Our Redeemer Lutheran Church
Quincy, IL
Rev. Larry D. Troxel
The Day of Pentecost
Sunday, May 11, 2008 at 8:00 and 10:15 a.m
“From Pentecost to the Last Day”
(Acts 2:17–21)
In Jesus’ name. Amen.
“Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of Your faithful people, and kindle in us the fire of Your love.”
Christians have been praying this prayer for centuries. It started with the very first Christians, those one hundred
twenty or so believers mentioned in Acts chapter one.1 Shortly before His ascension,
Jesus had promised them the power of God the Holy Spirit.2 And while they awaited
the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise, they met together daily for the apostles’ teaching and for
prayer.3 “Come, Holy Spirit,” is the prayer which is sung in many
of the hymns that have been written for this festival. “Come, Holy Spirit,” will continue to be
the prayer of God’s people to the Last Day because it is God the Holy Spirit who brings us the gift of saving faith
and keeps us in that faith.
When Peter preached his first sermon on that Day of Pentecost, he used the words of the Old Testament prophet Joel
to explain the significance of what was happening. What the prophet Joel wrote and what Peter preached remains
the heart of the Gospel to this day and will be the heart of the Gospel to the Last Day. What the prophet Joel wrote
and what Peter preached is the fulfillment of the prayer that Moses voiced some fourteen hundred years before the time
of Christ, now more than thirty-four hundred years ago. The prayer which Moses voiced is the same prayer that many Christian
pastors and laypersons continue to pray. “Would that all the LORD’s people were prophets, that the LORD would
put His Spirit on them!”4 The prophet Joel foretold that God would grant the blessing
for which Moses prayed. And Peter enthusiastically proclaimed that God had answered Moses’ prayer and had fulfilled
Joel’s prophecy.
From Pentecost to the Last Day God continues to answer Moses’ prayer and to fulfill Joel’s prophecy.
Through the prophet Joel God promised:
“And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
even on My male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out My Spirit,
and they shall prophesy.”
Ever since that first Christian Pentecost, God the Holy Spirit has been given graciously, freely, first of all to bring people
the gift of saving faith in Jesus and then to empower them for the lifelong privilege and responsibility of speaking the Gospel
to others.
We always need to keep in mind that the more usual meaning for the word “prophesy” is “to speak the Word
and will of God.” While there are some instances where it does mean to foretell future events, that is not the main
and usual meaning of the word. Now through faith in Christ Jesus, all believers are prophets, just as Moses prayed, for all
Christians have the saving Gospel of Christ Jesus to speak in personal conversations.
What Moses prayed for and what Joel foretold is the very thing God has done. Both Christian men and Christian women
have received the gift which is God the Holy Spirit. Both Christian men and Christian women have the privilege and
responsibility of speaking God’s Word.
Now this does not mean that women are permitted to hold the pastoral office. Nor does it mean that they are to instruct
men in the settings of public worship and Bible studies. What Joel proclaimed cannot be used to contradict other clear
passages of Scripture which place certain restrictions on the role of women in the life of the church. Those who attempt
to make Scripture undermine itself are playing dangerous and destructive games with the spiritual
dynamite5 of the Gospel. We must avoid those who mishandle Scripture because they are more
dangerous than those who mishandle man-made explosives.
From Pentecost to the Last Day, God’s people, both men and women, have the great privilege and responsibility
of speaking the Word of God in their homes, especially the Gospel of salvation by grace through faith in the completed
work of Jesus for us. And while frequently it is Christian mothers who carry out this privilege and responsibility
with their children and grandchildren, we dare never forget that God holds husbands and fathers primarily responsible
for all of the Christian instruction in the home. We thank God for women like Eunice and Lois, the grandmother and mother
of young Pastor Timothy,6 who faithfully instructed him as a child and youth, preparing him
for his future life as a Christian pastor, trained by the Apostle Paul. We also give thanks to God for those Christian
husbands and fathers who take the lead as the spiritual heads of their families, working with their wives in the most
important callings in their lives.
In our lives God usually don’t use earthquakes, loud sounds, fire, and other stunning displays to get our attention.
More often God gets our attention in very quiet, personal ways. So He did with the prophet Elijah. When Elijah ran away
from a death threat voiced by wicked Queen Jezebel, there was an earthquake, a strong wind, and a raging fire. But in each
instance, Scripture says, “the LORD was not in the earthquake, wind, or fire.” Instead, God spoke to Elijah
in a gentle whisper.7
Sometimes we hear people talking about God the Holy Spirit making His presence known in some phenomenal way. There may even
be times when we wish that God would really shake up His church in some overwhelming display of power. But God has not
promised to do that. Instead, He promises to come to us and work in us much as He did with Elijah, by means of a gentle
whisper. He promises to come to us through His means of grace, that is, through His Gospel and His Sacraments.
We have seen the Sacrament of Holy Baptism administered on a number of occasions. Yet, what you and I were able to see
with our eyes is insignificant compared to what we could not see, that is, God the Holy Spirit bestowing the gift of
saving faith, bringing a spiritually dead person the new life which is in Christ Jesus, purging away all sin and evidence
of sin.
Almost every Sunday we celebrate the Lord’s Supper. Yet all we see is a wafer of unleavened bread and a small
amount of wine. What we cannot see is the very thing Jesus has promised. He is present in the Holy Sacrament, giving
us along with the bread His very body which was nailed to the cross for our redemption, giving us along with the wine
His very blood which flowed from the crown of thorns piercing His scalp, from the nail wounds in His feet and hands,
and from the wound that the spear inflicted in His side. Nor do we look any different as we depart from this holy meal,
assured personally by our Savior that all of our sins have been forgiven and taken from us as far as the east is from
the west.8
Nor can we see the Word of the Gospel taking hold in our own lives nor in the life of anyone else. And yet that Word
always accomplishes the purpose for which God sent it.9 So it is with the working of God the Holy Spirit
in us. Over a period of time we may some of the results of His gracious working in us through His Word and Sacraments.
But we do not see God the Holy Spirit in person. So from Pentecost to the Last Day, He gives us the faith by which we
believe the Word of God and we rejoice that He is alive and powerfully at work in us, keeping us in the faith, growing
in our relationship with our Savior.
Like other Biblical prophets, Joel and Peter spoke of the first Christian Pentecost and the Last Day, the Day of the
Lord, as closely related events without any intervening span of time. The truth of Holy Scripture is that the last days
began with Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension. And that means that from Pentecost to the Day of Judgment,
we are living right now in the last days. Some of the signs of the Last Day mentioned by Joel and other prophets, we have
seen already at the time of Jesus’ crucifixion and death. While Jesus hung on the cross, from Noon until His death
at 3:00 p.m., the sun was turned to darkness; it stopped shining.10
Thus there is a note of urgency in Peter’s use of the words of the prophet Joel. The great and glorious and awesome
and dreadful Day of the Lord, the Day of Judgment, certainly will come. The Good News is that “everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.” As we daily draw ever nearer to that Last Day, how urgent it is that we
prophesy, that we tell the Good News about Jesus, to those who still are apart from Him.
To that end we pray God’s blessing on the visits that a number of our members will be making in the homes of our
other members. Please receive with a warm welcome the visitors who come to you in the name of our Savior. They come to
encourage your growth in Christ Jesus and His Word.
Please speak the Good News about Jesus to people you know that may not yet confess Jesus as their Savior. From Pentecost
to the Last Day, that is the great mission our Savior has given us. He promises that He is with us. He has given us the
gift which is God the Holy Spirit. We have our Savior’s promises and His gracious presence with us. We live in the
joy and the peace He gives as we live in the mission He has given us. Amen.