Terrific Pentecost

I have had a terrific Pentecost Sunday. I went to church an hour early and I opened the church gates. I was ready to meet with God and sat in my chair for about 20 minutes, meditating on His goodness while the multimedia crew busied themselves checking the sound system and church members began to fill in. With rumours of impending MCO (lockdown), one would have been forgiven to think some members might stay on home and join the service online. But for a third week in a row, we were jam packed, this time we admitted 107 adults plus about 10 children of 11-12 years old in their Sunday school classes. The ushers locked the church door at 9.30am and not a few had to be turned away. But as the music played and a song "As far is heaven from the earth, so great is your love to me" in Malay over the sound system, the Spirit suddenly fell on me and I immediately sensed God's presence and several times I was in the Spirit and saw visions of God.

My tears flowed freely before the service officially commenced and it was a first time that this happened since my visit to Lahad Datu for Christmas in 2005 in the Calvary Church. At that time, my spirit was caught up when the choir sang before the opening prayers during an evening service. Yesterday, I had meditated on our reading for Pentecostal Sunday from Acts 2:1-21 where Peter quoted Joel and said God's children will see visions and His sons and daughters will prophesy. So for those who are filled with the Holy Spirit it should be a normal occurrence for them to have visions according to the word of the Lord. But nowadays visions are rare like in the times of Eli and Samuel. At 9.50am, I preached a rather short message of 35 minutes interrupted twice by the sound of a phone ringing, but I plowed on and was rewarded with a better than average sermon, but not as great as the two previous weeks. Anyhow, I believed God was glorified and we took up an extra offering for the poor of the congregation according to Pentecost's commands in Deut 16:10-11 that Israelites should rejoice not just with their family members but with the Levites, foreigners, orphans and widows.