Pentecost Power

Acts 2:1-13 NLT

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.

5 At that time there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. 6 When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers.

7 They were completely amazed. “How can this be?” they exclaimed. “These people are all from Galilee, 8 and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages! 9 Here we are—Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, the province of Asia, 10 Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Cyrene, visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism), Cretans, and Arabs. And we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done!” 12 They stood there amazed and perplexed. “What can this mean?” they asked each other.

13 But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying, “They’re just drunk, that’s all!”

This passage in Acts 2 relays the account about the Holy Spirit coming down in power, filling the believers, and how it impacted the multitudes in Jerusalem that day. We’re going to talk about:

? The Importance of Pentecost

? The Spirit’s Presence and Power

? The People’s Perception

1. The Importance of Pentecost

Pentecost was a specific day, not just for Christians but it had a special significance for Israel. For Israel it was a time to remember how God delivered them out of Egypt and brought them into the Promised Land. How many years did the children of Israel wander in the desert? God wanted them to remember all the miracles and mighty works He did for them, how he provided for them every day for 40 years. It’s like how someone will tell you about their journey of faith and all the miracles God has done for him or her, the Israelites would tell each generation about their journey of faith as an entire nation. This meant never forgetting where God brought them from in the past, so that they’d be thankful in the present and have hope in God for the future.

In the Old Testament, Pentecost was a celebration of all the wheat they gathered on the 50th day after the Passover celebration. What happened on the first Passover in Egypt? 50 days after the children of Israel left Egypt, they had their first Pentecost called the Shavuot. According to Jewish tradition, the day of Pentecost was the very day God gave His people the Law of Moses on Mount Sinai. God told the people to prepare themselves for when He came down on the mountain to meet them (Exo 19). In the commentary of the Hebrew Bible, the Targum, it relates the story of how God spoke to the people, through thunder and flashes of lightning on the day He gave them the law on Mt. Sinai. God is so Holy that He told them that even if their animals came too close to the mountain they would die.

The tradition tells us that when God spoke, His words were sparks or thunderbolts or flames like torches of fire … that would fly through the air and hover over the heads of the Israelites, and then His word would return and inscribe itself into the tablets. The Mishna, or Jewish oral traditions, tells us:

On the stones of the altar on Mount Ebal (Deut. 27) were inscribed all the words of the Torah in seventy tongues—i.e., all the languages of mankind. (Mishnah, Sotah 7:5).

Can you imagine that the Word of God could be understood in 70 languages? At that time that was all the languages of the known world.

50 days after Jesus was resurrected something incredible happened, the disciples experienced the promised Holy Spirit (John 14:17) Who would be with them, collectively, and dwell in them individually. So let’s look at the passage in Acts 2 again. On Pentecost they experienced:

2. The Spirit’s Presence and Power

Acts 1:1-4 tell us:

On the day of Pentecost all the believers were meeting together in one place. 2 Suddenly, there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. 3 Then, what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them. 4 And everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages, as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability.