Please open your Bibles to Acts 2:1-13 which we will read in a few minutes.
Last Sunday we took a brief look at the Ascension of Jesus to Heaven and how that act was a critical part of the plan of redemption that was put into place before the beginning of time.
We took a look at how the great parts of God’s perfect plan of salvation were executed at just the right time in order to bring salvation to a world of people lost and dying in sin.
We saw how God’s great love for us draws us to return that love to Him and out of that love flows a life that is pleasing to the Lord in our actions as well.
Today we will see how the gift of the Holy Spirit enables us to live out our lives of obedience to Jesus in ways that would not have been possible before the coming of the Holy Spirit.
With that in mind let’s go ahead and read Acts 2:1-13
(Now go through the verses again and this time comment on certain aspects)
Vs 1 – all together in one place (in obedience to Jesus’ commands)
Vs 2 – sound of wind but no mention of an actual, physical wind
Vs 3 – tongues of fire – natural fire aimlessly seeks out combustible materials
– this fire targeted individuals – no left over fire – just enough
Vs 4 – They were all filled with the Holy Spirit
Vs 4 – They all began to speak in languages they had not previously been able to use
Vs 4 – At this point we don’t know if these are common earthly languages or not
Vs 5 – There are many devout followers of Judaism in Jerusalem at that time. Why?
- Pentecost! The festival of the Feast of Weeks or Shavot
- one of the three Jewish pilgrimage festivals
- Celebrates the beginning of the wheat harvest
- Celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments by the Lord to the nation of Israel fifty days after their exodus from Egypt
Vs 6 – The Jewish pilgrims from many nations heard the sound of the wind and the
sounds of 120 people declaring the wonders of God in many languages
They all heard in their own language no matter which disciple they were standing
next to
Vs 7-11 – Galileans (thought to be lacking in observing Jewish law)
“Declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues (languages)”
Vs 12-13 – the event was amazing, perplexing and yet provoked mockery
In the Scripture we read last week from Acts 1 we saw that the last words Jesus spoke to His disciples were, “…and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Up until this point we have not seen any eagerness on the part of the disciples to be witnesses of Jesus. They have seen Him perform many mighty miracles, they have met with Him multiple times after He had risen from the dead and yet they were NOT His witnesses.
Then came the Holy Spirit who filled them with courage and the miraculous gift of speaking in languages unknown to them as a proof to those who came to the Feast of Pentecost that another mighty miracle was taking place.
From that time on the disciples could not be shut up!
They were indeed changed from inactive disciples to active evangelists!
Even when threatened with death they would not shut up!
What caused the change? They were filled with the Holy Spirit, that’s what!
What was the result? Well, if you read through the book of Acts you will see that not only were 3,000 saved on that very day but the disciples eventually went to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, throughout the Roman Empire and beyond preaching the good news of salvation through faith in Jesus and establishing churches in almost every town.
OK. Reality check! Right?
One of the most amazing, astonishing, God-Events in all of human history, before or after, has just taken place.
Given the circumstances what would we expect to take place?
Try to imagine this taking place in America today.
The 120 disciples are all together praying, tongues of fire come and set on their heads, they start speaking in languages that are unknown to them, they are filled with the Holy Spirit!
What would we do? What we might very well do is this; we might run outside and start shouting, “Did you hear that? Did you hear that sound of a mighty, rushing wind but there was no wind? And, you can’t believe what happened next! There was what looked like fire sitting on each of our heads but our hair did not catch fire! And, then we started speaking in languages we didn’t even know! Wow! What an experience! Let’s go back inside and see if we can get it to happen again! Wow! Come on in! Check it out!”
In the state of the church in America today we might not even go outside. We might just stay inside and talk about whose tongue of fire was the biggest. Who heard the wind the best. Who spoke in the most languages. We might start planning our next, “Set-On-Fire” event. Maybe we can make it bigger next time. How can we have an even more exciting Pentecost Sunday to attract more attendees?
What if we have some smoke machines and a laser light show?
Of course, such a thing would never happen. The Lord God would never send the Holy Spirit into a group that was just looking for a “spiritual high.” The functions of the Holy Spirit are not for entertainment purposes.
What affects did the Holy Spirit have on Jesus’ disciples that day?
The Holy Spirit was an explosive catalyst!
Did you know that pasta will become soft if left in cold water long enough? But heating the water is a catalyst to the process. The water is there and the pasta is there but when the heat is missing the process takes much longer and the results are quite different. You need the heat, the catalyst.
Another example is a stick of dynamite. The powder is there and the casing is there, even the fuse is there but until the fuse is ignited there will not be any explosion. You need the spark, the spark is the catalyst.
The disciples on that day of Pentecost almost 2,000 years ago had first hand knowledge of Jesus, His life, His miracles, His resurrection and even His ascension were all there but all that knowledge, all of that life experience was just sitting there inside them like a piece of pasta in a pan of cold water or like an unlit stick of dynamite.
The Holy Spirit was the catalyst. All that truth of the Son of God who became the Son of Man, the God-Man, the injustices done to Him, the disrespect shown to Him, the unfairness of the crucifixion, the glory of the resurrection, they were all bottled up inside them. Then came the Catalyst, the Holy Spirit and they could not contain it any longer.
They exploded from the upper room in such a frenzy that some thought they were drunk but they were not. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and one of the functions of the Holy Spirit is to declare the truth about Jesus!
And that’s why the disciples did not come out of the upper room telling about the wind and the fire but about Jesus! The Holy Spirit is always pointing us to Jesus and if we’re filled with the Holy Spirit we will be pointing people to Jesus as well.
And, this was not just a temporary thing that happened to the disciples and apostles of Jesus. It stuck with them. We see this later on when the apostles are hauled before the Jewish leaders, threatened and told to basically shut up about this Jesus guy. Peter and John just asked, should we obey God or you guys and left the place “rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name.” Acts 5:41
So, back to the day of Pentecost … the disciples were energized by the Holy Spirit to declare the glories of God and Peter preached a sermon about what had been done to the Messiah of Israel, Jesus the Christ.
This brought about another function of the Holy Spirit, convicting of sin.
Now, when you mix Holy Spirit filled testimony with the working of the Holy Spirit to convict people of sin, conviction of sin is what will happen!
Acts 2:37 NIV
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”
When the Holy Spirit exposes sin in our lives we are cut to the heart.
If someone were to come up to me and stick a knife into my heart it would not take a doctor to tell me that I would die very soon.
The same thing goes when the Holy Spirit exposes a life of sin to an unbeliever.
It doesn’t take a judge and jury to tell the person that they are guilty.
The person knows it in their heart. They are dead in their sin.
These people who were on their way to the Pentecost feast day were most likely the very same ones who were in Jerusalem for the feast of Passover when Jesus was sacrificed for the sins of the world.
What had happened to Jesus at the Passover was not something that happened in secret.
According to the disciples on the Road to Emmaus it appears that everyone in the city of Jerusalem knew about what had happened to Jesus.
So, these same people are now coming back to Jerusalem. How their minds must have mulled over those very events over the past 50 days. And now coming back into Jerusalem must have brought those awful memories back to the forefront of their minds.
So, here they are coming back into Jerusalem and suddenly they are confronted by this mob declaring the glories of God in their own languages and then when they stop to see what’s going on they here this Holy Spirit inspired, convicting sermon accusing of them of everything their own hearts had been accusing them of over the past seven weeks.
Wow! Talk about conviction!
When we are convicted of our sins by the Holy Spirit what is the natural response?
What was the response of those in Jerusalem that day?
Acts 2:37 NIV
“When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, ‘Brothers, what shall we do?’”
The convicting work of the Holy Spirit naturally brings us to this question, “What shall we do?” and the answer is always the same. “
Acts 2:38-39 NIV
“Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off - for all whom the Lord our God will call.”
