The Day of The Pentecost Global Day of Harvest of Souls

The Day of The Pentecost

 Global Day of Harvest of Souls

1. It is nearly 2000 years since the church (ekklesia) was born on the Day of the Pentecost. 

Her birth marks included:

a. Ten days of dedicated prayer.

b. Anointed preaching in at least 16 diverse languages

c. Apostolic teaching with a call to repentance and the promise of anointing for our families and others.

d. Baptism of 3,000 souls

e. Their flocking, maturing, rapid growth, multiplication and scattering through a house-church movement.

2. The seeker-driven, New Testament ekklesia kept up the process of making disciples through baptizing, flocking, equipping and mentoring multi-ethnic, multi-generational believers. Multitudes were added “every day” such that the ekklesia grew in faith and in numbers daily.) These are the “greater works of the Holy Spirit” that Yeshua promised. (John 14:12-17; Acts 2:46-47; 16:5)

3. Yahweh said to Adam, “Be fruitful and multiply, subdue the earth and have dominion over it” (Gen. 1:28). In complete rebellion to Yahweh’s command, Nimrod built the tower of Babel so that they might not be scattered abroad. Many suffer from “Nimrod syndrome” and build their own towers that keep church members in bondage.

4. The events at Pentecost changed everything. Yahweh poured out His spirit on all flesh, on men, women, Jews, Gentiles, Parthians, Medes, those from Mesopotamia, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, from every tongue, tribe and nation under heaven. They broke bread from house to house with one accord with no gender, class, social or racial asymmetry.

5. Thousands of new believers went to the ends of the earth, preaching the gospel, making disciples and planting churches. Mary, Lydia, Pricilla, Phoebe, Junia, Nympha and other women helped fuel the explosive growth of the gospel. Since Jewish orthodoxy did not allow priests to look at or touch women, women baptized each other. (Acts 1:14; 2:5-11, Matt. 5:28)

6. The American “Pentecostal” revival of 1906 was started by an African American woman named Neely Terry, in a church led by a woman pastor named Julia Hutchins. Later, it shifted to Ruth Asberry’s house until it collapsed and shifted to Azusa Street. Its leader, William Seyamour, spoke in tongues for the first time in Ruth’s house church. After his death, his wife, Jenny, became the pastor of the Azusa Street church. Men, women, Blacks, Whites, Hispanics, Chinese, rich and poor freely worshipped as one Body. There were no choirs, musical instruments, sermons or collection boxes. Hundreds came every day.

    A core group of eighteen African American women led the movement. It may now be amongst the biggest, fastest growing churches in the worldwide Pentecostal and Charismatic movement of some 500 millions. Women’s empowerment remains a key to rapid acceleration of saturation church planting movements.

7. The Father’s will is that none should perish but all come to know the truth and be saved. Sadly, millions of Christians are stuck in the wilderness of Prayer cells, Bible study classes, endless meetings and fruitless church programs. What use are all these activities, if they do not move to the next level and convert the harvest into lasting fruit? The Father has promised land and people to each believer to subdue and rule over. We believers need to repent and replicate the Pentecost model by converting unfruitful Christians into champion disciple makers and baptizers. Only then can the four billion unwashed of the planet be saved from everlasting Hell. (John 15:16; 2 Pet. 3:9; 1 Tim. 2:4; Psa. 2:8)

8. Yeshua was accused of baptizing more people than John the Baptist. Peter opened his account with 3,000 baptisms. Yahweh baptized 600,000 families in the Red Sea, knowing that they would backslide and be destroyed in the wilderness. Israel was baptized on the basis of faith in the great works of Yahweh, not because of listening to great sermons of Moses and Aaron. (Exo. 14:31; Exo. 12:37; John 4:1; 1 Cor. 10:1-5)

9. To delay baptism is unbiblical, for everyone in the New Testament was baptized on the day of their accepting the Lordship of Yeshua. Yeshua, Peter and Paul, relegated to their juniors the performing of baptisms. In the NT, no believer was ever baptized by a priest in a baptistery. Yeshua was baptized in a river, the Ethiopian treasurer in a pond, and the Philippian jailor in the prison tank. (Mark 16:16; 1 Cor. 1:14-17)

10. Many Diaspora merchants and craftsmen who were present on the Day of Pentecost went back and evangelized a great part of the East, travelling as far as Persia (Iran), India and China via the Silk Road. Arbela and Edessa in northern Mesopotamia, Urfa in Turkey, Baghdad in Iraq and Cananore in India were all trading cities that provided a strategic springboard for the spread of Christianity. By 225 AD, there were twenty bishoprics throughout the lands of the Magi (wise men from the east). The Western Jewish Persia (Iraq) converted to Christ until Khadija, a merchant woman, married Mohammed, the founder of Islam, in the 7th century AD and changed the religious and political landscape. Acts 2:5-11

11. The Orthodox Syrian church insisted on using Syriac, a Sematic language, rather than using local languages. Because of its orthodoxy, ritualism, intolerance and ruthless exploitation, Islamic Sharia Law came as a relief, after the sons of Ishmael (Muslims) then overran the Bible lands, including Jerusalem in 638 AD, decimating the followers of Isa Bin Maryam (Christians) for a millennium. (Hab. 1:5-11)

12. Praise Yahweh that the Bible lands of Abraham, Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah, Joseph, covering Iran, Iraq, Mongolia, Turkey, Afghanistan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Bangladesh and many others, are once again on the boil as myriads of children of Ishmael, the son of Hagar, are now seeing dreams and visions and becoming followers of Isa al Masih. It is time to bless the other sons and daughters of Abraham descended through his wife, Katura, and his concubines whom he sent eastward to India, China and beyond. (Gen 25:1-6)

13. India presently gives a Bath of Purification to 5,000 every day and must increase that to 100,000, whilst the rest of the world needs to “diptize” a million every day instead of its current 180,000 — in order to catch up with the birth rate and the backlog.

14. Pentecost (fifty days follow Passover) is the name given by the Christians to the festival that the Jews called Weeks (shavuot) or, more appropriately, the “Feast of the harvest” (Hag ha-Katsir) based on Exodus 23:16. “You shall keep the Feast of Harvest, of the firstfruits of your labor, of what you sow in the field. You shall keep the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in from the field the fruit of your labor.” Thousands gathered in Jerusalem from all over the world, bringing animals, grains, oil, wine and fruits to offer in sacrifice on the day of the Pentecost.

15. Jews believe that Yahweh, whom they now call The Name (ha-Shem), gave the Law (Torah) on the day of Pentecost on Mount Sinai. The Book of Ruth is studied all night as her life was related to the gleaning the harvest.

16. Yeshua had promised that he would not leave us alone but would send us a Helper. On the day of Pentecost, Yeshua poured out his Spirit on all flesh and changed Pentecost into a day of reaping an harvest of souls. After being anointed with the Holy Spirit, His disciples did not stay inside the building praying, shouting Hallelujah and speaking in tongues; rather they went out to lost souls in the city, brought them to repentance and baptized by tens of thousands. (John 14:16; Joel 2:28)

17. They shared the gospel in their heart language, brought others to repentance and baptized them in nearby pools, all on the same day. Yeshua gave the Holy Spirit to the ekklesia to “reap and gather a rich harvest of souls.” Sadly many churches continue in the old dispensation by selfishly gathering an harvest of money.

18. Yeshua did not ask us to go get baptized to decorate the pews. Rather, He commanded us to go make disciples and baptize. “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations and baptize them in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit; teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.” (Matt. 28:18-19)

19. Every seeker-driven church and, indeed, every believer should celebrate the Day of Pentecost as the Global Day of Harvest of Souls, making and baptizing thousands of new disciples.

20. Pentecost is a special harvest day when tens of thousands of others like Ruth, a despised Moabite Gentile, should be saying to us, “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” (Ruth 1:16)      

  

21. God told the new generation, “You have stayed long enough in this mountain. Break camp and advance. See, I have given you this land. Go in and possess it.” The Hebrew word shevet, means to stay, sit, remain or dwell. There is a time to stop sitting in one place, get up and move forward in faith and ministry. (Deut. 1:6-8)

22. "The salvation of one soul is the “greatest miracle” of all. All of Heaven rejoices when one soul enters the Kingdom of God. The Good Shepherd personally goes out to find one lost soul. We are commanded and commissioned to win souls daily."  (Luke 15:7).

There is no blessing which is greater than being a blessing to others.

Shalom.