Flood on Dry Ground: Pentecost
Minister: |
Rev. Ronald Van Overloop |
Date: |
6/4/2017 PM
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Text:
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Isaiah 44:3-5
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Psalters: |
173, 79, 163, 287 |
- The rich figure.
- The figure is of plentiful rain making dry ground yield rich vegetation (pasturage) and creating rivers with willows alongside.
- The Israelites knew that dry ground grew nothing – it was baked earth, parched and dry, producing no fruit.
- By nature we are spiritually like the dry ground.
- God comes with promises of life-giving power to the captives, who see themselves as barren.
- As lush vegetation results from a saturating rain, so spiritual fruits result from the Spirit’s work.
- The rich fruit of the rain-giving Spirit (Pentecost), after Jesus completed His work of earning all of salvation.
- For the eternal God the reality of salvation always is; it never became.
- But in time there was time before and time after Jesus did His work on earth.
- The signs at Pentecost indicate the fullness of the blessings in Christ.
- Now there is a greater richness of the Spirit-given relationship.
- The greatest evidence of God’s love for us can be pointed to as an accomplished fact (Rom. 5:8).
- Now we know God as Father (rarely used for God in the O.T.).
- The experience of this blessed reality is most wonderful.
- As willows flourish by a river, so the Spirit makes believers flourish in faith, repentance, and love, though still in a dry world.
- When we do not flourish it is because we grieve the Spirit (Eph. 4:30) or tried to quench Him (I Thess. 5:19).
- We flourish when we know, appreciate, and walk in the knowledge of our true identity in the Spirit of Christ: “I am Jehovah’s.”
- We even “subscribe his hand unto Jehovah,” i.e., tattoo the name of our master on our hand.