We intend to speak today morning and evening upon the subject which this day so aptly commemorates. There is no divine authority for remembering one day above another, nor do we do this in the sense in which the Bible speaks or warns us against But nor do we see any reason why on any particular day of the year we may not specially have brought to our attention that which we might otherwise pass over and take for granted and assume that we know sufficient about. So this day does commemorate the great event of Acts chapter 2, pouring forth of the Spirit of God. We read, 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. It filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them clove and tongue, like as of fire. 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. We might well ask the question, what was it that was really happening? Was this the first manifestation of the Holy Spirit? in the world, or if it wasn't, why so much attention to it, both in the New Testament and throughout all history down to our present day, when this coming of the Holy Ghost is very specially remembered, both in hymn and sermon, in ordinance and celebration. Now we can dismiss from our mind, first of all, any idea that this was the inaugural manifestation of the Holy Spirit in the world. As we should, no doubt, lawfully expect, the Holy Trinity is mentioned clearly right in the very beginning of the Bible. This we have seen in recent times. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters and God said let there be light. There we have God the Father, the Great Creator. We have God the Son. the eternal word, God said. We have the Holy Spirit, the third person of the most blessed Trinity, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. Of course there have always been objections to this understanding of the Holy Trinity in the very first verses of the Bible. because it is not formally stated. People will say, well it's only by hindsight, by what we know in the New Testament, that we can sort of fix our ideas of the Holy Trinity upon obscure texts in the beginning of the Bible. But this is to treat the Bible as a human book. penned by human authors. For it is not a human book, and no man wrote it. God held the pen. You do not believe this, of course. We have no light and no guide. Search where you will, and there is no authority, no assurance, no confidence, except we treat the Bible as a divine book. The very word and words of the living and eternal God set down for us a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path that we might be enlightened concerning ourselves and God and eternal salvation. Now we have no difficulty ourselves in perceiving that that second verse of the Bible and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. We have no difficulty ourselves in perceiving that this is the third person of the Holy Trinity. We were right in singing in our hymn that we've just sung, Create a Spirit by whose aid the heavens and the earth were formed. Creator Spirit. Were there then three Creators? No, there is one Creator. Are there three Spirits? No, one Spirit. How then does it say, in the words of Christ Himself, God is a Spirit and they who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in Truth. If God himself is a spirit, why do we speak about the spirit of God as a third person? Our people talk like this. Maybe we all do sometimes in our mind. Because of our ignorance and I suppose our incapacity to understand these wonders. But it is quite clear and plain that you cannot have a spirit of a spirit That is ruled out. The very nature of things. You can't have a spirit of a spirit. How then is the Holy Spirit the spirit of God, who is a spirit? And also of Christ, who before he became God and man in the incarnation, could only be known also in the spirit. This is because of the deep and profound truth of the nature and the being of God. One God subsisting in three persons. The Spirit of God is the going forth of God himself in power and glory. The coming forth of Christ as the Word of God from the beginning and the Word made flesh at Bethlehem is the going forth of God. For was it not prophesied in Isaiah, that great 40th chapter which begins, Comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Has not Mr. Handel set those subsequent words to marvellous music? fixed upon our memories and attentions, say unto the people of Judah, behold your God. That is, when we saw Christ wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, we beheld our God. When we saw Him walking the streets of the cities of Galilee, and being brought to the gates of the earthly Zion on that last awful week of his earthly life, when we saw him betrayed, taken, bruised, smitten with stripes, insulted, brought into contempt, condemned, scourged, crucified, dying, This word was fulfilled that Isaiah spoke. Say unto the cities of Jesus, behold your God. So that Christ, the second person of the Holy Trinity, is God coming forth as the eternal Word by which God is made manifest. and we are redeemed. And yet there are three persons in the Spirit is God going forth in all the mystery and majesty of His eternal creative power. And Christ is that Word of power which was spoken by which God was revealed. Then we see Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Father who is the fount of deity. The Son who is His Word. That is His wisdom, His truth and His righteousness. The expression of all that God is in His perfection. If Christ is the Word, then the Holy Spirit is the breath by which that word is uttered. And yet we are in error if we suppose that there is any time element in these things. That though the Father was first in order, he was not the first in time. That though the Son was the second in order under Godhead, yet he was not the second in time. Nor was the Spirit third in time, though he was the third in order. For from the beginning, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God never begins to be anything. Strictly speaking, He never really begins to do anything. All His acts are in Himself. From the beginning, there is no time element in the being of God. What He is, He always was and always will be. Him that was and is and is to come. the Almighty, and yet this formula of God, the Father, is also spoken of God the Son, Himself as the Alpha and the Omega. And so though we cannot solve the mystery, we can only see God as it were in parts, yet we know by divine revelation that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are one God, are yet three distinct persons which may not be confused, neither must they be separated. But where is the one, there are the three. Where God is, He is always there as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. You say now you're just confusing us, you're making things so incomprehensible, it's better if you had never begun. On the contrary, said that you might understand that God is greater than our minds. Far beyond our comprehension, in our littleness and frailty and insufficiency, it is becoming that with deep reverence we bow before His Eternal Majesty and say that though we do not understand and cannot comprehend. Yet we know that Thou art God, that Thou hast shown Thyself in Christ and by the power of Thy Spirit spoken for. We are renewed in Thy likeness. We are born again. We are carried through. We are united in oneness. with the eternal God. God and man made one together. There is a second occurrence of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the book of Genesis. In the sixth chapter, that chapter which deals with the preparation for the flood coming upon the face of the earth. We read that the Lord says, my spirit shall not always strive with man because that he also is flesh. That is the spirit of God, the spirit of holiness, who because of the holiness of God must need strive against man to bring him into judgment Yet this should not always be the case, but the day would come when, because of the pity and the mercy of God upon our sinful race, His Spirit would go forth, not in judgment, but in love and in grace, to bring comfort and mercy of light, life, truth and salvation to our tormented tribes, to our needy souls. This was fulfilled in the New Testament. That word, my spirit, shall not always strive with man. You probably have a very, very common error lurking somewhere in your good mind or A feeling that somehow or other you're not getting the right interpretation of that word. My spirit shall not always strive with man. Does not this mean that God is trying to convert every man? But this is a warning that God will not always try. It doesn't mean anything of that sort at all. This striving with man is the striving of divine judgment and holiness against man's wickedness It is not a promise of salvation, it is a promise of judgment. When God says, my spirit shall not always strive at man, that meant that the day would come when his spirit would go forth in the abundance of the shower of the divine mercy, no longer to overwhelm the human race in the judgment of the floods, but as a stream of living water to flow through our humanity to restore life and truth and peace and hope and forgiveness of sin and reconciliation to accomplish that which was lost in the first creation to realize it in the new creation this is what that word means in the 6th of Genesis my spirit shall not always strive with man because that he also is flesh That is because I have pity on him. My spirit will not always strive, but I will send forth my spirit in new creation. Now when did God fulfill this? Another 3,000 years were to elapse before this took place. When our Lord lay as a babe in the manger at Bethlehem, That was the beginning of its fulfilment. When he hung a sacrifice for sin upon the cross, that was the beginning of its fulfilment. When after 40 days with his disciples he ascended into heaven, in our nature, bearing our likeness with him, That was the beginning of its fulfillment. But when the day of Pentecost was fully come, that was the fulfillment. When they, that is the church, were all with one accord in one place. Some think just the 12 apostles, which includes Matthias, the one who was elected to the place of Judas. Others say no, the whole 120 of the disciples, And there's a division of opinion and always has been upon this point. Sometimes I veer to one, then to the other, but this morning I think that it's the whole 120 who were there. I'll tell you next time I have a change of mind upon the matter. But it's very, very difficult for anyone to determine finally whether the 12 only were there on this occasion or whether the 120 disciples who were in Jerusalem at that time in view of the fact that 120 is the 12 multiplied by 10, that this represents, anyway, the complete Church in all time. For 12 is always the signature of the Church, and for 12 tribes of Israel, the 12 patriarchs, the 12 apostles, the 144,000 of the completed Church, in the 7th chapter of the book of Revelation which is 12 squared multiplied by a thousand to show that the Church is innumerable in our view but all numbered and measured in God. So the 120 and the 12 at the time of Pentecost At any rate, the figure represents you and me. As though we were there, though born two thousand years later. In the dispensation of God, this was a new covenant in which all are comprehended, who are known to God even from the beginning, from the foundation of the world. They were all with one accord. in one place. I would that we could say it of every congregation of God's people assembled indiscriminately in the world today, here for instance, that we are all here this morning with one accord in one place. I'd like to think that this was so, but maybe it isn't. Maybe there are some dissenters and non-conformists present beside the establishment. Or to come down into plain English, maybe there are some who have no interest really in Christ. There are some of us unconverted. We're not of this number. We're singing about the Holy Spirit. We're listening to the Word of God, but there is no sealing, no evidence of the Holy Spirit's power, no sound for some of a rushing mighty wind, no cloven tongues like as a fire sitting upon each one. Why, say some, does that only belong to the day of Pentecost? Yes, agreed. It happened but once, because it was necessary that there should be a visible token of the Holy Spirit's presence as of the baptism of Christ, where John said, I saw the Spirit descending in the form of a dove, when the Spirit of God assumed the lovely and beautiful form of a dove. The bird of peace, the harmless bird, the bird without a gall. No, no one can see the spirit of God. Yet John saw the dove which was the symbol of his pleasure. The bird of peace, the harmless bird, the bird without a gall. No, no one can see the Spirit of God. Yet John saw the dove, which was the symbol of his presence, descending. For how else could he know? Unless he had seen the dove and heard with his ears the voice from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. And he bore witness and said, that he who sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, upon whom thou seest the Spirit descending in the form of a dove, the same is he who baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw and bear record that this was the Son of God. So likewise on the day of Pentecost, as the twelve disciples had gone into the temple courts that morning, As indeed they did go into the temple courts that morning and Peter preached his great sermon, which we may have something to say about this evening. If they had just gone into the temple courts and Peter had stood up and said, now the new day has come, the new creation has begun, the new covenant is on from this time. The Holy Spirit is here. What kind of a reception would he have got? For there had been the cloven tongues of fire. There had been the sound of a rushing mighty wind. There was no wind, but there was the sound of it. There was no fire, but it was likened to fire. There was neither fire nor wind, but there was the sound of wind and the appearance of fire. There in the upper room, there where the disciples were assembled, and they began to speak in other tongues to the praise and to the glory of God. I have something to say this evening about what these other tongues mean. You'll be astonished and surprised, I'm sure, if you come along, to hear how all these things were prepared by the prophets in Old Testament times. There's a very, very deep significance about the wind and the fire, the tongue, the sound of the rushing mighty wind. And so the waiting Jews were assembled from all parts of the earth for that feast. They were still present at the feast of Pentecost. They were there assembled, pious men, from all parts of the world, from the borders of India, unto the coasts which border upon the Atlantic Ocean, from farthest north to farthest south, known to men. They were all there assembled, pious men, who all spoke the Jews' language, but also spoke the language of the country in which they were born. Foreign Jews, as there are many foreign Jews today, speaking a great variety of languages, and as they The 12 Apostles and maybe of the 120 were there, many of those others also, speaking and proclaiming the praises of God in the only language they knew, in the ears of these people. They discerned that they were speaking in the language of the Parthians, the Medes, the Elamites. The people round about Cyrene, strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes. We do hear them speak in our town, the wonderful works of God. Now there was no gain saying that something had happened. And when Peter did get up to proclaim what it was that had happened, the new covenant of divine grace was in, the fulfillment of the word of Genesis 6. My spirit shall not always strive with man. The promise fulfilled at no longer striving, but now poured out in comfort, mercy, and blessing, in newness of eternal life, in a new beginning, a new creation. And it was that, although many scoffed and did not believe, these pious men who'd come from north, south, east, and west, They stayed to believe and were baptized. Two, three thousand soldiers on that great day. Now what was it that was happening? It was, as we have said, the inauguration of the new covenant. The new creation beginning as the old covenant which was symbolized on Mount Sinai when Moses went up into the thick darkness of the cloud where God was. And the people down below watched and trembled when there was the sound of tempest and the appearance of devouring fire. We have this before us in Hebrews 12 verse 18 For ye are not come unto the mount that might be touched, and that burned with fire, nor unto blackness, and darkness, and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet, and the voice of word, but ye are come unto Mount Zion. Now here is a remarkable thing that on the day of Pentecost there were the same token given, audible and visible, as accompanied the giving of the law through Moses by God on Mount Sinai, the Old Covenant. There was the mountain of burned with fire the cloven tongues like as a fire, the sound from heavens of a rushing mighty wind. So God was starting something on Mount Zion in Jerusalem similar to that which he started under Moses so long before. It is a contrast between the old covenant and the new covenant. What then came for the condemnation of the people so that they did exceedingly fear and quake, and they could not endure the word bespoken unto them. For the word was one of condemnation and curse. Do this, and thou shalt live. Do it not, and thou shalt die. But now the word of the new covenant. Believe, and thou art saved. and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. The Spirit no longer striving in our condemnation, but now poured out for our salvation and our comfort. Of course, the Spirit of God had been working from the beginning of the earth for the salvation of men, as we've seen hitherto in our studies of the early chapters of Genesis. But now, in a worldwide sense, in a sense never before possible, where there were few, now there are many. Where there were ones and twos, now they were numbered in thousands. When it was one family in the middle of the earth, now it is all the world hears the word of God and you and I are hearing it today. The Blessed Saviour Himself came down visibly as one of ourselves, born a babe, lying in a manger in the cattle shed at Bethlehem. With great humility, behold your God. In great love, dying love and mercy, crucified for us to him saying, Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. This is he of whom I speak, the same is he who baptiseth with the Holy Ghost. I baptise you with water unto repentance, he shall baptise you with the Holy Ghost and with fire. For the Spirit could not be given until our Lord Jesus Christ of His new creation. He must by His death reconcile us, by His blood atone for our sins, and by His ascension into heaven, His acceptance on our behalf as our representative before God. He, being by the right hand of God exalted, hath shed forth this, the Spirit, which ye do see and hear. That is the tokens of His presence. We see no longer the tokens of the Holy Spirit's presence, but we live by faith. Once it was necessary, in the days of the apostles, the signs were given. But now we have. Not the signs, but the things signified. The inward and spiritual reality. The newness of heart, the newness of life. to the blood and tells me I am born of God. At this point we must close and we must resume this evening just where we can to continue to speak of this mystery commemorated on this great day. May God bless us for His namesake.