And this earnest desire by itself is good, it is from God, and they, who have never known that deep longing in their own soul after the Holy Spirit, who look down from the height upon those who pray this one-sided prayer, shall for their cold indifference once pass under heavier judgment.

Revival must needs take place again and again.

Even as the weather and as nature, so our spiritual life has its seasons. In our heart it is not always equally cold, and not always equally warm. An even spiritual temperature goes against our human nature. With one indeed change is more marked than with the other. There are those with whom the summer and winter in their heart differs by only a few degrees, even as in nature under the tropics. But it is not so as a rule. As a rule it may be said, that the transitions from cold into warm, and from warm into the cold season of the spiritual life, are fairly sharply drawn. At one time you find souls almost petrified, at another time they melt by reason of spiritual riches.

Hence the case is not put too strongly, when we say, that even as our streams at one time are bound by floors of ice, and at another time flow with purling waters, so likewise in the world of the spiritual life at one time the stream is frozen, and at another time it runs with highly swollen waters.

From thence the every time returning need of Revival, of new Animation, of Revivification, of Reveille, provided it be not overlooked, that this is always an extraordinary impulse for a short while, which can be no rule, and must everytime pass over again into the ordinary, which it was bound to bring up to a somewhat higher diapason.

Revivals, that leave nothing behind, are not of God. They are manufactured and artificial. Excitement more than Revival is their fitting name. Play of the imagination, without reality of the Spirit. A game which is so easily played, because such excitement of feeling communicates itself so readily to others, and by over-stimulation can be turned into a sort of wild passion as has so frequently been seen in history.

Especially people of more sentiment than conscience are susceptible to this, and therefore it is always highly necessary to taste these spirits whether they be inimical.

But when there really is a thirst alive in the soul after more vital fellowship of the Spirit, after more tenderness of conscience, after warmer glow of love in the heart, then indeed, such a deepening desire is glorious, and in most cases is harbinger of more powerful workings of the Spirit to come.

But this is not new outpouring of the Holy Spirit. This is not possible, because the Holy Spirit was never away, and consequently He can not come a second time. It is rather a coming out again on the part of the Holy Ghost, Who had hid Himself. It is as the coming back to consciousness of one who had become faint, and in whom life had become inoperative. Even as one can become pale as death, because the blood drew itself back in him, and presently life comes back into his face, when the blood comes to the surface again, such was the state of one who was spiritually desolate. The Spirit was still in him, but the Spirit in him was in hiding. And spiritual revival is, that that Spirit, Who did not leave him for one moment, but Whom he deserted, and Who therefore could not be observed in him, now begins to operate again, and makes the flush of life come back to the face of his soul.

To deem that the Holy Spirit everytime goes away from earth again to heaven, and anew from heaven must be outpoured on us, is not a mere mistake, but a lack of appreciation of the whole course of holy revelation, a want of understanding of what the life of the church is, and especially an ignoring of the fact, that what was poured out, is not power of the Spirit, but God the Holy Ghost Himself.

For by this revival, wrongly understood, is not meant, that after having gone away from earth, God comes back to it again, but that from heaven God might shed abroad in our hearts new spiritual power and animation. If one calls this “The outpouring of the Holy Ghost” and prays for it as a repetition of the Pentecost-miracle, he shows thereby that he takes the Pentecost-miracle merely as an effusion and outpouring of spiritual powers, that he does not grasp the high and altogether unique significance, of the coming of God the Holy Ghost to the church of God, and hence does not believe it.

As necessary therefore as it is, continually to make the church, and in the church the several believers, understand, that they should not be content with the winter in their heart, but be on the outlook again for the spring-time of the Spirit and the summer of spiritual life, yea, that they should pray for it, it is equally necessary, to teach the church the true character of such revival, and over against every other revival of later date steadfastly to maintain the altogether unique character of the event that took place in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. Let not the incontrovertible truth therefore that Pentecost is the coming of God, not to our race, but into the personal existence of the soul, be misinterpreted.

That this was the case, the narrative clearly shows, and the single expression: “It sat upon each of them” (Acts 2:3), makes the matter plain. Above every one’s head there was the sparkling, the glittering, if we may say so of a heavenly-electrical glow. Here there is no hierarchy, no priests stand over against laity; there is no one, and there are not a few, who bear the mark alone. No, as they were gathered there together, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. Thus by no means the apostles alone, as it has been represented in pictures, but all, that full one hundred and twenty men and women, all bore the mark of fire on the head and all became possessed of holy ecstacy. And that indeed it was no common good, that they received, but that personally, head for head, they all had part in it, is evident from the fact that they gave utterances to what filled them inwardly. They all began to speak in wondrous, heavenly accents, to the astonishment of all who heard them.

Moreover Peter’s appeal to Joel’s prophecy proves it. For how could he say, that the prophecy had been fulfilled, that “your sons and your daughters shall prophecy,” if the younger men and women who were there, had had no part in the miracle of fire and in the miracle of languages, and if the whole company had not broken loose in praise and adoration in a way, which altogether excelled their ordinary manner of speech?

Let not this be therefore a matter of dispute. The outpouring of the Holy Ghost took place in every one of those who were gathered there. All had a part in it. And the distinguishing mark of it was, that this part was personal for all. For utterance in language of praise does not come from the soul, except as that soul has personally been apprehended, and personally stands under the mighty impression.

“It sat upon each of them” is but the external delineation therefore of what took place internally, in the spiritual domain, and of this also it can be said: The “Spirit made His abode with each one personally.”

Thus the narrative itself, as well as the nature of the Spirit admits of no other explanation, so soon as His purpose is, not to work “powers”, but to make His abode.

For apart from Pentecost the world is by no means without all sorts of inworkings of the Holy Ghost. How could the Holy Ghost, Who is Himself God and with the Father and the Son is one eternal Being, stand outside of the life of nature? Nothing lives, in heaven and in earth as plants, animals or men, but lives with a spark of light which the Holy Ghost has ignited. There is among men no single power of thought or will, no talent and no gift, to which God the Holy Ghost is foreign. Not only in Israel did the Holy Spirit operate in Bezaliel and Aholiab but also among the heathen in a Plato and Cicero. In another way, be it so, and we least of all deny this, but even so in all this broad domain there were workings of the Holy Spirit.

At closer range, even before Pentecost there were saving operations on the part of the Holy Ghost. Under the Old Covenant souls have been regenerated unto faith and brought unto life. The Holy Spirit has worked in the prophets, has operated in David and Solomon, has worked in official gifts. According to Isaiah the Holy Spirit “was set in the midst of Israel”. And when John the Baptist came, and presently Jesus Himself appeared, there were on every side mighty workings of the Spirit, powers of the Spirit that went abroad; and did not Jesus breathe upon His own, saying: “Receive ye the Holy Ghost.”

But what took place on Pentecost, was something altogether different. No telephoning any longer from afar, no radiations with beams of light, no giving of signs and tokens, no sending out of gifts and talents. No, on that day of Pentecost there appeared at last the Holy Ghost Himself, came down to come to us, as God He entered into the human heart, and sanctified that human heart as a temple unto Himself, in which His presence could be known.

It is the meeting of God in person with man in person. The standing in relation and in covenant between the two, had always been. Even personal meetings in Theophanies, to Abraham, to Hagar and others had been known. Since Bethlehem there had been the personal meeting of Him Who could say: “He that hath seen me, hath seen the Father.” But what had hitherto not been known, was the personal meeting of man with God in the inner chamber of his own heart. It had been from without, but not from within. Not yet in the center of our inner being. Going out on the way God’s presence had been perceived, but God had not entered into our own habitation, nor into our more intimate existence, neither into our life hidden from every one else. What we call meeting one in private, so that every separation falls away, and self stands over against self, to bring person and person into closest contact and into tenderest touch, that had not happened hitherto, and that is the miracle of miracles, that took place on that unique day of Pentecost.

The indwelling of God in the heart, is for all the redeemed, for all who believe, the striking thought of Pentecost. Before God’s omniscience even the unbeliever fell. That nothing in our doings or nondoings is hid from God, devils too believe and they tremble. Every child knows about the “All-seeing eye”. But it is something altogether different, to stand and to live in the blessed consciousness, that God the Holy Spirit, is personally with us, that He is in us, and dwells in us, that in our own heart we are never alone, but that God Himself has His habitation there with us. That the smallest, finest impulses of our soul, already in their first beginnings, are spied in us by God Himself. That when we sleep and know nothing of it, God Himself in our hearts keeps watch over our heart. That when we can not pray, God the Holy Ghost in our own heart prays with groanings that can not be uttered. And thus as well, that even no sinful thought can pass through our heart, but God Himself, if we may so express ourselves, in our innermost self scans it with holy anger.

And this is so, not only in those individual moments, when we think of it, in those individual instances, at which we comfort ourselves with that indwelling, but this is so continually, constantly, also when we do not think of it, yea, this can have been so in us already from our infancy, before we had ever taken the name of the Holy Ghost in our lips.

The church of the living God is a spot of light in the midst of the darknesses of this world, and that light is not an outshining from above, but an outshining from within out, of God the Holy Ghost, Who dwells in the church.

Only by that coming down of God the Holy Ghost, fellowship with the Eternal Being has come to its highest, its richest intimacy.

Religion, i. e. communion between man and the eternal Being, in its richest, fullest sense, is only possible in that church, through that indwelling, exclusively as the result of the Pentecost miracle.

And finally as regards the question, whether this personal indwelling of God the Holy Ghost in every believer specially and personally, does not break the unity and split the communion in the church of God, the holy apostle says: By no means, for we all have been made to drink into one Spirit (1 Cor. 12:13).

Baptism and Holy Communion enclose us here.

In this same verse St. Paul declares, by one Spirit are we all baptized into one Body, and likewise we have all been made to drink into one Spirit. The water of Baptism and the cup at Holy Communion prove and seal this oneness.

It it were an other spirit, who indwelled with you, and still an other spirit who indwelled with the brother, then there would be division, splitting and separation, and who would be satisfied with the indwelling of his particular spirit?

But such is not the case.

For there is not Spirit and spirit, but it is one God, the Holy Spirit, Who indivisible and unique in Himself, Himself indwells in the hearts of believers, and because the same Spirit indwells in the hearts of all, that indwelling of the Spirit forms the strongest guarantee of communion.

Could this indwelling Spirit therefore shine out clearly and brightly from all hearts, all hearts would melt into one, to receive all in one glow of love, and richest, highest unity would glisten before all eyes.

But such it can not do. God truly dwells in us, but the inner chamber of our heart is continually closed, and the windows shut, and all sorts of vapor and smoke contract within and outside of us.

Hence frequently we do not know ourselves whether God dwells in us, how then should the brother be able to observe it? And thereby, and thereby alone, come the separations, the estrangements, the embitterments. Then the Holy Spirit can not shine out, and our unsanctified spirits look abroad, and see one the other in anything but inviting and enticing aspects.

Everything would be eternally scattered, if God the Holy Ghost did not dwell in us, inwardly maintaining the oneness, and keeping it intact till we die, in order, after the falling away of the body of death, to make the unity of all the redeemed shine forth gloriously.

Woe to him therefore, who in the face of this continues in sin and gives in to his quarrelsome and love-impoverished heart.

You were baptized without knowing it, but at the holy Table fully conscious of yourself you are made to drink into one Spirit, and the blessing of that Table is lost to you, when with that holy cup you do not believe, expect and seek the unity of the Body of the Lord, and the unity of the Spirit Who dwells in all the members of that Body.

And therefore, it is God the Holy Spirit, Who, dwelling in us, in the face of all our divisions, still guarantees the unity of the Body through the unity of the Spirit; and also on your part, from your side according to the Divine ordinance that unity must ever be held in sight, that unity must ever be striven after, that unity must ever be prayed for.

The unity of the Body through the unity of the Spirit is the call of Pentecost.

He who has given no hearing to that call, has grieved God the Holy Ghost.

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