Acts 2:1-21
Revelation 2:1-3:22
Ezekiel 37:1-14
There’s a lot of talk about last days, are we in them, have they started yet, when are they going to start. Guess what, guys, the last days didn’t start with rock and roll music, they didn’t start when women got the vote, they didn’t start with any war in the history of mankind! Peter uses Joel’s prophecy to tell us they happened at this Pentecost when the Holy Spirit came down to all the people. Before this, the Spirit only dwelled in particular, anointed leaders. The Spirit came to every believer; old, young, men, women, slave, and free. The Holy Spirit now lives in every covenant community member.
The answer as to whether we are in the last days is “yes,” and we have been in them for 2,000 years.
At Christian Pentecost, God wrote His Law on the hearts of believers. God is not external anymore; through His Spirit, He is internal. Now the Law is Spiritual, not legal. We have the Spirit! When we asked Christ into our hearts, we received the Holy Spirit. We don’t have to wait for the Spirit to come down to us now because the Holy Spirit is already in us. We just need to quit forcing the Spirit to sit down and shut up.
I know that we don’t physically – or telepathically – say to the Spirit of God to sit down and shut up, but over the years, we have pushed the Spirit down, we have closed our ears.
If we want our church to live again, we've got to listen.We’ve got to have an ear open to listen for what the Spirit is telling us. The scary part is that we may not necessarily hear what we think we’ll hear; we probably won’t hear what we want to hear, but if we open our ears, we will hear what the Spirit says.