I. Consider the promise of the Pentecost. There was (i) the promise of a Divine Spirit by symbols which express some, at all events, of the characteristics and wonderfulness of His work. The "rushing of a mighty wind" spoke of a power which varies in its manifestations, from the gentlest breath that scarce moves the leaves on the summer trees to the wildest blast that casts down all which stands in its way. The twin symbol of the fiery tongues which parted and sat upon each of them speaks in like manner of the Divine influence, not as destructive, but full of quick, rejoicing energy and life, the power to transform and to purify. (ii) There is, further, in the fact of Pentecost the promise of a Divine Spirit which is to influence the moralside of humanity. (iii) The Pentecost carried in it the promise and prophecy of a Spirit granted to all the Church. "They were all filled with the Holy Ghost." (iv) The promise of the early history was that of a Spirit which should fill the whole nature of the men to whom He was granted; filling them in the measure of their receptivity, as the great sea does all the creeks and indentations along the shore.
II. Look at the apparent failure of the promise. "Is the Spirit of the Lord straitened?" Look at Christendom. Will anyone say that the religious condition of any body of professed believers at this moment corresponds to Pentecost? Is not the gap so wide that to fill it up seems almost impossible? (i) Does the ordinary tenour of our own religious life look as if we had that Divine Spirit in us which transforms everything into its own beauty? (ii) Do the relations of modern Christians and their churches to one another attest the presence of a unifying Spirit? (iii) Look at the comparative impotence of the Church in its conflict with the growing worldliness of the world. "If God be with us, why has all this come upon us?"
III. Think for a moment of the solution of the contradiction. It is our own fault and the result of evil in ourselves that may be remedied, that we have so little of the Divine gift. The same fulness of the Spirit which filled the believers on the day of Pentecost, is available for us all. "Ask, and ye shall receive," and be filled with the Holy Ghost, and with power.
A. Maclaren, Christ in the Heart,p. 305.
References: Micah 2:7. J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit,vol. x., p. 65.Micah 2:8. Spurgeon, My Sermon Notes: Ecclesiastes to Malachi,p. 339. Micah 2:10. Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 38; Christian World Pulpit,vol. xiii., p. 33.Micah 2:13. Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 237.