Pentecost: Sound, Fire, Tongues, Proclamation (Acts Sermon 3)

I ask you to turn in your Bibles to Acts 2. Looking this morning as we continue our series in the Book of Acts at one of the greatest days in human history, great day of Pentecost. That was the day that the third person of the Trinity, God the Spirit, came down on the people of God universally and in force, empowering them to move out from their little room in Jerusalem so that they would win souls, effectively conquering them from a dark empire, Satan’s dark empire, to build Christ’s eternal kingdom. Now the Book of Acts and indeed all of church history is rightly called a history of the Holy Spirit working through the church, through the people of God. And we should stand in awe of the power and wisdom of the Spirit of God. And we should give the Holy Spirit as much honor as we give the Father and the Son for our salvation. 

All three persons of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, equally active, equally essential, equally worthy of praise for your salvation.

It is because of God’s eternal plan, made in him before the creation of the world, that you are in Christ today in a right relationship with him. It is because of the Son’s shed blood on the cross once for all that you are saved and forgiven and in a right relationship with God. And it is because of the Holy Spirit’s power directly on your soul that you believe that gospel and are saved today. All three persons of the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Spirit, equally active, equally essential, equally worthy of praise for your salvation. And not only for yours, but the salvation of a vast multitude of millions through the corridors of the epochs of time. Over history and across the various geographical regions of the world. It is the Holy Spirit that has taken the finished work of Christ on the cross, the blood of Christ, and applied it individually to sinners around the world. To God the Spirit, be the glory. 

I. The Promise Fulfilled

And so, this text is an accurate history of where all of that began, that phase of the history of redemption, this great day of Pentecost. And as we begin, we see it as a promise fulfilled, a promise made by God. In the Old Testament, the great day of Pentecost represents the fulfillment of the promise that God had made, and also that Christ had made, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the people of God, empowering them to change the world. Now the Father made many promises of the coming of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. An example is Isaiah 44:3 where it says, “I will pour water on the thirsty land and streams on the dry ground. I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring and my blessing on your descendants.” We have also Ezekiel 36:27. “‘I will put my Spirit in you,’ he said, ‘and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.'” 

In the very next chapter, we have that awesome vision, Ezekiel 37, of a valley of dry bones that then miraculously comes together and assembles. And the flesh and the sinews and indeed even the skin come on, but there’s no life. And then the prophet is commanded to speak to the wind, and it comes. And the wind comes, a picture of the Spirit, and gives life to those bodies. Ezekiel 37. 

We have also famously Joel 2:28, which we’ll study in future weeks as we look at Peter’s great Pentecost sermon, but Joel 2:28, “Afterward I will pour out my Spirit on all people.” And then John the Baptist as he came, in effect, the last Old Covenant prophet, the Old Testament prophet, made the same promise in Matthew 3:11, “After me will come one more powerful than I, the sandals of whom I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” 

Jesus Christ himself, as I’ve already said, made the promise of the coming of the Spirit before his death, the night before he was crucified. In John 14:16-17, he said, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth.” Then after his resurrection, he stated the promise again. In Luke 24:49, he said, “I’m going to send you what my Father has promised, but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” And again, in John’s gospel, John 20 in verse 19,21-22, after Jesus’ resurrection, “He came and appeared to them, though the doors were locked for fear of the Jews. He came and stood in their midst and said, ‘Peace be with you.’ And then he said, ‘As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.’ Then he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.'” 

And of course, at the beginning of the book we’re studying here, in Acts 1, he reiterated the promise John the Baptist had made, “You will be baptized with the Holy Spirit,” but he added excitingly those words in a few days, in a very short time. 

So, this is the promise of the Holy Spirit. And now this is fulfilled today as we study the day of Pentecost. The Holy Spirit is essential to God’s plan for the salvation of the world. Only by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit within the people of God will we overcome our sins and our selfishness and our cowardice and our weakness and be witnesses for him. And only by the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit within the hearts and minds and souls of lost people who are hearing the gospel, will any of them be converted. Only as the Spirit sovereignly takes out their heart of stone and gives them the heart of flesh will they come to life. 

II. Pentecost: The Harvest of Souls Begins

So now as we reach Acts 2, the time has come for that promise to be fulfilled. The baptism of the church in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is that fulfillment. So, Pentecost is the harvest of souls that begins. Now, part of God’s promise in all of this is a cycle of feasts that God set up in the Old Covenant for the Jewish nation, one of three great festivals that God had ordained, which all of them together picture aspects of the saving work of God, of salvation. God is a great teacher. And he used the cycle of annual festivals to teach us lessons. The first is Passover. He said in Exodus 23:17, “Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign Lord.” And the first time was Passover, also known as the feast of unleavened bread. It pictures the atoning work of God in Christ, the Lamb of God offered for the sins of the world. Also the beginning of the Exodus, a picture of our deliverance from slavery to sin. The great day of Passover, the feast of unleavened bread. 

The second of the three feasts was Pentecost. Now the word Pentecost is a Greek word meaning 50th. So, 50 days after the Passover, this the New Testament name for the Feast of Weeks. So, 50 days after, but it’s also tied to the beginning of the harvest, to the bringing in of the first fruits from the fields. Exodus 23:16, “Celebrate the feast of harvest with the first fruits of the crops you sow in your field.” And again Deuteronomy 16, “Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain, then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a free will offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you.” 

So, it’s the beginning of the harvest, the start of the harvest. We can see that also in terms of the harvest of souls that’s going to begin that worldwide harvest that’s happened now over 20 centuries. So, the ingathering, see the symbolism. And then the third of these three cycle of feasts is the ingathering when the harvest is complete, when it’s finished, when the last of the crops is brought safely in. Now of course that has not yet been fulfilled because there’s more salvation work yet to become. And so we can look ahead to the day in which that third and final feast will indeed be fulfilled. Again, Exodus 23:16, “Celebrate the feast of ingathering at the end of the year when you have gathered in all your crops from the field.” So, these three feasts together have a distinct symbolic purpose in the salvation plan of God. 

So, the harvest now begins to come in. With the outpouring of the Spirit, the time of the harvest has started, the time for the souls to be gathered in. John the Baptist used this kind of harvest language. In Matthew 3:12, speaking of Jesus, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering the wheat into his barn and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Jesus used the same language many times. John 4:35, which Andy Wynn walked through last week with you. It says, “Do you not say four months more and then the harvest? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields. They are ripe for harvest.” We got that analogy of bringing human beings to faith in Christ as a harvesting of souls being brought in. Or again in Matthew 9:37-38, “Jesus said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest therefore to send out workers into his harvest field.'” 

Now, it’s also beautiful how practically minded God is in all of this. God is very theoretical and big picture, but also where the rubber meets the road and nuts and bolts. So, we see the practical benefits of this cycle of three feasts. The feast assured there would be a huge crowd that day. There would be a lot of people in Jerusalem there to hear the gospel message. And not only that, but they had come from all over that part of the Roman world. They had been scattered all over providentially. They were coming from different places after the two exiles of the Jews, the Assyrian exile and then the Babylonian. The Jews were scattered, called the diaspora. They’re all over the Roman world. And they come back for this feast. And not just them, but there are proselytes, people who were converted. So, they were Gentiles, but they had become proselytes or converts to Judaism, and they all came from those wide-ranging geographical places. 

The Pentecost signals the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ.

What’s going to happen when they’re converted? They’re going to go back home to where they’re from and spread the gospel. So, we see the wisdom of God in making sure there’s a crowd. And making sure they’re from all over the known world, and how beautiful is that? We also see with the day of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Spirit, the beginning of the church age. The beginning of what we call the church. The Pentecost signals the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ. The word church that we see in the New Testament, ecclesia, means called out ones. Called out of the darkness, called out of Satan’s dark kingdom and in the world into safety and into fellowship with God. Ecclesia, that’s the church. Now it’s said to be by the apostle Paul a mystery. There’s a mysterious aspect to the church. 

Ephesians 3:6, “This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus,” so that Jews and Gentiles would together be part of one body through faith in Christ, that’s the mystery of the church. By the coming of the Spirit, all believers in Christ are drawn together into one body, one holy temple, one bride for Christ. And by that same Spirit, we all worship Jesus Christ as God. Philippians 3:3, “We who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” 

So, the day of Pentecost thus marks a significant moment in redemptive history, the beginning of the church age. Yet we must acknowledge that the Holy Spirit didn’t suddenly become active on the day of Pentecost, like he wasn’t around in the 39 books of the Old Testament. That is completely false. He’s there right away at creation. The Spirit of God was hovering over the waters of creation. We don’t have to wait long to hear about the activities of the Spirit of God in the Old Testament. 

We also believe that the Spirit was active in the people of the Old Testament, the Old Testament age, bringing individual people to genuine faith in God by his direct activity. So, there is not as radical a departure or radical new phase on the day of Pentecost as though suddenly the third person of the Trinity comes alive and becomes active and starts working in the world. That would be false. We should not think therefore of the church as like God’s plan B, like plan A failed because the Jews did not recognize the time of God’s coming to them as Jesus said. And now we’re going to go to plan B, the church age. Some people teach that kind of doctrine. That’s not biblical. In Romans 11, there’s a beautiful image of one olive tree with a developed root system through the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and then all the godly Jews that lived all of those centuries before Christ ever came. 

And then this image of natural branches that are receiving nourishing sap, those are believing Jews. And then you’ve got images of wild olive branches cut out of wild olive trees and grafted into this one tree and receiving nourishing sap from that developed root system. That’s all of us, dear friends. If you’re not Jewish, if you’re a believer in Jesus, you’re a wild olive shoot grafted into a cultivated olive tree. And it was the Spirit that was doing all that cultivation all those many centuries before the day of Pentecost. In Romans 4, Abraham, our forefather in faith, was justified by faith just as we are. It’s not any kind of different thing at all. It was by the same power of God in that. 

Now all of this has been leading up a matter of preparation to this great day of Pentecost. They were all joined together, Acts 1:14, constantly in prayer. Remember the Lord Jesus had told them to stay in Jerusalem and wait. And not do anything until they were clothed with power from on high. And that waiting and togetherness in prayer continued right up to this climactic and spectacular moment. In the King James Version Acts 2:1, it says, “When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.” So, they were of one mind and one heart waiting for the gift. They were in unity in prayer waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. 

III. The Sound, The Fire, The Tongues

Then suddenly we have the sound, the fire, and the tongues. I love the word suddenly, don’t you? Suddenly, wow, what a great word. Without any immediate warning. Jesus said in a few days it’s coming. But no warning that day, just they’re all together praying. It’s just another day to pray. Then suddenly we have the in breaking of the Holy Spirit. Suddenly what? We get a mighty sound. First thing that comes as they’re all gathered in prayer is sound. And it’s the sound of a violent wind. Look at verse 2. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.” 

So, God the Spirit is active in the world in ways we cannot see or perceive. He doesn’t move in the five-sense world, but occasionally he does things in a sensory sort of way to make his presence and his activity, make us aware of it so we can see it. As Jesus said to Nicodemus, “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from, where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit” (John 3:8). So, you know it’s windy because you see the leaves fluttering or the trees bending. And so here we have the activity of the Spirit with this sound of a mighty violent wind. And so, this has to come so that the people can know the truth of the statement in Zechariah 4:6, “Not by power, by might, but by my Spirit,” has the church been established and built. It is God’s activity, and they know it. It wasn’t until the Spirit came that everything started moving so that he gets the glory. 

They themselves could not change themselves. They couldn’t make themselves bold or courageous or loving or passionate. They couldn’t do that to themselves. The Spirit had to come in. And neither could the lost people around them be converted apart from the activity of the Spirit. Now, what does the Spirit choose to do? 

He comes in the sound of a wind, and not just any wind, a violent wind like a raging hurricane. It reminds me of Job 38. Remember when God came to Job in the sound of a whirlwind. So, this hurricane is spiritual. It’s no active movement of air molecules, just the sound of it. So, you’re not seeing anything move or flutter in the room, you’re just hearing the sound. Now in the Old Testament, the Spirit is often depicted as or likened to wind or breath. As a matter of fact, the Hebrew word for Spirit and for breath and wind are all the same, ruach. This is the very thing in Ezekiel 37:9-10 where the prophet was told, prophesy to the wind. And the wind comes, and then life comes into these dead bodies, and that’s clearly the activity of the Spirit. 

So also, these encounters with Almighty God. In Ezekiel 1:4, the prophet Ezekiel, it says, “I looked and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north, an immense cloud with flashing lightning surrounded by brilliant light and the center of the fire looked like glowing metal.” The whole thing started with the sound of a violent wind.” Or again, we know that famous encounter that Elijah had. Remember when he was so depressed and discouraged after the contest with Baal and then Jezebel’s threat. So, he runs for his life and he’s there in a cave. And the Lord appears to him, and first in the sound of a violent hurricane, but the Lord was not in that sound. Ultimately, he was in the sound of a gentle breeze. So just like any wind from a zephyr up to a hurricane, there’s a whole range of activity as the Spirit works, but he counseled and comforted Elijah at that point. 

I like Psalm 29 where God’s activity is likened to a hurricane that devastates a forest.  

The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD, over many waters. The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic. The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, and Syrion like a young wild ox. The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning. The voice of the LORD shakes the desert; the LORD shakes the desert of Kadesh. The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forest bare, and in his temple all cry, “Glory!”  

I see a storm going on when David was writing that psalm, but it’s like God is a mighty rushing wind. And so that’s what the Spirit chooses, the sound of a violent wind. And this sound filled the whole house where they were sitting. But it was so overpowering that it could be heard out in the streets as well, and it was effective in getting a crowd together. 

So, the crowd was waiting for the apostles as they streamed out into the street and began to preach. So, it had that practical usefulness as the festival did of attracting a crowd. But that’s not all. We also have the tongues of fire. Look at verse 3, “They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.” So, they separated, the verb separated, implies it started as one. I picture it somewhat like the pillar of fire in the Old Testament. So, it comes down and then just branches off into tongues of fire that comes like on the heads of each of the believers in Christ, all of them. And so, there’s that unity of the fire moving out, and they each get an aspect of it coming on them. Now the Spirit, of course, has no physical body. He’s not made up of matter. There are no atoms, no molecules to the Spirit of God. But here he manifests himself as fire. 

Now at the baptism of Jesus, remember when Jesus was baptized, there was a rending of the heavens. A rip or a tear in the sky, and out of that came a dove, the Spirit in the form of a dove who descended and came to rest on Jesus. And that was a picture of the peacefulness of the ministry of Jesus. He came to bring peace between God and the human race. And so, we have that picture of peace, but here we’ve got fire. So, fire can either destroy or it can purify and serve in some ways. It’s either way. So, I believe this fire coming on the people of God is for zeal and purification and also in the pillar of fire sense. Leadership as well, not wrath. So, fire has the ability to purify, to purge us of our wickedness and our darkness in our sin. 

As Malachi 3:2-4 says, “Who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears for he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he’ll purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.” So that’s the purifying power of fire. 

Fire, also a picture as I said of zeal. Like a fire burning inside you. Burning inside for the glory of God, burning inside for the greatness of Jesus and what he’s achieved. Burning inside for the salvation of lost people. A fire that comes inside them burning based on the greatness of these truths. Jeremiah spoke of it in Jeremiah 20:9, “His word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I’m weary of holding it in, indeed I cannot.” So, they can’t stay in that upper room with that fire for long. They’ve got to get out and talk about it. 

Or I think about the two disciples on the road to Emmaus when this unknown stranger, who we know as Jesus, was talking to them about the scriptures that predicted all of these things that would happen. And when the whole thing was done, and he disappeared and was taken away from them, they said to one another, “Were not our hearts burning within us when he opened the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:32). The Spirit has that kind of power. And it may be that that’s exactly what some of you need today. Maybe you have, like that church at Ephesus, forsaken your first love. You don’t love Jesus like you used to. Your heart’s grown cold toward him. You don’t care about the word of God like you used to. Don’t care about souls of lost people like you used to. You’re not really as thankful as you used to be for your own salvation.

It is not okay to be lukewarm toward Jesus. Let the Spirit work in you. Do not quench the Spirit’s fire.

Well, you should pray for the work and the fire of the Spirit to come upon you. That is not okay. It is not okay to be lukewarm toward Jesus. Let the Spirit work in you. Do not quench the Spirit’s fire. Let the Spirit work in you that your heart might be ignited, and you can say, “Was not my heart burning within me when I heard the word of God preached today?” And that fire can spread. Indeed, I think it has spread for 2,000 years. Like tongues of fire moving on this one individual and then that next person gets ignited, too. 

I had a vision in my mind as I was thinking about Ezekiel in the valley of dry bones. If you read the details of that chapter, they represent Israel and its dead hopes. But it’s also specifically a prediction of bodily resurrection from the dead. How are they linked? Well, if we’re going to die and this is all there is, then there are no hopes. As Job said, “Will hope go down to Sheol with me?” (Job 17:16) Do I have any hope if there’s no resurrection? But if there is resurrection, then everything changes. And then there’s a pocket of dry bones all over the world, this valley and that valley and that city, whatever, of people who are dead in their transgressions and sins. And then the word of God comes, and they come to life. And then it just spreads. It’s been going on for 2,000 years. We’re going to celebrate it for all eternity in heaven. Find out what that fire has done in people’s hearts. 

But then what happens next? Languages. Languages. Fascinating. God’s ways are not our ways. That’s what’s coming next. We got hurricane sound, but not any actual moving of air. We got tongues of fire separating, coming on the heads of each person. And then they start to speak in languages that they didn’t study. Now some of you are students right now and you’re struggling with a language and you’re like, “Oh God, give me the gift of tongues.” Give me the ability to speak a language that I’ve never studied. Would be fantastic. Look at verse 4, “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.” Now tongues, this is a source of much controversy ever since the beginning of the Pentecostal, the modern Pentecostal movement with the Azusa Street Revival, the first decade of the 20th century. 

I’m at a fork in the road here, and I’m not going down that off-ramp and going off that direction. This is very clearly languages. The King James Version went with tongues, and that’s fine, but we’re talking about languages with known vocabulary and grammar and patterns of communication. Of course, it harkens back to God’s activity at the Tower of Babel where he confused the languages and started the diversity of languages which has continued to this present day. God knew very well at that moment how difficult it would make the spread of the gospel in the church age. Here is a supernatural remedy, at least on the day of Pentecost. The church instantly able to speak languages that they have never studied. It’s also very clear that there’s another side of the equation in which the people are hearing those languages in their own tongues. 

Look at verses 7-8, “Utterly amazed, they asked, ‘Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?'” Now, in the future, from this day on, the normal spread of the gospel would involve missionaries laboriously studying the native languages. And painfully learning its grammar and vocabulary and little by little becoming lingual so they can share the gospel. Christi and I studied Japanese for two years while we were missionaries there. We only scratched the surface, barely conversational. William Carey, the great missionary to India, translated the whole Bible into six languages, portions of scripture into 29 others. That may be a form of the gift of tongues, just his amazing ability to learn that many languages so proficiently. But here on the day of Pentecost, these 120 believers in the room were enabled to speak differing languages instantly as the Spirit enabled them. 

Now today, Wycliffe Bible Translators estimates there are 7,300 languages in the world and about 3,800 of those have at least some translations of the Bible in their language. We see also here the universality of the Spirit’s baptism. Everyone there who is a believer in Jesus Christ received the gift of the Spirit, everyone. Even if they were not called to the apostolic office of public preaching and teaching of the word, they all got the Spirit. And this is the very point that Peter’s going to make. And we’re not covering this today, but in verses 17-18 of this chapter, quoting Joel, “In the last days, God says, ‘I’ll pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they will prophesy.'” 

So, in the Old Covenant era, the Spirit would move on a king or a judge, on Samson or on David or Saul, and act powerfully, but it was not a universal experience of the coming of the Spirit. But at this point now everybody gets the Spirit, and Peter’s going to say the promise is for everybody. Anybody and everybody who repents and believes in Jesus, you’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Notice also in verse 4 it says they were filled with the Holy Spirit. More on that in a moment. 

IV. The Crowd Gathers in Amazement

Next, a crowd gathers in amazement. Look at verses 5-6, “Now, there were staying in Jerusalem, God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard them speaking in his own language.” So, we’ve seen this as God’s wise purpose that there would be a huge crowd. We know from the moment that Jesus died, and the curtain in the temple was torn in two from top to bottom, the ceremonial laws of the Jews were fulfilled and obsolete. Isn’t it amazing then that God used the husk of obsolete Old Covenant Judaism to gather a crowd to begin the New Covenant life? Isn’t that marvelous? Those God-fearing Jews, those pious Jews who came for the observance of that festival, did not know that they did need to come. But they came anyway, and so they met the gospel there. 

Now, as I said, as the text says, they were pious. So, there’s a specific, they were God-fearing Jews. So, these are not the hard-hearted, stiff-necked Jews. These are those that are yielded, submissive. They’re going to be ready to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ as clearly would happen when they received and believed. And they’re from every nation under heaven, the text says. The diaspora of the Jews in the exiles, the Syrian and Babylon exiles, spread the Jewish faith all over the Mediterranean region, that whole area. And they lived in communities, and they actually were able to win some very small number of Gentile converts. And they’re all there. This is a foretaste of God’s saving intention to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:8, Jerusalem, Judean, Samaria and what? To the ends of the earth. 

Well, there they’re coming here right to Jerusalem. And here they come. 15 nations are listed: Parthians, Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts of Judaism, Cretans and Arabs. So, I want you to go thank Jeff Maxim for reading that text. It’s a big deal when you have to publicly read scripture and there’s lots of capitalized words, you know what I mean? Genealogies, locations, it’s not easy to do. 

But we got 15 nations listed here. First Parthians from modern day Iran, southwest of the Caspian Sea. You got Medes who are partners with the Persians and the Medo-Persian empire. They were from also modern-day Iran, more in the mountainous regions near Central Asia. The Elamites are from the southwestern part of modern-day Iran. Then Mesopotamia, that means between two rivers. So that’s the Tigris and Euphrates. That would be in modern day Iraq. Judea, of course. Then you got Cappadocia, which is right in the center of modern-day Turkey. My son Calvin, my daughter Daphne were there on mission this past summer. All right? Then you got Pontus, which is northeastern Turkey on the Black Sea. Also, Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia. Those are all in modern-day Turkey. Then Egypt of course, then parts of Libya near Cyrene, Northern Africa, the Mediterranean coast along that area. And then it says visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism. So, they came all the way from Rome, a long distance. 

And by the way, that’s where this whole Book of Acts is heading. At this present rate, we’re going to get there about the year 2026, I don’t know, but we’re going to Rome eventually at the end of the Book of Acts. And then Cretans from the island of Crete where Titus would do his work, and then Arabs from the Nabataean Arabian area south of Damascus. So, they’re all there. And they’re amazed at this language miracle. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed they asked, “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears in his own native language?” Verse 11, “We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues.” 

Well, that initial sound of the hurricane drew them, but now another more amazing sound is coming. And that more amazing and more significant sound is they’re hearing the wonders of God described in detail in their mother tongues. So, there’s a trade language like Greek or Latin would be, or English, and then you’ve got your mother tongue. And they’re hearing it in their mother dialects. Now, I don’t know if either individual apostles were speaking in a language they had never studied or they were speaking one message, and everyone was hearing it like in the United Nations where everybody has the ear things on. And God is able to get inside their brains in the synapses of their minds, and they’re hearing their mother tongue miraculously. Similar to a vision in which there’s no light, but you see it in your mind. God has the power to do it either way. 

And what are the wonders of God? Well, God does many wonders. Could have been creation, could have been the exodus, could have been all that. But I think it keys in on verse 22, it says, “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.” I think probably most likely the wonders of God that they’re hearing about is Jesus, his miracles. They were praising God for the miracles that Jesus had done, especially the miracle of his resurrection. 

Stunned reaction, verse 12, “Amazed and perplexed, they ask one another, ‘What does this mean?'” They can’t explain this phenomenon, but they’re about to find out as Peter preaches the gospel. And 3,000 of them, through their faith in Christ, are going to have their eternity changed because of repentance and faith. However, sadly, it’s always a mixed group. There’s always going to be wheat and weeds. There’s always going to be sheep and goats. It’s all mixed together. Look at verse 13. It’s really heartbreaking, “Some, however, made fun of them and said they have had too much wine.” John Calvin commenting on this said, “Here we see the monstrous depths of human godlessness. If God had come down from heaven in full view, his greatness and glory would scarcely have been more apparent than it was in this miracle. How beast-like must someone be to actually see it and yet ridicule, mock the power of God?” 

V. Baptism and Fullness of the Spirit

Now, I want to say a brief word here about the difference between the baptism or the relationship between the baptism and the filling of the Spirit. Terminology is important here. I think after the day of Pentecost, after this unique day in history, I believe it’s right to reserve the concept of baptism of the Spirit for the moment of your conversion. The moment that you’re converted, God, Jesus, baptizes you into his body. This is the language 1 Corinthians 12:13 uses, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free, and we’re all given the one Spirit to drink.” So, if you’re a genuine Christian, you were baptized by the Spirit into the body of Christ the moment you were converted. Jesus did that. That’s his baptism. That’s what he does. The water baptism we saw this morning, that was an outward and visible sign in water of the inward baptism that Jesus has done on those three young people. 

Well, what’s the filling of the Spirit? Well, I believe there’s one baptism that you receive for your whole life. You don’t need another baptism after you’ve come to faith in Christ, baptism of the Spirit. But there are repeated fillings of the Spirit. So, the Spirit comes on the day of Pentecost, but that’s not the end of his work. He’s got an ongoing progressive, continual work that he’s doing. And one of the things he does is he fills the people of God with his power for an immediate circumstance, immediate moments of service. So, we see this very powerfully in Acts 4. You remember how Peter and John healed the lame beggar, and they were arrested for it, brought before the Sanhedrin. And there Peter and John stand up and give one of the boldest, most powerful proclamations of the gospel in the entire Bible. Peter, the one who just a number of weeks before that had denied even knowing Jesus. Remember? The night he was arrested with the rooster crowing and all that, denied that he even knew him. 

And John, one of all of the apostles in the church that were locked in the upper room for fear of the Jews, even a week after the resurrection, suddenly filled with the Spirit, have incredible boldness. Acts 4:8-12,  

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said, “Rulers and elders of the people, if we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this, you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” 

Now that’s the filling of the Spirit, filling of the Spirit. And then later in that same chapter when Peter and John are released, and they weren’t further persecuted, but they were released, they went back to their own people. And they prayed. And it says in Acts 4:31, “After they prayed the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.” Do you hear that? Filled with the Spirit, spoke the word of God boldly. We are nowhere commanded in the pages of the New Testament after the day of Pentecost to seek the baptism of the Spirit. But we are commanded in Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk on wine but be being filled with the Spirit.” That’s a command. By the way, it’s a little weird. 

It’s a passive imperative. What in the world is that? Passive is something done to you. Imperative is something you must do. So how does it work? You are commanded to have something done to you. And what is that? Be filled with the Spirit. So, seek it, seek the power of the Spirit in your life. That’s what it’s saying. Every outpouring of the Spirit of God on the people of God since that time, all the revivals, all that I would call the filling of the Spirit again and again. 

VI. Applications

All right, applications. First, clearest of all is come to Christ. Come to Christ. I’m looking at your faces right now. I don’t know how long any of you will live after this moment. I’m not trying to be dramatic; I’m just saying life is short. You don’t know how long. The rich fool who wanted to build bigger barns, he said, “Take life easy. Eat, drink, and be merry.” And God said, “You fool. This very night, your soul will be demanded of you.” Not asked, demanded. You’ll have no choice when that summons comes. Are you ready to die? Are you ready to face your maker? All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Are you ready to stand? The only way you can be ready is by repentance and faith in Jesus. Have you trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins? 

All of us have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Are you ready to stand? The only way you can be ready is by repentance and faith in Jesus.

Secondly, if you’ve already trusted in Christ, I want you just to stand in awe of the power of the Spirit of God. Do you realize what he’s achieved over 20 centuries, what the Spirit of God has achieved? I would like you to be emotional about what he’s done for you. Thank him. Thank him for saving you. Thank him that he took out your heart of stone and gave you a yielded, submissive heart, that you repented and believed. Give praise and glory to the Spirit of God. And seek the Spirit’s power. Seek the Spirit’s power for your own holiness. The Spirit is called the Holy Spirit among a number of names given to him in the Bible. But he’s called the Holy Spirit because he’s in you to work holiness in you. You are forgiven if you’re a child of God. You have received the gift of imputed righteousness, but now he wants you to be actually righteous in your mind and your lifestyle every day. 

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. That means go to hell. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you’ll live because those who are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. So, if you’re a child of God, the Spirit is going to lead you to put sin to death in your life. Do that. 

And then finally, as Acts 1:8 says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria to the ends of the earth.” God has gone ahead of this church, the members of this church, this week and has gotten evangelistic encounters ready for members of this church. It’s on you. It’s like Queen Esther. And Mordecai said, “Who knows but you have been positioned for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14). God has positioned you to speak to that lost person the gospel. Rely on the Holy Spirit of God. Realize the Spirit got those cowardly disciples out of the upper room where the door was locked for fear of the Jews and got them down in the streets proclaiming the greatness of God. The same Spirit is at work in you. Close with me in prayer. 

Father, we thank you for the things we’ve learned today on the great day of Pentecost. Thank you for the power of the Spirit of God. Thank you for the activity of the Spirit of God. I pray that you would strengthen this church to be faithful to do the witnessing that you’ve called us to do and to be faithful to put sins to death in our lives. Especially Lord, do a work in us that our hearts would burn within us the sense of the greatness of Jesus Christ and what he did for us. In his name we pray, amen.

These are only preliminary, unedited outlines and may differ from Andy’s final message.

One of the greatest days in human history!

The day the Third Person of the Trinity came down on the people of God universally and in force, empowering them to move out from their little room in Jerusalem to conquer souls for Christ’s eternal Kingdom.

The Book of Acts, and indeed all of church history, is rightly called a history of the Holy Spirit’s power through the church.

We should stand in awe of the power and wisdom of the Spirit of God… and give the Spirit as much honor as we give the Father and the Son for our salvation. It is because of the Father’s plan that you are saved. It is because of the Son’s shed blood that you are saved. It is because of the Spirit’s power on your soul that you are saved. All three persons of the Trinity equally active, equally essential, equally worthy of praise for your salvation… and not for yours only but also the salvation of a vast multitude of millions through the corridors of epochs of history, and through the various nations and regions of earth.

This is the text where it all began. The Great Day of Pentecost!!

I. The Promise Fulfilled

The great day of Pentecost represented the fulfillment of the promise God had made and Christ had made… the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the people of God empowering them to change the world.

The Father made the promise many times in the Old Testament…

Isaiah 44:3  For I will pour water on the thirsty land, and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.

Ezekiel 36:27  And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.

Joel 2:28-29  And afterward, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions.  ²⁹ Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days.

John the Baptist made the promise:

Matthew 3:11  “I baptize you with water for repentance. But after me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.

Jesus Christ made the promise as well:

Before his death:

John 14:16-17  And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever–  ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth.

After his resurrection:

Luke 24:49  ” I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

John 20:21-22  Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.”  ²² And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.

Acts 1:4-5  On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  ⁵ For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

The Holy Spirit is essential to God’s plan for the salvation of the world.

Only by the powerful working of the Holy Spirit within the people of God will we overcome our sins and selfishness and weakness and be witnesses.

And only by the sovereign working of the Holy Spirit within the hearts and souls of lost people will anyone be converted.

Now the time has come for the promise to be fulfilled… the baptism of the church in the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost is the fulfillment!!

II. Pentecost: The Harvest of Souls Begins

A. The Feast of Pentecost

1. One of three great festivals God ordained to picture salvation

Exodus 23:17  “Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD.

a. First, the Day of Atonement… the Feast of Unleavened Bread… picturing God’s redemption of Israel out of slavery in Egypt; a picture also of Christ’s work on the cross

b. Second: Pentecost… the beginning of the harvest

Pentecost means “fiftieth”… the New Testament name for the Feast of Weeks; fifty days after Passover

Exodus 23:16  “Celebrate the Feast of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.

Deuteronomy 16:9-10  Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain.  ¹⁰ Then celebrate the Feast of Weeks to the LORD your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the LORD your God has given you.

c. Third: Ingathering… when the harvest is completed

Exodus 23:16 “Celebrate the Feast of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.

2. These feasts all have a distinct, symbolic purpose in the salvation plan of God… to picture the saving work of God

B. The Harvest Begins to Come In

1. With the outpouring of the Spirit, the time of the harvest has started … time for the souls to be gathered in

2. John the Baptist used this language

Matthew 3:12 His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

3. So did Jesus

John 4:35  Do you not say, ‘Four months more and then the harvest’? I tell you, open your eyes and look at the fields! They are ripe for harvest.

Matthew 9:37-38  Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few.  ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

C. Practical Concerns

1. Not only did the coming of the Spirit on Pentecost start the ingathering of souls into the heavenly barn, the feast also aided practically by assuring there would be a HUGE CROWD in Jerusalem

2. Three times a year, all Jews were required to assemble

3. After the Exiles (Assyrian and Babylonian), Jews were scattered all over the Mediterranean world… the Diaspora

4. The command to assemble ensured that there would be a huge number of devout Jews ready to hear Peter’s message

D. The Mystery of the Church

1. Pentecost also signals the beginning of the church of Jesus Christ

2. The word “church”==ekklesia== means “called-out ones”

3. It is said to be a mystery by Paul

Ephesians 3:6  This mystery is that through the gospel the Gentiles are heirs together with Israel, members together of one body, and sharers together in the promise in Christ Jesus.

4. By the coming of the Spirit, all believers in Christ are drawn together into one Body, one Holy Temple, one Bride for Christ

5. By the Spirit, we all delight in Christ and worship him

Philippians 3:3  we who worship by the Spirit of God, who glory in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh

6. The Day of Pentecost thus marks a significant moment in Redemptive History

7. Yet we must acknowledge that the Holy Spirit was very active among the people of God before Pentecost, and that God was drawing people in the Old Testament to himself by faith

8. There is not therefore as radical a departure or change on the Day of Pentecost as some have us believe… as if the church was God’s “Plan B” after Israel rejected Christ.

9. In Romans 11, there is an image of ONE OLIVE TREE, with the root system laid down through the faith of the Patriarchs—Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… and natural branches (ethnic Jews) and wild olive branches (Gentiles) all grafted it or growing from that one tree… so that is a picture of CONTINUITY with the work of God

10. Romans 4: Abraham was justified by faith just as we are

E. Preparation

1. We saw a whole chapter of preparation and waiting last week

Acts 1:14-15   They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brothers.  ¹⁵ … the believers (a group numbering about a hundred and twenty)

2. They were obeying Jesus’ command to WAIT until they were clothed with power from on high… from the gift God wanted to give them

3. That preparation involved unity, prayer, and Peter leading them to replace Judas with Matthias as one of the Twelve

4. That preparation comes to its end here in verse 1

Acts 2:1  When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.

KJV:  Acts 2:1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

This unity was marvelous and essential to the beauty of the early church

They are ready, waiting, praying, in one accord, one mind

III. The Sound, The Fire, The Tongues,

A. Suddenly

1. I love the drama of that word!! SUDDENLY!!

2. Without immediate warning, God the Spirit breaks in and nothing is ever the same again!

B. The Sound

Acts 2:2  Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.

1. God the Spirit comes in a way that human senses can appreciate and perceive

2. The gift of the Spirit had to fill their senses so the disciples could be roused to action and KNOW it was God that did it

3. They themselves were not changed nor would the world be changed by human effort but by God’s Spirit alone

Zechariah 4:6  ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty.

4. The sound of a violent wind… like a raging hurricane

Job 38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind

5. This hurricane was purely spiritual… without the movement of any air at all!!

6. The Spirit is often depicted as a wind

a. The Hebrew word for Spirit is the same as for wind and for breath… ruach

b. So also these encounters with Almighty God

Ezekiel 1:4 I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north– an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal

1 Kings 19:11 The LORD said [to Elijah], “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind.

Psalm 29:3-9  The voice of the LORD is over the waters; the God of glory thunders, the LORD thunders over the mighty waters.  ⁴ The voice of the LORD is powerful; the voice of the LORD is majestic.  ⁵ The voice of the LORD breaks the cedars; the LORD breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon.  ⁶ He makes Lebanon skip like a calf, Sirion like a young wild ox.  ⁷ The voice of the LORD strikes with flashes of lightning.  ⁸ The voice of the LORD shakes the desert; the LORD shakes the Desert of Kadesh.  ⁹ The voice of the LORD twists the oaks and strips the forests bare. And in his temple all cry, “Glory!”

7. This sound, though it moved not a single air molecule, yet it filled the whole house where they were sitting

8. This sound is so overpowering that it attracts the huge crowd outside the house to which Peter will preach his sermon

C. Tongues of Fire

Acts 2:3  They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them.

1. I picture one central fiery core… like one tongue of fire, like a mini version of the pillar of fire that led Israel

2. The Spirit has no physical body, no atoms make up the Spirit

3. But he manifests himself here as fire… at the baptism of Jesus, he manifested himself as a dove emerging from the tear in the heavens; the dove at that time represented the peaceful mission Jesus, the Lamb of God came to do

4. Here, I conceive it as a work of raging fire for zeal and purification… not wrath or judgment

5. Fire can purify or fire can destroy

Malachi 3:2-3  who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap.  ³ He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver.

6. Fire is also a picture of zeal… of a raging burning love for God

Jeremiah 20:9  his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones. I am weary of holding it in; indeed, I cannot.

Luke 24:32  They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

7. And fire can SPREAD… like a wildfire… with no diminishment to the torch that started it

a. The Day of Pentecost spread the fire of love for God and pure hatred of sin from 120 to 3000

b. The fire continues to spread from a messenger to a convert

D. Languages

Acts 2:4  All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

1. Tongues… a source of modern controversy, ever since the famous Azusa Street revival beginning the modern Pentecostal movement

2. The word means languages… clear, orderly languages, with vocabulary and grammar

3. Of course it hearkens back to the confusion of languages at the Tower of Babel; God sought to resist the spread of wickedness

4. He knew very well it would hinder the spread of the message of the gospel

5. Here is a remedy… the church instantly able to speak languages they have never studied

6. It is very clear from the rest of the account that people from many different parts of the world heard them clearly in their native tongues

Acts 2:7-8  Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?  ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?

7. In the future, the normal spread of the gospel would involve missionaries laboriously studying the native languages and painfully learning its ins and outs

a. Christi and I studied Japanese for two years while we were missionaries there… and we only scratched the surface

b. William Carey, the great Baptist missionary to India, translated the whole Bible into six languages, and portions of the scripture into twenty-nine others! That may be a form of “the gift of tongues”… but here, on the day of Pentecost, these 120 believers in the room were enabled to speak differing languages instantly as the Spirit enabled them

8. Today… Wycliffe Bible Translators estimate that there are 7300 languages in the world today; about 3800 of them have some translations or work proceeding in them

9. Universality of the Spirit’s baptism

a. Every one there received the baptism of the Spirit, though not all were called to the apostolic or preaching office

b. This is the point that Peter will make based on the Book of Joel

Acts 2:17-18  “‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams.  ¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy.

10. They were “FILLED” with the Holy Spirit… more on this later

IV. The Crowd Gathers in Amazement

Acts 2:5-6  Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven.  ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.

A. God’s Wise Purpose

1. As noted above, this was providentially orchestrated by God

2. God commanded all Jews to assemble three times a year

3. So, despite the fact that the ceremonial laws had been fulfilled by the death of Christ and were now obsolete… these Jews and proselytes to Judaism did not know that or believe that

4. God used the empty hull of Old Covenant Judaism to start the new living Church of Jesus Christ

B. Pious

1. They were God-fearing Jews… not the hardened rebels

2. Their hearts were soft toward the God of the Bible… they were ready to receive Christ

C. From Every Nation Under Heaven

1. The diaspora of Jews in the Assyrian and Babylonian exiles spread the Jewish religion all over the Mediterranean region

2. This is a foretaste of God’s saving purpose to the ends of the earth

Acts 1:8  Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, the ends of the earth.

3. Fifteen nations listed

Acts 2:9-11  Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome  ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs

a. Parthians: modern Iran, southeast of the Caspian Sea

b. Medes: partners in the ancient empire with the Persians, also from modern Iran, mountainous regions near central Asia

c. Elamites: from the citadel of Susa, southwestern part of modern Iram

d. Mesopotamia: between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in modern-day Iraq

e. Judea… of course

f. Cappadocia: right in the center of modern-day Turkey; Calvin and Daphne were there in June!

g. Pontus: northeastern Turkey on the Black Sea; so also

h. Asia… ASIA MINOR (Turkey)

i. Phrygia… ASIA MINOR (Turkey)

j. Pamphylia… ASIA MINOR (Turkey)

k. Egypt

l. Parts of Libya near Cyrene: west of Africa on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea

m. Visitors from Rome: foretaste of where the Book of Acts is heading!!

n. Cretans: from the island of Crete… where Titus would do his work

o. Arabs: Jews living in the kingdom of the Nabatean Arabs south of Damascus

D. Amazed at the Language Miracle

Acts 2:6-12  When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language.  ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?  ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?  ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,  ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome  ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs– we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”  ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

1. The initial sound of the wind drew them

2. BUT NOW a more amazing sound fills them with wonder… they are hearing clear communication, each of them, in their own mother tongues

3. Essential to their salvation is a clear communication of the Word of God: “faith comes from hearing the Word of Christ”

4. What they heard: “The wonders of God”

a. Not sure exactly what this referred to

b. But the ultimate focus would be Jesus Christ… the wonders he did among the people

Acts 2:22  Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.

5. Did God work in the hearers’ brains? Or in different messengers’ brains?

a. It is possible that they all heard the same talk, each in his own native language

b. God worked in the neural paths of the brain concerning HEARING the way he can produce a VISION without light

c. But it is also possible that different Apostles got up and preached in different languages at different times

6. Stunned reaction

Acts 2:12  Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

They cannot explain this phenomenon… but they are about to find out. For 3000 of them, their eternity is about to change!!

E. Mockery

Acts 2:13  Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

Amazingly beast-like. … a stunning miracle, they make a stupid joke.

John Calvin: “Here we see the monstrous depths of human lethargy and godlessness when Satan has taken away the understanding. If God had come down from heaven in full view, his greatness and glory would have been scarcely more apparent than it was in this miracle. Anyone who has any drop of genuine understanding must be overwhelmed simply to hear of it. How beastlike must someone be to actually see it and yet ridicule the power of God!”

V. Baptism and Fullness of the Spirit

Terminology is very important here.

After the Day of Pentecost, I believe it is right to reserve the concept “baptism of the Spirit” for initial conversion… once for all time

A. The Baptism of the Spirit

1 Corinthians 12:13  For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body– whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free– and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.

B. The Filling of the Spirit

1. There are many “fillings” by the Spirit, empowering and equipping the people of God for the work God wants them to do

2. Examples in Acts

Acts 4:8-10  Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people!  ⁹ If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed,  ¹⁰ then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.

Acts 4:31  After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Acts 13:9-11  Then Saul, who was also called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, looked straight at Elymas and said,  ¹⁰ “You are a child of the devil and an enemy of everything that is right!”

3. Command in Ephesians

Ephesians 5:18  Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

“Be being filled…” an ongoing empowerment

BUT there is no command to be baptized with the Spirit

C. Every Outpouring of the Spirit on the People of God Since Then

1. Mini-Pentecosts (like Acts 4 just cited above)

2. Something that happens to you, empowering you for evangelism and missions

3. We should SEEK this… diligently and passionately

VI. Applications

A. Come to Christ!

1. The outpouring of the Spirit was for one ultimate purpose… the glory of God in the salvation of sinners

2. Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, died for sinners like you and me

3. The Spirit’s task is to convict sinners of their sins and reveal the glories of Christ to sinners’ hearts

4. Has that happened to you? Trust in Christ!!

B. Stand in Awe of the Power of the Spirit

1. The sound of a raging, powerful wind

2. The sight of tongues of fire

3. Visual and Audible displays of the usually invisible and spiritual activities of the Holy Spirit

4. Realize it is always and only because of the Spirit’s skill and power, wisdom and gentleness, his awesome effectiveness that any person ever comes to genuine faith in Christ

5. Realize that it is because the Holy Spirit is so good at his work that Jesus Christ is the most famous human being on earth in every generation

C. Seek the Spirit’s Power

1. For personal holiness, yes!

Romans 8:13-14  For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live,  ¹⁴ because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

2. But also for personal power in witness

Acts 1:8  you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.

3. Ask the Spirit to empower you to witness this week!