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"And when the day of Pentecost... And the same day there were added about three thousand souls." The day of Pentecost is emphatically the complement of the great days of the New Testament. The visible glories of this day are the fitting sequel, the almost natural sequel, of the more veiled glories of certain days that had preceded it. The heavenly luster and music of the day of incarnation, unique as they were, reached the eye and ear of but few. The world was asleep. The dread, tremendous glory of the day of crucifixion, charged though it was with fullest significance, was not seen to be such at the time. The glories of the day of resurrection undeniably opened eyes and hearts to the keenest and most thankful appreciation of them, but their appeal was to a very limited number. When the calm, sweet, strange glory of Ascension Day revealed a vision of literally endless light, the scene undoubtedly began to widen, if only that it so heightened. And now but a short interval has passed, and there is a certain manifestation given to this day of Pentecost which reflects floods of glory upon the Giver, and pours light and hope, new and amazing, upon a world well-nigh prostrate. It is the simply told history of this day that is written for us in this chapter. And it tells us of -

I. THE MAGNIFICENT INTERVENTION OF A SUPERNATURAL PRESENCE. (Vers. 2-4). Observe:

1. The signs of the presence. It is distinguished by

(1) the sound of wind, apparently without the usual other accompaniments of it to the feeling.

(2) The sound of wind of irresistible and conquering energy. It is not as when" the Spirit of God moved on the face of the" archaic "waters" (Genesis 1:2), and it is not "as summer evening's latest sigh, that shuts the rose. No; nor is it as the stormy wind and tempest." The elements are not in confusion, and the wind is not furious. But it sweeps along, nevertheless, with a certain irresistible majesty; rather, it distinctly thus sweeps down from heaven. It is wind that bears itself down, and is full of might."

(3) Its facile pervading and penetrating of "all the house where" the disciples "were sitting." St. John, for certain, was there, and learned then the grand original of his later - nay, much later - Patmos experience, "I was in the Spirit." All in "that house" were enveloped, bathed, "baptized" in the Holy Spirit.

(4) An added appearance; an appearance of fire, manifold fire, every several portion of the bright burning shaped as the tongue, and one of these speeding to settle on each of the startled assembly of disciples.

2. The first and direct results off, presence.

(1) Those to whom it was vouchsafed, and who "were sitting in the house," are "all filled with the Holy Spirit." This is the testimony, the assertion, of the historian at a somewhat later period. Whether those who experienced the wonderful force knew in that same hour what had thus taken possession of them may be a question. If they knew it not in name, they very certainly began to know it in its marvelous nature. We justly give our imagination some leave of exercise here, and the more happily if that imagination can assist itself in any degree from the materials of our own experience of the quickening, invigorating influences of the Spirit in our heart. Evidently in degrees, ranging from little to the largest, does that Spirit vouchsafe his visits and his work in human hearts. What would it be if we knew him today in some really large measure! What conviction it would be to the individual heart! What commanding joy, inexpressible, overflowing to the very life and soul of any one disciple! But if such a visitation were granted to a gathering of disciples - just one meeting of Christian people - making account of the different time of day, the greater enlargement of scope of the day, the crowded people around, millions for thousands, the rapidity and trustworthiness of communication, - surely England itself would scarce contain the excitement, and the Church might well be beside herself for very joy. The mere imagination of this will help to reproduce for us some more vivid idea of the surprise of that moment, that hour of the day of Pentecost.

(2) Those who were thus filled with the Holy Spirit are not rapt in ecstatic feeling, do not improvise celestial psalm and music, but they speak the many languages of earth. They speak, but the Spirit gives them the speech. They speak, but it is now literally fulfilled that the Spirit gives them in that same hour what they shall speak. The case is one of genuine verbal inspiration. There is little doubt, perhaps, that these numerous disciples spoke words which they did not understand the meaning of (1 Corinthians 14:22), nor could have "interpreted" had they been called to do so. They uttered sounds, their faculties of speech being subject to the mighty and condescending power of the Holy Spirit. What of loss of dignity this may at first seem to the disciples, is far more than counter- balanced, not only by the suggestions of honor set on the organs of human speech in the use of them by One who may for the moment be called the Maker and Giver of them, but also by the gain of a clearly more impressive result. There was far less mixture of the human element in the Divine communication that purported to pass from the Spirit to the ear and mind of a large number of various-speaking peoples. It is the difference to us of a correspondent who indeed uses an amanuensis, as St. Paul often did in his Epistles, but who keeps with himself the dictating of every word. Such a one has not left the selection of words, or style, or turn of expression to another; and this is the chief thing we care about, though we should have prized his handwriting as well. Nor need it seem at all too far-fetched an inference, if any one hesitated to count it a designed arrangement, that through this speaking being so essentially the act of the Holy Spirit, a very strong suggestion of the personality of that Spirit should be borne in on the disciples then, and much more on disciples of succeeding ages. Absolute speech does not come from what is merely an influence, an energy, a power. It is the function of a person. And it is one of the highest of prerogatives of the human being. The disciples had lost a personal Presence, in the person of Jesus, which could never be replaced, and which never was to be replaced till he should "so come" again, "in like manner as they had seen him go into heaven." And yet, though the personal presence of Jesus was not to be replaced by another personal presence, it was most surely to be replaced by the presence of a Person. Would it not be calculated to assist disciples both to believe correctly and to feel grateful that the ever-invisible Spirit was none the less a Personage, a Being - not a vague influence nor a phantom? And now there is probably no cardinal fact of Christianity less honored, less operative, than that of the personality of the Holy Spirit. It is one of the disastrous causes of his being too often slighted, sinned against, grieved, and "quenched,"

3. Certain incidents in the presence. It is fitted

(1) to a certain time. "When the day of Pentecost was fully come." The time was certain; it was fore- spoken by Jesus; it was waited for by his disciples. But though certain, alluded to, and awaited, neither "the day nor the hour" was revealed.

(2) To a certain place. The place certainly was Jerusalem. And the same Being who told the disciples "not to depart from Jerusalem, but wait" there, was one who "knew" also "the place," the "one place," of his loved people's loved meeting, as he had once well known "the place" of his own agony - the garden.

(3) To a certain temper of heart. "They were all with one accord," i.e. together, "in one place." Juxtaposition and visible association do not always infer the purest of harmony by any means. But they did infer it now; and that the disciples were all with one accord in one place was the real fruit of their being all "of one accord." Since that blessed day, true it is - too true - that Christ's people have very often been "together" when they have not been "of one accord," "of one mind," "having the same love," "like-minded." But it was so now. And if it had not been, the grandeur of the day would either never have been at all, or would have "set in darkness" and shame.

(4) Of undoubted design, to a congregate body, and one, comparatively speaking, numerous. No longer to a woman by herself, no longer to two disciples alone, no longer to the twelve, or the eleven, but at all events to some ten times that number (Acts 1:15). The Spirit often whispers silently, stealthily almost, in the ear of the soul most solitary. Not so now. The sacred illumination, sacred quickened faculty, and sacred joy shall possess "each" and "all together" of that new style of family, that infant Church - that little company of fellow-pilgrims, of fellow-voyagers, of a mere handful of an army. They need food, and strength, and comfort, and the inspiration of experiences - never, never to be forgotten - shared together. Grand uses frequently come of the Spirit's force over one individual, and him the obscurest of the obscure; but now grand uses were to come for themselves, for one another, for a world, in that the disciples were associated so variously, yet so closely, in ecstatic privilege, in unbounded surprise, and in the consentaneous joy of the unwonted inspiration that came "wild-murmuring o'er their raptured souls."

(5) To an occasion that either admitted of the testimony or invited the challenge of a large and various multitude. There were present the comparatively large number of those who experienced the power of the Holy Ghost, but there were also near at hand a very much larger number of those who soon became spectators of what was transpiring. They were not only a large number, but a very various number. They hailed from different regions; they spoke different languages; their objects and their modes of life were, no doubt, very various. It were inconceivable that any collusion should obtain here, so far as spectators, were concerned. In their excitement, and in the open expression of it, so natural, some did challenge, though the pitiful challenge fell stillborn to the ground. "New wine" never wrought such marvel, each nationality must have felt, when addressed touching "the wonderful works of God" in its own language. But till then the Parthian, for instance, might set down to "new wine" the discordant sounds, as they must seem to him, of a dozen other nationalities. Just so far there was reason in the "mocking;" and, at all events, there was use in it. For the "new wine" theory found expression, got a hearing, and got a verdict too. Most profitable was this occasion, when "the multitude were confounded...were all amazed and marveled... were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?... and others mocking said, These men are full of new wine." Such awakening, such spirit of inquiry and investigation, such clear proof of a readiness to challenge appearances rather than succumb too readily and run the chance of delusion, made for every man that was there a strong, convinced witness in time to come, and in the home and country of each. From being excited spectators, they became, man for man, so many intelligent and determined witnesses of "the wonderful works of God." From being gaping hearers, they became instructed and impressive preachers. And the unsettledness of their mind gave place to deep, unmoved conviction. The adaptation of occasion here gave two great advantages - the advantage of satisfactory and conclusive evidence, and that of an effective and willing missionary service over large portions of the earth.

II. A GRAND MANIFESTATION-DAY OF PROPHECY. (Vers. 16-21.) This was a very gala-day of prophecy. Often distrusted, often mocked, and often saluted with the taunting question, "Where is the promise of his coming?" - now the scene which stirred all Jerusalem was one "in demonstration of that Spirit and power" which dwelt in it. The day witnessed in matter prophetic the majestic force of the avalanche, overwhelming doubt and disbelief in deep destruction indeed, but carrying no other destructiveness with it. The piled predictions of ages past no longer tower aloft so proudly and forbiddingly, but they fall at the feet of an amazed, an astounded, but a revived and gladdened nation. Or, if the figure be permitted, the leases of property of immeasurable value fall in this day. And that this was a day of justest pride in the career of prophecy, may be testified by the thought:

1. Of the largeness of the contents of it. The volume is an ample one indeed. What treasures it unrolled, and all the while seemed to say spontaneously, "This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your hearing! It was an abounding harvest that was now gathered in ripe, - a rich and gladdening vintage. It is not prophecy fulfilled for an individual king or mighty man, nor for a caste of priests, nor for a band of prophets, but it includes all flesh,...sons and daughters,...young men and old men my servants and my handmaidens." It proved itself over a wide variety of human character and condition.

2. Of the intrinsic nature of it. "They shall prophesy. It is a fulfillment in spiritual sort. The Spirit is the great Worker, and spiritual results are still what underlie great outer wonders. Living powers of human nature, immensely intensified and diversified, - these are the phenomena at all events. They are marked as the beginning," not of "sorrows," not of "tribulation," not of "miracles," but of "signs" that contain an amount and a kind of signifying power far in excess of all which had ever been. Now began - whatever its duration should prove to be - this world's last aeon. And strongly marked are its characteristics from the first. "All flesh" begin to answer responsive to the might of the invisible Spirit, and in a certain sense the very presumption of Saul, and of those who were stricken because they touched the sacred ark, begins to be the law. Directness of individual contact with whatever should be most holy, for each and all, becomes the established, the enthroned religion of the world.

III. A GLORIOUS DISCLOSURE AND EMPHATIC PROCLAMATION COUCHED IN THE VERY WORDS OF ANCIENT REVERED PROPHECY. (Ver. 21.) That very prophecy that had seemed to cover, now served to proclaim loudly and distinctly the universal mercy of the one universal "Lord." The "gracious word" now proceeds from its lip, to begin its unresting journey. What a word was this, "And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the Name of the Lord shall be saved"! It is the disclosure in broadest daylight of the purpose of ages past; yes, of a purpose that had been purposed before the world began. Most assuredly prophecy had held it, and had made it visible, but to very few who beheld, though it was before their eyes. The eyes even of those to whom it was given to see "were holden that they knew" it not. And the vast multitude outside were long time dying without the knowledge or so much as one glimpse of it. Of the past three years Jesus had given significant hints of it in some of his works, and had whispered it sometimes in the ears of his disciples, and had distinctly uttered it in his parting commission, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." But to the day of Pentecost "is this grace given," that it should preach aloud, with a hundred tongues, and a hundred better than silver trumpets, the riches of the gospel of Christ. Three things mark what was then in particular, and what must ever essentially be the surprising riches of the proclamation.

1. It is hope to all and every one.

2. It is the call of a human voice alone, no doubt drawn deep from the heart, that is the method, the one simple method of access to that hope.

3. The hope is that of no mere respite, subterfuge, soothing relief, but of salvation. Exclusiveness "is finished;" ritual, ceremony, sacrifice, the earthly priest, - each "is finished; tantalizing expectancy, "is finished;" and everlasting salvation is to be had free, by any one and by every one, for the one anguished or trustful call of the heart "on the Name of the Lord." It is a fact worthy to be noticed, that, as the gospel of Jesus' own public ministry began from the quotation of Isaiah's prophecy (Luke 4:17-21; Isaiah 61:1), so the gospel of the day of Pentecost begins its illustrious career with the motto of a quotation from prophecy (Joel 2:28-32). These two links - were they the only ones - how strongly they bind together the Scriptures of the old and new covenants, and the covenants themselves!

IV. THE FIRST OF THE LONG SUCCESSION OF CHRISTIAN PREACHERS. (Vers. 14, 29, 38). This honor was reserved for Peter, to be the first of that "great company which publish" the glad tidings of salvation through Jesus Christ. He had been preparing for this place now these three years. He had passed through good fame and through ill, through not a little most merited rebuke; he had passed through, not the discipline of warning and correction alone, but also through that of the genial influences and constant stimulus of priceless privileges. The memories of the fishing, and the storm, and the walking on the water, and the death-chamber, and the brilliant heights of the Transfiguration, and the darkest contrasts of the shades of Gethsemane's garden, and the judgment hall, and the look vouchsafed from the very cross after the terrible thrice denial, and of all the rest, were now all upon him. And he has made, at all events, this impression on us - the impression as of a man of:

1. Native impetuosity of temperament.

2. Imperious moral judgments.

3. Liability to fearful lapse.

4. Unbounded enthusiasm and devotion to a great and good Master

5. And now lastly, of a man with the eye of an eagle for the object dear to his heart.

V. A MODEL TESTIMONY TO "THE TRUTH AS IT IS IN JESUS." (Vers. 14-36). The character of a model Christian sermon may be justly claimed throughout for this address of Peter to the multitude. The leading features of it are strongly marked.

1. It is one testimony to Christ; the subject is variously approached, but it is one. Whatever the then reason, the subject is not lost sight of nor allowed to linger. Each approach to it, each conclusion from it, becomes more telling, till the pronounced assertion confronts the people, "Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ."

2. It is a summary of indisputable historic facts. The incarnation and birth of Jesus are, therefore, not adverted to, as perhaps too remote. They did not come directly within the range of facts patent to the hearers of Peter. "As ye yourselves know" was an argument Peter loved to use. He didn't beg reliance on his judgment, opinion, or assertion, but he challenged the knowledge of those to whom he spoke. The "Man of Nazareth,... the approved of God by miracles and signs and wonders... the delivered" (though here Peter does insert the transcendent statement of Divine "foreknowledge" and "counsel"), "the taken crucified and slain... the raised up" from death's kingdom and dominion, "the exalted by the right hand of God," and the corroboration of these statements of the Resurrection and Ascension from the prophecies of their own prized oracles, - these are the vital facts summarized now by Peter. The chain breaks nowhere. Peter is strong in his facts.

3. There was an unflinching style in the address. The indiscriminate people of Judaea and Jerusalem are before Peter, and barely seven weeks are passed since the Crucifixion, and Peter brings the guilt home in uncompromising language to the heart and the hand of those whom he addresses; and also declares that the wonders of this day of Pentecost, of which the fickle multitude were no doubt the willing witnesses, are all the work of that "Man of Nazareth" whom they had disbelieved, ill treated, crucified. Many men will bear to be told of their guilt, who won't stand the demonstration of their exceeding folly. But the hearers of Peter get both in his faithfulness and unflinchingness to his subject. "This Jesus... hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear."

4. There was intense earnestness in the address of Peter. This, no doubt, went naturally a long way to disarm what might otherwise have seemed the offensive character of the matter of his indictment. The instance is an interesting and a remarkable one of the very severest rebuke consisting with a kindliness only thinly veiled. And without a word of kindness expressed, the impression and effect are probably gained by the manifest intense earnestness and strongest conviction of the speaker. These things, so that they are not abused, are legitimately within the province of the Christian preacher. With this proviso it is given to him to dogmatize, only not in his own name; to rebuke in the most uncompromising manner, only not for any offence personal to himself merely; and to wield the denunciations of the future and the unseen, only not otherwise than as drawn, both for matter and for justifiable occasion, and justly drawn, from the warrant of revelation.

VI. A MODEL CONFESSIONAL OF THE CHURCH. (Vers. 37-40.) As was to be expected, in no respect is the transition from Judaism to Christianity more worthy of interested study than as it offers to view the healthy young growth of Christian institutions, taking root amid the ruins of the old and corrupt traditions of the "Jews' religion." Many a site that witnessed long time crumbling decay, stones no two of which lay together, and the very squalidity of disorder, now witnessed the surprising signs of vigorous, determined, and beautiful life. It were well if it had been possible to secure that these should not in their turn succumb, in lapse of time, to the affronts of human imperfection, and show again the pitiful sight of diviner growths within cumbered, choked, and finally killed, by fungus, excrescence, and merciless blight. Here, however, we have a fine example of the vitality of roused religious life, its own cries, and the methods of treatment with which it was blessed to meet. Observe:

1. The central fact - conviction. The conscience itself is touched, wakens responsive to the touch, and takes upon itself to speak for its owner sounds that have the sounds of life. Men hear, and are "pricked in the heart."

2. The first immediate course resorted to under the circumstances. Those whose hearts are thus "pricked," whose conscience is thus touched, begin to make inquiry, and inquiry of what they "shall do." They play not the role of excuse for the past, of moralizing reminiscence, or of any other of the pretexts for procrastination. It is the moment for undoubted action, for decided action, and, if honest ignorance exist as to the shape of that action, for prompt inquiry as to the way: "What shall we do?" No doubt, when the men and the time and the circumstances and those to whom they now addressed themselves, - when these all are put together, it must be granted that there was here the reality and the best part of genuine confession.

3. Religious interrogatories made, not under the probing of the confessional-expert; not under the conditions of morbidness, and it goaded; not in secrecy and solitariness. These, as between man and his fellow-creature, may be often more than doubtful. But it is in open day that this confessional-scene is placed. And safety invests it, and spiritual health and even symptoms of robustness are indicated.

4. Preachers not priest, doctrine not ritual, practice not penance, lively repentance not remorseful reflection, are the order of that well-omened hour. Yet, to speak of nothing else, if ever remorseful reflection - something short of remorse itself - might have put in a reasonably opportune claim, it was surely now, while Peter's stinging words still rang in their ears: "This Jesus whom ye crucified" (Revised Version). But no; the answer to the questions put at this honorable, open confessional is "Repent," altering at once the thing you have been, though alter you cannot the crucifying thing that you have done; "Repent," and show it before men, by being "baptized, every one of you," actually in that very Name, "the Name of Jesus Christ," whom you rejected and crucified, acknowledging thereby that you are bounden to him for "the remission of sins;" "Repent," and be baptized, and enter at once on the inheritance of long promise, "the gift of the Holy Ghost." That "gift of the Holy Ghost," after repentance and offer baptism and after the remission of sins, as distinguished from the preeminent quickening effected by his sacred breath, would be the conclusive, surest token of the absolution of sin. For them and for ourselves this may sufficiently distinguish the ever-necessary working of the Holy Spirit in quickening the human heart from death, necessary equally with Abel and Enoch as with Paul or any man of modern days, from that special endowment of the Spirit for other uses, vouchsafed to the "new covenant" from the day of Pentecost downward to this day. This is the special grace and crown of the Christian Church, though probably still little understood, and its conquering force accordingly still little tested. From the language of ver. 40 we may understand that we have but a sketch of all that Peter said from the moment that he stood up to vindicate the prophesying army from the charge of drunkenness, to the moment that the actual administration of the rite of baptism began. Unstintingly he "testified," unweariedly he "exhorted," and this the burden of his enthusiastic and impassioned appeal, that those who heard should show themselves willing, anxious, eager to be rescued from the following and from the belongings of an inherently "crooked generation."

VII. A GLORIOUS AND MOST HEART-GLADDENING HARVEST. (Ver. 41-47). Three thousand were that day added to the hundred and twenty or thereabout, who began the day as believers in Christ. The multiplication was twenty-five for every one. They are those who "received his word." It will not be going beyond chapter and verse if we regard this as equivalent to "receiving the Word." Still, this is not the exact meaning of the historian, and as it is very possible that some of these very thousands at some subsequent time were guilty of defection, we may prefer to hold that those who came to be thus guilty did not receive" with meekness the engrafted Word, which was able to save their souls." They only caught a transient enthusiasm as they listened to Peter. Any way, some then also did not "receive" the word of Peter. "Some" then also "believed and some believed not. Some tares then also were mingled with the good seed." Glorious, therefore, as that harvest was of the "latter day," it falls very short of the glory that shall be of" the last day." Then no Peter shall baptize, and no Church shall charitably judge, and no adulteration shall be possible. Then "the angels shall come forth,

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KJV: And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

WEB: Now when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all with one accord in one place.