Spiritual facts in a world unprepared to receive them.
I. DEVOUT MEN may still be living at a very low point of spiritual apprehension and experience (Acts 2:5). To many conscientious and sober-minded people the manifestations of the Spirit a perplexity. Hence the importance of a progressive faith, a praying and expectant attitude. Religion apt to grow stagnant and perfunctory.
II. The MULTITUDE will be startled by that which comes from heaven. They need to be roused and quickened with great and enthusiastic utterances. The natural tendency of man is to rest in mere second causes. How could these "Galilaeans" so speak? Yet God has something which each one can feel "his own language." The gospel message must be brought home to men's" business and besoms." Speak to them, not in a learned, or philosophical, or theological phraseology, but in a dialect with which they are familiar.
III. There will be VARIETY among perplexed hearers. Some will ask for information, others will mock and scorn, revile and blaspheme. Yet the first opposition or indifference may be followed by a blessed ingathering of souls.
IV. The FEW SPEAKERS compared with the vast sphere represented in the multitude—east, west, north, south—reminds us that God hath chosen the weak to confound the mighty. The field is the world, but the small beginning is yet an announcement of the "wonderful works of God." To him there is no small and great.—R.