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[ Music ] [ Music ] This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made. I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in it, and be glad in it.

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This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made. This is the day, this is the day that the Lord has made, that the Lord has made. I will rejoice, I will rejoice and be glad in Him, and be glad in Him.

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This is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it. This is the day. This is the day that the Lord has made.

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I will endure His days with thanksgiving in my heart. I will endure His courts with praise. I will say, is this the day that the Lord has made? I will rejoice for He has made me glad.

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He has made me glad. He has made me glad. I will rejoice for He has made me glad. He has made me glad.

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He has made me glad. I will rejoice for He has made me glad. In the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus.

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We have the victory. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, say how you have to be. Tell me who can stand before us when we call on that great name. Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus, we have the victory.

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In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, we have the victory. In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, slayer you have to be. Tell me who can stand before us when we call them and we're gay. ♪ Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus ♪

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♪ We have a victory ♪ ♪ Tell me, do and stand before us ♪ ♪ When we call on that great name ♪ ♪ Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus ♪

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♪ We have a victory ♪ - Amen. Let me just say another word about today's activities because we have a rather full day this afternoon at 3 o'clock.

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We have a worship at the Olivet Church. Then at 6 o'clock we have our Fifth Sunday Missions program, which I want to emphasize. The Acteens are in charge of the program. They will be presenting the program this evening at 6 o'clock.

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So let's be here and support our mission work and particularly our young people as they will be bringing us the program at 6 o'clock this afternoon. Basis of the morning message is Acts the second chapter verses 8 through 11. the second chapter, verses 8 through 11, using the new English revised international version,

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rather, the new international version. How is it that each of us hears them in his own own native language. Parthians, Medes, and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya, near visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism,

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Cretans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. The subject, declaring the wonders of God. Courage is among the grand essentials for disciples of the Christian faith.

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Courage is demanded for abundant living. Courage is necessary for us to say what we want to say. Courage is necessary for us to do what we ought to do. Today marks the celebration of Pentecost Sunday,

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the coming of the Holy Spirit in the lives of Jesus' disciples. Courage was necessary for the disciples to gather in Jerusalem. It was as if the criminal returned to the scene of the crime. Less than two months before they gathered in Jerusalem,

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Jesus was crucified by the Roman government outside the walls of the Holy City. The crime of which he was accused was treason. The Romans accused him of treason. The Jewish nation through the Sanhedrin court accused him of blasphemy.

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And at the crucial moment both the leaders of the Jewish nation and of the Roman Empire united in partnership in condemning Jesus. Then at the crucial moment all of the disciples of the Master forsook him and fled. Now it was a marvelous manifestation of courage that motivated believers to assemble in Jerusalem in the upper

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room and to pray together waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Courage enabled them to return to the place where they had suffered ignoble defeat and proclaim there a glorious victory. So they returned to the place where they had exhibited shameful cowardice and there they exemplified admirable

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courage. Now courage involves taking risks. We deny ourselves and we deny our duty when we are afraid to pay the price. We run away and hide and it takes courage to sit and pray when your enemies are in the vicinity with guns. First let me say it takes courage to speak the truth, to declare the wonders

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of God. Patrick Henry said men are apt to shut their eyes against the painful truth. They do not wish to see the truth, they do not wish to hear the truth. The disciples had courage to speak the truth concerning the wonders of God because their fear was displaced by faith. Often we are afraid to speak the truth

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because we are fearful of the consequences. I remember as a young teenager back in 1936 a group of us slipped into the Fair Park in Dallas. They were celebrating, we were celebrating the centennial of the state. And a group of us with nothing to do climbed over the fence and went into the

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fair park. We hadn't gone very far from where we climbed in, we encountered some policemen. And one of the policemen said, "What are you boys doing back here?" And my heart was racing and I was just about to say if I said anything that we slipped in but one of the boys said we works here and he said all right y'all go home

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so many times we don't have the courage to say what ought to be said to do what ought to be done because we are scared. Many times we're scared of the truth. You know many people who need to go to the doctor don't go because they're scared of what the doctor may tell them about their situation, scared of the

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truth. A little boy had a part in the Sunday school play about Jesus walking on the water to his disciples in the boat during a storm on the Sea of Galilee. And the little fella had the line of Jesus in the play which was, "It is I, be not afraid." That's all he was to say, "It is I, be not afraid." And yet he

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He was so nervous that when the time came out there on the stage, he said, "It's me, and I'm scared." So we're scared. We are scared of what might happen, scared to do what ought to be done, scared to say

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what ought to be said and scared to be the person we ought to be. So the great hymns of faith declare the wonders of God. Psalm 44 is a hymn declaring God's wonderful works. Listen to the words. We have heard with our ears, O God. Our Our fathers have told us what you did in their days,

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in days long ago. With your hand you drove out the nations and planted our fathers. You crushed the peoples

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and made our fathers flourish. Now notice here that the psalmist is mindful of the divine proclamation. He knows God speaks to his people through events.

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Yes, God speaks. Many times people are hard of hearing it seems, but he speaks. Sometimes we do not hear God, but he speaks.

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Speech is effective when it's heard, when there is communication, when there is response, when there is understanding. The testimony of the Psalmist is,

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we have heard with our own ears. This is not hearsay. This is not secondhand knowledge. Not something where he said, they said, she said.

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It's direct communication. It's person to person. Direct, clear communication. You know, I grew up, when I was a boy,

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we didn't have many telephones in our neighborhood. In fact, our house didn't have a telephone. We had to go down the street to get the message. But back in that period, that was what you call a party line.

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In fact, most people who had a phone had a party line, which means that there were other parties on your line. And many times you would pick up the phone to make a telephone call and you would hear the conversation going on that the other party had on your line.

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And you had to wait until that party got off. I remember one of my minister friends, they were at her home and they had a difficult time getting the phone and they said to the party,

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"Would you please get off the line? "Rev. Chambers wants to use the phone." And the party on the other line said, "Damn, Rev. Chambers."

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(laughing) And so Rev. Chambers said, "Don't tell him that I don't wanna use the phone anymore." So they were on the line, they blocked the line.

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You couldn't get to communicate with the person you wanted to communicate. Well, no one can block the line with God. You have direct access to him, person to person.

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No other party can interfere. You can commune with him. So the testimony here of the Psalmist is, we have heard with our own ears.

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It's been a personal experience. People of different races and places gathered in Jerusalem on Pentecost. They spoke different languages.

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Many were foreigners visiting Jerusalem. And those who observed the strange behavior of Jesus' disciples, those who observed this Pentecostal experience in their lives, did not understand what was happening.

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And they asked, "How is it that people of different nations and languages hear in their own language the wonders of God. The spectators did not understand. They were on the scene but they did not understand. You know some people see how some may behave in what they consider a strange way and they wonder what's wrong with

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that person. They just do not understand what is happening. They did not perceive what God was doing. They were present in the body but absent in the spirit. They heard the language of the gospel as declared by the preacher but they did not understand the meaning of the gospel. They knew something strange and

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wonderful was occurring in their midst. They said, "What is the meaning of this? "How can these things be?" Now those who were spectators heard with the outer ear but they did not hear with the inner ear so they reached the wrong conclusion. And they said that it must be that these people are drunk.

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They're drunk on new wine. Their excitement is not real, it's superficial. They will be back to where they used to be when the wine wears off.

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Wait until the wine wears off. There is a certain kind of behavior that vanishes when the wine wears off. And what they were talking about

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had to do with the wine of the world. But others took note of this company of believers because they were declaring the works of God. God. They were declaring the wonders of God. They were not talking about what

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they had done, they were talking about what God had done. This is the task of the church, to declare the wonders of God, to declare to the world what God has done. But it's not only the task to declare, but it is to be motivated by his spirit. Oh my brothers and sisters, as we celebrate this Pentecostal experience, we

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cannot say enough about the need of the Spirit today, need of God's Spirit, the The need of the Holy Spirit. The need of the spiritual presence in the lives of people today.

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You know, we look at our school system. There's a great deal of concern today about the TAS, the exam that the state requires all of the high school students to pass

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before they graduate. And this has been an issue here in our own school district that quite a number of them passed the test. School board voted that they should not march.

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They went to court, and the judge gave the decision that they could march. They may receive a blank sheet of paper instead of a certificate, but they'll march.

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So that's an issue. I read the other day that in Dallas that the acting superintendent had fired 200 or more teachers because those students didn't pass the exam. Well, it may take a lot of measures saying that this is going to correct the school situation,

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but we need more than that. I was over at the University of Texas here some weeks ago now, and I saw all of the wonderful things that are there to help students learn. Oh, the last word, to help students learn. But with all those things available, the best tutors and everything, there's still those

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who fail. You know, the old folk used to say, "You can lead a horse to the water, but you You cannot make him drink. You can have the best teacher in the world and you can sit in the class, but if you don't want to learn, give attention, you just have access to it, but it's not having any effect

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on you. Really, while we have all these things and we get proposal after proposal, government allocation of funds increased time and time again. And we find ourselves being second-rate as far as our educational system is concerned. You know why? I think

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that what we need most is a new spirit. New spirit. A new spirit on the part of parents. Too many parents say, "Well, it's alright. Whatever he wants to do or whatever she wants to do, that's alright." And so we grow up in that kind of permissive society. We need a new spirit.

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Need a new spirit. And we're in the midst of all of our educational opportunities. We're having more racial unrest on college campuses with all of the knowledge we have of history.

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We have all of that occurring right there in the midst of all of the educational opportunities and all of the knowledge we have because we need a new spirit. And a new spirit has to do with the creation of a new attitude, a new mind, a new heart. And that's what we say in the church, we say if a person be in Christ, he is a new creature.

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These old things have passed away. In other words, he is a new being. A new being, this old person has a new attitude, a new outlook on life, a new spirit. That's what we need.

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That's what we celebrate in Pentecost. We're not going to be the kind of nation we ought to be until we have a new spirit that will give forth a new birth of freedom in our time. So the Psalmist looks back and celebrates the wonders of God, saying, "By God's hand,

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enemies are driven out, the fathers are planted by God, enemies are crushed, enemies are destroyed, and the fathers flourish." This is God's action. God snatches victory from defeat.

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So the psalmist in his hymn of faith recognizes the presence and power of God. He pledges allegiance to God. He says, "You are my king, my God." He says, "You are my ruler."

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Those who declare the wonders of God are faithful followers of God. That's why the disciples gather in the upper room. They were followers of the Lord. They were obedient to the divine word.

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They followed holy orders to tarry in Jerusalem for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Now what was incomprehensible to some at Pentecost was comprehensible to others. What was perplexing to some was perfectly clear to others. were quick to explain to those who did not understand. Their strange behavior was the

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work of God. Their strange behavior was the work of the Spirit, not being drunk on new wine but by being caught up in the Spirit. So the Spirit imparts new life. The Spirit The spirit imparts new life. The spirit makes us new beings.

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The spirit does that. And oh, how we can celebrate the presence of the spirit. Because if we're going to, we can have all of the multicultural education that we want,

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but unless we have the spirit. spirit that enables us to transcend racial barriers, unless we have that spirit that enables us to accept people. And oh, many times when they reject us, to have the spirit that enables us to be a new

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creature, it enables us to rise beyond ourselves. Oh, I think that's what our ancestors got a glimpse of. They had that kind of experience when they said, I went to the valley and I didn't go to stay,

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but my soul got happy and I stayed all day. I looked at my hands and they looked new. I looked at my feet and they were too. Oh, it's the spirit, the spirit of God

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that somehow possess them. It's the Spirit of God that grasps us and makes us new beings in Him. And so the Spirit can make this whole world new.

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The Spirit can make this country new. The Spirit can make us new. The Spirit can change your home. The Spirit can change this church.

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Spirit can change this community and we can celebrate it over and over again no matter where we are. There's nothing that can keep us from celebrating the presence of God. Oh, when you read about some who have had difficult days, read the life of Bonhoeffer,

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how he was in prison and all of that, but he somehow was conscious of the presence of Sometimes we get down in the dumps, sometimes we may have our physical problems, we may have our mental anguish, but God's spirit is there to strengthen and to comfort us and we can celebrate that, not just on Pentecost Sunday, but we can celebrate that every day

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of our lives. So as we sing the hymn, I believe it's hymn number 116. So as we sing the hymn, I believe it's hymn number 116. (speaking faintly)

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The invitation to become a part of the family of God here at Episcopal. 'Cause our spirit is right now knocking on the door of your heart.

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Maybe you're living in Austin without a church home. Spirit says come. Maybe you've never made a professional speech. [MUSIC PLAYING]

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[INAUDIBLE] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC]

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[MUSIC] ♪ Freedom be, freedom be ♪ ♪ Holy Spirit, freedom be ♪ ♪ Take now thy heart, with the great heart ♪

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Holy Spirit, reign on me. Holy Spirit, reign on me. As the Lord wills it shall be. ♪ He's leading words of living faith ♪

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♪ What Christ would have me do ♪ ♪ Free on me ♪ ♪ Free on me ♪ ♪ Holy Spirit, lead the way ♪

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♪ Take away our sins ♪ ♪ Raise every heart ♪ ♪ Holy Spirit, lead the way ♪ ♪ For this hill can't cradle me ♪

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♪ Till he with love beguile ♪ ♪ 'Til all the flame of love has dimmed ♪ ♪ And in this heart of mine ♪ [MUSIC]

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[MUSIC] [ Music ] [BLANK_AUDIO]