Introducing The Holy Spirit - [Acts 2:1-13]

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Well, I would invite you to take your Bibles and open them to Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 2.
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Very popular passage. I think it might be popular for the wrong reasons.
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I want to know how many of you have studied the history of Pentecostalism. Can I see a show of hands?
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A few. Scholars, alright. Well, the modern
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Pentecostal movement, with all apologies to those scholars, started in 1906 in Los Angeles, California.
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And there's a song that says it well. Nothing good comes out of California. So, thank you.
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I found this historical account and I'm going to read part of it to you about this first meeting on Azusa Street, is the name of the place where this broke out.
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This author writes, Services were not prearranged. No subjects were announced in advance.
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Listen, the Holy Ghost ordered the service in meekness and humility. I don't really understand what that means, but okay.
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Most of the time, Seymour, that's the man who was running this service, sat with his head in the makeshift box pulpit praying.
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The message of the meeting was love. After Seymour began preaching at the
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Azusa stable, a monumental revival began. People fell under the power of God and rose speaking in tongues.
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Worshippers, both men and women, shouted, wept, danced, fell into trances, spoke and sang in tongues and interpreted into English.
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The Holy Ghost was so powerful at Azusa stable, men would come under conviction within two or three blocks of the mission.
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Persons were baptized in the Holy Ghost on their seats in the assembly room, as well as in the tarrying room upstairs.
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When the Holy Ghost would make an altar call, men all over the building would be slain in the spirit.
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Now listen to this and tell me if this just doesn't sound a little bit pragmatic. In other words, well, it worked.
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Service attendance grew from approximately a dozen persons to hundreds and thousands from the
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Los Angeles area. People of every race and nationality were found in the crowds that converged on the mission.
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No respect of persons was found among the worshippers. Notice this is a modern scholar here writing this.
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The rich and educated were the same as the poor and uneducated. Equality. Eventually, the services ran day and night.
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The building was never closed or locked. Each night service was packed out. Holiness meetings, they're talking about other meetings, holiness meetings, tents and missions closed for lack of attendance.
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In other words, this was the place to be, not these other places. Special prayer meetings broke out everywhere.
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On and on it went. Those who had been filled with the Holy Ghost testified about it.
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Either the experience or about the Holy Ghost as a non -person. They said how wonderful it was.
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After the testimonies, somebody would preach and tell what God had promised. Skipping down to the end here.
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Pentecost has come to Los Angeles, the American Jerusalem. And this man writes, he also wrote,
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Strong men lie for hours under the mighty powers of God, cut down like grass.
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And if I read the whole story to you, there's one thing missing, Jesus Christ.
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And the question is, you know, we can read about the experiences, the emotions, the effects of this meeting.
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What we won't read about is Jesus Christ and him crucified. There's something wrong with that is the
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Holy Spirit. In other words, is this what the Holy Spirit is all about? These ecstatic experiences, these wonderful experiences, these and maybe not so wonderful.
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I don't know if laying on the floor like a dead person for hours would be a great experience. I don't know.
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But is that what the Holy Spirit does? I'm going to read our text today.
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Acts, chapter two, verses one to 13. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
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And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind. And it filled the entire house where they were sitting and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
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And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the spirits gave them utterance.
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Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
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And at this sound, the multitude came together. And they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
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And they were amazed and astonished, saying, Are not all these who are speaking
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Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language?
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Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus in Asia, Persia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene and visitors from Rome.
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Both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.
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And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean?
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But others, mocking, said, They are filled with new wine.
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Now, in chapter one, by way of review, we read really Luke setting the background, giving us all the pieces of the puzzle, putting everything into place so that we could understand the really explosive growth of the early church.
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How did it happen? How could just a few people take a message which was disdained and despised and spread it and have it believed over the entire
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Roman Empire, over the entire known world? We saw how after instructing the apostles to wait in Jerusalem for the arrival of the
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Holy Spirit, Jesus ascended into heaven. And there were two angels there who said,
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What are you looking at? Basically, my translation. And by the way, he's coming back the same way that you just saw him leave.
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So we talked last week about how, when they walked back, the discussions that might have gone on, it was speculative.
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But what wasn't speculative is when they got back and they met in that upper room, 120 strong, they were in constant prayer.
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They were in constant unity. And that would include, of course,
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Jesus' mother, Mary and his brothers. And last week, we focused really on the replacement of Judas, Judas, who essentially disqualified himself, who walked away from the promised place that he had been given by Jesus.
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We also talked about why there can't be any more apostles. Oh, there are people who call themselves apostles, but there can't be anybody.
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Why not? Well, first of all, look, it's pretty plain that a woman today who calls herself an apostle is not an apostle.
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Why? Because it had to be a man. You say, well, that's not right. Well, I think we have to understand both that this is the word of God and we have to understand that in the culture, a woman was automatically not credible.
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So a man had to be put in Judas' place, but it had to be a man who had been with Jesus throughout his ministry from the time of John the
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Baptist. In other words, when Jesus' ministry became public, if you recall,
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John the Baptist announced it by saying what? Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world from that time all the way through, through the good times and the not so good times, right up until his trial, his crucifixion and then his resurrection and even his ascension.
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So from beginning to end, Judas forfeited his office and he was replaced by Matthias and it was by lots.
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And if you recall, we said, look, this isn't this is an example. This is not something that we should be doing all the time.
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This is just what's the word I'm looking for. This is description, not prescription. In other words, don't throw lots at home.
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You know, the kids go, well, you know, who should make the decision tonight? Dad or the kids. Let's put out, you know, everybody's name and a thing.
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And, you know, we'll shake it out and see if dad comes out or one of the six kids. I think the odds are slightly in the kids favor.
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So that's it's not illustrative of what how we should make decisions. But in Jesus plan to build his church, there is only one person missing that Luke hasn't introduced us to yet.
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That's the Holy Spirit. And we're going to see him this morning. And I want us to meet the Holy Spirit. My goal this morning is for us to meet the
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Holy Spirit. And I'm going to do a little systematic theology along the way. A little.
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Going to do some audibilizing. I'm just going to go through a bunch of a bunch of things, but we're going to talk about the
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Holy Spirit. But I have four questions to help us understand how Pentecost, the event of Pentecost, introduces the
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Holy Spirit. And I want to I want to just say this, that, you know, when we hear about Pentecost, our first thought usually is what?
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I think it's usually about. Speaking in tongues. What it ought to be about is the arrival of the
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Holy Spirit. I think the emphasis is typically on the wrong place, the wrong event.
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The event is the arrival of the Holy Spirit. First question. What's special about Pentecost?
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What is special about Pentecost? Look at verse one. When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
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Now, first of all, what does Pentecost mean? It means 50. 50.
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The reason for that is simple, because it's 50 days after the first Sabbath after Passover.
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So it's 50 days from that Sabbath until the day of Pentecost.
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So they can't they call it Pentecost. It's also a festival that thanks the
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Lord for the wheat harvest. So there are a number of titles that this particular holiday has.
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But for our purposes, since this is what Luke uses, it's Pentecost. It was a holiday, one of three holidays during the year, that would draw the faithful from all over the empire, all over the world, into Jerusalem.
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Now, it would be even more popular than Passover in terms of people coming and packing into Jerusalem.
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Why? The scholars say it wasn't because it was a bigger holiday, but because the weather is nicer.
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It's easier to travel. So, you know, talk about form over function.
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People would just go because it was a nice time to go to Jerusalem, nice time of the year. And when
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I say it's a time where they would thank the Lord for wheat offerings or the wheat gathering, the wheat harvest, what they would do is bake loaves of bread.
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And they would make those were an offering to the Lord to thank him for providing grain for them.
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Now, this is a very special day in church history, which is appropriate since it's Reformation Sunday. We want to do something to commemorate the church, right?
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It's a special day, but probably not a good reason to name your church a Pentecostal church or to name it after.
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I mean, first of all, why would you name a church after the Holy Spirit or something like that?
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He doesn't do that kind of thing. And we'll talk more about that. But our text here in verse one tells us that they were all together, 120 strong, they being the church at Jerusalem.
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And while they did not know precisely what the Holy Spirit was going to do, they knew that the risen
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Jesus, the ascended Jesus had said, just wait in Jerusalem a few days, just wait there and the
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Holy Spirit will come upon you. Now, in retrospect, in other words, looking back on it, it's pretty obvious that the
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Lord would pick this day Pentecost to be that day. Why? Because as I said,
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Jerusalem would be packed with celebrants to celebrate this whole, all the festivals and everything that's going on in Jerusalem.
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And you want a crowd if you're going to do something that's going to start a great work. You want as many people as possible to be there.
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Now, the text, our text is inexact in describing exactly where they were. It just says that they're together.
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I think it's fair to say that they start out in the upper room where they were meeting. But I think that they have to move and we'll discuss why here in a moment.
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They had to move because there's just not enough room in this one room for everything that's going to take place.
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But Pentecost is special because it is the day that the promise of Jesus is fulfilled.
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In fact, I mean, we could go to a number of places to look at that, but I'm going to read John 14, verses 16 and 17.
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Jesus trying to comfort his disciples. He's told them that he's going to leave.
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And then he says this, and I will ask the father and he will give you another helper.
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Remember, it was another of another helper of a different kind to be with you forever or of the same kind.
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Even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him.
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You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. Holy Spirit was already dwelling with them, but Jesus says he's going to be in you.
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So there's going to be a change. He's going to send this new helper. And he's already told them in Acts chapter one that he was going to send the
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Holy Spirit. Well, now on the day of Pentecost, this is going to happen.
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So what is special about Pentecost? This fulfillment, the sending of the Holy Spirit. So let's talk about who the
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Holy Spirit is. That's question number two. Who is the Holy Spirit? Who is the Holy Spirit?
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Well, firstly, this is the most important. If you don't take anything else away from this, this morning, understand this.
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The Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is God. He does things that only
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God can do. Listen what the Belgic Confession of Faith says. We believe and confess also that the
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Holy Spirit from eternity, important because he's not created, proceeds from the
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Father and the Son. He is neither made, created, nor begotten, but he can only be said to proceed from both.
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In order, he is the third person of the Holy Trinity, of one and the same essence, majesty, and glory with the
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Father and the Son, true and eternal God, as the Holy Spirit, as the
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Holy Scriptures teach us. He is fully God. Not a force, as I said last week.
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He's not a force. He is a person. Let's look at some of his divine activities.
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I'm just going to, like, check them off. He's involved in the creation of Jesus' physical body.
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He's involved in the virgin birth, the very beginning of Jesus' human life. That's number one.
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Number two, he anoints Christ Jesus at the beginning of his ministry.
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So, he's involved in the virgin birth, the conception of Jesus. Secondly, he anoints
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Jesus. Thirdly, he participates in the resurrection of Jesus. I have scriptures for all these, but if I go through this, we'll be here until about 1230.
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He baptizes believers. Fourthly, he baptizes believers. And what do
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I mean by that? He doesn't physically dump them. He brings them into the body of Christ.
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He places them into the body of Christ spiritually. That's what it means to be baptized by the Holy Spirit.
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Sixthly, he seals believers. He guarantees their salvation.
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Seventh, he distributes spiritual gifts. He gives them.
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Who else could do that but God? After you're saved, he gives you spiritual gifts. Nobody could do that but God himself.
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Eighth, he was involved in creation. We know that he was hovering over the waters. He's also involved in Job chapter 26 and Job chapter 33.
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Number nine, he causes believers to be born again. Jesus describes that in John chapter 3.
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He says, you must be born again, and then he goes on to say what? That it's the Holy Spirit who causes believers to be born again.
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Number 10, he intercedes for believers when they pray. In chapter 8 of Romans, Paul says, sometimes we don't know how to pray and the
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Holy Spirit intercedes for us. Number 11, he inspired
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Scripture. 2 Peter, 2
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Timothy tells us that Scripture is breathed out by God, speaking specifically of the
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Holy Spirit. Number 12, he, the Holy Spirit, sanctifies believers.
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It's interesting that a lot of these things you'll say to me, well, I thought the Father did this, or I thought Jesus did that.
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Well, yes, and the Holy Spirit does too. We forget that, you know, it's not like, you know, the
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Father has this sphere only, Jesus has this sphere only, the Holy Spirit has,
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I have to stay in the middle, Holy Spirit has this sphere only. No, there's overlap in what they do, in the work that they do.
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Number 13, he points to Jesus Christ.
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In fact, I have it down here as a question. Why don't we call ourselves, you know, the Church of the Holy Spirit, the
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Church of Pentecost or whatever? Because the Holy Spirit points to Jesus.
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Jesus himself said what? He said, he will glorify me. The Holy Spirit doesn't seek glory for himself, and that was the plan from all eternity.
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If we read Ephesians chapter 1, we'd see that before the world began, before anything existed, the
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Father chose, and then the Son in time comes and dies for the elect, and the
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Holy Spirit seals them. That was always the plan, and that's executed in time.
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So those are some of the actions he does as God. He also has the attributes of God, the attributes of God.
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The Holy Spirit is omnipotent, meaning he's all -powerful. Romans 15 talks about the miracles he performs.
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Miracles are what? Miracles are things that only God can do. He enters into the space -time continuum and does things that only
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God can do, in other words, contrary to the laws of nature. He's also omniscient.
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He knows everything. The Holy Spirit is described as knowing the mind of God.
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Who can know the mind of God? Only the Holy Spirit, right? He knows everything.
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He's also omnipresent. There's no place you can flee from the Spirit of God, the psalmist writes.
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And again, as we study Scripture, we would see things like the Great Commission.
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Why do we baptize people in the name? I was going to say we ascribe all divine honor to the
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Holy Spirit in Scripture. Why is it that we baptize in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit?
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It's because the Father is equal to the Son, who's equal to the Holy Spirit. They're all divine.
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They are the same essence. There is no division. There is no... There's a functional hierarchy.
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In other words, they have different roles that we see them in. But in terms of their personhood, in terms of their power, in terms of their essence, there is no difference.
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They are all equal. And again, he is a person, not a force.
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How do we know that? Because if we just did a minimal study, we would see things like this, that the
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Holy Spirit takes action. Holy Spirit also works.
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Holy Spirit also suffers grief, right? It says, Scripture says, do not grieve the
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Holy Spirit. So he is a person, not a force.
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He has all the attributes of God. And he acts as God, does things that only
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God can do. Now, that's essentially the second question. Who is the
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Holy Spirit? We've seen what is special about Pentecost. Who is the Holy Spirit? And now here's the heart of our message this morning.
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What does the Holy Spirit do? What does the Holy Spirit do? And I listed some of those generally, but now we're going to get specifically into this text.
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What does the Holy Spirit do? Look at verse 2. And suddenly, there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting, and divided tongues as of fire appeared to them, and rested on each one of them.
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Now, both the Greek and the Hebrew words for wind can be used for wind or for spirit.
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So when we see this imagery, a rushing wind, it's intentional.
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And the idea is to give us the idea that the Holy Spirit himself is rushing in.
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Now, can you imagine? I mean, you've had this experience. You haven't. But imagine being in a prayer meeting.
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You're sitting in a group, and you're praying, and you're praying for the Lord's will, and you're praying for things that you don't even know, because you just know the
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Holy Spirit's coming, and you don't even know what that really means. You're sitting there, and all of a sudden you hear this noise like somebody left a window open, or the roof just got torn off, or there's a door open, or something like the wind is just exploding into this building, but your hair doesn't move.
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Nothing happens, right? You hear the sound of this wind, just like in John 3. You hear the sound of it, but you don't know where it came from.
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They hear the sound of it, but we have no report that they heard the force of it, because that would be if that happened.
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If they heard a loud wind, and there was a loud wind, then what? It was a wind.
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There's nothing miraculous about that. That's just really a bad storm. But if there's a sound of the wind, and there's no wind, that's unusual.
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It says, suddenly, from heaven, the picture's clear.
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This is intervention by God, the Holy Spirit. Something spectacular is going to happen.
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Bach says this, he says, the image of fire points to heavenly glory in the presence of the
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Spirit, as well as a theophany. A theophany is a physical indication that God is present.
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In the Old Testament, a lot of times, the theophanies are of Christ. They are physical representations of God, and they are human, often, but not always.
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In this case, we have a theophany, and it's just these tongues of fire that just appear.
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In a sense, it's really kind of unfair to compare this event with some of the things that I read earlier on Azusa Street.
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Why? Because this actually happened. This is real. This is a real work of God. It's not people acting out or doing something foolish.
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The other day, Janet and I were home, and I was watching something on YouTube, and you know, a lot of times, YouTube will suggest something.
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Well, this random thing popped up in my suggestions, and it was like, I want to be kind here, it was basically an
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Appalachian snake -wielding church, and it was a real small, little place.
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There were probably 50, 60 people in this building, and it was kind of loud and cacophonous, and I couldn't figure out what this young girl was singing, and all these people started dancing, and then this old guy fell down on his face, and I thought, and he didn't move, and I just thought, okay, if I'm there,
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I'm dialing 911. I mean, it looked bad, right? Those kind of things are not like what we're going to see here.
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Back to the verse, the verses here. The sound fills the entire house.
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It's undeniable. Then this fire. Now, if I saw fire, if I was inside of a building and I saw fire,
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I'd be concerned, but if I saw fire that was just like a little tongue over somebody's head, what would
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I think? The sound would break me up out of my prayer -looking, right, sorry, if I heard a sound like that,
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I'd look up. So when they look up, what do they see? They see these tongues over everybody's head.
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Okay, now we got something going on. I don't know what it is, but there's something going on.
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Floating in the air around each of them, and then came to rest on each of them. Loud noises.
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Floating, flaming tongues. That's a miracle.
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But to what end? To what purpose? I mean, if we look at the Old Testament, when fire comes, what?
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It usually means judgment. It's usually bad. Our God is a consuming fire, so we expect to see, you know,
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Nadab and Abihu, you know, get consumed. We expect to see, you know, something, Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by fire.
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I mean, when Abraham looks back the next day, what does he see? Just smoke coming up from Sodom. That's it.
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But fire can be a sign of divine presence and activity. The burning bush, right?
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Moses sees this burning bush and it is the presence of the
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Lord. Elijah goes to heaven on a chariot of fire. Now, we don't know exactly because here's what
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Luke does. Luke gives us a big picture here, but he doesn't give us minute -by -minute detail.
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So, at some point, I think it's pretty clear that the 120 move out of this upper room where they were meeting and they move down into the streets.
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And you know what? If you think about it, if you're in a prayer meeting like that and you have this miraculous event happen and then the tongues are floating above you, you know, you hear the sound, the flaming tongues are over you and everything,
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I'd be pretty motivated, right? And this is what happens, I think. The Holy Spirit empowers the church.
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He empowers the church. Look at verse 4. And they were all, all these 120 people are all filled with the
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Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. This is a miracle.
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It is something that we cannot explain naturally. People don't start speaking other languages on their own.
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And I don't know, I've been studying Spanish for a while now. You don't just, you know, it just doesn't happen. Ladd says this about the baptism with the
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Spirit. He says, whenever baptism with the Spirit is mentioned after Pentecost, in other words, this is a one -time unique event.
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He says, it is never an experience of believers who have already been baptized with the Spirit but of new groups of people who are brought to faith in Christ.
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In other words, this is a unique event. These believers are filled with the Spirit and therefore because He, the
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Holy Spirit, wills it, they speak in other tongues. He, God, the third person of the
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Trinity, causes them to speak in tongues. They didn't practice. They didn't kind of juice, you know, the moment.
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They didn't do the whole should have bought a Honda thing. They weren't doing any of that. He gave them utterance.
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We should be able to guess that all the believers were not babbling, right? Incoherently, as in some of these charismatic things you can see on TV.
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Well, why not? Or as like this YouTube thing I saw the other day, people are just babbling and running around and chanting and it was kind of crazy.
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God is not the author of confusion. The Holy Spirit does not create confusion. He does not set up meetings where people walk in and go, those
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Christians are crazy. So what does other tongues mean?
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Many of you know this. It means it's basically heteros, the word for other, different, and glossolalia, meaning other languages, known languages.
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And there really can be no other understanding. And this can't be some kind of ecstatic speech. Why? Because we know that people hear and understand what the
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Christians are saying. And I'm also suggesting that they went out from this upper room because there's no way that this large mass of people can hear them if they just stay in that upper room.
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And it's pretty clear also I would suggest to you that Peter's speech that we're going to see starting in his sermon, starting in verse 14, is probably given on the steps of the temple.
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So they're moving. They were close. I think they were staying relatively close to the temple. Then they move out into the streets and that's where they run into these folks.
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So, number one, what is special about Pentecost? Number two, who is the
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Holy Spirit? Number three, what does the Holy Spirit do? And I think it's just so important.
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Let me just kind of back up for a second and stress this about tongues. Why is it the people are so obsessed with speaking in tongues?
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I think it's because A, they want the experience and B, they want the signs.
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They want to feel empowered. But we ought not to worship signs or seek after signs, but really seek after the
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Lord Jesus Christ. That's who the Holy Spirit points us to. Question number four, how do people respond to the
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Holy Spirit? How do people respond to the Holy Spirit? I think they're pretty shocked at what he does, right?
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Look at verse five. Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
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And at this sound, the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language.
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Now, firstly note, you know, the first part there, now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews. Now some of you are probably thinking, well, duh, we're going into Jerusalem.
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We would expect to see what? Jewish people, right? But he gives us some more explanation.
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They're not just Jews. They're devout men from every nation. Now that word devout is never used of anyone other than Jews.
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It's always directly related to being Jewish.
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There are only devout Jews mentioned in the New Testament. Why is that? Because the idea is that you are given to trying to obey the law.
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You're a person who worships Yahweh. You're a person who tries to follow the old covenants.
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But secondly, it says there that they are from every nation under heaven, every nation under heaven.
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Some of you may be familiar with the word diaspora, diaspora.
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And it just means that the Jews are spread out over basically most of the known world.
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Why is that? Because when Israel or Judah gets conquered, the conqueror usually takes some of the
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Jews with them or moves them out of the country. And so they get spread out all over the place.
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So when we see this devout Jews from all over, the picture is this, that some of them have come back, have either moved back into Jerusalem or they are visiting
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Jerusalem for the holiday or they're visiting Jerusalem for some kind of educational purpose.
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Now again, whatever that sound was that invaded, you know, whatever the sound, obviously it sounded like, just imagine now, let's take another imagination tour here.
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Let's say you're outside of the upper room. You're, let's just go crazy here. You're a pagan. You're outside this upper room.
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You have no idea what's going on. You're just here in Jerusalem for the party. Or maybe you're a devout
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Jew. You don't know about Jesus. You're here for the party, the celebration. You're here because you think the old covenant demands that you be there and you hear some loud wind noise down the street.
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It would be good of you to go and see if anybody's hurt, right? If it sounded like some kind of explosion, some loud noise or something, you might be thinking,
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I don't know what that was, but I want to go see. That's typically what happens anyway when there's a loud noise or whatever.
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And that's what happens. It draws the attention of the crowd, right? They're drawn to where these people are. So there's some meeting between these pious
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Jews, these God fearers, these devout men and the
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Christians. That's the most probable explanation for what takes place in verse 14.
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And they're saying to themselves, how can this be? How can this possibly be? Because they hear these
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Jews, verse eight, and they were amazed and astonished. They're stunned. There's emphasis here, uses different words to just emphasize the fact that they are shocked.
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And why are they shocked? Are not all these who are speaking Galileans, and yet they're speaking to us in our own languages.
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This is like, you know, we all decide this afternoon that we're going to go out and we're going to go to the campus of MIT.
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We're not going to engage in evangelism. We're going to go talk to them about, you know, quantum physics.
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And we show up there and we make sense to those guys. And they say, Hey, are these these rubes from West Boylston?
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How can they do? I mean, some of you aren't rubes. I would be, I'd be like, but it's that kind of, they're listening to these people that they know are not sophisticated.
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And they go, wait a minute. How are these Galileans? It would be one thing if they were talking to us in Greek, right?
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That's the language of the realm. Be another one. If they're talking to us in Aramaic, because we're all
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Jews and we understand Aramaic, that would be fine. But they're speaking to us in Persian, in Latin, in Arabic, in all these different languages.
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It's not possible. It's just not possible. I'm going to skip over the list of nations.
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You can read that on your own, turn to the book of maps and figure it out for yourself. But look at verse 11.
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Towards the end there, it says, this group says, we hear them telling in our own tongues, in our own language, in our home language, by the way, again, the mighty works of God, not just gibberish, not just rubbish, but the mighty works of God.
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There's a similar phrase used by Luke in Luke chapter 19, verses 37 and 38 about the triumphal entry.
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And listen, as he, Jesus was drawing near already on the way down the
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Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice.
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Listen, for all the mighty works that they had seen saying, blessed is the
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King who comes in the name of the Lord, peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Of course, when we think about what, what would they have been?
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The disciples of Jesus have been shouting about then. I imagine it could have been things like Jesus raising
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Lazarus from the dead, that kind of thing. But in acts two, we don't have to guess what the mighty works of God would, that they'd be talking about.
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They've just come from a few days earlier, the Ascension, right? They saw
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Christ descend into heaven. They might be talking about the incarnation. They might be talking about Jesus.
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Perfect life. They might be talking about his substitutionary death. They might be talking about his resurrection, but they would be speaking about Christ.
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How do we know that? Because they're filled with the Holy spirit. What does the Holy spirit do? He points to Jesus Christ.
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And some of these pious devout men are awestruck. Verse 12 and all, it says all, but all doesn't always mean all.
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And we'll see here in just one verse that it doesn't mean all. And all were amazed and perplexed.
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I mean, they are perplexed, but some offer a solution. We'll see. And all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, what does this mean?
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They are utterly confused and they're not really grasping the message.
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They're not really listening to the evangelism. That's kind of going on here. It's more, not the what, but the how, how are these people doing it from these who are perplexed?
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Now, some of them will remain perplexed until they hear Peter explain it, and then there'll be saved.
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But look at the response of others. Some just scoff verse 13, but others mocking said they are filled with new wine.
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I mean, this is like saying, you know, they went down to the store and they got themselves a couple of nips and they're just, you know, they're just drinking.
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They got some cheap wine, some dollar 99 wine. Can you even get wine for a dollar? And I don't answer that question. I don't want to know.
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Used to be able to. Don't ask me how I know, but it's a ridiculous statement.
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Peter will say it's look, he'll say in a couple of verses, it's the third hour of the day. What does that mean? It means it's nine a .m.
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It's nine a .m. They're not drunk. You wouldn't know this, but on Pentecost, all these festival days, you're supposed to fast, no food, no drink until 10 o 'clock, right?
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So there's no way they would be drunk because they're observant Jews as well. And it's also the wrong time of the year for new wine.
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It wasn't like they had lots of glass bottles and could just store things forever and ever with their cheap wine.
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The idea of new wine is partially fermented. So it would be something that hasn't sat there long enough to be the good stuff.
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But this is what unbelievers do, isn't it? They discount the works of God. They mock the works of God.
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And that's what these men are doing. Because if you ask yourself, why do unbelievers want to unbelieve?
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Why do they discount things? Why do they mock the truth? Because they like their own sense of their imagined sense of righteousness.
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They like to think that, you know what? If there is a God, he's a God that is okay with me and I'm okay with him.
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I don't have any problem with God. He shouldn't have any problem with me. They want to think they're independent.
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What they don't want to be is accountable for their sin. Now, I mentioned the triumphal entry when the disciples came in, proclaiming these great works of God.
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Listen what the Pharisees said. Even then, some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, said to Jesus, teacher, rebuke your disciples.
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Why? Because they were saying these wonderful things about Jesus. And the same way, when these people come out, the early church, when they come out, the 120 come out and they're saying, talking about the mighty works of God, hardened hearts, reject truth.
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They don't want to hear it. They don't want to hear about Jesus. Question number one, what is special about Pentecost?
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Number two, who is the Holy Spirit? Number three, what does the Holy Spirit do? Number four, how does, how do people respond to the
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Holy Spirit? Unbelievers scoff, mock, discount, explain away.
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Believers listen. Believers want to know more. Believers are comforted.
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Richard Phillips said this about Pentecost. He said, Pentecost signals the application of that salvation, which
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Christ has achieved. It was for this reason that Jesus told the disciples, it is to your advantage that I go away.
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Now Christ lives and moves in his people. Listen by the indwelling of the
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Holy Spirit. The spirit comes that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God at Pentecost.
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The Holy Spirit reveals himself to us in a fuller way, but he is not seeking followers or glory.
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He points to Christ who reconciles us to the father. Let's pray.
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Father, we thank you for this wonderful passage of scripture, which has to do not with merely the miraculous speaking in tongues, but with the coming of the
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Holy Spirit to your church, to empower, to build, to point to Christ.
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Father, we pray that we would be emboldened knowing that we are indwelt by the
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Holy Spirit, that we would go to those who are in need.
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We have friends. We have family that we pray for. Father, let us be vessels of reconciliation ambassadors for Christ.
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Those who would proclaim the excellencies of Christ, that unbelievers, sure, some will mock, but some will believe.
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Some will be convicted by the Holy Spirit. Give us boldness.