shall return to Acts chapter two, please. Acts chapter two. And verse one. 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 crushing 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. It's all we'll read tonight because we'll be taking up the rest of this chapter, not all of it, but the next few verses having to do with tongues and things of that nature next Lord's Day. And this is a subject many are interested in, and we are interested also in taking it up, for I never have spoken on tongues. I felt I had my hands full to speak one tongue rightly. the English language. But we'll speak about these other tongues that were evident on the day of Pentecost and find out from the Scriptures whether it's the mind of God that these be continued down through the church age. And there's plenty of interesting things relative to these tongues that we'll be taking up Lord willing next Sunday night. Of course, we'll have another message Sunday morning. also relative to the church. These are fundamental truths and messages on the church. And I don't think that they are spoken on today as they should be, and I believe this certainly should contribute to a real solid grounding in the things of God as to what the church really is, how it was brought together. and how the church functions. We have plenty of information of the Bible concerning the church. Now there are five sections in this chapter, too. We've often given you an outline of the chapter before proceeding. Now this chapter is divided into five distinct sections. In verses one to four you have the coming of the Holy Spirit. Then you have the effects of the coming of the Holy Spirit in verses five to thirteen. And then you have Peter's sermon of explanation as to the Spirit's coming in verses fourteen to thirty-six. Then you have the results of that sermon in verses thirty-seven to forty-two, and finally in verses forty-one to forty-seven the attitude and actions of the early Christians. Now we'll be taking these up as we proceed in future messages. Now the day of Pentecost, it must have been a marvelous day, this day of Pentecost, and if you want to get a real introduction to this day and things that preceded it, you'd need to go way back into the Old Testament in Leviticus chapter twenty-three. There are those today who would tell us we do not need the Old Testament, but should confine ourselves to the new. All I can say is that the Old Testament provides a wonderful background for New Testament teaching and truth. And to think that a way back in the teachings of Moses, in the Vedas, you find the day of Pentecost presented in its beautiful order. You'll find seven feasts of Jehovah that we have referred to on one or two occasions, seven feasts of Jehovah or the coming together of the nation of Israel on seven particular festivals in that one year. It began with the Feast of Sabbath. Then it also following that was the Feast of the Passover. Now in your New Testament we read these words in First Corinthians five, seven. Christ, our Passover, sacrificed for us. The children of Israel came together once a year to keep the Passover, and it always began on the Feast of Sabbath. And that was to commemorate They are coming up out of Egypt. How the lamb was slain, and the blood of that animal was sprinkled on the two-side post and the upper lintel. Not on the doorstep, for God would not have that which pointed onward to his son to be pardoned on or walked over. There was no blood there, but on the two-side post and the upper lintel, the blood was applied. And of course they used to get this lamb and keep it from the tenth day to the fourteenth day, and they were to feast upon it in commemoration of the Passover, their passage out of Egyptian bondage into the liberty of the people of God. And so it was called the Passover, and Christ is our Passover, sacrifice for us. We are delivered from the bondage of sin of Satan and of tradition by the blood of Christ. And so we commemorate that every Sunday morning at the worship service. They did it once a year. The church should do it the first day of every week. And then after that Passover service or that festival, we had the feast of unleavened bread. In other words, they were to eat unleavened bread. They were to go through all the house, search everything in the country, all food was to be examined, anything that had leavened was to be put away, and they were to eat unleavened bread. That speaks of a fully consistent walk of the one who has been redeemed. And we are told in Corinthians, first Corinthians, five, six, and eight, and second Corinthians, seven, and one, in Galatians five, seven, and nine, we are told as Christians to put out of our lives anything that would be fine, anything that would interfere with or interrupt our fellowship with God and our walk as a child of God. So there you have the feast of unleavened bread, a holy walk, and communion with God. Then you come to the feast of the first fruits. And that simply meant that a farmer on that feast of first fruits, when the whole nation came together, he brought a sheet of wheat, a number of stalks loosely bound together into a sheet. And of course he would pick the best stalks he could find in his fields. and he would tie them together, and he would come before the Lord, and he would present the first fruits of his harvest unto the Lord. In other words, Lord, I've got plenty more like this. I thank you for the wonderful harvest I have, the fields of grain. Lord, you've prospered me, and to show my appreciation and bring a sample of it. The first fruits, and that first fruit was way before the Lord. Now we know what the first fruits mean, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Twice the first fruits, afterwards they that are Christ at his coming. Christ rose from the dead. He was the first sheep, and when he went back to the Father, he says, Father, this is just a sample. of a great harvest of precious souls that are going to be coming and coming, and coming down the centuries until the last sheep is gathered in and the saints will be called home on that glorious harvest festival, the coming again of the Lord Jesus Christ and the rapture of the church. Now, fifty days from that festival of the first roots, we find the feast of Pentecost. Now, isn't that interesting? Fifty days from the time the first sheep was raised before the Lord, from then on we come to the feast of the leaven, the feast of the loaves, right? And here is the feast of Pentecost predicted in the Old Testament. because the very word Pentecost means fifty. And so when Christ went up he was the first sheep, and you know he was with them for forty days, and he was talking among them before he went up from the time he rose from the dead to the time he ascended from Mount Olivet. Forty days he went in and out among them, and then when he went up he told them to abide there in Jerusalem and to pray. And there was that glorious ten-day period of prayer. Then they would receive a promise of the Father. So you have fifty days from the resurrection of Christ until the descent of the Holy Spirit, exactly as is taught back in the Leviticus chapter twenty-three. And this is a feast of loathe. or the Pentecostal feast. The coming of the Holy Spirit. And exactly what it says after the seven sermons and the morrow after the seven, seven, seven, forty-nine, on the thirtieth day you're to keep this feast, the feast of the loaves. Now to show you how beautiful your Bible is, when that sheep of wheat was offered, There was no leaven, no leaven in that sheep, because it speaks of a sinless Christ who went up to the Father when he ascended. But when you come to this feast in the Old Testament, the feast of loaves, you have two loaves, and in those loaves there is leaven. Now the two loaves simply speak of the two and the Gentile made one in Christ the two loaves. And instead of one leaf or one stalk or one sheep with loosely bound stalks, here you have in the two loaves, you have something that has been brought together that's compact. And it's not like loosely bound stalks. held sheep of grains or stalks of grapes. But here you have something and its contact together. And that's exactly what happened on the day of Pentecost. When the Spirit of God came down, He united the believers into one rope we read in the New Testament, which is His body. And in that one rope, you have Jew and Gentile alike. And isn't it remarkable that in those two loaves there is the mention of leaven, simply teaching this, that the church, as long as she's off earth, is not perfect. Christ was perfect, no leaven connected with that sheep of her shoes. But there is leaven connected with the loaves on that festive day known as the Pentecost, showing that in the church, there is some evil. Now that doesn't give us an excuse to practice evil. We deplore it. But it simply means this. Although a person is born again, he's saved by grace and God looks upon him as sinless in his sight because he's accepted in Christ. Nevertheless, in the church, all who are in the body of Christ have a body that's subject to death. Otherwise you'd never get sick. A plague is just death sending on its messenger. I'm coming. And when we're born into this world, the moment we begin to live, that moment we begin to die. And the process of deterioration takes place in the human body from birth. And it begins to work. And it's sin, the Bible says, working in our bodies, in our members to bring forth fruit unto death. If the Christian were sinless, he would never die. If I were without sin in every department, I would never die. I'd live on, I'd live on, I'd live on. The wages of sin is death. We die. because we have sin working in our members. Now to have sin working in my body is a different thing from sin in my soul. In Christ, God sees me sinless, but as I'm in the flesh, I have sin working in my members. There's a leaven that was found in the Lord. And in these worlds that speak of the church, you have the thought of unity. Now these are wonderful truths found in the Old Testament, leading us on to the truth of Pentecost. And of course you do have two other feasts. You have the sixth one of trumpets that speak of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, the sound of the trumpet, and also the feast of tabernacles, which speaks of Israel in the millennium. dwelling at peace in this wicked ungodly world. By that time, friends from sinners and Christ establishing his righteous kingdom in this world. Now, Pentecost is found three times in the New Testament, the word Pentecost. It's found three times and the first time you have it here in Acts chapter two and verse one. Then over in Acts chapter twenty and verse sixteen, Paul says, He determined to sail by Ephesus to be at Jerusalem by the day of Pentecost. Not that there was going to be the same experience, the cloven tongues of the fire, the mighty wind that blew. No, that day was not going to be accompanied. with all those signs that the first day, the first Pentecost was. It was a commemoration, and every year. And so Paul is tearing up to Jerusalem to keep the commemoration or to celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit of God. And again in First Corinthians, sixteen and eight, he said, I will carry in Ephesus until Pentecost. I'll be staying at Ephesus until Pentecost. I want to go there, to be there on the anniversary of that great event. And so we find this anniversary, this commemoration of Pentecost in the Bible. But there was really only one Pentecost. The others are commemoration. I'm not going to ask you how old you are. That would be embarrassing. But you know you've only had one birthday. All the others are anniversaries. Anniversaries. You've only had one birthday. And there was only one sinless birth that took place at Bethlehem. Yet we celebrate it year after year, Christmas. There's only one resurrection to Easter. That was when Christ rose from the dead. Yet we celebrate it. year after year. And so there's only one ascension. Christ went up to heaven just once. But we celebrate that. There was only one Pentecost. And we celebrate that. Some churches do. And so it's evident that there was just one Pentecost. Now I know you hear the slogan. Back to Pentecost. People say, let's get back to Pentecost. What do they mean? They want Pentecostal blessings. They want Pentecostal power. But as for experiencing the same thing, the mighty rushing wind and the golden tongues and the fire settling upon those who are in the upper room are hundred and twenty, that has never been repeated and never will. If church plays once, that was the beginning, the birthday of the church. In other words, we have a Pentecost, the inauguration, the start of the church, the church being launched, a new thing on the earth, something that had never been seen before and will never be seen again. Here's the beginning or the birthday of the church. I wonder if we realize the truth of this. It just took place once. And since then, there have been this truth. There have been people added daily to the church. But as for the beginning, the birthday of the church, it took place once and only once. Over in England, when they opened that big, beautiful tunnel, magnificent tunnel, which went under their mercy river, When it was completed, the King and Queen of England opened it. It was inaugurated. But that tunnel has been in use ever since. And people are likely millions have gone through it. But it only had one inauguration. And the church had one inauguration. That was on the day of Pentecost some nineteen hundred years ago. But millions of people have passed on to glory. through what happened on that day of Pentecost. That wonderful day. I can use the same illustration relative to a bridge that I have gone over many, many times. Almost every time I go to Canada, I go over the big ambassador bridge in Detroit, at length Detroit with Windsor, where my two sisters lived. I've gone over it time and time again. I remember the time of its inauguration. When the mayor and other celebrities on the Detroit side and the mayor and other celebrities on the Canadian side, Windsor, they all moved together. In fact, my sister, who might die any minute, was right in the forefront. And they moved together, and it came to the center of the Ambassador Bridge. And across the center was a ribbon. And the mayor of Windsor and the mayor of Detroit... Having a pair of scissors, they clipped it at the same time, and the take care, and the bridge was open. My sister said that there was such a crowd who was just a mass of humanity from one side, the American side, to the Canadian side, I think it's about the longest single-span bridge in the world. She said it actually swayed. There was such a load on that bridge that day. But that bridge was inaugurated. But people have been going over it ever since. It was just the one inauguration. They haven't repeated it. There's only one penny cost. But because of what was done and not until that great was finished, could it be inaugurated? And the people use it to cross from one side to the other. And so when the work was done, when Jesus Christ said on the cross it is finished, He bowed his head. He yielded up the ghost. And then he was buried. He was raised again. He went back to heaven. Now the work's done. Now we can inaugurate the church. That's when the Spirit of God came down on the day of Pentecost for that early purpose to inaugurate the church. You take a young couple. They get married. And A little baby comes along. Well, they don't have to go through the ceremony of marriage before they have another child. That one ceremony, that wedding ceremony, blankets all the children they might have. And so it is when you come to Jesus Christ. You're born into the family of God, but that what happened on the day of Pentecost, when Christ and the church were united, as husband and bride, bridegroom and bride. Since that day, the uniting of the church to the Lord Jesus Christ, all who have been born into the family of God since then, the family of God, are the result of that wedding that took place at Pentecost. These things are very simple. You see them in your Bible, and I trust you do. Then there you have the inauguration, the beginning of the church, and the day of Pentecost, and the Spirit came down. Let us look at the unity of the church. You know there were a hundred and twenty people went up the stairs into that upper room, but only one came down. You see, how do you explain that? A hundred and twenty persons went up, and only one came down. Yes, something happened. when they were up there, they were welded together. For he says, in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, nor male nor female, neither bond nor priest. We are all one in Christ, one body in the Lord. Something happened then that never happened before. You read in the Old Testament, they that feared the Lord, speak often one to another, and the Lord hearken and heard. but you do not read in the Old Testament about an organic unity where people are united into one body. Now being united together in Christ, or you might use the idea of a club or a society, a lodge, and there may be the beginning, the inauguration of that lodge, but then you have people coming and They are joining that lodge. They're being initiated into that lodge. And they have a charter. They have a priest that unites them as well. And so it is on that first day, a hundred and twenty charter members in the upper room. The church was begun, and when hundred and twenty went up, one came down, one in Christ, one body in the Lord. Now some people carry this point too far and they say, yeah, the Bible says there's neither bond nor free, neither male nor female, neither true nor Greek. They say there's no difference now between male and female. But all one in Christ, women can preach like the men. How women can do like the men? Because we're all one. They don't bring up that distinction when they want to get married. They believe there's a man and a woman when it comes to that. God doesn't intend us to lose our identity. And then later on he gives instruction to the fathers, he gives instruction to the children, he gives instruction to the mothers, and the husbands and the wives. showing that God still recognizes the natural identity or individuality. But when it comes to our being in Christ, he says you're all one. You're all one in Christ. And so one person came down, and the first time the world ever saw the church was when a hundred and twenty people came down from that upper room. They had been cemented together. One body. One group. One group. And that was the unity of the church at its very beginning. And it's a wonderful thing to think of it in that life. But each time a person is saved, there's another, if you want to use the word I've already used, initiation. And we're joining that great family. that started at Pentecost. Now, I think one time, about a few weeks ago, we used the illustration of the United States, and it began with thirteen states. Now we have fifty. I said fifty-one, I think, on that occasion from the platform, and someone called my hand about it, and I suppose you know what I told them. I said, well, fifty states were united. There's another state, and it's a single state, and that's the state I live in. I'm not married. So there are fifty-one states. But nevertheless, there were fifty states. There are now. It started with thirteen. But it's still like states. They don't go through all that writing of the Constitution again when another state comes in. These other states are being added to that which has already existed from the beginning of this country. And also we mentioned the illustration of a thousand or two or three thousand grains of sugar and pour them into water or any other fluid, and they are dissolved. Now you can't see the identity. of those grains of sugar, they've lost their identity, they become one, they become melted and merged into one. And so it is when people come to Christ and are born again, they're born into the family of God, they're part of that glorious unity spoken of as the body of Christ. Till the night I was thinking about this subject, And an illustration come into my mind I've never used before, and I don't know why I haven't. But I think it's a beautiful illustration of it. When I was on the West Coast many years ago, must be fifteen years ago, one of the things that the tourists like to see, and I believe I may have taken a picture of it, if I have, I've got it in my study, someday I may run over. But here's a tree, and it's twelve feet through. and a piece two feet thick was cut out of this big tree and it's standing upright. And it's got a sign there, this tree was planted at the time of Christ. And you know how they found that out? Because they began counting those tiny little circles from the heart of the tree. And they found that that tree was such a hardwood tree But that's all it expanded in one year, and every year it brought a circle. And that circle, or that little growth, was about twenty-seventh of an inch. Do you know what that means? Before I came to the meeting tonight, I took my pencil and tried to figure it out. You have six feet to the center, to the outside. six, twelve, seventy-two feet, seventy-two inches, multiply seventy-two inches by twenty-seventh of an inch. And you know what you come up with? You come up with nineteen hundred and forty-four years. And that was just about the time of Pentecost. If you add thirty-two years, thirty-three years onto that, it brings you up to nineteen hundred and seventy-seven. Pretty close, isn't it? And it's got a sign there, this tree was planted at the time of Christ. Now, when it was planted, it was a tree, just as much as it was the day they cut that piece out. But there's a big difference in the size. And you know, when you stood there and looked at that tree, I looked at it and I saw that little heart of all those other circles and circles. And it's just amazing. Now, that tree was planted when Jesus Christ was here on earth. It's over nineteen hundred years old. But still, it's called a tree. And each year, each generation, people have been saved and brought into the church. And the church has been growing. and growing and growing and expanding and expanding. Now there are lots of other trees in the forest and lots of organizations and so on, but there's only one church and it was planted on the day of Pentecost. Ever since then, as you're reading this Acts of the Apostle, we've taken up about how the three thousand souls were saved in the day of Pentecost, five hundred later on, five thousand later on, here you have the church, and God is adding to the church such as should be or were being saved. Man cannot add to the church. You could come up the front here and shake my hand and tell me that you want to join this chapter, join the chapter. You want to be a member. Well, maybe we wouldn't be too careful, cautious, and take you at your words, at your face value, at their face value. Without asking any questions or inquiring, yes, we'll take you in. We'll have you as a number and announce it. So-and-so is here, and they want to join this church. I don't see why we shouldn't receive them all in favor, say I, everybody I, or not in favor, no, and nobody knows, not even if the person saves, doesn't know himself. In other words, they're received into an organization, or let's say, they may get baptized, they may remember the Lord, they may teach in the Sunday school, and yet not be saved. Millions are today members of churches and they're not born again at all. The Lord added to the church day such as were being saved. And friend, unless the Lord has saved you by his grace, you are not in that tree. You're not in that church. And you're not part and parcel of those born again believers that down the centuries have come to the Lord Jesus Christ and become one in him, one body in the Lord. That's for you to search your own heart tonight and ask yourself the question, am I saved? Am I born again? Do I really know the Lord Jesus? Am I part of that one body, the church, all born again? all subject to the same head, all possessing the same life, the life of Christ, all going on to glory to share the same heaven, to sing the same song, on all to be like Christ, whatever, and whatever. Are you in that glorious company known as the church, or are you in an organization that man has organized, and in most cases, It ends up disorganized. So we find the wonderful power of the church, the unity of the church and the power of the church. We began with the inauguration there, the three points I want you to remember, the inauguration of the birthday of the church and then the unity of the church and then the power of the church. The Spirit was that mighty power. that united the church. Not the sword of kings and emperors and dictators that by force and fear band in a bunch of people together and try to say we're united, we're brought together through fear of death under the reign of a dictator or an emperor or king. That's another unity altogether. It's a force unity. This unity has been brought about by the willing acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ by a poor, lost, guilty sinner, and he comes not with threat of death, no, but out of love for Christ, and his desire to be saved and saved forever, he receives the same. And the Lord Jesus Christ receives him, or her the case may be, and thus you have the work of the Holy Spirit, crippling, sealing, and abiding in the person who trusts the Lord Jesus Christ today. They've all been baptized into one body, as the Bible says. They've been initiated into the church or into Christianity. Your conversion day is your initiation day into the church. You know, there are seven principal words in the New Testament dealing with the Holy Spirit, the presence and work of the Holy Spirit. And none of these two words mean the exact same thing. Yes, first of all, we're born of the Spirit. You read that over in John three. Born of the Spirit. Then you have we're enveloped by the Holy Spirit. Then you have we're sealed by the Holy Spirit. Then you find we have the earnest of the Spirit, which is a foretaste, a sample of that which is to come. Then you have the anointing of the Holy Spirit for servants. Then you have the filling of the Holy Spirit. And now you have the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism of the Spirit took place when Jesus Christ sent the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, and those hundred and twenty were baptized into one body. And all who have been saved since are included in that one baptism. And like you throwing a stone in the middle of a pond, you see that little circle, and then the circles, and they went upward toward the bank until the bank is reached. And like in the day of Pentecost when the Spirit came down as a tiny circle but through the circle, and those ripples had been rippling out over the centuries in creation, all who had come to Jesus Christ. And they are baptized into that one body. Now the word baptism and filling are, as I mentioned, the baptism of the Spirit is mentioned only three times or Pentecost. but the filling of the Spirit has mentioned a number of times. For instance, you find John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from his birth, but John the Baptist, and I'm going to shock some of you folks, John the Baptist was never in the church. The church began on the day of Pentecost, and John the Baptist was in his grave long before that. And Christ said in the sixteenth of Matthew, On this rock I will build my church. Future tense. John was dead by this time. He said, I'm going to build my church. When did he start it? On the day of repentance. And John himself said, Why, he said, I'm the great friend of the bridegroom. I'm not the bridegroom. I'm just because of the bridegroom's voice. Herein is my joy fulfilled. John the Baptist wasn't even in the church. The long the prophets of the Old Testament were on till John included John. And John was like the best man. Christ was the bride. And so the church began on the day of Pentecost, and only those since Pentecost who have been saved by the grace of God are included in the church. And so we find many filled with the Spirit. John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit. Elizabeth, his mother was filled with the Spirit. Zacharias, his father was filled with the Spirit. Peter was filled with the Spirit. Stephen was filled with the Spirit. And many times in the Acts the Believers were filled with the Spirit. But you never read of them being baptized in the Spirit. That took place at Pentecost. And that's very plain. in your Bible. For instance, the three times the Spirit was given at Pentecost. It was forecast in Matthew three and eleven. When John says there come one after you and here he's been baptizing Christ, there come one after him and he will baptize with the Holy Ghost and with fire. He's referring to the Lord Jesus Christ. There comes another after me. And he was referring to the Lord Jesus. He shall baptize with the Holy Ghost. And with fire. There's a future baptism of fire for all who reject Jesus Christ in that lake which burneth the fire of the tombstone. There'll be no sprinkling. There'll be an immersion in the lake which burneth the fire of this. But Christ shall baptize you. There was the introduction of the baptism of the Holy Spirit a pentacle. Then you have the real experience of it. It was predicted in Matthew three and eleven. It was experienced in Acts chapter one or two where we've been reading when the Spirit came down and immersed those hundred and twenty into one unit. And then it's explained in First Corinthians twelve thirteen by one spirit as he baptized into one body, all to believe. And there you have the baptism of the Spirit, predicted, experienced, explained. When you come to the Lord Jesus Christ and accept him as your Savior, you are added to something that's been going on for nineteen hundred years, that began on the day of Pentecost, And no one has ever had the identical experience as those hundred and twenty when the mighty rushing wind came and when the Spirit descended in soven tongues of fire. That doesn't happen today when people get saved. It happened once. It will never be repeated. There can be happy recollections of that. and anniversaries check to celebrate the event. But as to the actual experience, it will never happen again. Only when Jesus Christ comes, the last soul is saved and the church is complete. The quota has been reached, for God now is visiting the Gentile nations to gather out of them a people for his name. And all who come to Christ and are born again are in that true church, and the foundation of God stand is true, or the Lord knows them that are his. When that church is complete, the last stone is on the building. The last member is added to the body. Then Christ is coming, and he could come every day, any day, and catches bright up to be with himself. There's the unit again, just blind. not a field of grain, but his blind, a personality, his companion, his associate, to share his love and inheritance forever, the church, which is his body, the church of the first one whose names are written in heaven. It is your name written there. On the page, bright and fair, In the book of the kingdom is your name written next. Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, we ask thy blessing upon thy word. May it enrich our hearts and fill our hearts, those of us who are saved. We bow humbly at the inspiration of thy holy word. that tells us these amazing things. Marbles of all marvels and miracles of all miracles. Those of us who are saved tonight are partakers of this glorious life in Christ. We're in the true church because we have Christ. For this we give thee our thanks. Remember any who are not born again, who are not saved by divine grace. who haven't experienced this inner change of passing from death and to life. Oh God, may they tonight open their hearts and receive this wonderful Savior, Jesus, our Lord. He asks it in his worthy and precious name. Amen.