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T H E K I N G ’ S B U S I N E S S
Acts 2:4. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit-— The Holy Spirit was God’s ascension gift to Christ, that He might be bestowed by Christ as His ascension gift to His church. Hence Christ had said, “And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you.” This was the prom ised gift of the Father to the Son, and the Son’s promised gift to His believing people. How easy now to reconcile the apparent contradiction of Christ’s earlier and later words. ' “I will pray the Father and He shall give you another paraclete,” and then afterwards: “If I depart I will send Him unto you.” The Spirit was the Father’s answer to the prayer of the Son; and so the gift was trans ferred by Him to the mystical body of which He is the head.—A. T. Pierson. And began to speak with other tongues—The natural result of being filled with God's Spirit is utterance of the great truths of Christ’s gospel. As surely as light radiates, as surely as any deep emotion demands expression, so cer tainly will a soul filled with the Spirit be forced to break into speech. If professing Christians have never known the impulse to tell of the Christ whom they have found, their religion must be very shallow and imperfect. If their spirits are full, they will overflow in speech.—Alex ander Maclaren. On the day of Pentecost a miracle took place in that all who received the Holy Spirit spoke in other tongues.—A C Gaebelin. This is not only miraculous but a miracle in a very amaz ing form; perhaps as to its form the most amazing of all miracles—W. T. McArthur. The miraculous incidents of this event will not appear incredible to one who accepts the miracles and the resur rection of Jesus.—George T. Purves. Acts 2:38. Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit— All Christians have the Holy Spirit. “If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his” (Rom. 8:9). At the same time we m,ust recognize the fact that to have the Spirit is one thing, but to be filled with the Spirit is quite another thing. If we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit, we must want the blessing and want it earnestly, for the Holy Spirit will not fill unwilling hearts. But we have great encouragement to ask. He has promised, and he has repeatedly fulfilled his promise. We cannot ask more than he has already given in many lives. Beloved, think of it! It is the Lord God Almighty Him self who seeks to fill us; weak, worthless, and unlovely vessels that we are. He waits for us to let Him meet the every deficiency and discrepancy of our daily lives/ How grievous it must be to His great heart of love to behold our perpetually impoverished spiritual condition, while He has made such rich and all-sufficient provision to satisfy our every need. This is, perhaps, the saddest tragedy of the Christian experience. Countless souls who bear the name of Christ live out their days in spiritual poverty and power lessness; yes, and in perversity as well; while the Almighty and All-Loving God the Father seeks to FILL them with Himself, and to make them strong, victorious, and free. Quite commonly the cause of failure to be filled with Him is found in seeking for and being satisfied with “the gifts, the blessings,” “the feelings,” and “the manifesta tions” of the Spirit rather than “THE GIVER,” “THE BLESSER,” i;THE HOLY SPIRIT HIMSELF.” This is a fatal mistake. Too often we pray and plead for “them” in stead of properly appreciating, appropriating and honouring “HIM.” Let us rectify this error. Let us no longer seek for any spiritual blessing apart from the Holy Ghost Himself. We cannot have it apart from “Him.” With “Him” we have it. The “it” life never yields us aught but an “up and down experience of dissatisfaction. It is the “HIM” life that ^imparts “the peace that passeth all understanding” and the joy that is unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8). In possessing and being possessed by Him we are in possession of all the “blessings” of the Spirit (Eph. 1:3). Without Him we are paupers spiritually. “Filled” will solve the multitude of personal problems that perplex us. “Filled” will save us from the perpetual sorrows that arise in our self-centered, conceited, and com placent lives.—B. M’Call Barbour.
“The power of the early Church” lay not in human wis dom. In the Scripture portion for this lesson (Acts 2 to 8) the two outstanding figures are Peter and John, and they were “unlearned and ignorant men” (Acts 4:12); that is, they had not attended the institutions DEVOTIONAL of higher learning. The power lay not COMMENT in organization. | At first there was John A. Hubbard practically no organization, and that which was effected later was very sim ple. The power lay not in material wealth. "Silver and gold have I none,!’ was the frank confession of Peter (Acts 3:6). The power lay not in social standing and prestige, for these early disciples were ostracized by their fellow countrymen, the Jews. There is but one explanatibn of the marvelous power manifested in the early church, and that is a very simple one—“They were all filled with the Holy Ghost” (Acts 2:4), as was their Master, whom God “anointed with the Holy Ghost and with power” (Acts 10:38),. We are putting no premium on ignorance. God uses consecrated learning and intellectual power. Simple or ganization in Christian work certainly has its place. Money is necessary in spreading the gospel, and people with so cial prestige have been used of God. But apart from the power of the Holy Spirit, it is absolutely impossible for these things to produce spiritual results. Jesus said to the disciples: “Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you,” and the promise was abundantly verified, as our present lesson shows. There was power to boldly witness for Jesus. Think of the con trast between Peter, the cowardly denier of Matt. 26, and Peter, the fearless preacher of Acts 2! The presence of the Holy Ghost is the explanation. There was power to discern the truth concerning Jesus Christ and to present that truth in a marvelously clear, logical, convincing way. (Study Acts 2:22-36). There was power to produce real convic tion (Acts 2:37), and to really save. There was power to “continue steadfastly’’ in a life of blessed fellowship, joy and praise (Acts 2:42-47). There was power to heal (Acts 3), power, to rejoice in sufferings (Acts 5:40, 41), to dis cern hypocrisy (5:1-11, to refute gainsayers (6:10), to pray for one’s murderers (7:60), and power to see the ex alted Christ and go to be with Him in glory (7:55, 56, 59). Undoubtedly the greatest need today in Church and Sun day School is the power of this same Spirit. There is no substitute for His presence. Verily “ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you.” Has He come upon you? Peter Telling About Jesus. Acts 2:1-12; 37-42. Memory Verse.—-“How shall they hear without a preach er?” Rom. 10:14. Approach.-^Bring a few kernels of wheat to class. Do you know what this is in my hand? What do we make out of wheat? Flour, from which we make bread. Now listen, if just one little kernel of wheat were planted, and all that it grows were saved and planted for sixteen years, there would be from this one little seed enough to feed the whole world. So if every Christian would win one to Christ, each year, and these were each to win one other, in a few years the whole world would be converted. Lesson Story.—Harold can you tell us why Jesus leaves us here on earth to live after we are saved? That we might tell others about Him, who do not know Him. He wants us as witnesses. Today we have a story about Peter. ELEMENTARY Mabel L. Merrill
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