Pure, clean, abundant flowing water is used throughout scripture to demonstrate great and awesome blessings from God, symbolized his immense goodness and kindness upon the thirsty, dust-blown fields of man’s labor. In like manner, God describes His Holy Spirit as a life-giving substance, poured out like showers down upon the earth to accomplish His good pleasure. This life-giving water has touched all of us, or we would not be in this room. Often times we hear sermons where the spiritual lessons are better understood when compared to physical examples. Take the lesson of understanding how hard it is to find sin in our lives when looked through the example of finding hidden leaven in our homes. On Pentecost, we understand that God’s people make up the first fruits of His Kingdom based the physical example of the first harvest that precedes the greater harvest later. But rather than focus on the early harvest that this day pictures, I would like to spend the bulk of this message on the growth process that needs to precede the return of our soon coming King, Jesus Christ. Now, this growth process involves the need of the spiritual rain that comes in the form of the Holy Spirit that allows us to be ready for the Royal Reign of God’s Kingdom.

The title of the Sermon today is Pray for the RAIN of God’s Spirit and the Reign of His Kingdom Today we will be talking of Rain and Reign because they are linked. Now I don’t often give point sermon’s because month’s later people rarely remember all the points of a sermon and besides, I have on more than one occasion left a point out of a sermon only to have someone ask me why I left out point 3 of my seven-point message. But today I am going to give you some points but to make sure I don’t leave any out I will only give you two. Let’s start by turning over to John 7. John 7:37-38 37 On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." Now Jesus spoke about this living water on the Last Great Day of the Feast of Tabernacles of the day when it would be a reality. But after his death, the world went back to the way it was. That is, until this day that we are meeting in now. Let’s turn over to Acts 2 and read about these miraculous events.

Acts 2:1-8 NKJ When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. 2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. 5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. 6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 "And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born? So, first of all, there was this miracle that allowed everyone to hear the disciples in their native languages. Up to this point, the people we mere spectators but afterward, with the coming of the spirit, they became active participants in the body of Christ.

Moving down to verse 12 Acts 2:12-21 12 So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "Whatever could this mean?" 13 Others mocking said, "They are full of new wine." 14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and heed my words. 15 "For these are not drunk, as you suppose since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 "But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, That I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your young men shall see visions, Your old men shall dream dreams. 18 And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; And they shall prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in heaven above And signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. 20 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. 21 And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved.' So the Holy Spirit was poured out upon all those that would join the church. Poured out like water to help them grow just as plants need water for their daily needs. People of that day understood the need for pure water to sustain life and to grow.

People could draw water from a well to survive but to farm with, they were dependent on rain to supply all of the water needed to grow their crops. Nowadays, Farmers in developed nations can get all the water they need with pumps hooked up to irrigation systems. But in many countries, rain is their only hope of having a crop and they pray for rain. In countries where drought ravishes the country, they beg God for rain. For them rain is life and without it, only famine and death. In biblical times, a drought would have been disastrous. Turn over to Deut. 11 and we will read about the relationship between rain in due season and obedience to God. Deuteronomy 11:13-19 13 ' And it shall be that if you earnestly obey My commandments which I command you today, to love the LORD your God and serve Him with all your heart and with all your soul, 14 'then I will give you the rain for your land in its season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain, your new wine, and your oil. 15 'And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock, that you may eat and be filled.' 16 "Take heed to yourselves, lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them, 17 "lest the LORD's anger be aroused against you, and He shut up the heavens so that there be no rain, and the land yield no produce, and you perish quickly from the good land which the LORD is giving you. 18 " Therefore you shall lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. 19 "You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.

Now, some might ask, is this for us or only for those of the Old Testament? Well, we know that New Covenant is built upon the foundation of the Old covenant just as the New Testament understanding of the Holy Days are based on the Old Testament meaning. For instance, Christ became the Lamb of the New Covenant that was slain for the sins of the people to replace the lamb that ancient Israel would slaughter each year at Passover. Likewise, we can learn much about the New Testament understanding of Pentecost by looking at the Old Testament understanding of this Holy Day. An example of this in regards to being first fruits, turn over to the New Testament to James 1:17-18. James 1:17-18 17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. 18 Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruits of His creatures. The new Jerusalem Bible puts verse 18 this way. NJB James 1:18 By his own choice he gave birth to us by the message of the truth so that we should be a sort of first-fruits of all his creation. As firstfruits we now have a new and living life because of the great miracle of the Spirit He has given us!!

So the first of two points I will give today is: 1. We need to pray for the Holy Spirit to rain down us like the rains that feed the fields and cause them to grow. Often times we look back at the Old Testament for lessons but it is easy to look down at those that were really off the mark like those of Israel and Judah at the time right before their fall. One of the sins of Ancient Judah, involves the rejection of God, especially in times of great peril. Turn over to Jeremiah 2. Now, remember the time of Jeremiah. Describe King Josiah and the short period of reform that quickly slipped back to where they were and then worse after the king’s death. Jeremiah 2:13-14 13 "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, And hewn themselves cisterns -- broken cisterns that can hold no water. 14 " Is Israel a servant? Is he a homeborn slave? Why is he plundered? They worshiped the Queen of Heaven, The lamented the Death of Tamuz, the used Temple prostitutes that they would visit in these High alters that would bring their acts as close to God as possible.

All the while, their enemies were closing in on them.  Have you ever turned your back on God when you need him most?  He calls himself a fountain of living water and we refuse to drink.  This is why we need to pray for the Holy Spirit to rain down on us. Now in looking at producing fruit we often think of ourselves as a tree and the growth in our lives is the fruit on that tree. We can see this comparison in the Parable of the Fig tree in Luke 13. Luke 13:6-9 6 He also spoke this parable: "A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. 7 "Then he said to the keeper of his vineyard, 'Look, for three years I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down; why does it use up the ground?' 8 "But he answered and said to him, 'Sir, let it alone this year also until I dig around it and fertilize it. 9 'And if it bears fruit, well. But if not, after that you can cut it down.' " The lesson here is that God gives us time and the wherewithal to grow and produce fruit. But if we continue to stagnant and not produce, there is a limit in which God will wait for us. We need to grow. Now I would like to make another comparison with producing fruit that doesn’t involve us a tree but rather us as a garden that needs to produce a crop. I have been working at putting a garden in this year.

Last year we let the ground recover after a number of years in the same spot and we noticed the yields dwindling. After marking out the garden I set about clearing the weeds and grass t had started to grow in the garden. I spent about four hours at this, first pulling dandelions and other pests from the garden. There were a lot of them and it seemed overwhelming at first but the actual work to remove them was rather simple. A pitchfork would not only loosen the soil but expose the whole root to discard. After an hour of this I had the bulk of the garden cleared. I then set out to cut the borders and remove the grass that started to grow into the garden. At one point I decided to move this one border back a few feet to enlarge the garden. I was surprised that when I pulled back the grass I found one of the row stakes used to mark a vegetable row about two feet from the grass line. In just one year I was able to determine about one to two feet of the previous garden all the way around was lawn. Now the weeds are like the sin that we have to overcome and remove from our lives. The grass, on the other hand, are not evil in itself. Grass can be wonderful in the right setting, like your lawn. The Garden looks most beautiful when it borders are surrounded by grass to accent the crops that are growing. Grass, therefore, is like the things that fill the bulk of our lives like work, School, hobbies and other entertainment.

Like my property, grass fills a largest part of the developed property. But if a garden is to grow, then it needs to be set apart from the grass that would overtake it if you let it and it needs to be protected from the weeds that will steal the nutrients and water from the soil. On Unleavened Bread, we focus on the Sin that, like the weeds, infect our lives and rob us of the connection with God we need to grow. But we also need to think about the rest of our lives, that on the surface is not bad but could, like our lawns, take over that which we set apart and hope to bring forth fruit. Another lesson from our garden example is that God calls us from the world. We are common, we are full of weeds. We desperately need God’s Spirit in our lives if we stand any chance to produce Godly Fruit. As we grow we remove the weeds and grass and make room for more growth. We need to Pray, therefore, for the Holy Spirit to rain down into our lives so that we have the nutrition we need to grow. If you do not water a garden how long does it live? Now some things, like shrubs and grass for instance, will go dormant with very little water and turn brown but not die.

We too can hang on in the faith without growth for a time as well. Very little nutrients of the Holy Spirit in our lives to keep us alive, but like the fig tree, not produce fruit. But God is merciful to give us time to come to our senses and return to him like He wanted Israel to return to him. God was married to ancient Israel and we await a wedding between Christ and the church because God Loves us and wants us to grow. But like so many parables Jesus gave in the Gospels, there is a limit to how long He will give us to grow. Luke 11:13 13 "If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!" Pentecost is all about growth through the Holy Spirit given to us daily because God loves us and because we ask for it. Ps. 65: Speaks of a future time of unbelievable blessings and growth of the fields. A Hymn of the Harvest.

Psalm 65:2 2 O You who hear prayer, To You all flesh will come. Psalm 65:4-6 4 Blessed is the man You choose And cause to approach You, That he may dwell in Your courts. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of Your house, Of Your holy temple. 5 By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation, You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth, And of the far-off seas; 6 Who established the mountains by His strength, Being clothed with power; Vs. 4 reminds us that we are – : chosen by God’s will  we are not here by accident! MOVING DOWN TO VERSE 9 You visit the earth and water it, You greatly enrich it; The river of God is full of water; You provide their grain, For so You have prepared it. 10 You water its ridges abundantly, You settle its furrows; You make it soft with showers, You bless its growth. Vs. 9 reassures us that – “…the river of God is full of water…” Like a river full of water that is always dependable as a source, we can ALWAYS count on God Review 1. So we need to pray for the Holy Spirit to rain down us like the rains that feed the fields and cause them to grow.

So Pentecost pictures the Holy Spirit binding all of God’s people to be one as it tells us in: 1 Corinthians 12:13-14 13 For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body -- whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free -- and have all been made to drink into one Spirit. 14 For in fact, the body is not one member but many. But Pentecost also pictures God’s people as an early harvest of a much, much bigger harvest yet to come. So that brings us to my second point. And since He has and is now gathering in the very first of His harvest, God’s goodness and faithfulness to us as His firstfruits will also likewise be extended to the rest of his grain, still in the growing stages and not yet ready for harvest. But in a time ahead – the day and hour we cannot know for certain – God, like the gentle rains falling down from the clouds will rain down his Spirit on ALL peoples. So my second and last point I will give today is: 2. We need to pray for the day of the reign of God’s Spirit – His Sovereign Power – that will govern those of the great harvest yet to come. In the model prayer, we are admonished to pray “Thy Kingdom Come”. We can’t forget that this is not just for us. God so loved the “World” that he gave His only begotten Son.

Let’s now take a moment to look at a few of these amazing prophecies… Joel 2:28 Tells us: Joel 2:28 “And it shall come to pass afterward that I will our out My Spirit on all flesh…” Isaiah 35:1-2 NKJ The wilderness and the wasteland shall be glad for them, And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose; 2 It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice, Even with joy and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, The excellence of Carmel and Sharon. They shall see the glory of the LORD, The excellency of our God. This is the rain of God’s spirit that we are to pray for upon the great uncultivated masses of humanity. And as an outward manifestation of the Love of God in us, we need to yearn for that day. We need to strive for the same type of love AND compassion Jesus Christ demonstrated in Matthew 9:35-38. Matthew 9:35-38 35 Then Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. 36 But when He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. 37 Then He said to His disciples, "The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. 38 "Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest."

Can we pray for that day with the same expectation that Jesus Had when He spoke these words? Now, it is easy in principle to pray for all of mankind to be brought to repentance and inclusion in the family of God. But where the rubber meets the road is in our daily life. When we see others that seem to despise what is good. When we see people that are so motivated with self and we see others suffer. But Jesus gave us the example when they were killing Him he prayed that God forgive them because He understood that despite all the evil they were doing killing their very creator, He knew they did not understand, they were blinded by the god of this world. Who, in our lives have done worse than kill God? If He can forgive, we need to pray earnestly for these people to be forgiven and brought into the family of God. 1 Peter 1:6-7 6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, 7 that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, Review Point #2.

We need to pray for the day of the reign of God’s Spirit – His Sovereign Power – that will govern those of the great harvest yet to come. And how will God answer those prayers? Psalm 65:5 5 By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation, You who are the confide And what will God answer? OUR Prayers!! READ VS. 2-3 Psalm 65:2-5 NKJ 2 O You who hear prayer, To You all flesh will come. 3 Iniquities prevail against me; As for our transgressions, You will provide atonement for them. CONCLUSION: Brethren, God Chose Us by His own free will to be the firstfruits of His creation. We need to grow and pray for the rain of the Holy Spirit we need to become ready for the Harvest. We also need to be about our Father’s business, praying for the reign of God’s sovereign Spirit upon this whole world to bring many sons and daughters to salvation.