biblestudy: Acts (Part Two)
The Miracle of Pentecost: Peter's Sermon
John W. Ritenbaugh
Given 02-Aug-88; Sermon #BS-AC02; 85 minutes
Description: (show)
Let us get back into the book of Acts once again.
I got to thinking about some more things concerning the background of the book of Acts, so I thought that I would preface chapter 2 with these remarks before we go into chapter 2. Because I think it is necessary to continually understand kind of an overview of the book of Acts and then as you go through it, it is going to be a lot easier to piece in some of the specific material that is contained in each one of the chapters.
But what I was thinking about is that what we get from a book is, I should say, frequently or often determined largely by our expectations as we read it, that is, that we are going to get from it what we think we are going to get from it or what we think the book is about. A lot of times we are influenced by what other people tell us. And very frequently we read novels because other people tell us, well, this was a good book and you need to read it. Or we are influenced about a movie because somebody told us that we ought to go see it. "It's a great movie. It has good plot, good acting in it." and so we go there expecting certain things from what others have told us.
I can remember, it must have been way back in about 1961 or 1962 in my early days in the Spokesman's Club, that one of the men who was in the club was a supervising principal of 3 different high schools in southeastern Ohio. And he gave a speech one evening talking about the importance of the preface of a book and that it was very similar to the specific purpose statement that we make during our speeches, and that one should never go into a book without reading the preface because there the author normally gives his purpose. And once understanding the purpose, it helps you to be guided along what the author is trying to get from the book.
Well, we are preconditioned pretty much about the book of Acts. And I am not saying that our preconditioning that we have had in the past is in any way bad. I am just saying that it might be better if it was a little bit broader. Now most of us look upon the book of Acts as the history book of the early church and there is nothing wrong with that at all. And when we read, we discover what happened. Again, that is very fine because there is an exciting and a meaningful story contained within its pages, a very logical development to it. It is just laid out chronologically beginning with the ascension of Jesus Christ, carrying through with the empowering of the church by God's Holy Spirit in chapter 2, the early preaching in and around the area of Jerusalem. The early stages of the organization of the church that is shown both in chapter 1 with the selection of Matthias as the 12th apostle, and then in chapter 6, the selection of the very first deacons.
We begin to see the church expanding out in chapters 10 and 11 with the preaching of the gospel going out to the Gentiles. In chapter 13, we are introduced to Paul being sent out, commissioned to preach the gospel, and from there on it carries the work of the apostle Paul, carries the story until the gospel has gone out from Jerusalem to Samaria, into Asia Minor, on into Macedonia and Greece, and finally, the book ends with the gospel being preached in Rome.
Now there is a wealth of material in there that is not only history but there is a great deal of theology contained within it as well. Most of the books in the Old Testament are history books. And it is within the framework of that history that the doctrines of the Bible are taught bit by bit, here a little, there a little. Some of it is in Numbers and some of it is in Deuteronomy, some of it is in I or II Samuel and Kings. There is little bits here and little bits there. We get to the prophecies, and there we can generally say history is written in advance, and there is a great deal of doctrine that is taught within the pages of the prophetic books.
So it is with Acts. There is a great deal of theological material contained in this history of the early church because it is here we find the foundation of the New Testament church of which we are approaching the end, the end of the age when this theology has reached, as far as we are able to see, its full development. Now here we are seeing the beginnings. In this era, we see the completions. I say that in a guarded way because I do not know what else is going to come. But we certainly see a great number of refinements in the church of God today. But here we are looking at our roots. And that is very important. If we know our roots, there is a pretty good chance that we are going to know where we are.
Now the story takes us to such varied places as backwater towns like Lystra. Whoever heard of Lystra? You never heard of it except in the pages of the book of Acts. It is not one of your stopping points on a tour of the Mideast. But the apostle Paul had a couple of exciting moments there in Lystra, all the way to the intellectual centers of Athens, and then on to the imperial power that is in Rome.
Without realizing it all almost, we come slowly to understand that we are in the presence of a master storyteller in Luke. And it seems that what he wrote was written with a consciousness of some purpose that he was trying to get across. Surely what we are reading here in the book of Acts are not the only things that occurred in the first century. But what he chose to speak about were critical because they were important steps in the development of the church.
Now this book is not some kind of a cheap evangelistic tract that people would hand out on the corner. Not at all. It is really a very fine piece of literature. Actually, the line, I guess you might say, in a commentary that kind of precipitated this in me was what I just mentioned to you. And that is that though it is generally conceded that the most powerful, majestic, colorful, and inspiring language in the whole New Testament is in the book of Hebrews, yet the book of Acts is the most literate of all of the works that are there. That is, it tells a story better than any of the other books. And for that reason alone, it kind of stands out.
We might add to that that it becomes very evident that the book of Acts does not stand alone. But the book of Luke is the first volume in a two-volume work, and the book of Acts is a completion of what is written in the book of Luke. However, the style changes in the book of Acts. How important that is, I do not know. Even though it had the same author, the book of Acts, I am told by these commentators, is written in the style of the Greek Old Testament, which is kind of interesting. Why did he do that? It is written in the same style as the Bible that you and I know as the Septuagint, which was a Greek translation of the Old Testament written by or put together by 70 Greek scholars. They might have been Jews, but they were men who knew the Greek language very well, and they translated it from the Hebrew into Greek.
The book of Acts is written in the same style. Now he undoubtedly consciously did that. But why did he do it? That is what is so interesting. Why did he suddenly shift gears and change the approach in the book of Acts from what he had in the book of Luke? Now most of these people feel that he did it because of the audience that the book of Acts was aimed at. I do not know whether that is entirely true. I just pass it on to you as a thought. But there is at least, I think, a germ of an idea there. I gave you part of that last week, that is, what the germ of that idea is. And that is that what we are looking at here might very well have been a trial document, that that might have been its original intention. That it was written by Luke to provide evidence, material, background, however you might want to word it, for Theophilus, whose identity we do not know.
But there is the assumption that he may very well have been a very literate Roman official, perhaps a magistrate. Perhaps the magistrate that was deciding the apostle Paul's fate. Because the evidences that are produced within the book of Luke show almost a consistent theme. A persecution in which the church is accused, let us say generally, of stirring up trouble, and then in each case they are found to be innocent. Whether it was Peter or whether it was Paul, the two central characters in the book, either one of them, in each case they are found to be innocent by the ruling personalities, whoever they might have been, whether it was a Roman or a Greek or someone of mixed blood like Herod. In any case, they found the church to be innocent of the accusations.
And then we find the book of Acts ending with the apostle Paul still in, I call it prison, because that is really what it amounted to, in Rome, but yet having free access to the public at large, people were able to come to him.
Now in Acts 1, there is a statement here that I think is more important for you and me. Because maybe, just maybe, the reason Luke wrote this might have been as originally a trial document. I think God had something far more, far greater, far bigger in mind and that it was going to serve a dual purpose, the second purpose which was going to be far greater than the first purpose. Because if it was just a trial document, its purpose was quite narrow. That is, to provide background evidence, to provide a release, let us say, or a reason to release the apostle Paul so that he continued his work. But it would serve as a far more powerfully effective vehicle if God's real intention was to have it written and preserved to increase the faith of the church all down through the ages. I think that is its real intention.
Acts 1:1-3 The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
"All that Jesus began to do." Now what He began to do is in the book of Luke. What he continued to do is in the book of Acts. The book of Acts is a continuation of the work of Jesus Christ. Only this time it is not in the flesh, but rather it is by the Spirit through His church. So with the book of Luke, the book of Acts shows the beginning of the gospel, that is, the establishment of salvation through Jesus Christ in the book of Luke, and then the proclamation of that salvation through the church in the book of Acts. That sets a pattern, see, for all of the churches, all of the eras, all down through the ages, right down here to you and me now in this era of God's church. That seems to me to be his purpose.
But what were the vehicles that He used? What is the framework that he built this all around? Well, there are several of them. And again, this is important to you and me.
Number 1 is this: He begins by showing that the church stands in continuity with the acts of God that are recorded in the Old Testament. In other words, it is the same God, the same Spirit, the same purpose that the church is carrying on. Essentially, the same work as the prophets did in the Old Testament. It is carrying on the same work that Jesus Christ did when He was alive. Here is how he does this. He shows very clearly at the very beginning and actually all through that the events are shown to be the will of God, that He was in them. It was not something that was done in the face of what he expected, but actually, that He was carrying on that work. You see, it is the work of Jesus Christ continued through the church.
Let me see if I can pick out a verse here. In verse 23 of chapter 2, he is talking about Christ here and he is showing here that the death of Jesus Christ was predetermined by God, "Him, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God." That was something that God purposed would occur. Jesus Christ is the founder of the church. See, He is the captain, the author of our salvation. He is continuing His work through the church.
In chapter 4, verses 27 through 29.
Acts 4:27-29 "For truly against Your holy servant Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever Your hand and Your purpose determined before to be done. [the apostle here is praying and this is his prayer] Now, Lord [this is the continuation of it], look on their threats, and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word."
It is just a continuation. And we find then that the opposition that Jesus Christ faced, that the prophet's faced before Him, is also faced by the church as well. That things have a way of repeating themselves and that this too is a part of the predetermined will of God.
Another way he shows it is that the very life and purpose and being and reason for the church is also according to the will of God. Now some of the verses that I have here to show this, we will be going through a little bit later. But a very fine, very clear example of this is in Acts the 2nd chapter, beginning in verse 17. He is showing that what is happening on the Day of Pentecost is the fulfillment of Joel 2. And beginning in verse 28 and going through verse 32, the very founding of the church, its birth, you may say, is according to the predetermined will of God, right in harmony with the Old Testament prophecies.
Another one is in Acts 13, verse 47.
Acts 13:47 "For so [this is Paul speaking] the Lord has commanded us [that is, the church]: 'I have set you to be a light to the Gentiles, that you should be for salvation to the ends of the earth.'"
That is right in harmony with prophecy. The church is the fulfillment of prophecy. It is right in harmony with God's purpose. So we are going to see this very clearly as we go through that Luke chose this form to establish in our minds the kind of conviction that we need to know that the church is on a good foundation.
Another place is this, which we will not go into at all very deeply, it shows that the miracles, the signs, the wonders that were done, especially at the very beginning but continuing right through the ministry of the apostle Paul, were exactly the same things that Jesus did: healing the sick, raising the dead, and other miracles as well.
That was Number 1 which shows that the church was standing in continuity to the acts of God recorded in the Old Testament.
Number 2 is this: It shows the mission and the message of the church. This was intended to be a guide for the church for all ages. Because there would not be any human being that would be living from one age to another, there was a possibility that our mission or commission as we might call it today, and our message might get lost. And indeed it has gotten lost on occasion down through the centuries. It has been watered down, but if we ever need to get back on track, the book of Luke is here to show us what God intended from the very beginning. So the mission very plainly stated in Acts 1, and actually the whole book in one broad overall sense, is built around this one verse. "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."
So what Luke shows is how this began, and how that by the time the book ends, the gospel has spread in a very effective way all the way to Rome. It did not end there, of course, it took a lot of time to get it over to the United States, but nonetheless, it has gotten here and has gotten all the way around the world.
The message is contained in the various speeches that are delivered by Peter and by Paul. Those are the two major speakers, but also there is the one by Stephen and ones by others as well. But the major ones are given by Peter and Paul, and there is a major one in verse 15 by James. It is very brief but very important, so it is intended to keep the message on course. We need not deviate very far from it if we have the book of Acts to guide us.
The main storyline then is the spread of that message under the impact of the gift of God's Holy Spirit. Now that had to be gotten across right at the very beginning and so by the time we get into Acts 2, the church is empowered by the Holy Spirit, otherwise it could have never accomplished the commission that God gave to it.
Big point Number 3 is this: It shows progress despite opposition. Now it seems to me that the book of Acts is showing me that if we are doing things right, we are going to get in trouble. Maybe we will not always be in trouble but there is going to be opposition. If we are walking hand-in-hand with the world, they are probably going to be pretty much in agreement with us. And two can walk together. But it seems to me that the book is showing in this period of time that spreads from 31 AD to about 64 AD, that there was a great deal of trouble in those 30-some years. Maybe the word constant is a little bit too strong. Because what we have here, I am sure, are experiences and events that are excised out from that 33 or 34 year period, but nonetheless, it shows constant opposition.
Now the good news is that somehow or another, the church always overcame it. We did not always succeed the way that we wanted to in the place that we wanted to. The book shows that there were times when we had to back away from a certain city. And it shows them, you know, knocking the dust off their shoes on their feet, and then going on somewhere else. Somewhere else that God had opened the door. Sometimes God allowed the door to get slammed shut. When He slammed one door shut, He opened another somewhere else.
So, what it is teaching us is that if we are faithful and patient, in spite of the mockery that arose in chapter 2 or the imprisonment and the beatings of chapters 4 and 5, of the death in martyrdom in chapter 7 and in chapter 12, and the constant harassment by everything from religious leaders to businessmen in the middle chapters of the book of Acts that the apostle Paul faced, that if we were faithful, the message got preached—somehow, some way it got preached.
Big point Number 4, and this is a very important point. It shows the expansion of the gospel to the Gentiles and their inclusion in the church. Now how long it was from the beginning of Acts to chapter 10, I do not know. This is when Peter went to Cornelius and the door to the Gentiles was flung open by God. But Luke does show the reaction within the church and it was not always very agreeable. There were apparently fairly large numbers of influential people within the church who resisted the inclusion of the Gentiles and it created a great deal of of dissension within the church. But somehow or another, the church was able to weather it and overcome it to a large extent because, as Luke shows, that this was divinely willed. It was not something that was intended by church leaders. Because their mindset at the beginning was to preach to the Israelitish people. But God showed that He had other things in mind. Because how could there ever be one family if you did not begin on earth by preaching the gospel to everybody.
Well, despite the multitude of problems that it created, the Israel of God was created. And the Israel of God, the church, includes both Gentile and Israelite.
Now we find that running parallel with this, it almost seems that as God opened up the door to the Gentiles the opposition from the Jews intensified to the place where they were, well, the greatest enemy of the church by the time the book of Acts ends.
Big point Number 5. The book shows what I would call the life and the organization of the church. It gives us at least a small insight into their meetings, the fellowship, what they taught, their prayers. And above all things, it stresses the importance of the Holy Spirit to the life of the church. Without it, there is no church. Without it, that church has no life. Without it, the church has no mission. Without it, the church has no power to carry out its mission. And so the Holy Spirit is woven through the entire book. We are going to see this as we go along.
It shows the leadership of the apostles and the elders and the deacons. It shows how they got into their office, that is, if there was a lack, as in the case of Matthias, as in the case of the whole group of deacons that was put into the church there in chapter 6. It shows how they were commissioned to go out in various responsibilities as in chapter 13, with the apostle Paul and Barnabas being sent out along with three others. And so it gives us some sort of an insight by which we are to be guided in the operations of the church right down to this day.
So there is a great deal contained here. And it is important that you approach the book looking for things like this. You will learn a great deal more if you are able to piece together the events with what is in the overview.
Let us go back to Acts the 2nd chapter.
Acts 2:1 When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
You will recall that it was recorded in the last chapter of the book of Luke, as well as recorded in the first chapter, that they were to stay in Jerusalem until they received power from on high. And they, of course, wanted to get on with whatever it was that they were to do, and I am sure that during that period of time that they were counting the days very faithfully up to the Day of Pentecost, but not realizing what was going to occur on that day. If He had just told them to wait until they got the Pentecost, then it probably would have given a great deal more sense to what He wanted them to do. But He did not do that. But they nonetheless very faithfully counted the days out and when they kept the Day, they were all in one place with one accord. That is very important. It had a great deal to do with the empowering of each individual with the Holy Spirit.
Now what if somebody had decided to be an independent? Saying, "I won't be there." Well, they would not have been in accord. They would not have been in one place at one time, and I am sure that because of that disobedience, that person would not have received the Spirit at that time. Now maybe they would have repented and they would have received the Spirit later on. But their willingness to submit to God, even when it was not clear what He wanted, but only said, "Wait."
That is the way it is going to be, as you are finding out very clearly, with anything that involves faith. You are going to do a lot of waiting. And a lot of, well, indefiniteness is going to be in your mind. You may know what it is that you want, but how long are you going to have to wait? Well, in this case, they only had to wait 50 days, which is not very long in many cases. Then again, I guess if you had some fatal disease, your blood was running out, 50 days would be an awfully long time. But because they were faithful to that, why they were all with one accord in one place.
Acts 2:2-4 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. [Let me go on to verses 3 and 4, so we can kind of take them together.] Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
I think that we have to be, you and me anyway, impressed with the Holy Spirit being given on the Day of Pentecost. Because it immediately, for anybody who understands what happened when the law was given on Mount Sinai, it begins to make comparisons in our minds. Because that was the beginning of the Old Testament church. Here, God parallels that in the New Testament, the beginning of the New Testament church, also on the Day of Pentecost.
Now the beginning of the Old Testament church was accompanied by, let us say, a lot of sensory experiences. Those people were so frightened that they finally told Moses to go talk to God alone. But what was there? Fire, the ground was shaking, the voice of God that we would normally think of in the human sense as being powered by wind, that is, breath moving across the vocal cords. We begin to see parallels all over the place. We see fire sitting on each one of their shoulders. We hear the sound of a mighty rushing wind. And although it does not say it here, I think it probably shook the whole house. I know what the wind does to our house when we have a Santa Ana blowing. You know, where we are right on the edge of that precipice, the wind comes whipping through there and it really does shake the whole house and pieces of it every once in a while blow off. Things like shingles.
You can see that already he is beginning to tie the Old Testament or the Old Covenant together with the New Covenant, with the New Testament. He is showing that the events in the book of Acts, the works of the church, are the continuation of what God began at the very beginning. There has been no break here. If we can say there was a break, it was the three-day period that Jesus was in the grave. You might say the work of God ground to a halt for three days and provided kind of a little bit of a respite there, but then it started right up once again. That it is a continuation of the same work, only this time it is going to be expanded out in the work of the church rather than be done through scattered individuals as it was through the prophets.
Now, the church is being equipped to carry out the commission that has been given to it by God.
The one thing that I think we need to consider here is that God's Holy Spirit is not necessarily a sensory experience. Some of the Charismatic groups feel that they have to receive certain signs, evidences, of the receiving of God's Spirit that are at least somewhat similar to what we see here in the book of Acts. You should not count on that because God's Spirit has nothing at all to do with feelings. It has nothing at all to do with what we can see, or we can hear, or we can taste, or we can smell, or we can touch. It has no more to do with anything sensory with the receiving of God's Holy Spirit as it did when your mother was impregnated and you are conceived. You could not feel anything then and yet a life had begun.
There is a parallel here in that the receiving of God's Holy Spirit is not to be thought of as something that is sensory. God's Spirit can be working with a person without any outward show. However, there are times when He does give visible or other kinds of sensory experiences in order to give encouragement or to give evidence that He is present. I think that that was done here in order to encourage those who were there. Because again, the Day of Pentecost would immediately begin to have an effect on their minds. They would remember.
Not only that, but the other, the sensory experiences, the fire. What would it remind them of? Well, it might remind them again of Pentecost and the mountain seething with fire, like a volcano erupting. It also might remind them of the pillar of fire that led the children of Israel through the wilderness. It is a possibility. There is the wind. God blew, it is described in one place, and the waters were parted. There is a number of places. There is one in the book of II Samuel, chapter 22. David talks about God blew on them with the breath of His nostrils, and they were smitten. Well, I think what he is talking about there is a hard wind came up and it discomforted his enemies.
Every once in a while, God will do something like that, that He wants you and me to relate to something that previously occurred to make a connection. And He is doing that in order that we might be encouraged by a manifestation, by evidence that He is with us, that He is there, that He is aware.
Now you know Mr. Waterhouse has a thing about numbers. Everybody kind of kids him about it because oftentimes in his presentations, he used to talk about it a lot, and he would tell us what the number three means and what the number seven means and what the number twelve means and the number 19 and the number 20. Well, my wife and I have had a lot of experience with that. I do not know why it is but every once in a while, certain numbers will begin cropping up. I hope we do not get to the place where we look upon them as absolute signs that we are going to follow all over the place because that would be misleading.
But nonetheless, we see those things occurring at significant times in our life. Maybe we are being transferred and a certain number will begin to crop up. Usually the number is 19. We have had an awful lot of things, almost every one of which has a church connection that has the number 19 attached to it. And one time we were talking to Mr. Waterhouse about it, and he said that he felt that God did that. It was not always the same number with every person. And they did not always use the same means but it was something that would catch my wife and I's attention. And you would be surprised how encouraged you get by something like that, because you wonder if you are headed in the right direction, and here is a little bit of encouragement.
Well, that is what I think that He was doing here. He gave them something that they could make a relationship to something that had occurred earlier that had to do with the work of God. Now using their knowledge of the Old Testament they could not help being encouraged by the signs, you see, the evidence that God gave to them so that they would know that they were participating in something that was going to be very significant, really, all down through history. Now how significant, I am sure that they did not know. But significant they knew it was going to be.
In verse 4, this is kind of interesting. It says that "they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance." I just want to look at the word "filled" for a while. Now we see it right here at the baptism of the apostle Paul. It says,
Acts 9:17 And Ananias went his way and entered into the house; and laying his hands on him he said, "Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, who appeared to you on the road as you came, has sent me that you may receive your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit."
In chapter 4, let us go back there. And in verse 8, Peter is a speaker. It says,
Acts 4:8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, . . .
You know there is a difference in the context between the first and second one and the third one. The first and the second one showed an initial endowment of God's Spirit. Now the third one shows the continuation of a process. In other words, he was filled once. And then he was filled again and filled again and filled again and filled again. It is almost like that if you do not go back and get your tank refilled every day, you are going to run out. That seems to be the indication. It is almost like, even though we understand that the Spirit of God is literally inexhaustible, He is also showing us that we have to keep going back and back and back and back, and be renewed, be filled, have the process continue.
Chapter 4, verse 31. Now, these are basically the same people that we see receiving the Spirit in chapter 2.
Acts 4:31 And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken; and they were all filled. [we might just interject the word refilled] with the Holy Spirit.
This is important to understand. That if we are going to continue to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ, we have to understand that there has to be daily contact with God or we are going to lose it. God gets us started but it requires the constant daily contact with Him to keep the tank full. And that if we do not go back and get the tank filled, it is going to be very similar to fasting. What happens when you fast? You get weak, and eventually you die. If you do not get your tank refilled every day, you lose your strength.
Let us look at another place in chapter 13 and in verse 8. These men are being sent out and in this case, Paul was on Cyprus.
Acts 13:8 But Elymas the sorcerer (for so his name is translated) withstood them, seeking to turn the proconsul away from the faith. Then Saul, who also is called Paul, filled with the Holy Spirit, look intently at him. . .
H was filled. Now he was filled once at baptism. You see, Paul was going back and keeping the tank full.
Acts 13:52 And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Spirit.
Let us go to Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18. This is very clear. Now notice the comparison here.
Ephesians 5:18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation [the contrast]; but be filled with the Spirit.
You can be filled with wine or you can be filled with the Spirit. If a person drinks wine but then does not replenish the supply, what is in him runs out. You see, that is the obvious comparison that he is making. If one drinks in of God's Spirit, but does not replenish the supply, it is going to run out. You know it shows if we begin to put all these cases together in which there is a filling mentioned, you will find that a person can be filled with the Holy Spirit in order to be impregnated. That is the initial endowment. The person can be filled on a continuous basis by going back to God daily in prayer, in study, in keeping up that fellowship with God.
In addition, it shows that a person can be filled for a special purpose, that is, to carry out a function that God has for him or her within the work, as in the case of, let us say, the virgin daughters of Barnabas (I am not sure it was Barnabas). But they were all prophetesses, and they were given the Spirit. They were filled with it in order to give them the gift of prophecy to carry out the giving of a message to the apostle Paul. But it is almost like that is then withdrawn when that particular function is over with, and then they have to go along in the continuous process of going back to God in order to maintain the growing and the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ.
Oh, we are not done with this yet. Let us go back to chapter 1, verse 5.
Acts 1:5 "For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."
Now you compare chapter 1, verse 5 with chapter 2, verse 4. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is equated with, compared with, as being the same as being filled with the Holy Spirit. You can also add to that chapter 11, verse 16, where it says the same thing.
Acts 2:17 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh.'
Pouring out compared with chapter 2, verse 4 is equated with being filled with. The pouring out of the Spirit and the filling of the Spirit. You can add one more to this in chapter 10, verse 47. The verb is changed to receiving. So we have pour out, being baptized with, and receiving God's Holy Spirit is all equated with being filled with God's Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:5 And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
There is a bit of confusion over the word "dwelling" because it indicates those who had been there for some period of time, those who were there not as pilgrims, but as residents. So it raises the question as to whom he is speaking about. Because in other contexts whenever he talks about dwelling, he uses a different word. And it is very clear from the context that those dwellings in other places were people who were just temporary residents in a place, but they were living in this place for a while and then they would pass on.
The teaching of the church has been primarily that the ones to whom Peter preached on this day were people who were there in Jerusalem for the keeping of the Day of Pentecost. That is correct. However, it seems that those who were in Jerusalem were less of the pilgrim status and more of those who had emigrated back to Jerusalem from other parts of the Roman Empire and had now taken up a permanent residence in Jerusalem.
In other words, they were people of the Diaspora who had at one time been scattered and then through the centuries, generation after generation, came to find themselves living in Rome or in Athens, or some parts of Asia Minor or Mesopotamia, wherever it might have been. But I guess through the ages they kept teaching their children, "next year in Jerusalem," and it was these people who had come back to Jerusalem and taken up permanent residence. That, it seems, were the primary ones to whom the message was aimed. Just like in these last 40 years, there are a lot of people, a lot of Jews who have come back to the land of Israel. Now they are not pilgrims. They have taken up permanent residence in Israel, but they did not start out their life as Israelites. Now the apostle Paul was one of these people because he was a Jew but of Tarsus where his family apparently lived.
And so it is these kinds of people that apparently the message was aimed at. And when you begin to understand, it seems logical that these are the people who probably had, maybe underlying, the greatest amount of devotion toward God and His Word. Because they had actually moved back to Jerusalem to be back in the homeland and were keenly interested in the things that were going on.
The secondary group that it was aimed at were those people who were indeed pilgrims and had come out of other nations and had come to Jerusalem in order to keep the Day of Pentecost.
So we have two groups then: those who were pilgrims and those who were Jews from other parts of the Roman Empire that had come back to Jerusalem.
Acts 2:6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.
The sound was what initially attracted them, but the speaking bewildered them. Now here is the other part of the miracle. Because regardless of what was the native language of these people who were from all over the Diaspora, they heard these Galileans speaking in their own language. In other words, let us say all the Galileans spoke in Aramaic. But those who had Greek as a native language, heard them speak in Greek. Those who had Latin as a native language heard them speak in Latin. Those who had some other two or three or four different languages, they all heard them in their own native tongue. So the miracle was not only in the speaking, but it seems primarily in the hearing.
The miracle was more in the hearing than it was in the speaking. Is there really an indication that they were speaking in different tongues? Every time you see the word "language" is that they were hearing in their own language.
Acts 2:7 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans?"
Now does it not seem reasonable that most of the Galileans would speak the same language? I mean, when you go to Greece, the Greeks speak Greek. When you go to Italy, the Italians speak Italian. There might be some differences in the dialect from one end of the country to the other, but they all speak basically the same language. The whole nation of Israel today is only as large as the state of New Jersey. It does not seem possible to me that the Galileans would have such a wide variance in their language that it would be entirely different in a little area that is probably no bigger than Los Angeles County. It is entirely possible that they were all speaking in Aramaic. Regardless of what they spoke, they were all heard in the native tongue of these other people.
Acts 2:8 "And how is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born?"
The Galileans did not have apparently, a very good reputation either for their intellectual capacities or for their speaking ability. What was wrong with their tongue I have no idea. But apparently there was something about the Galilean dialect that set them apart immediately and they were recognizable even I guess today as you recognize somebody from New York speaking through their nose. But immediately people tagged them as someone who was from Galilee.
In verse 9, here we have the nations that are represented there. These are all Jews but they were from these nations. You will find that the order in which he listed these nations generally moves from east to west.
Acts 2:9-12 "Parthians and Medes and Elamites [these were all in what we call today Iran], those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia [so we are beginning to move eastward], Pontus, and Asia [are all part of today what is called Turkey], Phrygia [is in that same area] and Pamphylia [also in Turkey], Egypt [same place as it is today] and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs—we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God." So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What could this mean?"
That is interesting, to me anyway. Because it upholds something that is shown very clearly in the Old Testament, and that is that miracles are not enough. Something else is needed. All the miracles in getting the children of Israel out of Egypt did not convert them. They put them in awe. It gave them for a short period of time a reverential regard for God. For a short while they respected Moses until they got hungry. But it really did not change their minds. It did not change their hearts. It had an impact on them emotionally, but it did not change them.
Now you can see from this story here that these people are excited. It is affecting them emotionally. They are amazed. They are bewildered. They are confused. They are perplexed. But they are not converted. Something more is needed. Now, despite all the signs, verse 13 shows what at least some of them were led to. They were led to mock. So miracles do not convert. They do have an emotional impact. *Wow!* That is it. It does not change a person's heart.
That does not mean that a miracle does not have a good side to it. It does have a positive effect if the person witnessing it is ready to believe and then act on that belief. Otherwise, all it does is have an emotional impact. That is why I prefaced this at the very beginning, God's Holy Spirit is not a sensory experience. Something that affects our senses is not necessarily from God. It is something that we have to be well aware of. God is developing our mind and certainly our emotional capabilities are a part of that mind, but they are not to dominate. God is more concerned about the reasoning processes led by His Spirit.
Acts 2:14 But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, "Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words."
You know, Peter's sermon here has three basic sections to it. First of all, there is an explanation of the morning's events. And basically what it consists of is Peter saying that the age of fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies is continuing. It began with Christ. But it is continuing in the church. So that is continuing. And then the second one is a proclamation of Jesus' identity, His death, and resurrection. In other words, the work of the church has begun. And then three, there is a call to repentance with a promise of blessings.
When he says men of Judea, he is talking about the permanent residents. When he says all who dwell, he is talking to the pilgrims. They were there and they were there temporarily, but now they were living. The word dwell there incidentally is different from the word dwelling in verse 5. The one he means those who are permanent, and the other he means those who are pilgrims.
Acts 2:15 "For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day."
He begins by correcting a misunderstanding through an absurdity. The misunderstanding is that these people are drunk. The absurdity is it is only 9 a.m. Now in this modern age where drugs are so easily accessible, it is not unusual for somebody to be drunk 24 hours a day, or to be under the influence 24 hours a day. So maybe 9 a.m. would not have as much impact on us today as it did then. But for most of them, it was unthinkable that anybody would do any drinking in the morning. Because you had to work during the day and the drinking did not help anybody do any work. They just did not do it. It was a part of their culture. And so it is absurd to think that these people are drunk because it's only 9 o'clock in the morning.
Acts 2:16-21 But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 'And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'
Verse 16 begins the correct understanding of what is going on. And what the correct understanding is that what they are witnessing is a fulfillment of Joel 2, beginning in verse 28 and ending in verse 32. Peter quotes it almost exactly, except for a few minor changes. Well, those minor changes really are not so minor. But he only changes a word in a couple of places but it significantly changes the approach from what Joel had.
The first word that he changes is in verse 17, the first phrase, "and it shall come to pass in the last days." Now if you read that in Joel's account, he says, "and it shall come to pass afterward." Now Peter changed the word "afterward" to "the last days." Now Joel was indefinite. It was sometime in the indefinite future that this would come to pass. But what God is doing through Peter is interpreting what the word "afterward" means and what the word afterward means to you and me is that the last days began whenever God poured out His Spirit. So it began on Pentecost 31 AD. It was June 17th, 31 AD that the last days began.
Now there is a series of things that are going to occur. The most significant as far as the church is concerned at this time is that God would pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Now when you read that in context with the rest of the prophecy, such things as signs, wonders, blood and fire and vapor of smoke, the sun be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, and whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved, it becomes very apparent that this prophecy is going to unfold over many, many centuries. It is going to take at least 2,000 years for it to unfold. It is not finished yet. It began then but many of these things have not occurred yet. So we are going to see then a gradual fulfillment of that prophecy.
There is another thing that he changed and that is in verse 18. "And on My menservants and on My maidservants, I will pour out My Spirit in those days." The words, "and they shall prophesy" do not appear in Joel's. In Joel's prophecy, they are in Joel 2. So he shows them that these people are going to be doing some inspired speaking that is going to be accompanied by (not necessarily at the same time) or the result of receiving God's Holy Spirit.
Back in verse 17 again, "I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh." Now, this is not a change but it is an understanding that is very important because if we look back in the Old Testament it appears as though the giving of God's Holy Spirit was restricted to prophets, priests, and kings. I think you are well aware that there was no general granting of God's Holy Spirit to the public at large. It is entirely possible that the only people that actually had God's Holy Spirit are those who are named in the Bible. That is, in the Old Testament. I do not know that I would bet my life on that. I am sure that there were others, but I am saying that there is a possibility because God's work has never been large.
That has interesting ramifications. David was a king. David was a prophet. David definitely had God's Holy Spirit. What if he was maybe the only one in his day who did? It is very interesting. How would you like to run a carnal government being the only converted person on earth? I will tell you, you talk about trouble. You talk about trials. You talk about two spirits. You talk about a clash, about a warfare. Now, I do not think it was entirely like that, because if God did give His Spirit then Samuel was alive at the beginning of David's reign, because he was the one who anointed him, so there was another man who had God's Spirit. There was Gad and there was Nathan that the Bible speaks of as being priests in David's day, and it seems very likely that those men had God's Holy Spirit. There were also the Levites that he appointed to be over the singers. There was Asaph, and who were the other two? They slipped my mind right now. Well, it does not matter. But what I am driving at here is that there were just a very few that God actually gave His Spirit to.
God is going to make His Spirit available to all flesh. However, verse 21 modifies that. It is going to be limited to those who call on the name of the Lord. Now this verse is really grossly misunderstood by the world. Because they take that to mean that all a person has to do is call upon Christ and be saved. You know, to kind of repent and go into the waters of baptism and receive God's Holy Spirit. No, that is not true. Turn back with me to Romans 10, verse 11. It says,
Romans 10:11-13 For the Scripture says, "Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame." For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For "whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."
Oh, that is familiar. We just saw that in the book of Joel and the book of Acts. Here is Paul quoting it again. Now look at verse 14.
Romans 10:14 How then shall they call on Him in whom they have not believed? [aha!]
How shall they call upon the Lord if they do not know who the Lord is? Does it not say in John 6:44 that no one can come to the Son except the Spirit of the Father draw him, and I will raise him up at the last day. Indeed it does. Brethren, the only ones that can call upon the name of the Lord are those in whom God has invested the power to be able to do so. Those whom He has revealed Himself to. This is a theme that I think it is unnecessary to go into it this time because I think that you know it well. And I am only going through this to show you the application of that same thing to this verse, to give you an understanding that the only ones that can call upon the Lord to be saved are those to whom God has given the power to do so, those that He has revealed Himself to. And those are the ones that He is leading by His Spirit, and eventually those to whom He actually grants His Spirit.
Now eventually all will come under that blessing. But it is not going to be until the Millennium is finished, until the Last Great Day is finished, before all are going to have the opportunity to call on the name of the Lord and be saved. So again, it shows that this is a prophecy that is going to take a lot of time to unfold. The only ones on earth who can call upon the name of the Lord and be saved are those that God has granted His Spirit. That really narrows things down and it begins to show again why the Spirit is so important and why the book of Acts begins in the way it does. It is central to the work of the church. It is central to our salvation. Without it there is no calling. Without it there is no repentance. Without it there is no faith. Without it, there is no impregnation. Without it, there is no church.
Acts 2:22 "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know—
This verse begins the proclamation of Jesus Christ by the church. Now it is interesting that he begins the way he does, by showing that God gave ample evidence through what Christ did that should have led these people to recognize Him as the Messiah. The audience was well aware of what He did. "As you yourselves also know." And you see, what that does is it reinforces that the primary group to whom this was addressed were those who are living permanently in Jerusalem. They were aware of the ministry of Christ and that they probably in many cases had given conscious assent to what the Romans did to Him and what the Sanhedrin did acting in their official capacity.
Acts 2:23 "Him being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death.
Boy, "you have taken." That is pretty pointed. He is actually accusing them of murder. That took a lot of guts.
Now, there is an interesting thought here. It is not something that I want to get deeply involved in. But there is, I do not know, the best way that I can describe it, it is like a tension that is kept in balance. On the one hand, he is showing that Christ was crucified by the will of God. In other words, what happened was completely within God's will. God had prophesized, predetermined that this would occur. But on the other hand, God gave men free moral agency, and they took the life of Christ. It is almost like you have two factors that are opposed to one another. On the one hand, God willed it, but He did not actually do it. On the other hand, He gave men free moral agency and they carried out what God willed to be done but did not actually do.
It is wonderful how He keeps those things in balance without actually predetermining every event that every person participates in all of his life. You know, if we take this thing to the nth degree and say God has predetermined everything, then we say that God has predetermined my sins. That I would be guilty of the blood of the Savior. Well, you see, in a way I am. But God gave me free moral agency to do what He willed to do, and I did it. I know that I do not fully understand how He does it. How He wills things like this to occur and yet does not actually do it Himself. But yet He so arranges events as to cause them to occur by the free moral agency of men who are free to act.
You see this again with Pharaoh in Egypt. God chose the Pharaoh that He wanted to be on the throne at the time, and very likely He did it because the man had peculiar characteristics as a part of his personality, that God knew that he would act and react in a certain way. Now God did not take away that man's free moral agency, and yet that man did exactly what God wanted him to do without God actually making him do the things that he did. You know, like Pharaoh hardened his heart. That is wonderful to me. I cannot figure it out. Maybe someday I will be able to.
But until then, why, we just have to know that God is in control, that He is working things out, things that are happening within His will are happening within the church. And yet He lets us free to be able to choose and to have a part in the building of the kind of character that He is going to have in His Kingdom.
There is a wonderful tension between His will and our free moral agency that enables His purpose to be carried out within us without us becoming automaton, just mere robots that He is moving around like chessman on a board. Like I said, it is a wonderful thing, and I do not know how He does it, but He does it. I guess that is the work of a Master Creator.
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Sermon Topics
The Gospel
