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Matthew Porter: Welcome to Key Life. I am Matthew Porter, executive producer for Key Life, and I am so glad you're here today. If you didn't know, yesterday was Pentecost Sunday, 50 days after Easter. So we're taking the next four days to go through an entire classic sermon from Steve called "Is Pentecost Reproducible?"

It's brought to you by The Vault Project. The Vault Project is an online collection of meticulously digitized and restored classic sermons from Steve Brown, dating all the way back to the early 1970s. We have literally hundreds of those sermons in the vault already, and thanks to your ongoing financial support, we're adding new sermons and series every single month.

Get all the details at keylife.org/vault. I'll tell you more about the vault on the other side. But for now, let's go back in time to enjoy a classic sermon from Steve called "Is Pentecost Reproducible?" from 19-something. Here's Steve.

Steve Brown: Now this evening, we are going to begin to look at, and we may finish it tonight, we may not, we're going to begin to look at one of the three most important events in the entirety of Christendom. And this event is Pentecost, the coming of the Holy Spirit. If you remember, the disciples of Jesus had been through what could very easily be described as the most mind-boggling weeks in the history of the world.

They had been with Jesus. They had seen Jesus die. They'd seen a dead man get up and walk. They had heard his teachings post-death. They had seen him ascend to the Father. And now they waited for God knows only what.

Let's read together as we start at that second chapter of the book of Acts. And I'm going to be reading down to the seventh verse, and then skipping down and reading the 14th, and then skipping over to the 37th verse. So follow me carefully. I wish we had time to read the whole thing but we just don't. But I suspect that before next Wednesday evening, you will have read the whole thing.

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly, a sound came from heaven like the rush of a mighty wind, and it filled all of the house where they were sitting. And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at the sound of the multitude, they came together and they were bewildered because each one heard them speaking in his own language. And they were amazed and wondered, saying, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language?"

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let it be known to you and give ear to my words." And thereupon followed the first sermon of the Christian church. And the results of that sermon were fantastic.

Now when they had heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brethren, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is to you and to your children and to all that are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to him."

And he testified with many other words and exhorted them saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers.

It's interesting to note what had happened to the disciples before Pentecost about which we just read happened. The disciples had been given the most difficult task any group of men have ever been given. They were told to go into all the world and to shake the world's foundations.

Now I would suggest that we in the 20th century, and here at the Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church, have exactly the same problem they had. To tell us on Key Biscayne to go out and win the eight or nine or ten or 13,000—and I get a different figure every time I ask somebody—people who live on Key Biscayne to Jesus Christ is kind of like taking a man to clean to wash the Empire State Building with a wet sponge. It's just completely impossible.

When you look at those apostles: untrained, because they didn't have seminaries in those days; unmotivated, because they didn't have public relations experts in those days; unfinanced, because they didn't have denominational fundraisers in those days; and tell those men to go out and shake the foundations of the world, it is just plain impossible. But all things are possible with God. Their problem is the same as our problem. We have potential power. Their problem is the same as our problem. They and we had potential power.

Not too long ago, a man came to me and he said, "Steve, it's not that I dislike the Lord. I'm a believer. I want to go out and do something for him, but I'm impotent in doing anything for Christ." What was his problem? His problem was potential power. One of the kinds of meetings that I hate more than any other are clergy meetings. Boy, I'll tell you, if you want to go to the dullest meeting in the history of the world, you go to a clergy meeting.

And they've been more dull, I've noticed, the last five or six years. And you know why? Because we're going through a period of depression in the church. I've heard time and time again at clergy meetings when pastors sit around and say that they see absolutely no hope for reversing the downward trend in the church. What's their problem? Their problem is that they have potential power.

Right here on Key Biscayne, there are people that I know about that are lonely, broken, hurt, frightened, living the emptiest lives that you would ever believe. And they need desperately to hear, and we need desperately to tell them. But they haven't heard. What's our problem? Our problem is potential power.

Now, notice what happened at Pentecost. At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit was given to the church in a new and different and dynamic way. And they literally went out and the sparks began to fly. What happened? The potential power became actualized power. The potential power became actualized power.

Now, the question that should immediately come to any believer who's listening to me right now is, "Well, how do we make our potential power actual power? How in the world can we reproduce Pentecost in the Key Biscayne Presbyterian Church? How can we see the Holy Spirit really descend on us with fire and tongues? How can we receive the power to do the task we've been given?" It's an impossible task. How can we do it?

Well tonight, I want to ask that question and define some answers from my text. And I want to give you maybe six or seven points and we're going to get through as many of them as we can. The first is a principle, and this is the principle: We must understand that Pentecost cannot be reproduced. We must understand that Pentecost cannot be reproduced.

Somebody says, "Now wait just a cotton-picking minute. You spent the first seven minutes of your sermon this evening talking about how we need to reproduce Pentecost in the church. You've been talking to us and trying to get us motivated so we will want to see Pentecost reproduced, and now you're saying that Pentecost cannot be reproduced." Well, let's look at it a little bit closer and see if we can see what I'm trying to say.

Revival and awakening, the filling and the baptism of the Holy Spirit, are at the complete direction of God's sovereignty. Revival, awakening, Pentecost, the filling, the baptism of the Holy Spirit are at the direction of God's sovereignty. Romans 9:14-16: "What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God's part? By no means! For he says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.' So it depends not on man's will or exertion, but upon God's mercy." Isaiah 55:8: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts."

John Montgomery and I were talking about revival this morning. He was trying to get some work done and I was too, but we would both rather talk than work, and I think that ended up what we were doing. We're talking about the Welsh Revival. How many of you have heard of the Welsh Revival? Probably the most fantastic revival that's happened in modern-day times—and by modern-day times, I mean in the last 100 years.

Evan Roberts was the man that God used in that revival and he was God's lightning rod at that time. Now the Welsh Revival happened because God decided it was time for it to happen. You don't engineer revival. You don't bring on the Holy Spirit by telling God what he's going to do. We don't dictate to him; he dictates to us.

John was telling me an incident in the life of Evan Roberts. He said he came into one particular church and nobody ever knew where he was going to be preaching. And he came in and there were just hundreds of people waiting for him to come. And he said, "Do you believe the promises of God?" and they said, "Yes." He said, "Do you believe that the promises of Jesus Christ are real and valid?" and they said, "Yes." And then he said, "You don't need me," and he walked out of the church and the Holy Spirit fell on that congregation.

They said that Evan Roberts would walk into a church and without uttering a word, God would use him as the lightning rod to bring on the power of God. And without a word, people would fall under conviction. They said people that would step onto Welsh soil would become Christians. An amazing, magnificent manifestation of God's spirit in modern times.

You know what happened after a year? It stopped. At exactly a year, God withdrew His spirit. Just stopped. You say, "Well, what did they do wrong?" Nothing. God decided it was time to stop. Did they fall into sin? No, that's not what happened. God decided the revival was over. From that moment on, Evan Roberts was still a man of God, still loved the Lord, he was still filled with the Spirit, he still preached mighty sermons, but from that time on after that one year, God withdrew it.

Matthew Porter: Thanks Steve, and we will continue from here tomorrow. You know, every now and then someone comes up with a word or a phrase that captures something everybody has experienced but they didn't have a name for it to that point. I'm thinking about the words like "ghosting" or "adulting" or "FOMO." Well, add another one to that list: invisible grief.

It's a phrase coined by author Drew Hensley that captures the pain of losing what never was, like a miscarriage, singleness, or an unrealized dream. It's kind of sorrow that gets overlooked sometimes. We spoke with Drew about it on a powerful episode of Steve Brown, Etc. and if you or someone you know has ever experienced that invisible grief, I think you'll appreciate that conversation.

We'll send it to you for free on CD. Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email steve@keylife.org to order that CD or go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, just ask for the CD featuring Drew Hensley.

Finally, if you're blessed by the work of Key Life, would you consider supporting us financially? Giving is easy, just charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. And of course, now you can give safely and securely by text. Just text Key Life to 28950, then follow the instructions. Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada, and Key Life is a listener-supported production of Key Life Network.