day no. 17,380: pentecost: what does this mean? (exhortation outline)

Christ Church Leavenworth

Pentecost

May 24, 2026

What Does This Mean?

THE TEXT

Our text this morning is Acts 2:1-12, these are the words of God:

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

INTRODUCTION

According to the church calendar, today is Pentecost. But what exactly is Pentecost and why is it today? The word “Pentecost” literally means fiftieth and it occurs fifty days after Easter. Before it was a Christian holiday, however, it was a Jewish holiday, as we observed in our reading. It was often referred to as the Feast of Weeks since it took place seven weeks after the sabbath of the Passover, in other words, the day after seven sets of seven. In the English-speaking world, Pentecost has also been called “Whitsun,” which is a shortened form of White Sunday, since on this day those who were to be baptized traditionally wore white garments to church. According to the Jewish calendar, Pentecost was a harvest festival where the first fruits of the fields were reaped and enjoyed. According to the Christian calendar, it is also a harvest festival, but the first fruits are not those which come up from the ground, but those which came down to us from Heaven. On this day, the Holy Spirit came down to dwell with us just as Jesus had promised and the church was born. For that reason, today is also sometimes recognized as the church’s birthday. Let’s consider our text.

SUMMARY OF THE TEXT

On the day of Pentecost, the disciples of Jesus were all together. They were in one place and they were of one accord. That peaceful scene, however, was violently interrupted by a loud noise. A nose so loud it filled the entire house and sounded like a blowing wind turned up to eleven. As they sat there, likely holding their ears, cloven tongues of fire appeared and rested on each one of them and they began to speak in other languages. Now, because it was a feast day, Jerusalem was filled with devout men from every nation under heaven who had gathered to celebrate, but the party at the apostles’ house was apparently such a rager that many of them came to investigate. What they discovered when they got there was a bunch of Galileans speaking in foreign languages. And if that were not shocking enough, what they were all talking about was the mighty works of God. As a result, they all looked at each other and asked the obvious question, “What does this mean?”

THE CURSE OF BABEL

In order to help answer that question, we need to go all the way back to the book of Genesis and the story of the tower of Babel found in chapter 11. After the flood, God told Noah and his sons what He had once told Adam, “Be fruitful and multiply on the earth.” Instead of spreading out, however, several of them decided to settle down. They decided to try to make a name for themselves instead of making a name for God. They did not want to look up to God for direction, they wanted other people to look up to them. Not surprisingly, God did not smile down upon this, but instead put an end to their attempted coup by confusing their language. 

C.S. Lewis, in That Hideous Strength, made use of the same tactic when he had Merlin invoke the curse of Babel on the bad guys at Belbury. Here is how he put it: “They that have despised the word of God, from them shall the word of man also be taken away.” We see this in our days as well; e.g. those who despise the Word of God cannot define what a woman is. Back to Babel, note that God did not tear down their tower, He broke down their ability to communicate. As a result, they voluntarily abandoned their group project and moved away in different directions. This got them closer to where they were supposed to be geographically even if it left far from where they were supposed to be spiritually.

THE CURSE REVERSED

Fast forward now to Pentecost. What happened there was not so much a reversal of Babel as it was a reversal of the curse of Babel. The languages remained, but the confusion was now gone. Pentecost did not reintroduce a common language, it introduced a way for people with different languages to understand each other. That way being the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. When God confused the tongues at Babel, the result was that men scattered, divided by their different languages. When God gave different languages at Pentecost, the result was that man gathered together to hear the faith once for all delivered to the saints.

Babel is the photo-negative of Pentecost. At Babel, men came together to defy God's command to fill the earth. In response, God confused their tongues in order to prevent them from working evil together any longer.  At Pentecost, men came together to hear God's command to come together in Christ. In response, they obeyed, and the church was born. In Christ our distinctions are no longer sources of division. Men and women can understand each other. Jews and Gentiles can reconcile. In Christ, the beauty of diversity destroys the curse of diversity.

APPLICATION

So, that is what Pentecost means, but what does it mean for us? It means diversity is not our strength, Christ is. It means that our particular way of doing things is not our strength, Christ is. In Him, diversity is a blessing, but outside of Him it is a curse. As Babel reminds us, unity among people is only as good as what unifies them, and diversity among people is only as bad as what divides them.

CALL TO CONFESSION

Well, since we often prefer the curse of individuality to the blessing of community, we are reminded of our need to regularly confess our sins, whether they be related to this or others. So, if you are able, please kneel with me and confess your sins, first privately and then corporately using the prayer found in your bulletin.

CORPORATE CONFESSION

Most holy and merciful Father, we acknowledge before You our sinful nature and our many offenses. We are prone to do evil and slow to do good. You alone know how often we have sinned in wandering from Your way, in wasting Your gifts, in forgetting Your love. Lord, we are ashamed and sorry for all the ways that we have displeased You. Father, teach us to hate our rebellious acts, cleanse us from our secret faults, and forgive our sins for the sake of Your Son. Help us to love You with all our heart and mind and strength. And give us the power of Your Holy Spirit so that we may walk in Your ways and serve You all of our days.

DECLARATION OF PARDON

Arise and hear the Good News! The assurance of pardon today comes from 1 John 1:8-9 “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” If Christ has paid for your sins, there is nothing left for you to pay. God would be unjust to charge you for something Jesus already paid for. But God is not unjust. He will not double bill anyone. And that is very Good News because that means in Christ your sins are forgiven… THANKS BE TO GOD!

Now, let us ascend to the presence of God in all worship and praise.

day no. 17,379: fighting with joy, not for it

"The joy of the Lord is our strength. We are not called simply to fight with the evil around us, but rather we are called to fight this evil with a song in our hearts. We do not fight for joy, but rather with our joy. If God has assigned to us the role of being dragon slayers, why should we be distressed to discover the existence of dragons? You were born for this hour. All of this surrounding mayhem is your duty station. You were put here on purpose. You were written into this role by the Author of the story, into this time, and His judgments are perfect. As I said earlier, it is a daunting task, but you were fitted for it."  — Douglas Wilson, Eliot and Lucia

We are not simply called to fight the good fight, we are called to enjoy it. We have received the dangerous duty of delight. We must not merely to march in the Lord's army, we are to sing marching songs as we advance. We are not fighting for joy, we are fighting with it. The one who is laughing is winning. The one has lost their temper has lost the argument. Let us, therefore, rise to the occasion by letting a song and laugh rise from our lungs. We were born for such a time as this. Let us not shrink back from this stage.

day no. 17,378: unendurable vices (and their remedies)

In Douglas Wilson's recent post titled, Christians, Gerrymandering, and the Legitimate Uses of Political Power, he referenced the following quotation:

"These present times, in which we can endure neither our vices nor their remedies." — Livy, Ab Urbe Condita Praefatio 9

One of the worst consequences of being caught in sin for a long time is that you get used to it and prefer the pains of staying in the chains to the pains of learning to walk again. Good muscles atrophy from lack of use and any attempt to use them again is painful. Like the lame man by the pool of Bethseda, you get used to where you are and are not particularly motivated to move. The difficulties of moving only then reinforce a desire to stay put.

Sin is not a long-term strategy and anything that can't go on forever, won't. And so we have reached the point where we can no longer sleep in the bed we have made. It is too uncomfortable. But we are also too weak and to tired to carry our old mattress out. We can no longer get rest from the things we used to and we do not have the energy or ability to do the work real rest requires.

We cannot continue to drink poison without dying, but we cannot stand the taste of the medicine. And so, we waste away... unless God, by His grace, should intervene.

day no. 17,377: pocket-sized perdition

“Each one of your teenagers today is walking around with Bourbon Street in his pocket, or in her purse. And in many cases, always downloaded. You are driving off to church, and your (inexplicably sullen) teenager is in the way back, AirPods in, preparing his heart for worship by listening to 'effin’ on the blim blam, n-word in the vocative plural!'" — Douglas Wilson, No Such Thing As Bad Words

You don't have to go to Mardi Gras anymore, it comes to you and you don't have to wait for that one week per year to cut lose, it's available online all year round. Such is the state of things. The lay of the land is licentiousness. Once upon a time, you had to have the courage to seek out wicked things. You had to look someone in the eyes and ask for the thing behind the counter. Now, it comes looking for you. It pops up as a window while you are online, it comes through as a text on your phone, it is a direct message from a stranger on an app. Everywhere we are assaulted by things we did not ask for. It is in the commercial you can't skip between videos you curated, it is the advertisement on the radio between the songs you wanted to hear, it is the billboard on the side of the road on the way you wanted to go. Never have the words, "Be on guard," been more applicable than they are today. Perdition is now pocket-sized. The world has not only gone to Hell in a handbasket, it has found a way to fit Hell into the palm of your hand.

1 Corinthians 16:13

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong.

Do not let your guard down. Sin never sleeps, so don't sleep on sin. Keep your head on a swivel, your mind on His law, your heart in faith, and your hands in obedience. Do not take your eyes off the eternal prize or give any attention to the booby prizes the world offers (let the reader understand).

Philippians 3:13-14

Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

Let the past rest in the empty tomb of Christ and lay the future at the foot of His throne where He sits at the right hand of the Father destroying all of His enemies who are chasing you or waiting in ambush. Even though Hell can now fit in the palm of your hand, it once strove through the palm of Jesus'. Hell was nailed to the Cross. Christ came down off of it, but the gates of Hell were cast away. The grave is empty and the threats of Hell are emptied.

day no. 17,376: politicks

“The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.” — G.K. Chesterton; Illustrated London News, April 19, 1924

Because progressives are always thinking in terms of solutions instead of trade-offs, they are always creating the next problem to be solved. They are also shocked to discover that new problems came up and even more shocked to discover that they were a direct result of the last solution they proposed. 

Because conservatives are always thinking in terms of trade-offs, they are always seeking to keep the problems they are comfortable with rather than adopt some new problem they have never dealt with before. They are shocked when the new problem is pushed through and even more shocked to discover that they are merely conserving the progressive mistakes of the past.

"Conservatism is a party which never conserves anything." — R.L. Dabney

Progression and conservatism are only as good as what they are progressing toward and what they are conserving respectively. Progressing in the Spirit of God is good and conserving the work of the Spirit in the past is good. But if you merely value tradition, you will find that your grandchildren will be conserving the values of those you are currently fighting because by then it will simply be the way it's always been done.

"Conservatism is merely the shadow that follows Radicalism as it moves forward towards perdition." — R.L. Dabney

Secular progressives wants to drive off the cliff at 80 mph, but secular conservatives fight back and argue that we should only be going 50 mph. No one is arguing about not driving off the cliff, however.

"The only practical purpose which conservatism now subserves in American politics is to give enough exercise to Radicalism to keep it 'in wind.' and to prevent its becoming pursy and lazy, from having nothing to whip." — R.L. Dabney

At this point, conservatives primarily help progressives raise donations. The fact that anyone still opposes the radical nonsense of the Left is enough to fill their coffers with campaign support. This truth is so apparent in our day that some left wing organizations have begun funding right wing radicalism in order to generate more support from the left wing. It turns out you get a good return on your investment. You get more money from libs if you give them nazis to fight. 

When it come to politics, both parties are politicks sucking the lifeblood from their donors. And if that wasn't bad enough, they also found a way for the ticks to transmit diseases. So, not only are you losing your lifeblood, but they're corrupting the blood they cannot get to.

day no. 17,375: the immoral high ground

“We live in a time when progressives can sport bumper stickers that will tout the ticket of Shagrat/Slubgob 2024, and still manage to look down on you and your kind as ethical retards.” — Douglas Wilson, No Such Thing As Bad Words

The demonic have always called evil "good" and good "evil." The degree to which something is demonic is the degree to which it embraces this standard. The troubling nature of our current dilemma is not that some are willing to call evil things "good," that much has always been true, what is most troubling is that many actually believe that evil is "good." As Pastor Wilson points out, someone could sport a bumper sticker promoting satanism and still believe they have the moral high ground in a conversation with a Christian. They do not just call Christianity "evil," they believe that Christianity is evil. They do not just call their demonic worship "good," they believe that the demonic is good. They have the immoral high ground which turns out to be the slough of despond.

“‘Have you ever noticed,’ said Dimble, ‘that the universe, and every bit of the universe is always hardening and narrowing and coming to a point?’ His wife waited as those wait who know by long experience the mental processes of the person who is talking to them. ‘I mean this,’ said Dimble in answer to the question she had not asked. ‘If you dip into any college, or school, or parish, or family – anything you like – at a given point in its history, you always find that there was a time before that point when there was more elbow room and contrasts weren’t quite so sharp; and that there’s going to be a time after that point when there is even less room for indecision and choices are even more momentous. Good is always getting better and bad is always getting worse: the possibilities of even apparent neutrality are always diminishing. The whole thing is sorting itself out all the time, coming to a point, getting sharper and harder.’” — C.S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength

As a result of our current condition, there is less hypocrisy, but there is more blatant heresy. No one has to pretend to be orthodox in an environment that throws shade at orthodoxy. The dark is getting darker and more comfortable being dark in broad daylight. The light then must get brighter and more comfortable with making other people squint.

day no. 17,374: two times two (knox and eulalie turn two)

Happy Birthday, wonder twins!

Today is two times two day. What a blessing!

Knox, you are the butteriest boy. Of all the buster browns, you're the busty browniest. You are a quiet little lad. You keep to yourself. You are calm until you aren't. When you get frustrated you melt into a puddle. You are a tiny mama's boy. There are some problems no one else can solve. Sometimes you just need your mom and she is the only one who will do. You have a great laugh. You dig deep when you find something really funny. You like to shake hands unless you don't know or recognize the person and then you don't even want them looking at you. You retreat somewhere deep inside and hope that they stop looking at you. 

Eulalie, you are the beaniest babe. Of all the beanie babies, you are the beanie babiest. You are a loud little lady. You are outgoing and energetic. You run everywhere. When you get frustrated you get loud. Or should I say, louder. You are a daddy's girl. There are some problems no one else can solve. Sometimes you just need your daddy. You like to smile with your teeth. You are a baby shark. You are smart and you like to babble. You like your milk cup full. If you take a drink, you want it filled up again before you take another. You like being the center of attention and seek out the spotlight.

You two are so much fun. You are so distinct and the contrast is only highlighted by the fact that you share a birthday. Of all people who you'd think would be the same, it would be twins, but in your case, you are very different. One is a boy, the other is a girl. One is pudgy, the other is wiry. One is quiet, the other is loud. One doesn't like attention, the other does. One ambles along, the other runs. One sometimes falls back from going too slowly, the other sometimes falls forward from going too quickly. You complement each other very well. 

I love you babies and I am so excited to watch you both grow up and become the grown up versions of what God has so clearly already designed you to be respectively.

Happy Birthday, da babies.

Love,

Dad