The Need To Be Filled With The Holy Spirit
Acts 2:1-4 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.3 Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them.4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
There were three feasts that the people of Israel were required to participate in; they were Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles. Each of these feasts was a celebration of natural and spiritual events that occurred in the history of the people of God and have application to the Christian life.
Passover – Exodus 12 – This Feast celebrated the sparing of judgment of death and deliverance from Egypt. The main theme was the blood of the Lamb on the doorposts of the house which brought about their redemption it speaks to the Christian of:1 Corinthians 5:7 For indeed Christ, our Passover, was sacrificed for us.
Pentecost – 50 days after Passover this feast marked the commencement of the ingathering of the harvest or fruit – to the Christian this marks the birth of the church and its commission to harvest the lost:
Acts 1:8“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 2:1-4 from the doorposts of the house into the house now living in the house
Tabernacles – Speaks of the permanent communion of God in His House
The Christian needs to move from being saved to showing the fruits of salvation so that our witness of Christ in us will bring many to salvation – this sermon concentrates on the Day of Pentecost and the absolute necessity of that continuing experience in our lives. We will look at six aspects of that day taken from Acts 2:1-4.
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come
John 6:32 Then Jesus said to them, “Most assuredly, I say to you, Moses did not give you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
Jesus refers to Himself as the true bread from heaven or the fruit of the harvest – the word true means without concealment – in the O.T. referral to Moses Jesus was indicating that the scriptures were concealed in types and shadows but He was now revealing the truth of the meaning of the Bread –
In Acts 2:1 the scripture again takes up this theme – fully come means no longer concealed but revealed – meaning everything had taken place in order for this event to occur in its fullness –
Fully means:
1. to come with an expected end
2. to come with anticipation
3. to come in order to have part in a mission
The Mission is the Commission – we need Pentecost in order to be witnesses and Go for God - Luke 24:49 “Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.” Acts 1:4 And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, “which,” He said, “you have heard from Me;
A sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind
Greek sound = a loud rumbling, a roaring voice, like the sound of a tornado – this sound came from heaven to earth - The wind comes from the heavens, but it affects people on the earth, just like the Holy Spirit does, we don’t see the Holy Spirit, but He has great power to move and change us. He comes from the heavens...
Wind - In the New and Old Testaments, wind is an indicator of divine presence. In fact the word “wind” and “spirit” are the same word in both Hebrew and Greek. And so, when Jesus is talking to Nicodemus he says:
John 3:5-8 “Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
In Ezekiel’s vision in the valley of the dry bones, he says the following in Ezekiel 37:9-10 “Then he said to me, “Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.’” So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.”
This was no ordinary wind: (1) It came with a mighty sound, (2) from the heavens and (3) filled the place where they were together. Just as breath, air and wind are the source of physical life so, this wind - the power and presence of the Holy Spirit - would be the essence of spiritual life in the church.
This outpouring of the Spirit was not for salvation but for empowering for service, they needed to be spiritually empowered for the task that Jesus had committed to them and this spiritual strength came through being filled with the Spirit.
It filled the whole house
In the natural world when a tornado comes nothing is exempt it will affect everything – in the same way this Pentecostal encounter filled the whole house – nothing was exempt – it filled the whole house – upstairs, downstairs every nook and cranny every room, cupboard, hiding place!
Wind also has a "cleansing" element - wind would blow the leaves thus saving me several hours of hard work. The Wind of the Holy Spirit has a cleansing element too. When the Holy Spirit "blows" in and through us... it blows out the garbage of sin that has collected in our lives.
Tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them
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.
The fire that appeared on the heads of each believer in the upper room has a connection to the Old Testament: When Moses was dedicating the tabernacle,
Leviticus 9:24 Fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed the burnt offering and the fat portions on the altar. And when all the people saw it, they shouted for joy and fell facedown.
And Solomon was Dedicating the temple 2 Chron. 7:1 When Solomon finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple.
Supernatural fire from the presence of God fell on the sacrifices. This indicated to the people that God had accepted the tabernacle and the Temple as His dwelling place
The Apostle Paul uses the term temple to indicate that under the New Covenant our bodies are the Temple" of the Holy Spirit
1 Cor. 6:19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;
At Pentecost, the individual believers had tongues of fire over them, Supernatural fire from heaven … Once again God sent His own fire to demonstrate that from now on He would accept the "temple" – the individual as His dwelling place, So that the believer is a "temple" of the Holy Spirit. The Church - would now become the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit.
1 Cor 6:19 tells us that we are not our own any longer In fact what it is telling us is that we are not alone any longer either
In Leviticus 6:12 instructions were given that the fire that fell from God should never be permitted to go out, it was to be attended constantly around the clock so it would never go out.
So should the fire of the Spirit of God in our lives, it should never be allowed to go out! The Bible says 1 Thes. 5:19 Do not put out the Spirit’s fire;
They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues
The word for tongues here is glossa which means language – in the context we have to believe that this meant human language – this is not disputing the fact of unknown spiritual tongues that are heavenly in origin or arguing against the initial evidence of the Baptism in the Holy Spirit being speaking in tongues but that is for another time – here in this situation according to Acts 2:6-11 were people from all over the world who spoke different languages – the point being made that the 120 had a divine ability to communicate to these – and what did they communicate? Acts 2:11 “Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.”
As the Spirit gave them utterance
Utterance means:
1. To speak plainly
2. To declare openly
3. To enunciate with clarity
Who gave the words? The Holy Spirit – they must have heard in order to speak
Conclusion
WE NEED THE HOLY SPIRIT BECAUSE WE NEED POWER to witness TO COMPLETE THE TASK BEFORE US IN THE HARVEST and he wants us to complete the task in his power and not by our ingenuity God did not ask His people to do His work without giving them the ability to do it.
1 Cor. 2:4-5 My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power
Mark 16:17-20 “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; “they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” So then, after the Lord had spoken to them, He was received up into heaven, and sat down at the right hand of God. And they went out and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them and confirming the word through the accompanying signs. Amen.
The Bible tells us in 2 Tim 3:5 that in the Last days the Church will have a "form of Godliness, but deny the power thereof" That is a way of saying that we the Church will be putting more emphasis on externals [show] rather than on internals [empowerment by the Holy Spirit]https://www.sermoncentral.com/Dashboard
WE NEED THE HOLY SPIRIT BECAUSE WE NEED TO BE TRANSFORMED The Holy Spirit took a group of fisherman, former prostitutes, ex-religious leaders, tax collectors, and various family members of Jesus and the other disciples And formed them into a united group…we call the church Before Pentecost. The disciples were scarred They lacked faith They did not fully understand God’s plan After Pentecost They were united as never before. Nothing earlier had welded them into one united force, It took God’s Spirit to do this
