[AI translation] My Christian Brothers and Sisters!
Someone once said: the hardest thing is to believe in the Holy Spirit. The work, wisdom and power of God the Father are visible in the natural world, the reality of Christ is attested to by historical records, but the reality of the Holy Spirit can only be convinced by an inner spiritual experience, a religious experience. Therefore, then, there are few who can profess this proposition of our creed, 'I believe in the Holy Spirit', with the same sincerity and determination as I believe in God and I believe in Jesus Christ. But I think it is not that we do not believe in the Holy Spirit as we believe in Christ or the Father! You also believe in the Holy Spirit, witness to that by being here now on the feast of the Spirit. And you know that you need nothing so much as this Spirit. You yourself know well that without the Holy Spirit your whole religious life is like a Tibetan mill whose wheels are driven by the wind, not by your soul. Even though you know well all the truth and beauty of our Reformed faith, without the Spirit it is like a dead man dressed up in a nice suit. It is in vain that the church stands, that there are churches, that there are rich charitable institutions and schools with expensive equipment, but without the Holy Spirit they are like the lead needles in a printing press: valuable and necessary, but they can only fulfil their function if they are arranged side by side in such a way that a human soul can express its thoughts with them, if they become the bearers of the spirit, of the soul. Without the Holy Spirit, the Church is dead, religion is a dry formality, there is no true life of faith, for only the two fiery tongues, this divine fire descending from heaven, can shed spiritual light and warmth - or nothing else in the world!
All this we all know well. So the problem is not that we do not believe in the Holy Spirit, but the big question is: have we already received the Holy Spirit, have we already been filled with him? Reading the great Gospel of Pentecost, seeing this intoxicating happiness and great results, we are, involuntarily, pressed by the same question that pressed the listeners of Peter's sermon at Pentecost: what shall we do, brethren, men? What shall we do so that the Pentecostal Spirit may also permeate us? There can be no less demand on us today, and no less purpose for our solemn consecration, than that we too may want to be filled with the Holy Spirit! So let us turn to the Word for advice with this firm question: what shall we do? "And when they heard these things, they were grieved in their hearts, and said to Peter and the other apostles: What shall we do, brethren, men? And Peter said unto them: Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (Acts 2:37) In it we observe the successive ways of communicating the Spirit. Let us see.
According to our basic doctrine, the filling of the thousands of people gathered in the temple in Jerusalem with the Holy Spirit was preceded by listening to the apostle Peter preach his powerful and bold testimony of the crucified and risen Jesus Christ.Later on, we read in Scripture that the Spirit was always poured out on a group of people after they had listened to the testimony of Christ, the Word! This shows that the word about Christ, that is to say, the Word and the Holy Spirit, are closely connected. Or I could say that the Holy Spirit is the instrument of the Word. There is nothing particularly mysterious about this. For even a work of human writing, whatever its genre, breathes the soul of its author. Every novel, every poem, every letter has the soul and spirit of its author, and when I read or hear it, a spiritual connection is established between me and the writer.
This is even more true of the word of God, whether as the written Word in Scripture or as the preached Word in a sermon or Bible exposition: it carries, breathes, pours out the Spirit of God! Many times and many people do not perceive the Spirit of God in it, they regard the Scriptures as other human speech or writing, and when they hear or read them, they only sense the spirit of a gracious man. One may listen to the splashing of the waterfall at Lillefüred as one hears the rushing noise of the falling waters, and be annoyed at it for disturbing one's sleep - or as one hears Mozart or Beethoven as one hears the sublime harmonies of a symphony praising God. The human words of Christ-talk have the Spirit of God in them, too, if you can only feel it, and you can feel it in all who listen with strained attention, silence, and prayerful reverence. This is the first moment of the filling of the Holy Spirit, that is, of placing my soul under the message of the Word. Let not the man who shuts off his heart and soul from the word of God complain of his lack of knowledge of the Holy Spirit! Let not the Bible-believing Christian expect to be filled with the Spirit of God. Have you done, are you doing this first step again every day, my Brother? Do not wait for the Holy Spirit without a thorough study of the Word of God, for you are blocking His way!
But this is only the first step. We read in the Pentecost story that after listening to Peter's speech, they were grieved in their hearts and said, "What shall we do, brethren, men? But why were they so bitter? What could Peter have said to them? The whole of Peter's speech at Pentecost is recorded in this chapter. He spoke of the death of Christ, and said, "You have taken the Son of God, and with your wicked hands you have crucified him! (Acts 2:23) Yet it is probable that many of them did not even see the whole Good Friday event, were not even in Jerusalem, for a crowd from all over, from foreign lands, now filled the temple courtyard - and yet they felt that they had a part in the killing of Christ, that they too had the sins that had brought the Saviour to the cross! They were so bitter at this that they now burst out in despair, "What shall we do now?! As when a child is caught in the wrongdoing and, sensing the foreshadowing of punishment, is frightened, he asks: What shall I do now?!
Behold, the testimony of Christ, the effect of the Word of God: a great confrontation with oneself, a great realization, a great bitterness. Yes, once I have really heard the message of God in His Word, the very first result must be to accuse myself bitterly. I am shocked to realize that although I was not present at that sad execution two thousand years ago, I am personally involved in it, despite all outward appearances. I have fallen so low that only the death of the Son of God could have helped me, I am the cause of the cross of Christ! It is a bitter thing, my Brothers, because against such a sad revelation, such a realization, our ego springs up, every part of us protests! Of course, for it is a complete humiliation of ourselves. But the Word of God proclaims it!
This bitterness is the second step on the road to the fullness of the Holy Spirit. This bitterness is real when it is torn by this frightened question: What am I going to do now?! In this way I am judging myself, because I feel: what I have been doing is wrong, false and evil! I feel that everything must be different from now on! But how, how, what should I do?! Have you come this far, Brother?! Or are you still deluding yourself, looking at Christ on the cross with cold sobriety, as if you had nothing to do with it?! Hast thou ever been, or hast thou ever been, bitter in thy heart because thou hast hurt the Son of God with thy life?! You are happy if you have - but if not, do not reproach God or your pastor for not having yet received the gift of the Holy Spirit! No one can do this bitterness for you!
The apostle gives a definite answer to the question of the repentant brethren: repent and be baptized in the name of Christ Jesus for the forgiveness of sins! This is the third point. We have already done one part of this: we have been baptised! Now we only need to do what is missing from the validity of our baptism, that is, what is up to us: to acknowledge, to accept in faith, that we have been baptised for the forgiveness of sins, that our baptism is a certain seal of the fact that, for the sake of Jesus Christ, God has forgiven us all the sins for which we have been baptized! But this baptism and this forgiveness of sins also obliges us to do something: to repent at last! What is this repentance? A firm turning away from all that has made our lives bitter, that is, a turning away from sin and a complete turning towards God! A great turning back! It is not enough to mourn over our wickedness and misery - we must want to be free of it!
Jesus asked the man who had been lying sick for thirty-eight years at the pool of Bethesda, "Do you want to be healed? Only those who want to be healed can be healed! There are many who reach the point of self-reproach, despairing of how wrong they have been in their lives - but they do not want to turn back, to repent, to start a new life! So you are baptized in vain if you have not repented, Brother! Repent, then, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit!
It is true that all three, the hearing of the Word, the repentance and the conversion of heart, are already the work of God the Holy Spirit in you, but you can count on this divine help if you yourself truly and sincerely want it! Only after these three steps, only after these three downward steps, will you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit! Not before. You cannot bypass these three steps. That is the price of the Holy Spirit. Many people want to receive the gift of the Spirit, but they don't want to pay the price! No one has ever done that. Neither will you! But if you have made it this far, or ever will, you can count on God's promise: You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit! A gift, then, of the Holy Spirit, not a product of self, coming from above, given! Like sunshine, like rain, it pervades and fills everything in the Spirit!
A gift indeed. The most precious, the most joyful, the greatest gift of God is to give his Holy Spirit to someone. Let us see just a few of the precious values of this precious gift from the first Pentecost story:
There is the miracle of the tongue. The apostles, by the Spirit, spoke in such tongues that the strangers there could all hear them in their own mother tongue. Don't think this is just a story... It is the language of love, of peace, of patience! You too can learn this language, but only by the Holy Spirit.
Then look at the apostles, how happy they were, some even thought they were drunk on sweet wine! And yet, how miserable and depressed they were before, and now all at once the great tension that had been in them since Good Friday has been released, and they are radiant with joy. This is also the work of the Holy Spirit. The day before yesterday, I observed how, after the heavy rain, when the warm May sunshine came out, it dried up the rain drops, which shone on the lush green leaves and flower petals in their millions, and how fresh and magically beautiful nature became! The teardrops of the clouds of sorrow are so quickly dried up by the warmth of the Holy Spirit on the sad face and in the sad soul. Not in vain does Jesus call the Holy Spirit the Comforter. Somehow it is that the Holy Spirit releases the tension, comforts the sorrowful heart, and brings a wonderful serenity and peace to our lives.
You want this gift, don't you, Brother? You must want it, because that is why you came here! You can have no less desire for the feast of Pentecost than to be filled with the Holy Spirit! So go on your way, like the three thousand in Jerusalem who, when they heard the Word, "were grieved in their hearts and said to Peter and the other apostles, 'What shall we do, brethren, men? But Peter said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.
Date: 24 May 1942 (Pentecost I)