Devotion 232 – Pentecost Eve

Opening Prayer

Lord, grant us grace to believe and hear Your promises. Amen.

Text: Joel 2:28–32

“And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions; And also on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days. And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, as the Lord has said, among the remnant whom the Lord calls.”

Devotion

Just as the Lord fulfilled these promises that first Pentecost after His Ascension, so He still does when we ask Him in fervent prayer. And it is completely necessary that He should. What help to us are Jesus’ birth, life, suffering, and death; what help to us are His victory, His resurrection, ascension, and sitting at the right hand of the Father; what help to us are our knowledge and worship of God and Baptism and Communion, if the Holy Spirit does not come into our heart and create living faith there? For Christianity is not knowledge or teaching, not deeds and works, not going to church or prayer services, but heartfelt communion with the Lord, and that only the Holy Spirit can bring about. What God has done for us is all in vain, yes, becomes our judgment, if we do not obey the Spirit. God’s eternal plan of love, giving His only-begotten Son into death, Christ’s cross and blood, the most precious thing in heaven and on earth-things that should become your eternal salvation must become pure wrath upon you if you do not receive the Holy Spirit.

The Three Persons in God cannot be separated; you cannot have One without the Others. You cannot have the Father without the Son, nor the Son without the Spirit. The Three are One, and the Trinity is God of our salvation. Therefore those who think that little children are saved by Christ without the gracious working of the Holy Spirit are completely mad. No, the Holy Spirit must work in young and old and lead us to Jesus. Should some who are saved have only the Father and the Son as their saving God, and others both the Father and the Son and the Spirit? What erroneous thinking! No, sons and daughters, old and young, menservants and maidservants, Jews and Gentiles, adults and infants need the Holy Spirit, and He will come to all, if only we receive Him. He was gloriously poured out on the Apostles that Pentecost, and He shall be poured out richly in the last days. While we wait for that, we pray fervently for enough of His light and gifts that we also may believe with living comfort, love with heartfelt love, and attain the eternal salvation of our soul. Let this Pentecost Feast be richly blessed in our church and over all the world! Pray for it, Christians, with constant, heartfelt, believing prayer. “I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh,” says the Lord. Do not let Him go, before He does it! Should we now pass through the Feast of Pentecost again with its fire from God without being warmed and set on fire? Dead bodies rot and stink in the sun and rain. Living plants flourish in them and ripen.

Closing Prayer

We pray You fervently, Lord, grant us Your Holy Spirit and work faith, hope, and love in our soul. Bless this Feast of Pentecost for Your Church. Make us living witnesses of victory over sin and death and salvation in Jesus’ name, so that many may be converted and live. Amen.

Hymn

O Holy Ghost, Thou gift divine,
And giver of all blessing,
Thou, with the Father and the Son,
True Godhead art possessing,
And from them both art shed abroad,
Eternal Spirit, Lord and God,
In Thee all Christians glory.

O Spirit blest, we Thee entreat:
O grant us that we ever,
With heart and soul, as it is meet
May serve our Lord and Savior
And Him confess till our last breath,
As Lord of life and Lord of death
And give Him praise and honor.

Ringwaldt: L 431:1-2 ELH 26:1-2 tr. O. H. Smeby;
tune: Herr, wie du willst