Pentecost is necessary to put things into another realm, where the "I" is utterly out and the Lord is utterly in. Pentecost is the climax to this. This was all accompanied by and headed up to a complete breakdown and personal failure on the part of the disciples, they failed Him all along the line; see them with the Syrophoenician woman, distraught with trouble, crying unto them, "Have mercy on me!" and they "besought him saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us."
Again, "Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? until seven times?" "Lo, we have left all, and followed thee; what then shall we have?" Bargaining to get more than they gave up! and caring not for the others, only let us be first; ambition for a place of prominence; this is not the spirit of Him who emptied Himself, and humbled Himself unto the death of the Cross!
Now Pentecost come to rule them out utterly; it is no longer themselves but HIM; now they can follow to the death, now they can forgive, the personal has gone, no longer are their interests the predominant thing even in the things of God; but solely and utterly HIS GLORY at any cost.
Pentecost demands that ground, speaks of that ground - we are finished! There is no place for mere soul-force here; soul-force in the things of God is a denial of the Holy Spirit; He is the "Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:2).
It is no longer our efforts, our achievements, we are out of it, and it is henceforth, The LORD did it! That is Pentecost.
The Lord is seeking to get an instrument, by and through which to present the Lord Jesus to the nations as "PRINCE and SAVIOUR." (Acts 5:31). And there must first be a realization of the absolute sovereignty of the Lord Jesus in the life before there can be such a presenting of Him to the nations.
Contradiction in life brings weakness in testimony, and there can be no ruling in prayer through being in touch with the Throne. Where there is any contradiction, authority in prayer is paralyzed. All this is preparation and training to gain an instrument; an instrument for the enthroned Lord, to meet His need and to establish His sovereignty in the earth.
The Second Part of the Training - The Forty Days After the Resurrection
This is another phase of their training; note the feature of this. It was an establishing in their experience of what He said He was - Resurrection in PERSON.
In the days of His flesh, He had claimed power over His life, "no one taketh it away from me ... I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment received I from my Father" (John 10:18), and for forty days He was establishing in their experience what He said He was, and all He had claimed to be. It would have been a catastrophe without those forty days, they would have lost the reality of the living presence of the Lord.
It was also the establishment to them of all He had promised in relation to His resurrection; "I will never leave you." "I am with you always - all the days." "Because I live ye shall live also." He had made many promises on the ground of resurrection, and came back and established them all; and theirs was a faith in a risen, living and present Lord, and not only in a historic Jesus.
Next, He established the fact that he is Lord of men; and we see the inclusiveness of His claim. All forces that could be used of men were brought in by them to put Him out of existence; but He came back! Man cannot get rid of the Lord Jesus. He is Sovereign of men.
~T. Austin-Sparks~
(continued with # 4)
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