Let's look over in Acts chapter
2 for a few minutes and just think about these passages of
Scripture. Acts chapter 2. The coming of
the Holy Spirit. The event, I think, that takes
place in this chapter. The coming of the Holy Spirit.
sometimes address him as the third person of the Sacred Trinity, was a glorious event, glorious
coming. It can only be exceeded in glory
by the coming of the second person of the Sacred Trinity, the Lord
Jesus Christ Himself. This was a glorious, glorious
event that took place here. In verse 1 it said, 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 the house where they
were sitting. And there appeared unto them
clothed in tongues like as of fire, and it set 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. Let's look at this before we
go on any further. The same language here in verse
1 that is used to describe the coming of the Holy Spirit is
the same language used to describe the coming of Christ. He said
here, When the day of Pentecost had fully come, And in Galatians
4.4, he says, When the fullness of time was come, God sent forth
His Son. So God has a purpose, doesn't
He? We can see this, and this is
one of the reasons that we know that the Bible is true. Fourteen
hundred years, twenty-four hundred years before these things come
to pass, God foretold them in His Word. Christ is coming. My Son is coming. And now the
Holy Spirit is coming, the Spirit of promise is coming. And when
that day has fully come, then the Son of God came and the Holy
Spirit came. And both these events, the coming
of God's Son and the coming of the Holy Spirit, all of these
were promised of God in the Old Testament, even thousands of
years before they came to pass. The preachers in the New Testament
often spoke of these promises. Look here at Paul's first recorded
message that we have in Acts chapter 13. This is where Paul
was preaching at Antioch. And look how he addresses the
coming of Jesus Christ, the promise of that coming. Just two verses.
Look in verse 22. Acts 13 and verse 22. Acts chapter
13 and verse 22. And when he, the Lord, had removed Him, Saul, king Saul, wicked
Saul. He raised up unto them David
to be their king, to whom also the Lord gave testimony, and
said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my
own heart, which shall fulfill all my will. Now notice the promise
that God made to David. Of this man's seed, his descendants,
hath God according to his promise raised unto Israel a Savior,
Jesus. So God promised David hundreds
and hundreds of years, David, I'm sending my Son, and He's
coming through your lineage, through your seed. I don't want
you to turn there, it takes too long to turn to these passages,
but listen to what He says to David in 2 Samuel chapter 7. He says, David, God said to David,
when your days are fulfilled, You shall go and sleep with your
fathers, and I will set up your seed after you, which shall proceed
out of your bowels, and I will establish his kingdom." Now,
I know you can apply that to Solomon, David's son, but Christ
said a greater than Solomon this year, didn't He? And it's speaking
of Christ, David's seed. And listen to Psalms 89 in verse
35. Once have I sworn by my holiness
that I will not lie to David. His seed, Christ, shall endear
forever and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established
forever as the moon and as a faithful witness in heaven. His seed shall
endear forever on his throne. And I love Psalms 132 verse 11. If you can think about this,
go over and read this later. Listen to this promise that God
made to David. The Lord has sworn in truth unto
David. He will not turn from it. Of
the fruit of thy body will I sit upon thy throne. Jehovah said to David, of the
fruit of your body will I set upon your throne. So God promised
the coming of His Son hundreds of years before it was. And really
He said, He's God. I am going to set upon your throne.
He that came, the promised seed was Immanuel, God with us. And now look back over at our
text again, the promise of the Holy Spirit. Look back over in
Acts chapter 2. Look in Acts chapter 2 and look
in verse 32. Just as the Father promised to
send His Son, now He's promised to send the Holy Spirit. Acts
chapter 2 verse 32, Peter's message. This Jesus hath God raised up,
wherefore we are all witnesses, Therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise
of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and
hear." And look at chapter 1 and verse 4, what the Lord Jesus
says about it. And being assembled together
with them there at Jerusalem, he commanded them that they should
not depart from Jerusalem, but wait for the promise of the Father,
which, saith he, ye have heard of me. For John truly baptized
with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many
days hence." So he said, wait for the promise of the Father,
and what was that? The coming of the Holy Spirit.
He's called the Spirit of promise. So this coming of the Holy Spirit,
He was a Spirit that had been promised ever since the foundation
of the world. And something else we see here
about the coming of the Holy Spirit, this is very interesting.
In our text, this day of Pentecost, it's 50. The word simply means
50. And they don't call it that. in the Old Testament. It's one
of these feasts that they had, and you can read about this in
Leviticus chapter 23. Very interested reading. But
the way they got this feast, when they celebrated the Passover,
remember the Passover where they killed the lamb and the Lord
passed over the children of Israel? They had the Feast of Passover. And then the day after the Feast
of Passover, they numbered 7 weeks, 7 Sabbath days. And then the
day after the Sabbath week was the 50th day, that was Pentecost. So you had your lamb that was
sacrificed on the Passover, and then 50 days later was Pentecost. And what they did at Pentecost
was they brought in the firstfruits out of the fields, and they offered
the firstfruits unto God. It was called a new offering,
a new offering. And isn't this a wonderful thing
as we study about this? Because you remember when the
Lord Jesus was killed? He was killed at the Passover.
Remember that? In the evening? And it's said that Christ, our
Passover, is sacrificed for us. Well, here it is, 50 days later. And what happens? The Holy Spirit
comes. So, in the beautiful picture
that we have back over in the Old Testament that maybe no one
could figure out, what's the meaning of this Passover and
50 days later you have the Pentecost? The new blessing that was given,
brought out of the field. Well, here it is. It's Christ,
our Passover, and the coming of the blessed Holy Spirit. Aren't those pictures of the
Old Testament beautiful? When you're able to come to the
New Testament and see exactly what they mean. Christ, our Passover. And you remember what they eat
at the Passover. They eat that lamb cooked in
bitter herbs, didn't they? So before we can have our Pentecost,
we have to have the Passover. We have to have the bitter herbs,
the dying of the lamb. So Jesus Christ tasted death,
and then the Holy Spirit comes. And what did He say? He said,
I'll send back to your father and my father, and I'll pray
the Father He'll send you another copy. And Paul says it like this
in Galatians 3, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law,
being made a curse for us. And the very next verse says,
for this reason, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit
through faith. So there has to be a Passover.
There has to be those bitter herbs, the death of the Lamb,
and then the blessing that God had promised in the Old Testament,
the coming of our holy, blessed, holy, Spirit. Here in chapter
1, the Lord says three things about the Holy Spirit, the coming
of the Holy Spirit. The verse 4 there that I read
to you, that it was the promise of the Father. We often think
of the promise of the Son and what a blessing that was. But
brothers and sisters, what a blessing it is that God promised the coming
of the Holy Spirit. Wonderful, isn't it? But secondly,
the second thing he says here, and look in verse 5 of chapter
1. John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with
the Holy Ghost not many days hence. This is the second thing
he says about the Holy Spirit. One, He's the Spirit of promise.
And then he says, you'll be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many
days hence. And this word means to be totally
wet. to be totally wet. When we think
of baptism, we think of someone going under the water, don't
we? And he's surrounded with water. He's literally dipped
and sunk down in the water. And he's completely surrounded
by the water. That's what happened here at
Pentecost. They were completely emerged in the Holy Spirit. He filled the house where they
were. He filled them. They were completely emerged
in this glory the redeeming glory of God. I don't know, you and
I can discuss what it means to be baptized with the Holy Spirit
and some of us have just, that's a good discussion. We can discuss
if this is the only time it happened, here the church was immersed
with the Holy Spirit or if when we believe Are we to some degree
baptized with the Holy Spirit? These are wonderful discussions
that we can have about this, but there's one thing for sure,
that this had never happened before. This was something new,
the coming of the Holy Spirit, and it was glorious. They were
emerged into the redeeming glory and knowledge and power of God.
And this is something that changed the church forever. The church
hasn't been the same since, has it? He came out of the Old Testament,
and boy, you come into the New Testament, and there it is, the
coming of the Holy Spirit and the glory. He immerses them into
that. He immerses them into that. The
third thing he says is here in verse 7 and 8 about the Holy
Spirit, and this is very encouraging. Verse 7 he says, They asked him
if he was going to restore the kingdom to Israel, and he said,
It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the
Father hath put in his own hands, but you shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and you shall be witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem, in Judea and Samaria, and unto the
uttermost parts of the earth. This is the third thing he says
about the Holy Spirit. When He comes, When He comes
upon you, when He comes to your heart, He's coming as a Spirit
of power. Power. And you just look at the
tremendous task that was set before these fishermen for the
most part. You shall be witnesses of Me
in Jerusalem. Now think of this. In Jerusalem. Jerusalem is just the people
that had plotted to kill the Lord. And can you imagine these
disciples saying, Lord in Jerusalem? They just plotted your death.
And they carried it out and they crucified you and they mocked
you as you hang on the cross. And these are powerful men. They're
educated men. They're theologians. And you're
sending us to them? You're sending us to Jerusalem
to bear witness to you? But this settled the anxiety
for them. You shall receive power after
the Holy Spirit has come upon you. That's the way Peter preached. That's the way the early church
preached without being intimidated from the threats of danger. Power! It completely changed
these men, didn't it? There is a marked difference
in you see in these men before Pentecost as opposed to after
Pentecost. Look how weak and frail they
were just a few days before this. They all fled and left the Lord
Jesus and went to their own houses. Now they are going back to face
these men who killed the Lord and preached to them. How could
they do that? You shall receive power after
the Holy Ghost has come upon you. But I tell you, it wasn't
just a flickering power. It wasn't just a power that was
going to come and leave, and they go back to their utter weakness
again. He said, not only are you going
to be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, but He said, then you're going
to Judea, and then you're going to Samaria, then you're going
to Syria, you're going to Cyprus, you're going to Rome, you're
going to Spain, you're going to Europe, and to the uttermost
parts of the world. And how could they maintain such
strength? It was this power, wasn't it?
It was this power. The power of this sacred person. This glorious person. This is
God, isn't it? This is God. And this is why
Jesus Christ had to suffer. Why He had to atone for us. He
opened this door that God could come and dwell in us with this
power. This is God dwelling in them.
This is the Son of God dwelling in them. Wayne was teaching over
there in Romans 8 and I noticed there in Romans 8 he kept talking
about if we're not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwelleth in us. The Spirit of God. The Spirit
is God, isn't it? It's God's Spirit. Then he turns
around and said, If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he
is not of it. So this is God. This is God's power. It's Christ
in us. His power dwelling in us. And
what did the Apostle say? I can do all things through Christ
who strengtheneth me. That's this power that he was
talking about. But just think of this power, brothers and sisters.
Just think of this power. We underestimate it. And sometimes
we go along and we're so weak because we just think, well,
you know, the Holy Spirit, yes, He's in us. But so what? But my goodness, think of this.
This was the Spirit of God that hovered over the waters back
there in Genesis 1. In the midst of the darkness
that said, let there be light. And there was light. This was
the same Holy Spirit that the Bible says garnished heaven. He decorated heaven. He spoke
the stars and the sun and the moon and the planets into being. And He spread them out like a
tent for men to dwell in. The Spirit of God did that. And you come over to the New
Testament and we say, well, Christ did this and Christ did that.
Yes. But He told us Himself. He did it with the finger of
God. He did it by the Spirit of God. When the storm came against
Him and His disciples, it was this same power that said, Peace,
be still. It was this same power that walked
up to Lazarus' grave, who was dead, and said, Lazarus, come
forth. And listen, it's going to be
the same power that brings these bodies out of the ground. and changes us from mortal into
immortality. It's going to be this same power
that makes a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness.
That's the power, the Lord said, that would come upon you. That's
the power that's within you. Be strong in the Lord and in
the power of His might. What power is that? It's this
blessed Holy Spirit. It's the blessed Holy Spirit.
In the Old Testament, it was sometimes asked. The Lord asked
His doubt in church. They kept saying, can the Lord
do this? Can the Lord provide us a table
in the wilderness? Can He do this and can He do
that? And the Lord finally said, is anything too hard for the
Lord? And can't we say that about the
church? Is anything too hard for the
church if she's possessed of this great power? She can't do anything without
the Holy Spirit. But I'm telling you, she can
do all things through Him, can't she? You shall receive power. I never will forget one of the
dear brother that came one time and preached at our house and
he preached on they that have turned the world upside down
have come here also. And I remember he He made a play
on this, that one of the marvels about turning the world upside
down was they, who were they? They, for the most part, were
a bunch of ignorant fishermen, weren't they? They were ignorant
and unlearned men and they have turned the world upside down.
And he said, well, what about the Apostle Paul? He was such
a brilliant mind. And he said, well, he had to
forget everything he knew. It wasn't his brilliant mind
that did anything. How did they turn the world upside
down? The Lord said right here, you
shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you. I want to be strong, don't you?
We were talking about a couple yesterday, and they're so wavering,
my wife and I. They're just in one church and
out into another church and out, and just believe in this, and
the next time they believe in that. They're just wavering, tossed
about with everything. I don't want to be like that,
do you? I want to believe. I want to know the truth. I want
to be strong. We can be strong. But it's not
in ourselves. It's in this blessed Holy Spirit.
You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit is come upon
you. Paul talked about abounding in
hope. Oh, I love that, abounding in
hope. Isn't it difficult sometimes
to live in the reality of your hope? Brother Wayne's been talking
about it now for a few weeks. This hope that we have, what
a precious hope. But isn't it difficult to live
in the reality of this hope? Boy, if we would, how it would
change us. The effects that it would have upon us in our daily
life to live in the reality of the hope, the glorious hope that
awaits us. And here's what Paul said about
it, that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy
Ghost. That's the way we abound. That's
the way we believe. That's the way we serve the Lord,
walk with the Lord, hope. And look here how He describes
this power. You shall receive power after
the Holy Ghost has come upon you. And look what He says in
Acts chapter 2 and verse 2, how it's described. They were all
sitting there. They were waiting. I'm sure they
had little or no idea when He was coming or exactly what would
take place. But suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of
a rushing, mighty wind. That's the way it's described,
a rushing, mighty wind. Why is it described that way?
Well, the Holy Spirit called the wind. And what is it about the wind? Most of you, while I was gone,
we were watching some of the news to figure out what was going
on with Hurricane Matthew. Was that Hurricane Matthew coming
up the coast? And we saw the governor of Florida warning everybody,
evacuate this place. You cannot stand against such
force, he said. Get out of this place. This wind
can devastate this whole eastern side of our state. Wind. Wind is uncontrollable, isn't
it? The Lord Jesus says it blows
where it will. It blows where it wishes. Where
it desires to blow. And you can't control it. It's
out of our control. And here He identifies the coming
of the Holy Spirit as this rushing, mighty wind. This irresistible
wind that is coming. Oh, isn't that what we need in
our day? Isn't this what we need? This irresistible power of God
coming in our preaching, coming in our witnessing, coming in
our own hearts as we live our daily lives for the Lord? This
is what we need, isn't it? We read over there in another
place where he talks about you do always resist the Holy Ghost.
And they did. They always resisted the Holy
Ghost, but not when He comes like this. Not when He comes
as a rushing, mighty wind. He subdues everything before
Him, doesn't He? That's why I say, brothers and
sisters, this is what we need. This is what we need. I've been
handing out a lot of these little tracks, Spurgeon tracks to people. And what I'm hoping is somebody
sitting and reading that little book, the Holy Spirit comes like
this wind, irresistible wind, and takes that Word and drives
it home to the heart, and subdues the will, subdues the darkness,
and brings light. And He can do that. You and I
believe that, don't we? He talked about, David talked
about People came to him when he got in trouble and said, David,
where's your God now? And you remember his answer? My God, he says, where He's always
been. He's in heaven. Well, what's He doing there,
David? Whatever He pleased. That's the same word that's used
to describe the wind blows where it wills. It blows where it pleases. Oh, I love to see that, don't
you? Oh, Lord, be pleased. Be pleased. Come and blow. Come in your irresistible power. Bring your gospel to men's hearts
with irresistible power. Here's what He said. There's
no God like our God. He will come again. He'll turn
again. He will subdue our iniquities. Aren't you glad that He's able
to subdue your hard heart? your unbelief, your wicked nature,
that He is able to graciously subdue you to Himself and rule
over you? That is the only hope any of
us got. We witnessed our lost loved ones. We prayed for them.
Here is the only hope we got, that the God who saves comes
in irresistible power. He comes like the mighty wind
and He saves. You and I aren't asking for these
outward manifestations. I don't want to hear the sound.
I don't want to see clothed in tongues. Oh, but we need the
Spirit of Power, don't we? We need the Spirit of Power in
the inner man. And here in verse 4 it says,
They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them
utterance. Now what does that mean? They
speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. It
means one of two things. It may mean both things, but
it probably means one of two things. It's either some of them
were speaking, they were Galileans, and some of them were speaking
in the Syrian tongue. Some of them were speaking in
the African tongue, and they heard them. They said, these
men are Galileans. They don't know the Roman language,
but they're speaking the Roman language. It could mean that,
or it could mean this, and this is what I have a tendency to
believe, and this is very miraculous if this is so. These disciples
were preaching in their own language. Peter was up preaching Galilean. That's the only language he knew,
unless he knew a little bit of Hebrew. But as he preached in
his own language, all of these other languages, 18 or so of
them, they were hearing him in their language. One man speaking
Galilean, and everybody else said, he's speaking my language.
This guy over here said, he's speaking my language. This guy
over here, he's speaking my language. If that's what it means, that's
miraculous, isn't it? How could they do that? How did
they do that? The Spirit gave them utterance.
That's it, isn't it? Tongues aren't learned. You don't
go to the Scriptures and find men learning to speak in tongues. That's utterly ridiculous. That's
a modern thing. They don't jabber. They weren't
jabbering in some tongue that nobody could relate to. I don't know if this has ever
happened since. If it's like this, in the book of Corinthians,
it seems like they were literally speaking, they had the gift of
speaking other tongues. And we can learn that, can't
we? Back then it wasn't learned. It was a gift of the Holy Spirit. Why did they do this? Why did
this happen? to fulfill prophecy, look here
in verse 15. Well, these are not drunken,
as you suppose. They said, these men are speaking
these tongues, they're drunk. See, and it is but the third
hour of the day, but this is that which was spoken by the
prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith
God, I will pour out my Spirit upon flesh, and your sons and
your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions,
your old men dream dreams, and so on. And he goes on telling
that this is all prophesied. The Bible says this was going
to happen. That's why it's happened in this
way. To fulfill prophecy. And verse 6, here's another reason
it happened. To get people's attention. Look
in verse 6. And when this was noised abroad,
the multitude came together and were confounded, because that
every man heard them speak in his own language." What if these
guys had just got up and started preaching? Nobody would have
paid any attention to them. God sent these miraculous signs
to get people's attention, and 3,000 at least ran together and
said, What's happening? This is wonderful. This is miraculous. And everybody ran over there
to get their attention. It's why the Lord did that. We
don't need this in our day, do we? We don't need this in our
day. This was the transitional period.
We don't need this in our day. But the ultimate reason all of
this happened is found in verse 11. Look in verse 11. They talked
about, we heard them speak in all these different languages,
in Crete, in Arabian. We do hear them speak in our
tongues, look at this, the wonderful works of God. The wonderful works
of God. We hear them plainly speak in
the wonderful works of God. You know what they were speaking?
the gospel. Because he goes on here after
things get settled down and Peter begins there to preach to them how they killed the Son of God.
God sent Him to you and you by your wicked hands have crucified
Him. But God has raised Him from the
dead and exalted Him to heaven and set Him at His own right
hand, and it said, He is Lord. He is Lord. He is declared to
be Lord. And when they heard this, they
were pricked in their hearts and said, Men and brethren, what
shall we do? And Peter told them to repent,
every one of them, and be baptized. And they did, and they believed
the gospel. They were obedient to the Word
of the Lord. And about 3,000 of them were born again. born of the Holy Spirit. Three
thousand souls. Now look in verse 42 and verse
47. Now wind this up just a second.
The coming of the blessed Holy Spirit. We're told here of the
fruits of it. What was the fruits of the coming
of the Holy Spirit? Look in verse 42. This is amazing. He said in verse 41, Then they
that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day
there were added to them about three thousand souls. And here's
the first one. They continued steadfastly in
the apostles' doctrine. They continued in the apostles'
doctrine. This word doctrine, it means
instructions. Instructions. What happens? What is the fruit? of having
the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit came in
His power and saved these fellows, what was the evidence of that? And you know something that didn't
happen is very telling. Back down in Tennessee, we had
a church not far from us, and it was a holiness church. They talked about being filled
with the Spirit and they called them Holy Rollers. Have you ever
heard that phrase, Holy Rollers? And they called them that because
they literally got down on the floor and started rolling. And
people went up there to watch them roll. They're Holy Rollers. And they said they're filled
with the Holy Spirit. Do you see that here? You don't,
do you? And then, then something else
you don't see here. You don't see people running,
jabbering with languages that's impossible to understand. You
don't see people out of their minds. What do you see? We see something that's orderly,
that's decent. And what's the first thing we
see here? It said they continue steadfastly
in the Apostles' doctrine, and that word there means instructions. in the instructions that the
apostles gave them. They followed their instructions.
When the apostles said, ìThis is what you must do,î what did
they do? They did it! These are people
that rejected the baptism of John. And now Peter says, ìBe
baptized every one of you.î And what did they do? They were baptized. They submitted These rebels submitted
unto the instruction. You see people, brothers and
sisters, that profess Jesus Christ and they refuse to submit to
the Word of God. They go on and make a religion
out of their own heads. They do what's right in their
own minds. Dismark it down. They have no evidence that they
have received the Holy Spirit. When these received the Holy
Spirit, they continued steadfastly in the instructions of the apostles. Boy, that's a good evidence,
isn't it? I'm going to follow the Lord.
Whatever He says by His grace, I'm going to follow Him. Boy,
that's a good evidence of the Holy Spirit. But notice this,
not only did they continue steadfastly in the apostles' instruction,
and in fellowship, in fellowship, This word means to have common
interest. These 3,000 people had a common
interest. And you know what it was? In
spiritual things. In Jesus Christ and His Gospel. They were born of the love of
God. They loved one another. And they continued in this fellowship. They continued together as we
are in fellowship and communion one with another. What's the
evidence of having the Holy Spirit? Fellowship. Fellowship. There's a young lady who calls
me out in Utah, and she has no place to go worship. She tried
to go down the mountain they live on and find a place to worship,
but about all that's out there is the Mormons. There are some
fundamentalists who say you just decide for Christ and go on.
That's basically what it is. But I told her, I said, you know,
I can live without the church. I can survive as a Christian
without the church. I just don't know how. It would
be difficult for me to survive without God's people. I have
so much in common with them. We have the same Father, the
same Elder Brother, the same Spirit. We're born of the love
of God. We love the Gospel. And you want
to fellowship with them, don't you? That's what these fellows
did. They continued in fellowship. And look at this, in the breaking
of bread. This doesn't mean they got together
and ate like we do every Sunday. But this was the Lord's table. They got together and remembered
the death of Jesus Christ. And they just sat and said, let's
come to the Lord's table and remember what He's did for us.
They continued in that. And then in prayers. He said
in prayers. They continued in prayer. Isn't it sad? And this happens
everywhere. I don't know a single church
this doesn't happen at. Isn't it sad during the midweek?
So few gather because it's prayer meeting. But isn't it sad for
us who gather for prayer meeting that we don't pray any more than
we do? One of the evidences that the
Holy Spirit has come to us is, boy, it breathes this prayer
into us, doesn't it? We pray. And a man that says
he's a Christian and doesn't pray? That's like saying I'm
alive, but I'm just not breathing, is it? Oh, he's a spirit of prayer. They continue in prayer. And
it says here, they continued steadfastly in these things. It wasn't a wearisome to them.
He said in verse 46, they continued with gladness of heart, simplicity
and heart. They were so honest about it.
So this is the miracle of the coming of the blessed Holy Spirit.
And I tell you, for a group of people, whether they're a large
group or a small group like we are, I tell you what's the greatest
miracle, apart from the new birth and believing, I tell you the
greatest miracle in the church is to have a group of people
can get together and continue in fellowship, and continue in
peace and unity. That's the work of the Holy Spirit,
isn't it? The work of the flesh is divided. The work of the flesh
is, I've got to have it my way. The work of the flesh is, you
don't see everything just like I do, so there's got to be some
division. But I tell you, the work of the Spirit is this unity,
peace, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit and the bonds
of peace. That's the miracle of the blessed
Holy Spirit, isn't it? Oh, may He come upon us. May
He come to us and may He come upon us as He did to this early
church. And you know things haven't changed,
has it? He's still the same blessed Holy
Spirit. He's working today. We don't
have these tongues. We don't need them. We don't
have these great miracles that were done mainly by the apostles.
But I tell you, we need the same Spirit that came upon them. May the Father in heaven