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Matthew Porter: Welcome to Key Life. I'm Matthew Porter, executive producer for Key Life, and we are in day two of our journey through a sermon from Steve called, "Is Pentecost Reproducible?" When we wrapped up yesterday, Steve was telling us the amazing story of the Welsh revival. Today, we're going to pick up right there, learning about the Wesleyan revival, all to illustrate that now and always, God is sovereign and will do what he chooses to do.

Once again, all of this is brought to you by the Vault Project, our ongoing effort to digitize and preserve classic sermons from Steve going all the way back to 1974. You can access and support this work for as little as five dollars a month. Find all the details at keylife.org/vault. I'll tell you more about the project shortly, including details on a crazy new bonus for Vault subscribers. But for now, let's dive back into our sermon for this week called, "Is Pentecost Reproducible?" From July 16, 1974, here is Steve.

Steve Brown: The Wesleyan revival, I just love to read about. I guess I was born and raised a Methodist and I consider John Wesley my spiritual great-great-great-great grandfather. He speaks to my heart and John Calvin speaks to my head. But I love to read about John Wesley. But sometimes we lay too much stress on John Wesley. You know what happened in the Wesleyan revival? Was John Wesley so committed? No. Were people praying so hard? No. People are praying all over the world for revival right now in lots of places and it's not happening. People are committed all over the world in lots of places and it's not happening. What happened in the Wesleyan revival when God swept Europe and then moved across the ocean into America? I'll tell you what happened. God decided it was time and God did it. Now we can ask him. We can plead for the power of the Holy Spirit that Pentecost happen here at Key Biscayne, but we can't force God. God is not our celestial bellhop and we need to remember that as a tempering point on everything else that we're going to be saying.

Having said that, there are some factors that we can find in this text in the second chapter of Acts that I would like to hold up for your consideration. They are in no way to be considered prerequisites for an absolute movement of God's Spirit. They're the things that I think God requires of us. They're the machinery that I think that he wants us to put in order in case he should decide to use it. Let's check it out. First, I want you to notice that the disciples who had gathered there in that upper room waiting for the promised Holy Spirit were committed. Commitment is a necessary factor in the machinery that God will use if he should so choose. Notice that those men and women, there were women there, forgive me when I talk about just men. When those men and women had gathered in that upper room, they weren't there for a bake sale.

They weren't there to discuss the stock market. They were there for one reason and one reason only. They had given their lives and their talents and their fortunes and their futures to Jesus Christ and come whatever may, that was absolute, that commitment. Let's change the scene if you will for just a moment and let's assume that those twelve disciples are in a room, the boardroom of a modern suburban church and Peter and John are talking together. Peter says, "Boy, John, I sure hope this meeting doesn't take too long. I've been out every night this week and I've given so much already." John says, "You know, I agree with you and I understand that some of this work may interfere with my weekends and we have guests coming this weekend and my guests aren't very religious and I don't want to be offensive to my guests."

Then Bartholomew comes and he joins in. Bartholomew says, "You know, I feel that same way. I'm so busy. I've got so much to do. The office is so hectic. I just don't know how I'm going to be able to give more." Then in another part of the room, James and Matthias and Andrew are talking and Andrew would say, "You know, I know that Jesus has done a whole lot for me and I don't want him to think that I don't appreciate all that he's done for me, but he seems to think that all I have to do is to do his thing. I've got a family. I've got a business." Then James says, "Already my friends are calling me a fanatic. Already my image is being hurt in the community." Then Matthias says, "I agree with that. I can't go anywhere anymore without people crossing the street to avoid me." By the time the meeting was about ready to start in order to call down the Holy Spirit for Pentecost, the disciples had decided that religion was a pretty good thing as long as you didn't carry it too far.

They decided that religion was a fine thing as long as you didn't push it too much, as long as you didn't become a fanatic about it. Now put them back in the first century. If they had felt that way, we wouldn't be here tonight. I have an acquaintance who literally talks to thousands of church people every year. One time I was sitting down over lunch talking to him and I asked him, "What do you think is the biggest problem in the church?" He said, "I'll tell you. Eighty percent of the people who sit in the pews of the church have never totally committed their life to Jesus Christ. They're playing games."

Ladies, if you were to commit yourself to your family the way you're committed to the Lord, what would happen to your family? Men, if you were as committed to your business as you are to the Lord, what would happen to your business? Young people, if you studied your exams the way you study the Word, would you pass your exams? Once there was a soap factory. The men who made the soap decided that they were tired and they just didn't like making soap anymore, so they backed off and shut down the machines. The owners of the soap factory decided that the overhead was just too high, so they decided to quit making soap too. The salesmen in the soap factory decided they couldn't believe in their product anymore, so they quit selling soap. You know what happened? The world went dirty. I get the feeling I'm beating you on the top of the head and I don't mean to do that. I don't ever say anything up here that I haven't gone through agony with in the study. I'm not saying look at me as the example. I'm just saying we've both got to place ourselves under the Word and be obedient and committed to it.

Secondly, there must not only be commitment, but we also find as we look at this account of the first Pentecost that the second factor we find present is the factor of knowledge. The first thing that becomes immediately apparent to you, if you'll take the time some time this week to read Peter's Pentecostal sermon, the first thing that becomes immediately apparent to you are the numerous references to the scriptures. As you look at the preparation for Pentecost, as they were deciding on this leadership problem, you find that these men and women were literally immersed in the Word of God. Romans 10:14, "But how are men to call upon him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard?" Knowledge.

Russ Este, who is the president of the American Bank Note Company, is just a tremendous man of God. Somebody tell me, doesn't he have a brother here in Miami who is a pastor? Frank. I've been supposed to play golf with him twice and something's happened both times. But anyway, Russ Este is a fantastic man of God and I've seen him give a devotional at a meeting where he used almost the entirety of Ephesians by memory. I've seen him use hundreds and hundreds of verses, well, I can't say hundreds and hundreds, but a hundred and fifty in one ten or fifteen minute talk and give chapter and verse on every one of them. My wife and I had breakfast with him one time and he said, "You know, when I'm not in the Word one day, I know it. When I'm not in the Word two days, my family knows it. And when I'm not in the Word three days, everybody knows it."

Moody, in the midst of his revivals, when it looked like they were going to bomb, Moody said, "I've got to have more faith because faith will move men's hearts." Then Moody picked up his Bible and opened it to Romans 10:17, "So faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God." You got a faith problem? Get into the Word. Read it. Moody said from that day on, I was into the Word and my faith grew.

Thirdly, not only was commitment and knowledge present, but you'll find that obedience was there too. Now we spent some time on obedience not too long ago, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time on this point. But I want you to notice that the disciples were in Jerusalem for one reason, because Jesus said go to Jerusalem and they went to Jerusalem. Did I tell you about the man who had the faithful dog? A farmer. He took the dog out into the woods and he left his lunch pail and forgot something back at the house. He told the dog to stay there and watch the lunch pail and went back to the house and a forest fire started. The dog was killed and the old farmer with tears streaming down his face when he found out his dog had died said, "I had to be careful what I told that dog because I knew he'd do it."

God ought to feel that way about us too. He ought to be very careful what he tells us because he knows that whatever he says, we're going to do. I have a surgeon friend who was demoted for a time of training from being a chief surgeon to being an assistant surgeon. Now the surgeon who's in charge in an operating room is a man who's really in charge. He says what everybody's going to do and everybody does it. Now when you become an assistant in an operating room, it means that you only become an extra pair of hands to the chief surgeon or to the head guy in the operating room. This surgeon was a Christian and he was sitting there saying to himself, "Now what kind of surgeon do I want to be while I'm in training in this place?" He said, "I obviously don't want to disagree with the man under whom I'm training. I don't want to tell him he's wrong. I don't want to disagree with his decisions." Then he said, "You know what I want to be? I want to be an extra pair of hands for that surgeon. I want him to be the head with four hands." Immediately the still small voice of God said, "I want you to be my hands too. I'm the head."

Matthew Porter: Thank you, Steve. This is a sermon based on Acts that you can find right now at keylife.org/vault, that’s V-A-U-L-T. One very cool new addition to the Vault, back in the mid-nineties, Steve did a debate-oriented TV show with his dear friend, the late Tony Campolo, and we now have all those episodes available to stream and it's newly remastered. Again, find that at keylife.org/vault.

If you know this show, then you know Jerry Parries. If you know Jerry Parries, then I hope you'll check out his book called, "Grace: The Real Good News of the Gospel." In this book, Jerry goes verse by verse through the book of Romans to explain why God is no longer mad or upset at us. Or as Jerry so memorably puts it, "You will run out of sin before God runs out of grace." For a gift of fifteen dollars or more to Key Life, Jerry's book is our gift to you. Just call us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE, that's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at steve@keylife.org to order that book or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses. Again, the name of the book is "Grace: The Real Good News of the Gospel."

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