In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of relationship with God as the key to releasing the power of heaven to a needy world. The speaker also highlights the recognition of God's plan throughout history, culminating in the person of Jesus Christ. The angel Gabriel's visit to Mary in Nazareth is highlighted as a central marvel of the Bible, as Mary is told she will become the mother of the Messiah. The disciples' conclusion from their instruction by Jesus is that they should obey God rather than men, emphasizing the paramount importance of their relationship with God.

There's certainly an advantage to be gained in reading sometimes what has been said. I had some great encouragement the other day when somebody told me that they had listened to one of my tapes about ten times. And they said, now it's just beginning to make sense. It isn't really my place to do so, but I know that you'd add your welcome to mine to Mr. Maxwell, whom I spotted in the congregation. I don't know where he's dropped in from during the night, but it's certainly lovely to have him with us. And we will look forward to his ministry when he's coming back. I don't know whether you've quite appreciated perhaps the fact that as we've explored together in the twenty-fourth chapter of Luke, we have been attending, in our minds, the first missionary and Bible conference that was held after the resurrection of the Lord Jesus from the dead. So that really is precisely what took place. The Lord Jesus gathered around himself at that time those who were to assume the role of spiritual leadership during the early church. And we've attended that conference. The Lord Jesus himself briefed his disciples for a program of world evangelization, which was successfully accomplished in one generation. It's interesting to note how much emphasis was laid upon method, how much emphasis was laid upon technique, how much emphasis was laid upon the machinery available. Have you noticed yet in the conference any special workshops on technique, method, machinery? None. Strange to say in this first missionary convention, Bible teaching convention, held by the Lord Jesus himself immediately after his resurrection, that there didn't seem to be any emphasis whatever upon the things that mean so large, so often, in our context of Christian activity. What did the Lord Jesus Christ dwell upon? Truth. Truth. The word of God. Beginning with Moses and all the scriptures and the Psalms and all the prophets, he concentrated upon the things there declared by the Holy Spirit concerning himself. He concentrated upon the spiritual content of the word of God as a declaration of the eternal truth of the eternal God, and then he dwelt upon their relationship to himself by the Holy Ghost. Relationship to God by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the spiritual content of the word of God. That appeared to occupy the whole program of this briefing conference that was held 1900 years ago. What were the conclusions drawn by the disciples themselves and put into action? Well, when we ask ourselves that question, we come right back again to the fifth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, and it is startlingly evident that the program that they were implementing was fashioned wholly from the instruction given to them by the Lord Jesus in that first missionary Bible convention. This lands again at Acts chapter 5, where he began on Monday night. Arranged before the Sanhedrin, verse 29 of Acts 5, Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. That was the first conclusion that they had derived from their briefing conference. That the one thing that matters before everything else is our relationship to God. We ought to obey God rather than men. Our relationship to God is of paramount importance. And the opinions of men, what they think or what they say, are totally irrelevant. Our responsibility, our position, is to be one of totally subjective, completely utter submission to the will of God. In other words, they had grasped that salvation involves the re-establishment of that relationship between man and God that enables man to be man as God intended man to be. My God is King. We must obey God rather than men. That our love to Him will be demonstrated by our obedience to Him. Our love to Him will be in the measure of our dependence on Him. They had been restored to their true relationship. Now that's the first premise. Relationship. This has been emphasized again and again. Also by Brother Tate in his message. It was the one thing that supremely was demonstrated by the Lord Jesus Himself. Relationship. I am my father, my father in me. I do only always those things that please me. I am that he might be. Relationship. Father dwelleth in me, he doeth the work. And as we were reminded the other afternoon, he could say at the end of his hajj in this world for thirty-three years I have glorified thee. I've accomplished the supreme. As man on earth. In my humanity. I have glorified God. I have been man as God intended man to be. I have been man as man seeks to be when man fell into sin. I have glorified God in my humanity. And that is why the Lord Jesus who was God became man. That he might demonstrate human office. And in his sinlessness be qualified to do what he did. That we might now have what he is. Now that was the first thing that they discovered then from their brief encounter. That supremely relationship is of paramount importance. If only we could get back to these first principles. If only we could forget the heavy endowment that we have these days in terms of gimmicks, machinery, techniques and methods. And realize that the one thing that releases the inexhaustible supplies of heaven to a needy world is relationship. Secondly, the God of our fathers raised up Jesus when he slew, and hanged, and appraised. The God of our fathers. They recognized the implementation of the purpose of God as declared to the fathers by the prophets at times of times when God was man. That now God has spoken his final word in consummation of all previously spoken in the person of his son. In other words they perceived the plan. That the cross after all was not the untimely end of a misguided idealist who was born before his age. He didn't drift helplessly to disaster. They perceived the plan. How did they perceive it? Because the Lord Jesus out of the Old Testament scriptures from the beginning through all ages had expounded unto them the things concerning himself. And so when he came to life the Bible came to life. When they met him in the upper room. They perceived the plan. Him hath God exalted, verse 31, that his right hand be a prince and a saviour for to give repentance, not period, but repentance and forgiveness. They realized now the purpose to be proclaimed as a result of the plan perceived. Repentance and forgiveness. Because God had laid solid foundations upon which they might now legitimately with divine authority declare reconciliation to God through the blood of his cross. Now we've seen all this in Luke 24 and verse 32 we are his witnesses. They weren't in Matthew 16 but they are now. For the Lord Jesus had said after he had opened their understanding, they might understand the scriptures, to perceive the plan in preparation of proclaiming the purpose. He said now you're my witness. But not only so. So is also the Holy Ghost. Whom God hath given to the end of the days. Carrying him in the city of Jerusalem until he be indeed with power from on high. And they recognized that the power possessed for the purpose to be proclaimed, derived from the plan perceived, is the Holy Spirit. Whom God gives to the end of the days. That in the words of Peter to the other believing Jews as he describes the incident of Cornelius conversion, repentance is unto life. Repentance unto life. His life. His life. Imparted by the Holy Spirit so that we might be a body wholly filled and flooded with God himself. These were the consequences derived from the first briefing conference conducted by the Lord Jesus 1900 years ago. Do we derive as much from our conferences today? Are we focusing, are we concentrating upon the imperative issues? We are his witnesses of these things and so is also the Holy Ghost. Whom God has given to the end of the days. Whom God hath given, hath given, the Holy Spirit, hath given to the end of the days. And obedience of course is faith. Faith in the Bible, spiritual faith is obedience to Jesus. That's why faith is different from belief. You can have belief without obeying. That isn't faith. Belief that you don't obey leaves you where they found you. Leaves you, as I said already, with a theology but without a theocracy. With no divine sovereignty being exercised. And it's dead, lifeless, impotent. So we saw the Lord Jesus in the first chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Commanding them that they should not depart, verse 4, from Jerusalem but wait for the promise of the Father. Which saith to you, Heard of me? Ye shall receive power, verse 8, after the Holy Ghost is come upon you. Ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria and unto the uttermost part of the earth. And the power that you will possess for the implementation of this plan will be vested in you by the gifts to you of my Father, of which gifts I have already spoken, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is to be the motivator, the motive power, the dynamic. And the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles tells us the story of how these men were filled with the Holy Ghost. Now I do want you to understand that the fullness of the Holy Spirit, the things that happened on the day of Pentecost, are not to be thought of as some ecstatic experience that came once in a lifetime. We don't think of Pentecost as rather an extravagant demonstration that God gave on that particular occasion. There's so much confused and muddled and satisfying about the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Yesterday morning we took pains to illustrate that God wants that His Church, which is the body of Christ today, is precisely what the Lord Jesus was in His body, prepared and fashioned by the Father then. A body simply filled and studded with God Himself. And Pentecost was simply the inevitable implementation by God in His disciples of that which had been accomplished through the death and through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It was not an unusual, ecstatic experience to be looked back upon with nostalgia. No, no, no. Pentecost was the beginning of normality. In human experience. Pentecost was the beginning of normality in Christian experience. To be filled with the Holy Ghost is simply to be man as God intended man to be. Perfectly normal. There was nothing extravagant about it. There was nothing eccentric about it. Whatever the fullness of the Holy Spirit is associated with it constitutes peculiarity, extravagance. You can be perfectly certain that whoever it is may be concerned with it miles away from the truth concerning the fullness of the Holy Spirit. What happened at Pentecost was simply that on the grounds of redemption God accomplished in His redeemed people what had already been demonstrated in His hands. Luke 4 and verse 1. Luke 4 and verse 1. Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost. How often was the Lord Jesus full of the Holy Ghost? Always. For He was perfect man. And as man as God intended man to be He is a body filled and flooded with God. That's all. If the Lord Jesus was perfect man, if He came to be what man was intended by God to be then from beginning to end of His earthly ministry He was filled with the Holy Ghost. For you will remember 9.14 of the Ephesians of the Hebrews He presented His body without part to God through the Eternal Spirit. He played the role of man. And the Father through the Eternal Spirit was in complete residence of the royal residence His human spirit with unclimbed access to the music room of His soul so that upon the keyboard of His human personality there was played that perfect music of divine harmony that was amplified in terms of His humanity to the world around. So that the Lord Jesus could say, if you see me, you see the Father. If you hear me speak, it's what my Father says. What you see me do, my Father does. Now that was just normal, perfect humanity. Just exactly what man was intended by God to be. His body amplifying the music played by the royal residence within the area of human personality by His totalitarian monadic of a man's humanity. The Lord Jesus, in other words, as man on earth was 100% normal. Now how far did the Lord Jesus go out of His way to do it saintly? What peculiar manifestations were there about the life of the Lord Jesus as man that would have convinced anybody that He was filled with the Holy Spirit? When anybody tries to persuade you that you've got to have peculiarities you've got to goggle your eyes or grow your hair long over your shoulders or go head over heels when you go to prayer meetings or stamp and break chairs when you're treated as that would you just think of Christ as one who was filled with the Holy Ghost? Always beware of people who become hysterical in the name of the fullness of the Holy Ghost, who can't sit still. Did the Lord Jesus ever speak in tongues? The Holy Spirit has the right to manifest Himself in any way He pleases through any humanity made available to Him. But it is His criterion, nobody else's. Your responsibility is not to conform to some pattern projected upon you by your fellow man. Your criterion, your prerogative is to obey God. Simply to be available to Him as the Lord Jesus was available to the Father. And He was discovered that in His humanity there was nothing at all eccentric about the Lord Jesus. When He healed the sick, the ones who He wanted more than another they should say nothing about it because it was always a source of embarrassment to Him. He never used it under any circumstances as a platform for publicity. The crowds that came, tempted to have their aches and pains removed in their stomachs and heads were nothing but an embarrassment to Him but out of a compassion of His heart He healed them and He said But when they pretended to be disciples, He recognized them to be what they were and sent them home. John chapter 6, 1 John 3, 23 When the Lord Jesus was in Jerusalem at the Passover and the Feast day, many believed in His name when they saw the miracles which He did. Now forgive me when I say this but take that with a pinch of salt. Many believed in His name when they saw the miracles which He did. In other words their belief was qualified by the miracles which He did. What does it say verse 24? Jesus did not commit Himself unto them. Why not? Because He knew all men. And He did not that any man should testify of man for He knew what was in them. He knew the quality of their belief. In other words they became intellectually convinced of Him as somebody who could do miracles. But they did not have that quality of faith that was prepared to obey spiritual supervision. So He didn't commit Himself to them. Because He knew what was in man. There of course we have declared for us for those who are spiritually about the difference between a soulish response and spiritual regeneration. When He was in Jerusalem during the Passover Feast many believed on His name after seeing His signs, His wonders and miracles which He was doing. But Jesus for His part did not trust Himself to them. Because He knew all men. And He did not need that anyone should witness concerning man. He needed no evidence from anyone about men. For He Himself knew what was in human nature. He could read men's hearts. And He was saying within His heart You like to have your aches and your pains removed. You like to have your stomachs turned. But when the point comes you'll all run away. When I can't remove your aches and pains anymore or feed your stomachs but I am hanging helplessly as a common criminal in a Roman gallery. You'll go to some other circus. May the Lord Jesus never in His humanity do anything whereby He sought to capitalize from eccentricity. Or even from the miraculous. He was perfectly normal and perfectly natural. You will be filled with the Holy Spirit unless you prevent it. And when you are walking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit you will be the most natural, the most normal person that anybody could ever meet. And the last thing you will want to do is to tell people that they're filled with the Holy Spirit. Always beware of people always telling that they're filled with the Holy Ghost. Because it will be certain of one thing, they're not. Because the office of the Holy Spirit is to glorify Christ. It's to magnify Him. Paul says that I may magnify the Lord Jesus in my body. Now what does a magnifying glass do? How much notice do you take of a magnifying glass? You don't, you look right through it. You look right through a magnifying glass as though it wasn't there. And all that happens as you look through the transparency of a magnifying glass is that the object at which you gaze through the transparency of the magnifying glass is enlarged before your gaze. Now that is the purpose of your humanity and mind. The world should be able to look right through it as though we weren't there and see Christ magnified. That's the hallmark of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. That can leap forward. The Lord Jesus was always filled with the Holy Spirit. Well that means, of course, that He was always rushing up and down the street giving out chants. Everybody who went to Him got them by the coat collars at IU State. Is that right? Oh no. Oh no. One day He girded Himself, got down His hands and knees, poured some water in the basin, and washed His disciples' feet. The activity of a man filled with the Holy Ghost. Remember this. Never be deceived. The spirituality of what you're doing is not to be defined by the nature of what you're doing. Don't imagine that if your spirit is the only thing you can ever do is preach. That's pure nonsense. You probably ought to be doing the washing up. Don't imagine that if you're filled with the Holy Ghost you must never touch mundane things like housework. You must always be out at meetings. You need somebody else to do the dirty work. Oh no. The spirituality of your activity is not defined by the nature of what you're doing. It is defined only by its origin. And when your humanity is wholly presented as a body, living, sacrificed, accepted unto God, as He presented His body to the Father, it is His prerogative to take any time what you may be doing, whether it is preaching the Sermon on the Mount, raising Lazarus from the dead, or washing the disciples' feet. And the Lord Jesus is always filled with the Holy Ghost. In other words, His mind, emotion, and will, wholly available to the Father through the Eternal Spirit, what the Father was, could be demonstrated in terms of what He did. Jesus then followed the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan, and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. So who was directing His activity? The Holy Spirit, He said. For He presented His body without touch to God through the Eternal Spirit. And they that are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. But here was a man always led by the Spirit of God because he was really son of God. He was born uninhabited by sin, uninhabited only by God. So that every step he took, he took under the direction of the Holy Spirit. In other words, he was normal man, as God intended man to be, a body filled and flooded with God Himself. This is the hallmark of the pre-child of God. This is the hallmark of a member, a healthy member, of the body of Christ. But we are led by the Spirit. Now again, to be led by the Holy Spirit is the most natural thing in the world. The most natural thing. Don't think you've got to sit down with a mystic look on your face and wait for the will of God to be re-revealed to you by picking feelings down the spine or chugging booze. No, no. God made you to be normal. God made you to be natural. Natural in terms of your spirit, the best of function, perfectly normal. If I go into a chain, my attitude would be this. Dear Lord, thank you for the privilege of being available to you. If there happens to be anybody on this chain whom you want to speak to, I want you to know that my humanity is available for you to speak to them through me. Now I don't know whether there is anybody on this chain to whom you want to speak to me. If there isn't, then I don't have any right to speak to you. I just do public meetings. But if there does happen to be anybody on this chain that you want to speak to, I'm available. Thank you very much. Now I don't know whether the reason, I wouldn't know who it was if there were. Furthermore, I don't know whether they're already on the chain and they're not going on to the next chain. But I'm available. What am I to do now? Look into everybody's face? Or cast lots like this guy who only decided when he wanted to appear to apostles? Having decided on two people and then very kindly asking God to choose between the two they had chosen? Wasn't that nice of him? When God had already chosen Paul the Apostle. How often we run God's business this way. Just give God a nice few opinions. After all, we like Him to have a word here and there. No, no. Do you know what I do? I then make myself available saying, God, I don't know who it is and I have no idea how I could find out who it was. But I just want you to know that I'm available. If you happen to want to speak to anybody on this chain, the next thing I do is go and look for the most comfortable seat. Because it's the most obvious thing to do. And in the process of doing this, I have supreme confidence that He is completely open. Completely comfortable. He'd be so desired to bring about the contact. Where's all the stress and all the stress? How many Christians live constantly with a deep comfort? Because somebody has projected a pattern of behaviour. Has told them, if you want it so, you've got to speak to everybody and talk the talk to everybody. It's not too hard. I want you to know that if you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you are available to Him to keep your mouth shut. Just as much as you're available to Him to have your mouth open. You must be available to the Holy Spirit. As much to do nothing as to do something. So many Christians, Catholics and spiritual people, what an embarrassment to me my hands would be if they always insisted on being busy. Always insisted on demonstrating how much they were alert. How very much they were on the job. After all, I couldn't breathe with putting my hands in my pocket. That would be fear I wouldn't. I'd have to wipe my hands off. That's all. It's a total loss. I'd have to teach my feet to write letters. And lots and lots of people think that a multiplicity of activity is a demonstration of spirituality. It isn't. More often than not, 99 times out of 100, it's a demonstration of carnality. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is a restoration of man to his normality. Verse 14. Verse 14 in Luke 4. And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit. He returned in the power of the Spirit. In other words, all that happened in that period of temptation was done in the energy and in the power and in the resources of the Holy Spirit, through whom he had offered his humanity to the Father. Him hath the Father sealed, we are told in John 6. How did he seal him? Because he gave to him the Spirit without name. He was divinely sealed. He was led by the Spirit. He was divinely sent. And he was empowered, filled, dominated by the Holy Ghost, for whom he yielded complete submission, sanctified by the Spirit, healed, sent, and sanctified. This is the Lord Jesus as perfect man. If you want to be more perfect than Christ, then try to be this way. As man from that which the Holy Spirit made him. Now this is what took place at Pentecost. And the Lord Jesus said, It is the gift of the Father of which I have already spoken to you. John 14 is an occasion where the Lord Jesus spoke to them of the gift of the Father that they were to receive at Pentecost. Verse 16 of John 14, I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comfort, that he may abide with you forever. In the beginning God created, caused to exist, brought into being, the heavens and the earth. And then if you like, a million years, a billion years. This is nothing to the Eternal One. We see the picture of the earth, waste, bald, dark, desolate, the Spirit of God breathing. Then, all through the remainder of that third chapter of Genesis, the story of God's restoring of a lost order. Watch it carefully. During that period of restoring of a lost order, there were two new creative acts. God created animal life. God created human life. Oh, you know, it's fascinating to me. That Hebrew word bor, or meaning to create, to cause to exist, to bring into being, only occurs three times in that first chapter of Genesis. It occurs with reference to original creation. You never come across the word again, till you get down to verse 21. God created every living creature, animal life. You don't come across it again till verse 27. God creates man, caused to exist, brought into being, exactly at the points where our natural scientists tell us there's a missing link. God steps in and says, no, there isn't any link. I stepped in with a creative act. But you can let that go. All through that, the remainder of that first chapter of Genesis, the story of restoring of a lost order, the Spirit of God brooding over the chaos, and out of that brooding there came cosmos. Here then, I say it again, we have the first unveiling of the work and the office of the Holy Spirit of God. It is that of operating in fellowship with God the Father, in fellowship with God the Son, the Word of God. God wills. His will is made known by the Word of God. And the activity of the Spirit of God is that activity by which God restores, heals, and realizes, in spite of faith. Now I submit to you that to that unveiling of the supreme activity and work of the Spirit of God, all subsequent revelation is true. I take my Bible in my hand, as I did as I read to you this evening. And I go on reading. And as I take my way through the Old Testament, ever and anon, to the Spirit of God. I find the Spirit of God coming upon a man and enabling him to be a cunning workman in silver, in gold, in brass, in setting of stone. I find the Spirit of God clothing a man with himself, that that man might win a victory in the battle. Every time you read anything at all about the Spirit of God, every activity of the Spirit of God is in its final intention constructed. All is in order unto healing. All is a march towards the establishment of all. The light and the glory and the flash of the Spirit of God has come up. He is always at work amid the ruins, building, remaking, and healing. So the occasional music breaks upon the soul as one takes one's way through the Old Testament. Inspiring hope, inspiring courage on dark days, until turning to the New Testament, we find ourselves confronted with that which in certain senses is the central marvel of the Bible. The angel Gabriel sent from God to that little city of Nazareth in Galilee and to a home and to the inner recesses of that home to a virgin whose name was Mary. And the angel came with that amazing news. Mary was to become the mother of the Messiah and in the presence of that amazing annunciation Mary said, How? She didn't question it was going to be. Mary was a supernaturalist philosophically. Nothing was too hard for Jehovah. But she did ask, How shall this be? Seeing I know not a man. Now I beg of you, don't spoil those words of Mary as they're spoiling them in all the newer versions. Some of you've got this new standard revised version. They've spoiled it. They make Mary say, How shall this be? Seeing I have no husband. That is not what Mary said. That is not a translation of the words. Good gracious plenty of women have had babies without husbands. You're spoiling it. In the interest of a false modesty I came across another of the new translations and they made Mary say, How shall this be? Seeing I am an unmarried woman. That is not what Mary said at all. Plenty of unmarried women have had babies with heartless simplicity and magnificent honesty. Mary asked a cold, physical, biological question. When you're up against the problem of the virgin birth never forget Mary was the first to raise the problem. How shall this be? Seeing I know not a man. It's the language of a devout Hebrew woman versed in the sacred writings of her people. Read the book of Genesis again. You come across a statement like this. Adam knew Eve his wife and she conceived and bare able. That's the language of Mary. How shall this be? Seeing I know not a man. And then heaven gave the answer to the cold, physical, biological problem. You ask me how Mary, seeing that you know not a man I know that's true. But I'll tell you. These Holy Spirits shall come upon thee and the power of the Most High shall overshadow it. That answers the physical problem. There I have an answer in which my reason can find perfect rest. It is not in the least difficult for me to believe that the might of the Omnipotent and the overshadowing power of the Most High can produce a result that any normal healthy male can produce. I don't find anything whatsoever there to stumble over. It isn't that God acts outside law. He never does. But sometimes he brings into play laws we haven't discovered yet. Yes, but there's another problem. It's not only that physical problem. There's the moral problem. Mary never raised it. But the angel knew subsequent generations were going to raise the moral problem. All the centuries have laid their seal of approval upon that which Pilate said about Jesus. I find no fault in it. All right, there's your moral problem. How can this perfect one be born of an imperfect woman? Light breeds light. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit. Neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Well, all right, how did this perfect one come from an imperfect woman? Now, as you probably know, the great Roman branch of the Church tried to get around the moral problem by their doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. They said Mary is perfect. Therefore, light can breed light. She can bring forth a perfect one. But you perceive that just won't do. That's simply putting the moral problem one step further back in order to try and correct it. If that be true, then I ask, well, how is Mary perfect? You see, you're just pushing the problem one step further back, and there's no need to do it. Heaven gives the answer. For the angel went on and said, You ask me how, Mary? The Holy Spirit shall come upon thee. The power of the Most High shall overshadow thee. Therefore also, by the mighty work of the Spirit of God and the overshadowing power of the Most High, that which is to be born shall be called Holy, the Son of God. Thus the Spirit of God is now seen dealing with our ruined humanity, cleansing that in Mary which was of Mary, supplying that which made possible the bringing forth of a misfitting tabernacle that he might ransom and redeem a race. Now, as you are well aware, it was in the power of the Spirit that that man of Nazareth lived and wrought through all the days of his flesh. Moreover, when finally he passed the Calvary, it was in the energy of the Holy Spirit into his own person and exhausted it, canceled it out. And as the writer of the epistle to the Hebrews says, it was through the eternal Spirit that he offered himself without spot to God. And so at last we come to that glorious day recorded in the second chapter of the Acts when all the symbolism of the old Feast of Pentecost was being fulfilled. They were all gathered in one place and suddenly from heaven a sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind. And as the prophet Joel had foretold on that day, the Spirit of God was poured upon all flesh and came within those who were ready to receive. The birthday of the church. What is the church which was formed and fashioned on that day of Pentecost? By that I mean what are the materials out of which the church is formed? My friends, it is formed of men, blind, blundering, failing, sinful men. But these are remade, reborn, renewed, recreated by the Spirit, baptism and power. So out of the chaos of human failure we see emerging the new race and the new order. Don't you see, my friends, here is our hope, our true hope, our only hope, when looking out in the world we see a ruined race of men. Oh, that great old Hebrew, that great old Hebrew phrase, how it sobs itself to our hearts as we look out over the race of men today. Tohu vah bohu. We, boys, but as men and as women of the new order we see more than that. We see the Spirit of God poured out. Desert is everywhere. Hanging wreckage on every hand, I admit. For in the midst of the wreckage that morning is coming. I bid you lift up your hearts and I charge you in the language of the New Testament, don't resist him, don't grieve him, don't quench his enthusiasms in your life. Oh, we might well end with that hymn we sang, Breathe on me, breath of God. Fill me with life anew that I may love what thou dost love and do what thou wouldst do. Breathe on me, breath of God, until my heart is pure, until with thee I will one will to do and to endure. Breathe on me, breath of God, till I am holy thine, until this earthy part of me glows with thy fire divine. Breathe on me, breath of God, so shall I never die, but live with thee the perfect life of thine eternity. Or that other old hymn we sometimes sing in England. I haven't seen it in a book out here, but it's a great old hymn. Hear us, thou that broodest o'er the watery deep, waking all creation from its primal sleep. Holy Spirit, breathing breath of life divine, breathe into our spirits, blending them with thine. Morning, noon, and evening, when so e'er it be, grant us, gracious Spirit, quickening light in thee. Light that gives us living light of heavenly love, light that brings us dying light from heaven above. The Spirit of God was brooding over the waters, and out of that mighty brooding there came order, beauty, loveliness. As Pentecost, the Spirit of God was poured out upon all flesh, and tonight he's brooding over a ruined race. Again out of that brooding and in fellowship with the finished work of God the Son and God the Father, there will be a ransomed and redeemed race come victory. And so last again I say to you, don't resist him. Don't grieve him. Don't quench the enthusiasms of the Spirit of God in your life. Let us stand to the benediction. May the grace, the all-sufficient grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, the love of God our Heavenly Father, the fellowship, the comradeship of the Holy Spirit our Comforter abide with you tonight and forevermore. Amen.