Pentecost was a Jewish festival marking the end of the grain harvest. In the Old Testament, it is called the Feast of Weeks. It occurred seven weeks after Passover. In the New Testament it is called Pentecost since it was celebrated on the fiftieth day (seven weeks) after Passover.

It was a harvest festival. Pentecost was one of the three annual festivals upon which all the male Israelites were to appear before the LORD at the temple in Jerusalem. On this day the people of Israel recalled with reverent and thankful wonder how God, who had rescued them from slavery in Egypt, had brought them to a land flowing with milk and honey. The harvests were abundant, gifts of God’s grace. The people were thankful. They celebrated.

It was a harvest festival, but the Jews also observed Pentecost as the anniversary of the day upon which the LORD had given His people the Law. From Exodus 19:1 we learn that the people of Israel came to meet the LORD at Mount Sinai on the third new moon after God had brought them out of Egypt. As it turns out, this is seven weeks after the first Passover (Exodus 12).

The LORD God who rescued Israel from Egypt and was bringing them to a land where they would have abundant harvests met them at Sinai to give them His law of thankfulness. God said: “You must keep my covenant; you must obey my law.” The people answered: “All that the LORD has spoken we will do.”

But they didn’t.

They did not keep God’s law. They broke it, time after time. The history of Israel, since the days of Moses, is a litany of broken promises. The people, because of their sinfulness, could not keep the law.

What was God to do? He could not change His law. His law stands firm. It must be obeyed. What was God to do? Change the people! Almost 900 years after God first handed down the law to Israel, He promised that He would change the people. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God promised the exiled Jews in Babylon that He would one day write His law upon their hearts – not upon external tablets of stone but upon the internal tablets of their hearts (Jeremiah 31:31-33).

God told them even more through the prophet Ezekiel. The LORD God said that He would put His Spirit within them. He would make them walk in His statutes. He would make them observe His ordinances.

God made good on this promise on the first Pentecost after the Lord Jesus ascended into heaven. God poured the Holy Spirit out upon the church, collectively and individually. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

Has the Holy Spirit changed your heart from one of stone to one of flesh? Has He changed you from being a rebel who disobeys to a servant of the Lord, a child of the Father, who obeys out of love and thankfulness?

The promise is that all who repent and believe in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of sins shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Believe in Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit will make you a dwelling place of God. He will put his law in your mind. He will write it upon your heart. And so renewed by the Holy Spirit, it will be your desire to live according to the good law of God in all good works to the praise and glory of God and the wellbeing of your neighbour.