Pentecost was not the last feast of the harvest season. There was more to the agricultural season after the grain had been harvested. The oil, nuts, fruits, and wine still had to be gathered and processed. It was the feast of Booths (Tabernacles) coming at the end of the agricultural year that announced the completion of the harvest season.

The believer who has received the baptism with the Holy Spirit has been partially harvested, so to speak. There remains much of his personality, including his mortal body, that has not as yet been harvested by the Lord.

A "halfway point." Of the seven feasts of the Lord, Pentecost is number four. Since four is halfway between one and seven we may conclude that the person who has "arrived" at Pentecost is at a critical point in his or her spiritual journey. He is about to pass the "point of no return" (Hebrews 6:4-6).

The believer at Pentecost still feels the world attempting to pull him back, and he always must keep his body under discipline and guard himself with vigilance against deception.

Now there is an ever-deepening yearning in his heart to pass on to the richer joys of the Spirit of God. God has spoken plainly concerning His will for us to press forward to the fullness of our inheritance: "If any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him" (Hebrews 10:38).

Anointing for priestly service. Another aspect of the outpouring of the Pentecostal "rain" is the anointing for priestly service to the Lord:

And thou shalt anoint Aaron and his sons, and consecrate them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office. And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, This shall be an holy anointing oil unto me throughout your generations. Upon man's flesh shall it not be poured, neither shall ye make any other like it, after the composition of it: it is holy, and it shall be holy unto you. (Exodus 30:30-32)

There are spiritual responsibilities attached to the anointing of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the Christian disciple. Note the importance of the ideas contained in the following statements:

Then said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so send I you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained. (John 20:21-23)

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ [Christ, the Anointed One]? . . . (I Corinthians 6:15)

To be continued.