Relying On The Work Of The Spirit

Jesus had told them to wait—His first disciples, I mean. He had given them important work to do—the most important work of all, actually—but He had told them not to attempt it just yet. No. They were to wait. “Don’t give,” He said, “until you have received. Nothing can be done by you until something has been done to you.” So, wait. “You are witnesses,” He told them, “but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high” (Luke 24:48, 49).

And they waited. They might not have. They had such great news—news of a Savior whose death had conquered sin and whose resurrection had conquered death. They might have thought, ‘This stuff will sell itself,’ and they might not have waited. They might have rushed out first thing to do God’s work in man’s strength, to seek heavenly ends with earthly means, to pursue spiritual purposes with the meager arsenal of the flesh.

It’s just like us to think we can do God’s work on our own steam, to witness to His grace without His power, to speak His truth without His authority. But without His Spirit, our witness is ineffective. Unless we have power from God, we have no power with men.

Thankfully, the apostles obeyed our Lord and restrained any impulse they had to get on with the work. And in due time the Day of Pentecost arrived, and the Holy Spirit descended upon them with “a sound like a mighty rushing wind” and “tongues as of fire,” and then—not until then, but then—they hit the streets to bear witness to Christ. This we read about, of course, in Acts, chapter 2.

It is now as it was then—as it always will be. We are Christ’s witnesses, but it is the Spirit who makes our witness effective. And we dare not rely on our own power, on our own strength, on our own authority. We must rely on the Holy Spirit to make our witness effective. And here in our passage for today we see why. First, it is the Spirit who works in the mouth of the witness. Second, it is the Spirit who works in the ear of the sinner. And, third, it is the Spirit who works in the heart of the believer.

It Is the Spirit Who Works through the Mouth of the Witness

(Acts 2:1-13)

First, then, our witness depends on the Spirit because it is the Spirit who works through the mouth of the witness. What took place on that first Pentecost after Jesus’ resurrection and ascension was nothing short of breathtaking. Two things happened to Jesus’ followers.

Words from the Spirit Fill the Mouth of the Witness (vv. 1-4)—First, words from the Spirit filled their mouths. Luke, the author of Acts, tells us that ‘divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them’ (v. 3). In other words, the message did not come from within them. This was not an instance of self-expression. The message they were to deliver came from God. He put it in their mouth. And their words were of such power and intensity that the only way to talk about it was to say their tongues were on fire.

Words from the Spirit Flow from the Mouth of the Witness (vv. 5-13)—So, not only did words from the Spirit fill their mouths, but words from the Spirit flowed from their mouths. In verse 6, Luke says, ‘And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered’—why?—because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.’ This, of course, was the miracle of Pentecost. The disciples spoke in their own native tongue—presumably Aramaic—and the people, who were ‘from every nation under heaven’ (v. 5), heard the disciples, each in his own language, whatever it might have been. But the point here is, it was the Spirit’s work.

Jeremiah was a prophet to the Southern Kingdom in the sixth century BC, just before the Babylonian invasion. He was given the unenviable task of warning the people and urging them to repent from their sin and return to the Lord. I say ‘unenviable’ because the people didn’t want to hear his message of judgment. In fact, he was shunned, ridiculed, imprisoned, and even beaten for his trouble. He came to the point where he said, ‘The word of the LORD has become for me a reproach and derision all day long.’ He considered leaving the ministry and finding something to do that might be less hazardous than calling people to the Lord. He told himself, ‘I will not mention him, or speak any more in his name.’ But, as soon as he said this, he came to realize ‘there [was] in [his] heart as it were a burning fire shut up in [his] bones.’ ‘I am weary with holding it in,’ he said, ‘and I cannot’ (Jer. 20:8, 9).