If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it does it make a sound? If the Holy Spirit is poured out and no one hears it does it make a sound? “For as the rain cometh down, ... and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, ... so shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void. ...” (Isa. 55:10, 11).
Peter explained the meaning of Pentecost from the prophet Joel: “I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2:17). God pours out His Holy Spirit upon everybody in the world, but it doesn’t mean that everybody receives Him. Christ “was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). The ancient Jews didn’t believe this. They thought they were the only enlightened ones.
Jesus helps us understand: “when He [the Holy Spirit] is come, He will reprove [convict] the world of sin, ... because they believe not on Me” (John 16:7-9). The Holy Spirit sheds light on every human heart; that person may not receive the light, but in the last great judgment day, no one can accuse God of not letting some light shine upon his pathway, some evidence on which that soul could make a choice. In every human heart the Holy Spirit has brought a conviction of sin, a sense of right and wrong. And blessed are those who respond to that conviction the Holy Spirit gives.
Something bigger than the worship on the day Pentecost happened in 1888 and there was minimal reception and maximum rejection. Does that mean that nobody heard it and therefore it never happened? Ellen White pled with “men” to “give up their spirit of resistance to the Holy Spirit, ... The Holy Spirit has been insulted, and light has been rejected” (The Ellen G. White 1888 Materials, p. 1494, Feb. 6, 1896).
“We” have “Pentecostal envy” because they have “light and much power.” There is pop “christian” music, dramatic presentations, comic monologues, and light heartedness, mega churches, but they have not followed Jesus into the holiest; consequently, “Satan would then breathe upon them an unholy influence; ... but no sweet love, joy, and peace” (Early Writings, p. 56).
It’s time for us to awake to the fact that it is only “those who rose up with Jesus [who] would send up their faith to Him in the holiest, and pray, ‘My Father, give us Thy Spirit.’ Then Jesus would breathe upon them the Holy Ghost. In that breath was light, power, and much love, joy, and peace” (Early Writings, p. 55).
The fact of the matter is that Pentecost happened again in 1888. “... The loud cry of the third angel has already begun in the revelation of the righteousness of Christ, the sin-pardoning Redeemer. This is the beginning of the light of the angel whose glory shall fill the whole earth” (Review and Herald, Nov. 22, 1892). “... The message of justification by faith ... ‘is the third angel’s message in verity’” (Review and Herald, April 1, 1890).
It was greater “light” on the truth of “justification by faith”—a dynamo of power rushing through the floodgates—as the Holy Spirit came straight from the “holiest” with a message of heart-reconciling agape-love. The message of the forgiveness of sins was God’s declaration of “peace” to the sinner resulting in much “joy”. It was our Day of Atonement message.