Christ
dwell in you richly in all wisdom?
Well, one simple way of doing it, dear
friends, is to read the word of Christ
in the book.
You see?
Read it until your heart burns.
As we've heard it said in connection with
Luke 24, did not our heart burn within
us?
While he talked with us, by the way,
don't be content with just reading ten verses.
Don't be content with reading a chapter.
Keep on until you get that heartburn.
That's it.
Let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom.
And you'll notice that it has exactly the
same context that you have in Ephesians 5.
It says here, teaching and admonishing one another
in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing
with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed,
do all in the name of the Lord
Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father
by him.
Notice the parallel passages.
Where you have in Ephesians 5, be filled
with the Spirit, you have in Colossians 3,
let the word of Christ dwell in you
richly in all wisdom.
Two things which produce the same effect must
be equal.
You see?
They were filled with the Spirit.
And this brings about a third result there
in Acts 2.
Let's come back to that chapter now.
You'll think that this is something after the
method of an old schoolteacher.
Well, I'm just simply going according to a
habit that's been mine for years, to go
along the schoolteaching way.
And so if this looks to you like
a schoolteacher behind the school desk tonight, well,
take it as such.
And let's see what the Spirit of God
has to teach us now in Acts 2.
Verse 4, they were all filled with the
Holy Ghost.
Now we've talked about that, what it means
and how it can be done.
And they began to speak with other tongues,
as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Ah, somebody says, now, now we're in for
it.
No, you're not.
This passage means just exactly what it says.
And this must not be confused with what
you have in 1 Corinthians 14.
In 1 Corinthians 14, nobody understood what was
said.
In Acts 2, everybody understands.
In 1 Corinthians 14, you need an interpreter.
In Acts 2, you never hear about one.
You're not talking about the same thing.
You look at him and see.
But what is he telling us here?
Well, as we go down this passage of
Scripture, we count and we find there are
about 14 different languages that they talked here,
and everybody understood what was being said.
This was the marvel of it.
And sometimes people get so occupied with the
means that they forget the purpose.
It's like a person picking up a telephone.
He takes a telephone.
Isn't it a wonderful instrument?
Somebody says, let's take this thing apart and
see what makes it tick.
And as sure as you do, you're going
to spoil it.
Because if you don't want to think about
telephones, you'd better let that alone.
But you get so occupied with the telephone.
Look at the shape of it.
Look at the color of it.
And I wonder who can use this.
Bless your soul, it wasn't made as an
ornament.
It was made as a means of communication.
That's the lesson of Acts 2.
First of all, the Spirit of God united
them in one body.
Secondly, He filled them and He made them
to glow.
And now He uses them to communicate.
Don't get occupied with the detail.
Take into account the purpose, dear friends, that
God has given us this gift to communicate.
And we're responsible to communicate.
You say, how am I going to communicate?
That's a good question.
This is something which has baffled the educators
down the years.
They think they've got an educator all ready
for the job.
And he gets up before a classroom full
of youngsters and he doesn't communicate.
You pick out somebody you think is going
to be a first-class Sunday school teacher,
and he or she doesn't communicate.
They don't know how to put it over.
In other words, their lips are not anointed
by the Holy Spirit to communicate.
And sometimes we take the rudest person who's
had very little education, and it's amazing how
he or she can communicate.
They really know how to communicate.
And to communicate, dear friends, is to give
somebody something in language and spirit that he
understands.
You're talking his language now.
You're communicating with him.
And this doesn't mean that you need to
descend to the level of slang, nor even
to colloquialisms.
You can use choice language, even with the
most primitive peoples.
And it's amazing how they respond to it.
I know this from experience on the mission
field.
Not so long ago, I was down in
Salvador, in Central America, giving an address in
the Spanish language.
And I had gone over this address a
good number of times to see that I
was speaking idiomatic Spanish.
And here were some people in the audience
who had little or no education.
But it's interesting to hear them after the
service saying, Muchísimas gracias, hermano, por la palabra
de Dios.
Thank God.
Thank you for the Word of God.
This is it.
You're communicating.
And dear friends, sometimes this is a blunt
statement, but you're communicating something.
I had a dear father-in-law.
He's now in glory.
He had very little, if any, education.
Came over to this country, to Canada rather,
when he was a boy, I think 10
or 11 years of age, from Yorkshire.
Settled up in the province of Ontario, Canada.
His father before him was a bootmaker.
And so he learned the trade, even as
a lad.
But when he got up in his teens,
he decided he'd go out west, to Western
Canada, out to Manitoba, to take up claims
there.
He and a brother of his, his brother
Stephen, they went out there and went into
the cattle business.
And they really made good at it.
He was a shrewd dealer, but absolutely honest.
And I watched this man as he went
about his business, for I went with him
on some of his trips up there in
Manitoba, as well as later on in Ontario.
And I looked at this man and his
approach to people.
He talked business with them, and he knew
his stuff when he talked business.
They couldn't fool him about a cow or
a steer.
He knew what he was doing.
He knew almost to the pound what the
beast would weigh without putting it on the
scales.
Clever businessman.
Never learned this in college or the university,
because he never finished the grade schools even
in the old country.
But he had a way of communicating.
And I give you one illustration to show
how it was done.
One Sunday morning, we were out taking a
little walk before the meeting for the remembrance
of our Lord.
He and I were walking the streets of
Clinton, Ontario.
And there was a man across the street
who cupped his hands in the morning sunlight,
and he looked at two of us.
And addressing my father-in-law, he says,
Is that you, Mr. Taylor?
My father-in-law said, Yes, this is
John Taylor.
Aye, it's a fine morning, that Mr. Taylor.
It's a fine morning if your sins are
forgiven.
And he was halfway across the street.
And he communicated with this fellow.
He had struck a note when he said,
It's a fine morning if your sins are
forgiven.
I don't think the man had ever connected
that beautiful Sunday morning with the forgiveness of
his sins.
But before that morning was over, this was
the most wonderful morning he'd ever lived.
Now, if it had been put to me
and said, Suppose you talk to this old
man about his soul.
I don't know that I would have known
just how to go about it.
But here was a man who knew how
to communicate.
And, dear friends, this, I believe, is one
of the great lessons of this second chapter
of the Book of Acts, is to learn
to communicate with men and women about the
Lord Jesus, the wonderful works of God, as
we read here in this chapter.
They heard, everyone, the wonderful works of God.
And this led them to the question, What
meaneth this?
And, dear friends, this is it that makes
Christianity unique.
I've talked to Buddhists.
I've talked to Muslims.
I've talked to a good many atheists.
And not one of them could produce something
like what the gospel does to men and
women.
And I've taken this gospel, dear friends, into
a variety of places.
In ten years of ministry in the city
of Albuquerque, New Mexico, we were taking it
to one bedside after another, to those TVs.
Some of them were rich, and some of
them were poor.
Some of them were ignorant, and some of
them were educated.
Some of them were cultured, and some of
them were rude.
But we took the same message to all
of them and counted on the Spirit of
God to make it good, and He gave
us a harvest of souls.
He really did.
Oh, this matter of communication.
Dear friends, to me, it's one of the
great burning desires of my soul that as
long as I live, I'll still be able
to communicate these wonderful good news.
I don't want people to go out and
say, you know, Oh, that was a tremendous
thing.
I remember I had one man like that
in my conversation out in Arizona one morning.
He said, as he went out, he said,
You know, Preacher, I don't think that sermon
of yours this morning could be improved on.
It was excellent.
That night he went back.
I was wondering if he was going to
say no.
I'd either slipped or something.
Anyhow, he came up after me and said,
Well, Preacher, I didn't think it could be
done, but really, he said, you outdid yourself
tonight.
Well, you know, if you didn't know the
human race, you'd say to yourself, That's terrific.
Did you know what I said to him?
I said, My friend, I'm afraid you've missed
the whole point of my message.
I said, I wasn't aiming to get you
to tell me what a wonderful sermon I
preach.
I was aiming to get you to tell
me what a wonderful Savior I represent.
That did.
And beloved, that's exactly what they did here.
They didn't call attention to their gifts.
They didn't call attention to their manner of
presentation, but they preached Christ.
And this is what we need to do
in a day like this, in this dispensation
of the Holy Spirit.
And the way to become proficient in this
is expressed in the little hymn with which
we're going to close this service tonight.
That's hymn number 365.
Hymn number 365, which will probably put into
poetic forms what we've been trying to say
about taking time to be holy.
Three hundred sixty.
Speak oft with thy Lord, abide in him
always, and feed on his word.
Make friends of God's children, help those who
are weak, forgetting in nothing his blessing to
see.
Number 365.
Shall we sign?
Leave this world.
We thank thee for the presence of thy
blessed Holy Spirit.
We thank thee for what he does to
those of us who trust in thee, putting
us together in this one sacred body, which
causes our very countenances to glow with holy
light, and which frames our tongues and lips
to speak his words.
We trust that each one of us shall
be in our everyday living, that we may
truly fulfill the exhortation to be filled with
thy spirit.
Speaking to ourselves in psalms and hymns in
this portion of thy word, we commit it
to thee and to our salvation.
Bless us as we do this in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ.