“The Day the Holy Spirit Came” Acts 2: 1-4
D. L. Moody once said, “I believe firmly that the moment our hearts are emptied of pride and selfishness and ambition and everything that is contrary to God’s law, the Holy Spirit will fill every corner of our hearts.
But if we are full of pride and conceit and ambition and the world, there is no room for the Spirit of God. We must be emptied before we can be filled.”
Did you catch the last part of this? WE MUST BE EMPTIED BEFORE WE CAN BE FILLED!
I truly believe that is why Jesus left these 120 disciples alone for a few days before sending the Holy Spirit. I believe Jesus was giving these disciples an opportunity to empty themselves in order to be filled with His Spirit.
Is that what He is waiting for in my life? Is that what He is waiting for in your life? Is He waiting for us to empty ourselves of all that we are and desire, in order to fill us with His power and Spirit?
I want to begin this leg of our journey by examining the birth of and the growth process of the church. To do this we will need to begin at the day of Pentecost.
The day of Pentecost was an unbelievable day.
*It was the day that the Spirit of God came to fill the people of God, just as Jesus promised.
*It was the day the church was born.
*It was the corporate as well as the individual filling of the people of God by the Holy Spirit.
*This was the day that had been prophesied long ago:
In Acts chapter 2 Peter, beginning in verse 16, tells the people who hear the message that day what they are seeing and hearing is exactly what the prophet Joel spoke of.
[Joel 2:28-32 NKJV] 28 “And it shall come to pass afterward That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, Your old men shall dream dreams, Your young men shall see visions. 29 And also on [My] menservants and on [My] maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days.
30 "And I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth: Blood and fire and pillars of smoke. 31 The sun shall be turned into darkness, And the moon into blood, Before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD. 32 And it shall come to pass [That] whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, As the LORD has said, Among the remnant whom the LORD calls.”
I want you to understand something here. Peter was NOT an Old Testament scholar. He did not grow up under the leadership of the Scribes or the teachers of the law…
Charles Finney once said: “when the presence of God is in the church, the church will draw the world in…if the presence of God is not in the church, the world will draw the church out!”
Before we can fully understand what was happening here I think we need to understand the idea behind the celebrations.
Today, we are living in a day of energy, promotions, and programs. The church is trying to make up, with enthusiasm and organization, for what we do not have in Pentecostal power.
But let me tell you that all of the programs and excitement we can muster up, as good as it may be, is no substitute for real Holy Ghost power!
I have what we call in the auto repair industry a “jump box” which could be called “jumper cables in a box.” It’s used to start your engine when your battery dies in your vehicle. Our lawn mower battery will not hold a charge but I can jump it with the jump box and cut grass all day.
This may be fine but it is no substitute for a fully operational power source, which is a new battery.
We [and when I say we I mean the church] are operating on the power of our jump box and not really connected to our TRUE power source! We just want to get momentarily fired up. When the excitement is over, like that mower, we go back to being the dormant, powerless people we have become.
Several years ago Billy Graham went to visit a large, influential church. The pastor told him the sad story of how the church recently had to vote out a member for public drunkenness…church discipline didn’t result in repentance, so they had to ask him to leave.
Billy Graham said, “That’s sad, but when was the last time you voted someone out for not being filled with the Holy Spirit?” (Have you ever thought about what that would mean to the church?)
Billy Graham reminded the pastor that the same verse that says it’s a sin to be drunk with wine also commands us to be filled with the Spirit!
I wonder, today, how many in this very room are running on empty…
(Good stopping point if time is an issue)
The sign on the stage said: "The Motionless Man: Make Him Laugh to Win $100." The temptation was irresistible. For three hours boys and girls, men and women, performed every antic and told every joke they knew. But Bill Fuqua, the Motionless Man, stood perfectly still.
Fuqua is the Guinness Book of World Records champion at doing nothing. In fact, he appears so motionless during his routines at shopping malls and amusement parks that he is sometimes mistaken for a mannequin.
There are a lot of Christians/churches, like the “Motionless Man.” They seem to have mastered the fine art of doing almost nothing.
Well, that’s not the way it was on the Day of Pentecost some 2000 years ago. Those 120 disciples had spent the last 10 days preparing for the promise of the Spirit’s coming. They had no idea what to expect or how it was to happen but they were ready.
Today I want to gig a little deeper into the day of Pentecost and what it means to us at EBC.
I want to begin by asking the question:
1. What is the Meaning of Pentecost?
Look at two words in v.1 “fully come” These two words mean “fulfilled”
I believe that when the average Christian thinks of Pentecost, our minds immediately go to Acts 2. Many Church goers think this is where it all started but Pentecost was actually a Jewish celebration that had been held for some 1,500 years before Luke ever thought of writing Acts chapter 2.
The Jews had several annual celebrations they called “feasts” which were times for the people to come together as a whole… it was a time of special worship.
If you like, you can read about them in Lev. 23.
These celebrations or “feast” were instituted by God Himself…and each of them had a “double meaning.”
Now, I’ve heard many say that the Old Testament was for “them” and the New Testament is for “us” as if we could separate the Bible between the Old and New Testaments…
These feasts meant something in the day they were implemented but, little did the Jews know, these feasts also predicted something concerning the coming Messiah… The Lord Jesus Christ!
I think that it is important that we understand these feast in order to get a grip on the beginning of Acts chapter two.
1st Feast we’ll look at is the “Feast of Passover”
This feast was for celebrating the deliverance of the people of Israel from the horrible bondage in Egypt.
How many of you remember what the 10th plague was? (Read in Exodus 12)
The Passover meant death for every firstborn son in every home where the blood of the sacrificial lamb was missing.
IF the blood of the sacrificial lamb was found applied across the top & the doorpost, the death angel “passed over.” If not the first born son would die.
For the most part the people were unaware that through this celebration they were predicting the death of Jesus on the cross. The Lamb’s blood shed on that wooden cross was the doorpost separating life and death, which brought the freedom and liberation from the bondage of sin to all who would follow Jesus!
[John 8:36] If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.
Here’s what I want you to understand from this.
When Jesus died on the cross, the feast of Passover was “fully come” [fulfilled]! So, we no longer celebrate Passover, because it has become a symbol for the real thing that we now have!
[1Co 5:7b NKJV] “…For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.”
[1Pe 1:18-19 NKJV] “18 knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, [like] silver or gold, from your aimless conduct [received] by tradition from your fathers, 19 but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.”
2nd feast was the Feast of Unleavened Bread which pointed to burial of Christ…
Yeast or Leaven is symbolic of sin in the Old Testament and during this feast was NOT to be placed into the bread. As a matter of fact all leaven was to be removed from the house, which could be where we got the idea of Spring cleaning, since this feast came in the spring time.
Jesus being the bread of life had your sin and mine placed in His own body which was without sin. His body was buried (put into the ground), symbolizing the putting away of your sin and mine or our leaven.
He who was without sin took our sin in His own body.
Understanding this makes John 12:24 take on a whole new meaning:
[John 12:24 NKJV] “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it produces much grain.”
The 3rd was the feast of Firstfruits:
Every year they would take the firstfruits of their crop and offer it to the Lord, thanking the Lord for the harvest.
What they were doing was predicting the resurrection of Christ!
[1Co 15:20-23 NKJV] “20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, [and] has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since by man [came] death, by Man also [came] the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those [who are] Christ's at His coming.”
The feast of firstfruits had fully come or had been fulfilled!
The 4th feast that was called Pentecost
Pentecost means 50th…it always came exactly 50 days after the feast of firstfruits.
Remember that after His resurrection, Jesus was seen for forty days and so Pentecost would be only ten days away, making the time between His resurrection (Firstfruits) and the day the Holy Spirit came fifty days.
It also corresponds to God giving the law or the10 commandments to Moses.
Every year for 1,500 years: they would take grain and grind it to fine flour/mix in oil and make dough. They would then divide the dough into 2 loaves of bread, only this time they would use yeast [leaven], unlike Passover.
They would also sacrifice 10 animals…7 lambs, 1 young bull, and 2 rams.
What did all of this symbolize?
We know the feast of Passover predicted the death of Jesus on the cross while the unleavened bread His burial and the firstfruits predicted His resurrection BUT what did the day of Pentecost predict for 1,500 years?
The answer can only be; the coming of the Holy Spirit and the birth of the NT church!
The 10 animal sacrifices represent the completeness of salvation.
The oil represented the Holy Spirit
The grains of wheat represented the individuals who were separate before Pentecost, but ground together and made 1 by the Holy Spirit.
What about the 2 loaves?
The church was now comprised of both Jew and Gentile!
Why yeast if leaven is a picture of sin?
This is a reminder to us that, even though the Holy Spirit, who is sinless indwells us, we are not sinless.
Here’s something interesting. Moses received how many Commandments? He received 10 commandments from God but when he came down, from meeting with God, he found the people involved in horrible acts sin.
Moses threw down the tablets, breaking them…
[Exodus 32:26-28 NIV] “26 So he stood at the entrance to the camp and said, "Whoever is for the LORD, come to me." And all the Levites rallied to him.
27 Then he said to them, "This is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says: 'Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.' "28 The Levites did as Moses commanded, and that day about three thousand of the people died.”
How many got saved according to Acts 2: 41 when the Holy Spirit came? 3,000!
So, when the Holy Spirit came, the feast of Pentecost was fully come. It was fulfilled!
Next week I want to look at the day of Pentecost a little closer and see what happened.
Invitation:
