Book of Acts Part 8

Prayer for Understanding God’s Word

All right, we're going to pray, and then we're going to get into our study. Lord Jesus, again, as we open up your word, we ask that your Holy Spirit to help us to rightly understand what you have revealed there, so that you may properly believe, confess, and do according to your holy name, we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

Acts 2, Pentecost, and the Holy Spirit’s Work

All right, so we've been working our way through the book of Acts, but you'll note that true to my normal form, I've had pre-planned bunny trails, and the pre-planned bunny trails have helped us do some foundational work before we get into Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 2 being the sending of the Holy Spirit.

Just by way of reminder, we worked our way through portions of the Gospel of John where Jesus told us what the Holy Spirit would do, and Jesus never anywhere said that the Holy Spirit is going to make you cluck like a chicken, flop around like a fish, or cause you to speak in gibberish.

Today's modern manifestation of tongues is not tongues, it's gibberish. Kutubat Handai Shubbat Akiah is not, that's not a holy utterance from God the Holy Spirit. And you'll note the primary work of the Holy Spirit, according to Christ, is to convict the world regarding sin and unbelief, and to testify about Christ, and to bring to people's memory the things that he's said and taught.

The Holy Spirit is the PR guy for Jesus, and so that being the case, we're going to see the Holy Spirit in action. And here's kind of an interesting thing, a little bit of a side note, and that is, for the day of Pentecost, you're going to note there are a ton of people visiting Jerusalem, and the languages that they're going to hear spoken are going to be their native languages, but all of these people speak more than one language.

Again, they don't have the American issue, where we only speak English, right? And then of course, the English question whether or not we actually speak English is more like American-ish, but that's a whole other issue.

But the thing is, is that in Jesus' day, people, in order to survive, had to at least be bilingual. And the two languages that they spoke were probably more likely their native language from wherever they were from, their ethnicity, their region, as well as Koine Greek.

Koine Greek was the lingua franca of the day. So you're going to note that there's two things that are going to take place in this passage. First thing is the people visiting from out of town are going to hear a bunch of Galileans speaking to them the wonders of God in their own native language, and then Peter's going to get up and preach a sermon, and everybody, despite the fact that they are not hearing it in their native language, are going to understand Peter because he's going to preach it in a language that everybody knows.

So keep this in mind. So it's not as if they had not heard the gospel in their native language, they wouldn't have heard it. And this then, we pointed out last time we talked about Acts, is that in the book of Isaiah, in the prophecy of Isaiah, Isaiah prophesied that people of strange tongues would speak to these stubborn-hearted Jews, but even then, people of strange languages would speak to them, but even then they wouldn't believe.

Tongues then, as we read in 1 Corinthians 14, is a sign. It's a sign not for the believer, but for the unbeliever, and more specifically, according to Isaiah's prophecy, it is a sign for unbelieving Jews, unbelieving Israelites, genetic descendants of Abraham, because of the fulfillment of a prophecy from Isaiah, and also, you'll note that Israelites are going to know where the languages came from.

And so Pentecost is this kind of foreshadowing, if you would, in a very miraculous way, the peeling back of the curse that God put on humanity, and that is the inability for us to communicate with each other, right?

And so the languages came about as a result of man's rebellion and sin, and so here we see an undoing of it. And we're going to also note that God the Holy Spirit knows how to use a thesaurus,.

Okay?

Just work with me here for a second, because I've had conversations with many a Pentecostal and a Charismatic who will take the word tongues, because it's an ambiguous term in English, and somehow say that this then justifies everybody having a secret prayer language and all this kind of nonsense, okay?

But in this passage, God the Holy Spirit, who is not a blathering idiot, okay, or some crazy uncle that you want to keep locked up in a closet or something like that, He knows how to use different words that mean the same thing to help us understand that.

So let's work our way now through Acts chapter 2. When the day of Pentecost arrived. Now real quick, who knows what Pentecost is? Why are people in Jerusalem for this?

Huh?

It's a feast? It's a required feast. Yes, it is a feast. Pentecost, penta meaning what? Okay, Pentecost is 50. Okay, so this is 50 days from Passover. And in the Mosaic Covenant, the feast of Pentecost was 50 days from the Passover, and it was basically a harvest festival, a harvest festival of the first fruits.

In Israel, they had two growing seasons for wheat. So the first wheat that's planted in the spring, you would harvest at the time of Pentecost, and there was still enough warm weather that you can get one more planting season in and get another wheat crop, okay?

So what they would do is they would gather kind of the first fruits of the sweet harvest, and these would become a wave offering to God, okay? So it's a harvest festival.

Harvest.

Jesus said something about the fields are white for harvest, the workers are few. You get the idea, right? So when we talk about the gospel going out, then it is not an inappropriate metaphor. It's a very Christian and very Christ-like metaphor to talk about the bringing in of souls into Christianity as a form of harvesting, right?

So the gospel's going to go out, but nobody even knows the gospel yet except for the apostles,.

Right?

So suddenly, oh, look at that, they had a suddenly. Okay, get your prophecy bingo card. No, I'm just joking. Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. It filled the entire house where they were sitting and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and then rested on each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other, now you know, this is our first instance of this, tongues.

So our Greek word here is glosis. They spoke in other tongues. Now that might be an ambiguous term for Americans, but don't worry, the Holy Spirit knows how to use a thesaurus, like I said. And then watch these words.

As the Spirit gave them utterance, okay, oh, pick me, Lord, I want to speak Japanese. The Holy Spirit shows which language you're going to be speaking, okay? And so they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, they began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

Now, watch the details. There were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at the sound, the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own, and here we got a different word, dialectos, which means language, okay?

So tongues and languages are synonymous, okay? This is just how this works. So I remember one time I had a conversation with a gal who came to a few of our online services and she was incensed by some of the things that she was hearing.

She wanted to have a conversation with me. So Barb scheduled an appointment time for me to meet with her, got on Zoom with her, and she says, I disagree with you. Okay, what about? I have the gift of tongues.

Do you now? Yes, and I've been told it sounds just like Hebrew. And so I said,.

Ani mevina avrit?

At lo mevina avrit? She doesn't know Hebrew, right? She couldn't answer anything that I was saying. And I said, no, you do not have the gift of tongues and I assure you, you don't know Hebrew and you can't speak it.

And she was furious at me. I don't believe you. I'm going to listen to my friends and I'm going to embrace this gift that God has given me. Never heard from her again, okay? Her final shot was, and don't pray for me.

Guess who I pray for, okay, right? But here's the thing. These are known human languages. If somebody has the gift of tongues, they're going to be able to speak a language they do not know. And we also read from the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 14, anybody who has this gift and doesn't have the ability to understand what they're saying, they are commanded by God the Holy Spirit to pray that they may be able to interpret what they're saying so that their mind can be engaged in the process, okay?

So they were hearing them speak in their own language and they were amazed and they were astonished saying, are not all these who are speaking rednecks? Okay, that's my own paraphrase here. You know, Galileans, rednecks, it's kind of the same thing, right?

Which then I think is the greater miracle here, you know, you've got a bunch of rednecks speaking perfect, you know, Parthenian and Median and things like this, okay? How is it that we are hearing each of us in his own native what?

Language, dialectos, and then it gives you some of the languages, Parthenians, Medes, Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.

Note tongues and dialectos, glossis and dialectos are being used synonymously, okay? We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. They understood them. Do you see the problem with today's charismatic movement, Pentecostals, New Apostolic Reformation?

They get up and they go, right? This reminds me, hang on a second here. I'm gonna hunt something down, okay? Somebody reminded me of this. Oh, they won't, bummer, okay. I'll put the link in for people that want to find it, but let's see here.

Sid Caesar speaking foreign languages, okay? Sid Caesar performing in four different languages. If you haven't seen this, it's absolutely hilarious, okay? Yeah, he's not speaking in any language. Now, he's not actually speaking French.

He's not.

This is just total gibberish.

Now, he does that in French-ish, and then this is German, then we've got Italian, and.

Then Japanese. Now, I'm gonna note something here. Sid Caesar put a lot of effort into making gibberish sound like actual human languages. Today's Pentecostal charismatic people make no effort at all to make it sound like anything, okay, except for complete and utter gibberish, right?

So I would note that the most amazing tongues speaker that I've ever witnessed in all of my life is Sid Caesar, and he didn't claim to be doing this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He did this on the inspiration of hard work in order to get a laugh and make money and to entertain people.

And I would note, he was the best tongue speaker ever, okay? And until you clean up your act and can compete with Sid Caesar, I just think you're silly,.

Okay?

But you'll note that even though he wasn't speaking any of those languages, he would throw in some words that people would understand, and it was the way he inflected and things like this that people were laughing because there was something funny about how he was.

Doing it.

You should watch the whole routine. It's really hilarious. But here, when the Holy Spirit shows up, there is no entertainment. This isn't a joke, and these redneck Galileans were legitimately speaking in languages they'd never studied, and these people were for real hearing the mighty works of God proclaimed in their own tongues.

And it's glorious, okay? Now, you're going to note something here. Let me put it in these terms. Have you all ever been to a really good rock and roll concert by a top-line band? Okay, yeah.

Okay.

Do they come on stage first?

No!

Okay.

Who comes on stage first? The opening acts, right? Are they any good?

Sometimes.

Sometimes.

Okay.

Now, a little bit of a story here. So back in 19—when was the Rattle and Hum tour for U2? Was it like 87, 88? Yeah, it might have been 87. Early 88. I went to see U2 play at the Rattle and Hum tour, and they played the Los Angeles Coliseum.

And we got there, and the opening band we had never heard of. It's like, don't you think if we're going to have an opening band for U2 that maybe we might have heard of them? Never even heard of them.

And they got up, and they were wearing these big old cowboy hats, and they were singing songs that none of us ever heard. And at the end of it, we're all, yay, that was great. Bring on U2, please.

Okay.

And then they brought U2 on, and the concert was fantastic. Well, we get in the car, after the long trudge back to the parking lot, and turn on the radio. We're listening to KISS FM, and the announcer on KISS FM just is losing his mind.

And can you believe that U2 opened for themselves incognito? And we went, what? And on the album that they did for that concert series, there's some songs that they've performed as their own opening band that made it onto that album, which I thought was really fascinating.

But anyway, I would note here, if you were to take the day of Pentecost, and the main headliner is the Apostle Peter, right? The Holy Spirit showing up and speaking in tongues is the opening act. And the Holy Spirit is getting people's attention.

But at this point, having gotten their attention, these people are in desperate need to hear what Christ has done for them. And so the Holy Spirit is playing a lesser role. It's an important role of drawing the attention of these people in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost.

They're all scratching their heads. They know something miraculous is afoot, and they are all amazed, and the text says, perplexed. It says, they were all amazed and perplexed, saying, what does this mean?

In and of itself, if it stopped right here, would they have benefited at all from the Holy Spirit showing up?

None at all. Not at all.

They didn't understand what any of it means. Others began to mock, saying they are filled with new wine. Again, I point out that if you've had too much to drink, you don't miraculously speak in a language you've never studied.

You struggle with the one that you grew up with. This is my experience in dealing with people who've had too much to drink. So Peter, standing then with the eleven, lift up his voice and address them.

And here's the big miracle of Pentecost. It's not tongues.

It's just not.

This is the thing that has got everyone's attention, and the Holy Spirit has got everyone's attention, because the Holy Spirit is pointing everybody to Christ. And now Peter is going to preach, not himself, he's going to preach Jesus.

And so he lifted up his voice and addressed, men of Judea, all who dwell in Jerusalem, and they can all understand him because he's speaking the common language that everybody knows, Koine Greek.

Okay?

Hang on a second here. That disconnected.

I hate when that happens. Give me a second. Where are the controls? Here we go.

Voila. No.

I think we'll just have to do without it for now. I don't know why it's not reconnecting.

All right.

Let's try this real quick. Let's try that one more time.

Webcam.

There we go.

All right.

We're back.

Okay.

So Peter said, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you that and give ear to my words. These people are not drunk as you suppose. It is only the third hour of the day. Now, I know it's five o 'clock somewhere, but not in Jerusalem, right?

Okay.

But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. Now, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, Peter is preaching and he's drawing connection from the Old Testament prophets to his own time. In the last days, it shall be, God declares, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Now, that's the headline of this text. In the Old Testament, did everybody have the Holy Spirit?

No.

Just a select few people, notably select few. But in the last days, God's going to pour out his spirit on all flesh. What does this mean regarding the last days? We're in them. How long have we been in them?

2 ,000 years.

Okay.

We're almost at the 2 ,000 year mark for how long we've been in the last days. There's a lot of them, aren't they? Well, there's a lot of last days.

Okay.

So if anyone says to you, we're in the last days, Jesus is returning. You sit there and go, duh. We've been in the last days for 2 ,000 years, dude.

Okay.

Are we in the last of the last of the last of the last days? I don't know. The management hasn't seen fit to send me a memo and let me know.

Okay.

My job is to preach the word until. Got it?

Okay.

So in the last days, it shall be, God declares, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Now, we've already looked at 1 Corinthians 14, which prohibits women from speaking in the church.

Okay.

This does not mean that women are forbidden from proclaiming Christ. There's one place and one place only they are forbidden from doing that. That's at church, during the church service.

Okay.

When the church gathers for word and sacrament, the women are to remain silent and men are to do the job of the pastoral ministry. And the apostle Paul made it clear this was a command from Christ. But you're going to know, do girls get the Holy Spirit?

Thank God, because they need it. I'm sorry, did I say that out loud? So do men. So you're going to note here, the Holy Spirit is not a predominantly male thing. It's for everybody, sons and daughters.

They will prophesy. Now, real quick, what is prophecy? The Lord is telling me that there's a season coming up and there's going to be breakthroughs and suddenlies and it'll be a season for, you know. Is that prophecy?

No, it's not.

Okay.

So you're going to note, I'm slowing way down on this because we've got to get this right. They shall prophesy. Well, let's take a look where prophecy makes its real first appearance. And that is going to be in Exodus chapter four.

Okay.

So in Exodus chapter four, God is still talking to Moses from the burning bush. And well, strange things are happening. Number one, God's given him signs because Moses, you're going to note when, if you read the text, the narrative, Moses is not keen on this assignment.

He'll even go so far as to say, please send someone else.

Okay.

So much for the purpose-driven life, right? In verse 10 of chapter four, Moses pulls what he thinks is like the ultimate trump card. I don't talk gooder than most people, is what he says. Oh my Lord, I am not eloquent, either in the past or since you have spoken to your servant, but I am slow of speech and of tongue.

So Yahweh said to him, who has made man's mouth?

Huh?

Who made him mute or deaf or seeing or blind? Is it not I, Yahweh? Now therefore go. I will be with your mouth and I will teach you what you shall speak.

Okay.

So note, who's going to teach him what to say? God is. But he said, oh my Lord, please send someone else.

Okay.

I like this about Moses. You know. Now the anger of Yahweh was kindled against Moses and he said, is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he's coming out to meet you and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart.

You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and I will teach you both what to do. He shall speak for you to the people and he shall be your mouth and you shall be as God to him and take in your hand the staff with which you shall do the signs.

Okay.

This is the perfect definition of prophecy.

Okay.

Here's how it goes.

Okay.

Notice how this works. Moses, please send someone. I don't want to do this.

Okay.

And God says, all right, send your brother Aaron and he can speak well. You talk to him. You give him words. He will speak those words for you to Pharaoh. He's going to be like God to you. Do you see how the metaphor now works?

Okay.

A prophet is somebody who's been given words by God that they then communicate to another human being.

Okay.

Let me ask you a question. Did I prophesy today during my sermon? Yes, I did.

Okay.

It doesn't require you to get the words directly from God via revelation. You can cheat like I do and get them from a book.

Okay.

A very, very specific one that has 66 little minor books in it, but you get the idea. It's called the Holy Bible.

Okay.

So when it says here that God the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out on all flesh and that your sons and daughters are going to prophesy, if a girl tells somebody Jesus has bled and died for your sins and I'm delivering a message from God and that message is this, you need to repent, is that girl prophesying?

Yes, she is.

And if a guy does it, he's prophesying as well. So you're going to note, this is not saying that they will have direct revelation from God specifically. Now granted, that's still always an option. God can talk if he wants to.

Okay.

But if anyone comes to you and says, I have received a communication directly from the throne of heaven, you have to hit the pause button. Hold it right there, buddy. We're now going to have to conduct a theological IRS audit because we have to determine, because we're commanded by God, the Holy Spirit to determine the source of the spirit that is speaking through you, whether it's God, the Holy Spirit, or whether it's a different spirit or if we've just lost your mind.

Okay.

You'll note that that's a requirement. The scripture says to test. And so anybody claiming to have direct revelation from God, they must be tested and vetted first.

Right?

I'm not going to let you come up here, Lord, Pastor Chris, I've got a prophecy that God gave me to give to the people of Kongsbinger. Sit down. No, you know, you do not have that, but we'll test after the service and I guarantee you,.

You'll fail.

But that's a whole other story.

Okay. Okay.

Yeah.

Of course.

Yeah.

Now, again, I'll point out, confessional Lutherans are not hard cessationists. We describe some of the gifts, not all of them, prophecy and tongues specifically. We acknowledge that these are foundational gifts that God, the Holy Spirit, used in the early part, the foundational part of Christianity, that he has rarely given since.

And we don't say he can't or that he won't. We say that if you're claiming that he is, let's get the gloves and the lubricant and figure this out.

Okay.

This, that's kind of the point.

Okay.

We have to determine whether or not this is really the case.

Okay.

So we don't rule it out out of hand and say, well, prophecy is ceased. We can't say that. We say, no, if you're claiming to be receiving direct revelation from God, then we need to.

Test this.

Okay.

So your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and of course this is prophetic, and your old men shall dream dreams. And even on my male servants and my female servants in those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy.

Okay.

So you'll note, is God still pouring out his spirit in our male and females of low status and high status, prophesying today? Absolutely. Do many of them have dreams and visions? No, not really.

Not anymore.

But you'll note that that was common at the foundational level of the church. I will show wonders in the heavens above, signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

Now, hold on a second here. What does that sound like it's describing? It sounds like it's describing the day of judgment, doesn't it?

Huh?

Yeah.

But here's the thing, okay? Do you know that biblically there is a day missing in human history? I want you to think about this here. Jesus is crucified before the foundations of the what?

World.

Christ is crucified before the foundations of the world. Well, wait, how is that possible because it happened 2000 years ago and the foundations were well established after that. I would note that the day that Christ is crucified is a day that is not like any other day.

It's a day that looks like it was kind of shoved into the day that was there. Because remember the Jewish reckoning of time. The Jewish reckoning of time is the new day begins when? When the sun sets.

New day begins when the sun sets and when the sun rises it's halfway through the day. So Christ is on the cross, right? He's on the cross. What happens at noon? Sun goes dark. That starts a new day, doesn't it?

That starts a new day. At three o 'clock the sun starts shining again after Christ dies. We're halfway through a different day. But on the calendar has anything changed?

No.

So the best way I can put it then is that yes, Joel and now Peter who's preaching from Joel is clearly describing the end of the world. The day of judgment. But there's Christ on the cross and at noon the sun has darkened and the moon no longer gives its light and the sun has turned to blood and things like this.

Isn't that the day of judgment? The answer is yeah, it is. So you're going to note here that Christ on the cross, three of those hours stand out as something here because here's the thing. Here he's prophesying and Joel clearly has the end of the world in mind.

But what happened 50 days prior to Pentecost? Christ is on the cross and that's the day the sun stopped shining. And I would note it was a global event, not a local event. We have writings from antiquity of people in China and other places describing this.

Day.

Okay?

The day that the sun didn't come up.

Right.

Isn't it, since God placed on him the iniquity of us all, isn't that the day when God judged all the sins of all sinners, right? So you'll note day of judgment stuff comes up at Christ's crucifixion. So here you've got the end of the world, but it was brought into their day 50 days earlier.

And so this is a reference not to something in the far future, but for them it was something that occurred just a couple of months ago. And so fascinating stuff when you start to kind of tease the themes out.

So what does it all mean? Well, Joel ends this portion of his prophecy and this is where Peter wants to, I'm going to use an evangelical term, are you guys ready? You're going to cringe on this one. Peter wants to camp out on this.

Sorry.

I haven't used that term in decades.

All right.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Wow.

What a text.

Okay.

Now you're going to note the apostle Paul uses this exact same text in Romans 10. I think this is a good place to plug this in. Romans chapter 10, in fact, hang on a second, let me go here. Romans 10.

Okay.

Let's see here.

Here we go.

I'll start at verse five. Moses writes about the righteousness that is based on the law, that the person who does the commandments shall live by them. In other words, you want to be saved by the righteousness that comes by the law, you got to keep on keeping on, keeping on, keeping on, keeping on.

Okay.

If you want to be saved by your law keeping, you got to keep doing it and sinlessly at that. But the righteousness that is based on faith says, do not say in your heart, who will ascend into heaven? That is to bring Christ down.

Or who will descend into the abyss? That is to bring Christ up from the dead. But what does it say? The word is near you, it is in your mouth and in your heart, that is the word of faith that we proclaim.

Because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

Okay.

Now, note the context. If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is what?

Lord.

Now, what's Paul getting at? Is it enough to say, yeah, Jesus is my boss? That's not what he's getting at.

Okay.

You know, yeah, Jesus is the guy in charge of me. It's more than that. So, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and we'll talk about what that means, and you believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.

For with the heart one believes and is justified, with the mouth one confesses and is saved. For the scripture says, everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. Man, I love this text. Everyone means everyone.

Yes, you included. But you don't know what I've done. I don't need to know. It includes you.

Okay.

Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between the Jew and the Greek. For the same Lord is Lord of all, bestowing his riches on all who call on him. And here we go.

Quoting that same passage from Joel. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. What name does Paul expect you to be calling on here?

Jesus.

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. But if you consider the source of this prophecy from Joel 2 .32, let me get a Hebrew text. Joel 2, verse 32. Listen to what it says. I will show wonders in the heavens and on earth, blood and fire, columns of smoke.