“The Hope Of Pentecost"

Job 14:19

19) The waters wear the stones: thou washest away the things which grow out of the dust of the earth; and thou destroyest the hope of man.

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s a collective group, we (the people of God) must we willing to accept that we have been given the responsibility of being the “last chance” for a dying world. Perhaps never before in the history of mankind has there been such an emphasis upon winning souls into the kingdom of God. The “salvation experience” (baptism in Jesus’ mane and the infilling of the Holy Ghost) is the only hope that Man has to be happy, contented, successful—and saved.

Someone at some point was concerned enough about God and us to believe it necessary to live a life wholly dedicated to Him. It seem as if the people of God used to accept that living an exemplary life is important to wining Man to Him. Somewhere, we have lost our vision of commitment and become convinced that whatever we choose to give, God will accept.

It has become abundantly clear that we have no more time to “debate” our faith and requirements and to question the authority put over us. If we are saved, we are called. From the foundation of the World, God conceived a people who are to be holy and blameless before Him, operating in His love. We are that people. What we have taken “our” time and “our” initiative to do must be done, now. The urgency of God’s call is now and the time for moving forward is at hand.

A people without unity is a failed people. A people with separate goals and identities is a people without unity. At no point in the preparation of His people has God ever expected or accepted failure. The common goal that we must share is that of the selfless glorification of God. This emphasis in the individual life leads to the “saving” of individual mankind.

In God’s great plan, there has never been room for the non-conformist. His ways are swift and sure and His requirements unyielding and unbending. As you profess to be a child of God, so must your life profess the same, for “…if God is not glorified in your life, there is no purpose to your life.”

Our self-interest and preoccupation is doing exactly as the enemy hopes it will—it is destroying “the hope of man.” Pitiful creatures that we are, we can be salvaged only through the glorious news of the gospel of Christ and that news is hidden by most of us as we exist from day-to-day, possessing the very Spirit of Life, yet living so as to hoard Him to ourselves. Our selfishness is effectively dooming the rest of the world to a lonely, needless death.

Let it not be said of “the hope of Pentecost” that “…thou destroyest the hope of man.”