Pentecost: The Response Of The People Series

PENTECOST: THE RESPONSE OF THE PEOPLE

Acts 2:5-13

(Antioch Baptist Church – Wednesday May 14th, 2025)

When we last assembled we began to study the arrival of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost. We examined the suddenness of the Spirit’s arrival, the sights & sounds that accompanied the Spirit’s arrival, and the significance of the Spirit’s arrival. Today I would like to continue our study of the events that took place on that great day and consider “Pentecost: The Response Of The People”.

I would like to being by examining the response of those faithful followers of Jesus who were in the upper room, gathered together in one accord, praying, and waiting for this moment to come. Notice that:

THE ARRIVAL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT TRANSFORMED THE BELIEVERS

The people that Luke writes about in this passage were the faithful few who had trusted in Christ and believed that He was the Messiah. Many of these people were eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ, and all of them had faith in Jesus and they were anticipating the arrival of the Holy Spirit.

Luke says that when the Spirit arrived, the sound was like “a rushing mighty wind”; the Spirit of God descended on His people with great power. Furthermore, when the Holy Spirit arrived “divided tongues of fire” sat upon each of Christ’s followers. These “tongues of fire” served as an outwardly visible manifestation of the inward work that God had performed in the lives of His people.

The followers of Christ heard powerful sounds, they saw supernatural sights, and after the Spirit fell they possessed some amazing abilities. Verse 4 says that the disciples “were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance”. The promise that Jesus had made to His followers before His ascension has now been fulfilled, the Holy Spirit filled every believer. As a result they were able to do things that had never been done before.

The arrival of the Spirit that had been predicted by the prophets and promised by Jesus was now a reality. On the day of Pentecost, the followers of Jesus were baptized in and filled with the Holy Spirit of God. Their lives were never the same from this moment on.

After the Spirit fell, the Apostles began to praise God for His mighty works and the fulfilment of His promises. I cannot imagine the joy experienced by these faithful followers of Christ when they realized that they were the recipients of the promise given by God through the Prophets and through Jesus Christ Himself. The disciples were experiencing a supernatural move of God and the Jews were witnesses of this miracle. The same is true for us.

Verses 1-4 show us that the arrival of the Holy Spirit transformed the Believers, and verses 5-13 show us that:

THE ARRIVAL OF THE HOLY SPIRIT CONFOUNDED THE JEWS

When the Holy Spirt fell on those Believers at Pentecost they began to speak in “other tongues”. The Greek word for “tongues” can be translated “languages” and that is certainly the case in this context. There were people in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost from at least 12 different countries. When they arrived at the place where the Christians were gathered, these Jews were amazed that they could hear the Disciples speaking in their own native languages. It is important to note that the miracle was the “speaking” of the disciples, not the “hearing” of the Jews. Luke says that the Disciples began to “speak in other tongues”. Speaking in other tongues was a miraculous gift provided by the Holy Spirit. Verse 4 tells us that “the Spirit gave them utterance.”

v5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven.

The “devout men” here refers to the Jews who had traveled to Jerusalem to celebrate Pentecost. These men were “from every nation under heaven”. This means that there were people there from all over the known world. When they ran to where the Disciples were, these Jews were probably expecting to hear them speaking Aramaic or Greek. Imagine their surprise when they heard them speaking in their own native languages.

After the Spirit fell, the Apostles began to praise God for His mighty works and the Jews were witnesses of this miracle. However, the Jews did not recognize this as a move of God, they were confused and some even theorized that the disciples were drunk.

v6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each in our own language in which we were born?