Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: It's been a great delight to share these studies with you. This is a great place to end, hopefully for you to start, as we talk about Pentecost today. I will send you what the Father has promised. As I've been enjoying Max Lucado these last few weeks, let me begin with a little piece called "The Roar." He's thinking of the Lion of Judah, which is one of Jesus' titles.

The door is locked, deadbolted, maybe even a chair under the doorknob. Inside sit 10 knee-knocking itinerants who are astraddle the fence between faith and fear. As you look around the room, you wouldn't take them for a bunch who are about to put the kettle of history on high boil. What a phrase. Uneducated, confused, calloused hands, heavy accents, few social graces, limited knowledge of the world, no money, undefined leadership, and on and on.

No, as you look at this motley crew, you wouldn't wager too many paychecks on their future. But something happens to a man when he witnesses someone who's risen from the dead. Something stirs within the soul of a man who stood within inches of God. Something stirs that's hotter than gold fever and more permanent than passion. It all started with 10 stammering, stuttering men. Though the door was locked, He stood still in their midst.

As the Father has sent me, I am sending you. And send them He did. Ports, courtyards, boats, synagogues, prisons, palaces—they went everywhere. Their message of the Nazarene dominoed across the civilized world. They were an infectious fever. They were a moving organism. They refused to be stopped. They were uneducated drifters who shook history like a housewife shakes a rug.

My, wouldn't it be great to see it happen again? Many say it's impossible. The world is too hard, too secular, too post-Christian. This is the age of information, not regeneration, they say. So we deadbolt the door for fear of the world. As a result, the world goes largely untouched and untaught. Over half the world has yet to hear the story of the Messiah, much less study it. The few believers who do go out often come home weary and wounded, numbed at the odds and frustrated at the needs.

What would it take to light the fire again? Somehow those fellows in the upper room did it. They did it without dragging their feet or making excuses. For them, it was rather obvious. All I know is that He was dead, and now He is alive. Something happens to a man when he stands within inches of the Judean Lion. Something happens when he hears the roar, when he touches the golden mane.

Something happens when he gets so close he can feel the Lion's breath. Maybe we could all use a return visit. Maybe we all need to witness His majesty and sigh at His victory. Maybe we need to hear our own commissioning again. Will you tell them? Jesus challenged. Will you tell them that I came back and that I'm coming back again? We will, they nodded, and they did. Will you?

Isn't that a wonderful reading? I love some of those phrases, how original he is. But I love this bit: something happens to a man when he stands within inches of the Judean Lion, when he hears the roar, when he feels the breath. Jesus has so many titles that we think about: Jesus, Savior, Christ, the Word, Messiah, Emmanuel. But here, the Judean Lion.

Of course, when Christ came back from the dead, the convinced disciples were the ones through whom the whole known world heard about Christ. Just these 12 men—that's where it all started. And how? Because He sent them the promise of the Father, the promised Holy Spirit. So, will you turn with me to Acts Chapter 1?

Now, Luke is writing. He's already written his Gospel, and he starts off by saying to the man he's writing to, Theophilus, "I'm going to tell you all the things Jesus began to do and to teach that He's now going to continue." In other words, Jesus was in His earthly body in the Gospels, and He began to do and to teach all the things we've been talking about these last weeks.

In the Acts of the Apostles, He continues to do what He began in the Gospels. He has another body: the Church. So Jesus begins in a Galilean body, and in the Acts of the Apostles continues the work through the Church, through the members of that body, through the apostles and those that came to believe through them, and of course, today through the worldwide mystical body of believers which makes up the Church of Jesus Christ.

We happen to worship in different locations—one body worshipping in different forms, in different countries, in different cities, at different locations—but one body. That body was born at Pentecost. The Holy Spirit brought to birth, if you like, as the midwife, the baby church, the infant church, and then indwelt that church in order that that church might be scattered all over the world gossiping the Gospel. The Acts of the Apostles tells us about that story.

It was a great day, the day of Pentecost. They were waiting for the promise of the Father. The first chapter tells us that after 40 days of Jesus appearing to different people, proving that He had come back from the dead, He tells them, "Don't leave Jerusalem. Wait for the gift my Father promised, which you've heard me speak about. John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

So they ask Him a whole lot of questions. What else is going to happen when the Holy Spirit comes? Is this the end of the world? He says, "The Father set those dates, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." At this point, the Ascension happens, and everybody's gazing up into heaven. The angels come and say, "Ye men of Galilee, why are you gazing up into heaven? Why don't you go and get on with the job?"

So they go back to Jerusalem. They gather the group together: the apostles' wives; Mary, the mother of Jesus, who is now being cared for, if you remember, by John, given into her care at the cross of Christ; the women that had traveled with Jesus; Mary Magdalene and those at the cross that had stayed in Jerusalem, the believing women; Matthias and Joseph, others of the 70 were there that had believed and that had witnessed His resurrection. In fact, the Bible tells us 120 in all gathered at the day of Pentecost.

Now, at the beginning, the believers were choosing somebody to replace Judas, and they were in an upper room, possibly the house of John Mark, where they had a big upper room. There is some controversy over where the Spirit was given. We think about the room because it says the wind filled the room, but actually, most people believe it was the temple precincts.

One hundred and twenty people were gathering every day, as you know, in the temple to talk and to be taught by the apostles. The believers were all together, and that's how many there were at that point, just 120 of them that were gathered there anyway. Many people think they were actually in the temple precincts in the teaching area.

The day itself was the great day of Pentecost, of the first fruits. It was a wonderful festival. It was a joyous festival. The Jews had three pilgrimage festivals when everybody came in from the country. Everybody from Jesus' hometown would have been in Jerusalem at this point. Every believing Jew should be there. They must go with their family. They made little booths to remind them that God had kept them alive in the wilderness.

There were all sorts of symbolism at this particular Feast of Pentecost. It was the Feast of Harvest. How appropriate that the Holy Spirit was going to be given and the harvest would begin to be gathered in. Paul says in Corinthians, Jesus was the first sheaf, He was raised from the dead, and then, of course, at Pentecost, we get this 3,000 harvest, 3,000 sheaves added to the harvest of God.

Pentecost spoke of harvest, of ingathering—the word is the Feast of Ingathering—a feast of joy. It had a solemn day at the beginning, it had a solemn day at the end, preparation and praise, and in the middle, it was joy. There was dancing; even the elders joined in the dancing in the streets. There were lights; they said that Jerusalem was so brilliantly lit that people had a headache with all the torches.

It was the most glorious festival, and this was the time that the Holy Spirit was given. It was a prize moment for all believing Jews who were there, believing in Jehovah, and this little group of Christians waiting to be endued with power from on high for the incredible task of taking the precious news of what they had witnessed for three years—God in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself—to the whole world, beginning in Jerusalem now.

For this, they were going to need dynamic, and that is one of the names of the Holy Spirit: dunamis, dynamic power. The great day came. There was a great sound, the Bible says. On the day of Pentecost, Chapter 2, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven. Notice it was like the blowing of a violent wind.

Again, struggling to use practical human words and terms for a spiritual phenomenon is very difficult to do. The nearest the writer Luke could come up with was "like a violent blowing wind, rushing mighty wind." Now, on the day of Pentecost in Jesus' ministry, He had stood at that feast and called out, if you remember, "Come unto me, all ye that are thirsty, and I'll give you a drink. Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water." In John 7, it says this spake He of the Spirit; the Spirit was not yet given, for Jesus was not yet glorified.

Jesus had been to a Feast of Pentecost. It was a very different situation than the one where He was to come in the power of His Spirit now. For example, in John 7, His brothers did not believe in Him; they were at the feast. Now, at this Feast of Pentecost after the cross, His brothers are waiting, part of the 120, specifically James, the elder brother, they believe, of the family of Jesus Christ, His human family down here on earth, who was to become the head of the church in Jerusalem.

His brothers were now believers. They had seen Christ risen from the dead. When Jesus had been at the feast before and said, "Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water," nobody believed in Him except a few here and there. Now there will be 3,000 that believe as the Holy Spirit was given. It was going to be a different Pentecost for Jesus this time.

The great sound like the blowing of the violent wind comes. Jesus used the symbol of water to describe the Holy Spirit: "Out of your innermost being will flow rivers of living water." Here the symbol of wind, which is another symbol of the Holy Spirit, is used. God breathed on a bit of clay, and man became a living soul. The breath of God, the wind of God, is a symbol of the Spirit.

Ezekiel in his vision in Chapter 37 prays, "Come from the four winds, Spirit, breathe upon these bones that they may live." Remember his vision that these dead, dry bones that represented Israel—dead and dry and lost—were revived as the wind of God, as the Spirit of God, made those corpses stand up right and gave them life, and they became an exceeding great army.

Then, of course, when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, He said, "You've got to be born again." Nicodemus, the teacher of Israel, didn't understand what He was talking about. He said, "How can this be? How can a man be born twice?" Jesus said, "Well, you've been born once physically; you need to be born twice spiritually, you need to be born again spiritually."

"How will this happen?" said Nicodemus, struggling to understand. Jesus said, "Well, it's difficult for me to explain it to you. You see the wind?" Nicodemus said, "No, I can't see the wind." Jesus said, "Right, but you can see what the wind does. It blows where it wants to go, and you see the trees swaying in the breeze. You see the impact of the wind. So is everyone that's born of the Spirit." You can't really get human handles on it, but you can see where the Spirit has been.

So it was to be at Pentecost. The great sound like the blowing of the violent wind came, the rushing mighty wind of the Spirit of God. Well, when they heard this sound, a great crowd came together. So it looks as though it was in the temple precincts because there were 3,000 that came together at this point. Not only the sound of the wind, but the sound of the words hit their ears.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. Now, these words were miraculous words. They were significant, they were a wonder, people couldn't understand it. If you take a map and go through the list of the places these people were—in fact, if you have an NIV Bible, it gives you a map—it shows you where the people had come in for this feast from all over the known world.

Believing Jews, proselytes, Gentiles that had become Jews—everybody that counted themselves a believer in Jehovah was in Jerusalem at that point. Just imagine what a time to send forth the Holy Spirit into 3,000 people. Some of those stayed behind because they were Jews from Jerusalem and from the surrounding area. A lot of them went back to all these places.

They were now believers: the Medes, the Elamites, the Mesopotamians, the Judeans, the Cappadocians, the Pontus and Asia folks, the Phrygians and Pamphylians, Egypt, parts of Libya. This was a great time for God to choose, but of course, His clocks keep perfect time. He always knows when to do what He wants to do.

God gave them, with the gift of the Holy Spirit, with this outpouring, this birth of the Church, He gave them the ability to speak in languages that they had never learned. That was miraculous. And the people that came from all these countries heard the Gospel in their own tongue. This was incredible. They were endued with power from on high. They were energized by the Spirit.

Remember the great sight of what appeared to be, it says, what seemed to be like tongues of fire energizing them that separated and hovered over their heads. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire which separated and came to rest on each of them. They were endued, they were energized. Fire, again, is a symbol of the Holy Spirit: wind, water, fire, warmth.

There was great joy. They were filled with great joy, and they began to scatter among the people and tell them about Jesus. Well, some of them weren't amazed. They said, "Oh, they're drunk." Peter said, "It's only nine in the morning." An orthodox Jew would fast every day during the feast until at least 10 AM. There was no way that these Jewish people they were experiencing, hearing these languages, would be drunk at this time.

"No," says Peter, "this is what Joel talked about, what the prophet talked about." Then he quotes him: "In the last days," verse 17, "God says, 'I'm going to pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and your daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I'll pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.'"

So they heard a great sound, they saw a great sight, and now they're going to hear a great sermon. Peter stands up, and that's a great change. You see, the Holy Spirit changes a man who's cowering behind a locked door into a preacher par excellence overnight, somebody that was able to preach such a powerful sermon in the power of the Spirit of God that 3,000 people became members of the church that very day.

What had happened to Peter? What an evidence for the Resurrection is Peter's life at this point, or all the apostles' lives. I started off reading that illustration of their fear behind these locked doors, wondering if they were to be the next ones that were going to be crucified. But now something's happened to them, and they are obviously changed men.

Jesus had been promising Peter, back in Luke Chapter 5, "Come after me, and I'll make you a fisher of men." This was a great haul, wasn't it? Three thousand fish. And these weren't minnows; these were sharks. These, as Peter put it in his sermon, were murderers. "You murdered the Son of God," he said. "You murdered the Messiah."

Now, where does he get this courage from? From the Holy Spirit. Where does he get this boldness from? From the Holy Spirit. What changed Peter from a coward into a courageous preacher of the Gospel? The Holy Spirit. And so He will for us. Have you had a great day? Have you had a personal Pentecost? Has it made a great difference in your life? Have you been endued with power from on high? Have you been energized for witness? Are you enabled courageously to tell people how it is?

I remember years and years ago standing in front of a mob of kids. It was in a place called the Bar-None. The Bar-None was a warehouse. We had wanted to reach young people that, at that point in our British culture, were living rough on the streets, that had left their homes and were living in derelict houses trying to find a new community. Families were falling apart. It was just before the Jesus Movement days.

There was no movement when we were doing this, and the churches asked Stuart and me to go down to a place called Guildford, which was out of London, and have a youth campaign to reach these youngsters that were all over the place. You'd literally trip over them in the town square. We asked the churches to give us a room, and none of them would give us one.

They all said they'd help, and they did. They donated free pop and snacks and things like that, but they didn't want to give us the church building, not for this mob. And who could blame them? But a brewery owner gave us his brewery. Wasn't that nice? Well, it was. He was very nice to do it, and we took it. We turned that huge, great cavernous place into a place called the Bar-None. It was a play on the word. It was a bar, soft drinks, and we would bar none. We would keep nobody out. That was a mistake to begin with, but we were learning.

We expected 100 kids, probably from that big city that we might be able to go out to. We went down early, we trained young people, we got out on the streets, we told them that this place was going to be turned into a coffee bar and they were going to be welcome. Saturday night we began. We expected 100 people; a thousand showed up. Literally, they emptied off the streets into the Bar-None.

We began one of the most exciting adventures of my life, certainly of Stuart's and my life in ministry. We had never done anything like this before. I had done street work here and there, but we had never faced 1,000 raw, leather-jacketed young people in our lives. Nobody knew what to do or how to do it. We made all the mistakes in the book.

We got all the Christian bands we could find and let them play for half an hour, then we'd try and talk for five minutes—that was about all you could hold them for—then the music would play and we'd work among them again. No policeman would come in the place. One day, one of the gangs I got to know said to me, "There's a gang coming in to get the platform party tonight. We sort of like you guys, we don't want to see you cut up, so we just thought we'd tell you, and maybe you won't come back tonight."

Well, of course, I ran to Stuart and said, "Oh, there's a gang coming in, we're going to have a fight." I said, "Maybe the police would come in and just be there. If the police came in and just showed that they were around with their nice big Bobby helmets on, you know, maybe we wouldn't have this attack." Well, we learned another lesson. If those kids saw a policeman, that was the signal for an attack, and anyway, the policeman said he'd walk outside, but he wouldn't come in. He said, "You're crazy to go in there and try and do what you're doing."

I related all this to my great, big husband, and he said, "Well, I think it'll be all right because you're giving your testimony tonight, and when they see a woman up there, they probably won't do it." Well, oh. I remember thinking, "This isn't going to work." And then Stuart said, "Now, I'll be there. I'll just be absolutely there, right at your shoulder," and he said it'll be all right.

Well, we get up there, and I knew that he was right because I'd been doing a lot of pub work, going into the pubs and talking, and I knew that when men were drunk and they saw women—that's why the Salvation Army always sent the women in first—they behave well. If they see the men, there's a fight. So I knew that he was right and that this might work, but it also might not.

As I was standing there, the gang came in as prophesied and stood around the platform, and they were ugly. I mean, they were ugly. And the atmosphere was like this. Stuart said, "Come on, Jill, just let's ignore it. It's time to go." And the band had finished, and so we stood there, and Stuart was on my right and I was in here. I remember being so absolutely petrified I couldn't do a thing. I could not get a word out.

I had the microphone in my hand, and it was shaking. I started trying to say something, and the leader of the gang leant over and he put his great big hand on my shoulder, and I thought that was it. I said, "I'm coming, Lord!" Well, of course, I wasn't, and I'm still here. I felt rather stupid when I opened my eyes and I wasn't in heaven and this guy was looking at me as if I was bonkers.

He gets up by me—Stuart's one side and this big fellow's the other—and he puts his great big arm around me. Stuart was looking at him, and the situation was really rather tense, as you can imagine. Then this guy takes the microphone off me and he says, "Look at this poor woman! You've frightened her out of her mind!" Well, it wasn't them I was frightened of, it was him.

But I smiled appreciatively at him, still shaking, and he puts the microphone back and says, "I'm going to stand right here, and you say what you've got to say, and nobody's going to touch you." So I said, "Oh, thank you very much." So with Stuart one side and him the other, I remember praying, "Lord, I need a personal Pentecost, and I need it now."

I was endued with power from on high. Somehow, not without trembling, I got through what I needed to say, and believe it or not, it was more than five minutes that God kept those people listening. So the day of Pentecost can be a situation like that, when you are so frightened out of your mind there is absolutely no way. These were men in that situation, standing up in front of a mob.

I had a thousand in front of me; they had 3,000 in front of them. Peter had never preached a sermon in his life; I had certainly never said anything to these people. And this is what Pentecost is all about. Because if God is going to expect us to reach the young people of our day, and incidentally, that is not so way out. You might say, "Well, Jill, that's out of my world. I would never have that opportunity."

Listen, we heard, I was in a prayer meeting yesterday morning, and we heard about two kids at Kettle Moraine School that have gathered 80 kids in a home on their own, and about five of them are Christians. They're standing up, doing what I'm talking about. They're trying to share their faith. We heard that story yesterday, and they're brave.

These brave little kids that live out in the lake country said, "Let's go get 'em in the power of the Spirit," and they're having a personal Pentecost experience because you need to be endued with power from on high to be able to do that. And what about your festival? What about your Pentecost? Are you going to be in a party like Jesus was in a party on the day of Pentecost? Like the disciples were engaging in in Jerusalem in a big party, a big pilgrimage party? You're going to need to be endued with power from on high.

And that's what Pentecost is all about. Now, what are we to preach when we get there? What did Peter preach when he got there? He preached the cross. First of all, he gave an explanation of facts—that's what you've got to do. Then he came down to the nub of the Gospel: Jesus Christ was born, lived, died, resurrected, ascended into heaven. It's the creed. Those are the facts of the Gospel.

And he preached the cross. Jesus was the Messiah; you guys crucified Him. Now, remember, the first preaching of the Gospel was a formidable task because they preached the cross. In Greek culture, it was disgusting and absurd. In Roman ears, it was sinister and spoke of sedition. In Israel's ears, God cursed a man if he hung on a cross. You would have thought they would have downplayed it, but they didn't.

The disciples had every reason not to mention it, but they gloried in the cross. You cannot become a Christian and you cannot experience the Holy Spirit unless you come believing in the cross. There is redemptive power in Christ crucified, unmatched anywhere else. Incidentally, when I stood up in front of that mob of kids, that's what I talked about. Whenever you talked about the cross in those wild days of our street ministry, there was a hush that would fall over the audience.

There is something about the power that God lends you to talk about the cross of His Son. And that's what Peter did. So at the end of the great day and the great sermon and the great Holy Spirit of God that was given, who formed the great though infant church, there was great excitement. It says that the people that were converted devoted themselves, set themselves aside. Devoted means something given to the Lord for sacrifice. To learn the apostles' doctrine, to be taught, to have fellowship, to break bread, and to pray.

That's what happened at the end of Chapter 2. They were endued, they were energized, they were enabled, they were encouraged. If you want to know if you have received the Holy Spirit, ask yourself: Has there been a great change? And am I wanting to be involved in the fellowship of believers? Because those two things will surely be true if the Holy Spirit lives in you.

But it wasn't only Joel's promise that had come true, it was Jesus' promise. Jesus had promised the Holy Spirit. He'd promised a great person. The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit isn't an "it" or an experience, a subject for conferences. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, co-equal with God. He is a person.

In John's Gospel 14 and 16, when Jesus is talking so much about the Holy Spirit, He talks about "He, the Spirit of Truth." He is the Spirit who hears. He brings glory to me. Jesus addressed the subject of the Holy Spirit by telling us He is a person. He is the one that you and I have to do with. God created and rested on the seventh day. Jesus came and redeemed and is now sat down at the Father's right hand. He sent forth the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is who you and I have to do with, and we can go all our Christian lives and never get hold of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Yet it's the Holy Spirit that drives the engine. It's as stupid to think you can be a Christian without the Holy Spirit as to have a car without an engine. Now, what experience have you had of the Holy Spirit? That's the question you need to ask.

You can't even be a Christian, of course, if you haven't received Him. You might not remember, you might have been brought up churched, but you will know if you're alive today by various fruits. As Jesus said, "By your fruits, ye shall know them." There will have been a great change, maybe a slow one but a great one, in your character, in your habits, in victory over sin if the Holy Spirit is within you.

There will be a great assurance. The Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I am a child of God. That's what the Scripture teaches. There will be a great desire to pray. You won't perhaps know what to pray for or how to pray for as you ought, but the Bible says that the Spirit Himself will pray in you. There'll be a great desire to propagate the Gospel, to go do it, to get out there and tell them what's happened.

Born to reproduce. Somebody wrote a book called that—great title. Born to reproduce, born again to reproduce the life of Christ in somebody else's life. John 15, Jesus says, "When the counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me. But you must also testify."

Jesus said that. "When the counselor comes," word for the Holy Spirit, name of the Holy Spirit, Comforter, Counselor, "when He comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who goes out from the Father, He will testify about me. He will approach people inside. You won't see it happening, but the Holy Spirit is doing that in answer to your prayers at the moment."

Who are you praying for? While you are sitting there, the Holy Spirit is internally presenting that person you're praying for, that doesn't accept or acknowledge Jesus, with the Gospel. He it is that will convict them of their sin, that they've come short of what they're supposed to be. They'll feel guilt for that, hopefully. They will allow that guilt to drive them for a solution, and hopefully, you'll be there to tell them what the solution is. What is the solution?

They feel guilt because they're guilty, if it is guilt about sin. The Holy Spirit has been convicting them of that. It's His job to convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, of what they should be, and of judgment to come. He's working. Aren't you glad? Those of us that have relatives and we say, "I don't see Him working," this is where faith comes in. He is in the world to do that work; that is His work. He does not speak of Himself; He speaks of Jesus. He is convincing people after convicting them of sin that Jesus is the answer to their need.

But you must also testify, says Jesus. I cannot just leave the Holy Spirit to do the work He has been sent into the world to do. I have my part too. But you must also testify. You know, we need to hang our hearts over that verse, each of us. But you also must testify, for you've been with me from the beginning, He says. He's saying this to the apostles. That's not just for them; they were to say it to other people, who were to say it to other people, right? That's how the Gospel is going to be propagated.

The Spirit's work is being done, but the Spirit's work needs to be done through me as well as the approach apart from human implementation. You also must, must, must, must, must, must testify. Who is it you must testify to? What is the Spirit of God saying to you just right now? Who does not acknowledge Jesus? Who is it? When is it? Where is it that I must testify, Lord? That should be a daily prayer. Who is it? When is it? Where is it?

He'll tell you. We must testify. But where do we begin? First of all, we begin in Jerusalem. What does that mean? Where you are. The hostile ground. That's where they were, and that was pretty hostile ground. Remember the mission fields between your own two feet. I remember coming to Christ and coming across this verse pretty soon because I was doing memorization then.

"You must be witnesses in Jerusalem," and I understood Jerusalem was where I was. That day I was to do a drama which was a pretty raunchy drama, actually. I was in drama, all the things that didn't take much brainpower I was into, and that was my thing. I had the lead part in this drama which was—we had a drama teacher that chose the most awful dramas, and this one had four-letter words. I mean, it was just dirty.

I had been really enjoying that stuff before I was converted, and then I get converted, I go to hospital, I get better, I come back, and here's this play looking at me. So I go to this rehearsal, and I stayed up the whole night before learning it again without the swear words. It didn't make any sense because they were the nouns and verbs and everything else in this play.

Anyway, I did it. Everybody was sitting there looking at me at this rehearsal, and the teacher said, "What are you doing?" I said, "Well, I'm just saying it without all the swear words." And she said, "Why?" There they were, the whole class, about 100 people, women. I had the chance, endued with the Spirit and energized, and I needed all of that—I needed a personal Pentecost right then—to say, "I can't say those words anymore."

"Why not?" I mean, they were all listening. This was the best acting opportunity I ever had. And so, stumblingly, you know, a couple of weeks old in Jesus, I tried to tell them. And the teacher said, "Well, Jill, it just doesn't make sense. You can't do it; somebody else will have to do it." So I gratefully said, "Well, somebody else can do it."

But I tell you, hostile ground, Jerusalem, where you are. Judea, home ground, the area around Jerusalem. That's where we've got to go. Start where you are, then go to your neighbors. What an opportunity we have to reach our neighbors for Christ. Samaria, heretical ground, where you don't want to go. "Well, they believe their way. I wouldn't intrude on their belief," you say. If they're lost and going to hell, wouldn't you intrude? What do you believe? Do you believe what we've been learning and being taught?

I don't believe the Christian Gospel because it makes me feel good. I believe it because I believe it's true. Samaria—that's heretical ground. And then the uttermost parts of the world. God will use us. You can go in your prayer, you can go with your money, you can go in your holidays, you can go in your retirement, you can go in your coupleness, you can go in your singleness. You can go. One-third of the world has yet to hear once the name of Jesus, and yet at Pentecost, He said, "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature."

Well, we started with that marvelous poem, and I'd like to finish with the end of it again. Because something happens to a man when he stands within inches of the Judean Lion. Something happens when he hears the roar, when he touches the golden mane. Something happens when he gets so close he can feel the Lion's breath.

Maybe we could all use a return visit. Maybe we'll all need to witness His majesty and sigh at His victory. Maybe we need to hear our own commission again. Will you tell them? Jesus challenged. Will you tell them that I came back and that I'm coming back again? We will, they nodded, and they did. Will you?

Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, I thank you personally that I have stood close to the Judean Lion. And I have heard the roar. And I have sensed the breath. And I believe. And Lord, I am so well aware that our world does not. And Lord, for the huge task to which you've assigned each one of us listening to me now, I pray.

I pray the power of Pentecost. You said that you would send the promise of the Father, the Holy Spirit, that we would be endued with power from on high, energized, enabled to speak words we never thought we could speak, to do things we never thought we could do. We're just ordinary people, Lord, but with an extraordinary God living inside of us in the person and power of the Holy Spirit.

Lord, for those who have never realized the potential within, let them loose. Set them free. Help them appropriate the dynamic, the dunamis of the Spirit within them. May we be alert to the incredible opportunities of inviting people, of telling people, of giving them literature and books and tapes, and just getting the message out one way or the other, Lord. Use us, as you delight, as you plan to do.

And Lord, we pray that our world may be different, may be changed. When we think of what you did with 12 men, with 120 people, and we look at how many people we have in this one fellowship here, we realize that there is something wrong, there is something lacking. And we need to go out and allow you to do what you did at Pentecost. Lord, may you continue the work you started to do in the Gospels and launched in Acts today. We ask it that your kingdom may come on earth. Your will may be done on earth as it is in heaven. For Christ's sake, Amen.