04.04. What Pentecost Did Not Mean

I want you to first see what was the secret and principle of Pentecost. What was the meaning of Pentecost? The meaning of Pentecost is simply this: it was an old-fashioned, specimen revival when God’s people got power to win souls and won them.

Many have misunderstood the meaning of Pentecost. When you talk about Pentecost, there are many people who think, "Well, that is the time the Holy Spirit came into the world." Oh, no! The Holy Spirit had come on Christians all down through the ages. Every sinner that was ever convicted and saved was done so by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the One who regenerates. And people were filled with the Spirit and witnessed for Jesus before Pentecost. No! No! The Holy Spirit did not just come into the world at Pentecost. Sometimes people talk about the descent of the Holy Spirit as if He had been in Heaven all the time. That is not the point.

Somebody says, "Well, Brother Rice, the Holy Spirit began dwelling in the bodies of Christians at Pentecost." I am sorry to tell you, my friend, but you are mistaken. That is not the time at all. That dispensation began at the resurrection of Christ, the day Jesus was glorified, the day Jesus was raised from the dead. That is when that dispensation began. We read in John 7:37-39 , "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)" At the time of that feast Jesus was not glorified, was not raised up in His glorified body. So the Holy Spirit had not been given to dwell in the bodies of Christians.

Now turn to John 20:19-20 that Jesus came and showed them His hands and His side, then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord, and He said, "Peace be unto you." That is the peace of the blood; that is the peace of the assurance of salvation. "Then said Jesus unto them again, Peace be unto you... And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost" (John 20:21-22). Now the disciples, from the day Jesus rose from the dead, from the day He was glorified, received the Holy Spirit; and from that time on every Christian already has the Holy Spirit living in his body.

Don’t any of you pray tonight for the Holy Spirit to come into your body. If you are converted, He is already there. Listen to 1Co 6:19-20 : "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s." You see, every Christian has the Holy Spirit in his body. And the disciples had that before Pentecost. They had already had that for forty days. The Holy Spirit had been dwelling in them since the day Jesus rose from the dead. And now the Holy Spirit comes in when one is converted and lives in that body.

Now that had already happened to the disciples before Pentecost. Pentecost did not mean the beginning of the indwelling of the Spirit. They already had that. I am not trying to get anybody here to ask the Holy Spirit to come and dwell in you. When you receive Christ by faith as your Saviour, then automatically the Holy Spirit comes in and makes you a Christian, regenerates you, and you are put into, baptized into, or buried into the body of Christ, and you drink in the Holy Spirit. He lives in your body. You become a part of Christ’s mystical body, the church. I say, every saved person already has the Holy Spirit. That is not what Pentecost means. That is not what Pentecost meant to the apostles.

Somebody else says, "Brother Rice, I think that Pentecost means the rounding, the origin, the beginning of the church." Now I would not care to argue with you about it. I think if I had time I could show you that it does not mean that at all. I think if I had time I could show you that that is not when the church began. But I will not argue; you cannot show me a verse in the Bible that says anything about the church’s beginning at Pentecost. All right; but suppose it did begin at Pentecost, then let us say nothing about it because that is not what God says, and God is not talking about that. I do not care especially when the church began; I am just anxious that you do not miss the meaning for Christians that God has in Pentecost.