Pentecost Restored What Paradise Lost
The sermon emphasizes the importance of recognizing our spiritual ignorance and cultivating humble dependence on God, which is made possible through the Holy Spirit's indwelling.
Andrew Murray emphasizes the necessity of recognizing our spiritual ignorance and the impotence of mere intellectual knowledge in our relationship with God. He encourages believers to humbly depend on the Holy Spirit, understanding that true communion with God requires a surrender of our own wisdom and righteousness. As one becomes aware of the Spirit's indwelling, there is a profound realization of dependence on the Father, mirroring the example of Jesus. Murray asserts that Pentecost restored the divine presence in believers, enabling them to yield to God's will and receive the gifts He freely offers. Ultimately, the sermon calls for a deeper reverence and trust in the transformative power of the Holy Spirit.
Text
He begins to see what he needs. First of all to have a deeper sense of his own spiritual ignorance, of the utter impotence and the great danger of all the mere mind-knowledge with its beautiful images and impressions. Then to bow in great stillness of soul before God, renouncing his own wisdom as utterly as his own righteousness, and to ask that the consciousness of the divine indwelling of the Spirit may be given by the Father himself. He learns that in every act of prayer or communion with God's Word, in every desire or resolve in connection with divine things, his first duty is to wait in humble dependence upon God, to have the activity of nature restrained and mortified, and the heart trained into the habit of faith that the Spirit will teach and work.
As he gradually realizes that the Holy Spirit is indeed within him, he bows with a deeper reverence and fear, but also with a fuller dependence and assurance before the Father who gives the Spirit. And he learns what at first he did not understand, that so far from the Spirit being a power in us that we can use or call up, his presence makes us more absolutely and necessarily dependent on the Father. Just as our Lord, who had received the Spirit without measure, did not dare to speak a word or do a work without the Father giving it him each moment, so the true faith of the Spirit's indwelling bends us in the most absolute weakness to the footstool of God's throne.
When God made man, it was that he might live in man, imparting by his personal presence all the goodness he was capable of, and working himself in his will and affections what man was to do and to be. Pentecost restored what Paradise lost. The believer yields himself trustfully to what God would have him be, because he now knows that the Spirit, who knows the things of God, reveals and works in him the things that are freely given us of God.
(Excerpted from The Coming Revival, by Andrew Murray , pg. 39)
Sermon Outline
- The Need for Spiritual Ignorance
- The Importance of Humble Dependence
- The True Nature of the Holy Spirit's Indwelling
- The Restoration of Paradise through Pentecost
- God's original intention for man was to live in him
- Pentecost restored this original intention
Key Quotes
“When God made man, it was that he might live in man, imparting by his personal presence all the goodness he was capable of, and working himself in his will and affections what man was to do and to be.” — Andrew Murray
“Pentecost restored what Paradise lost.” — Andrew Murray
“The true faith of the Spirit's indwelling bends us in the most absolute weakness to the footstool of God's throne.” — Andrew Murray
Application Points
- Recognize your own spiritual ignorance and limitations, and seek God's guidance and power.
- Cultivate humble dependence on God by waiting on Him in prayer and communion, and restricting natural activity.
- Trust in the Holy Spirit's indwelling to reveal and work in you the things that are freely given us of God.