Acts 2 :1-41

Acts chapter 2. You will remember, particularly those of you who have been part of our initial couple of studies here, that Jesus made a promise to His disciples, that if they stuck around and waited in Jerusalem, that He would send for them the promise of the Father, the work of the Holy Spirit to empower them for service and we covered this all in the first chapter Let me just put it up on the screen so we can review. It says,

And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.” (and then He went on to say)“…you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and (all around the world) in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” All right. Well, the day that Jesus was talking about and telling them to wait for has now arrived. And that's what we get into here in Acts chapter 2, beginning at verse 1, it says,

Let's stop right there and let's pray. Father, we thank you. We thank you and praise you for your Word, the glorious insights, the wonderful wisdom that we see in it. We pray father God that as we take time to consider these words, that you would open our hearts to an increased understanding of the things of which we read and hear.

We pray, Lord, for your Holy Spirit, even now to open our hearts, our eyes, our ears, and that you would impart to us according to the purpose of your will, all that you desire to speak. And we thank you in advance in the precious name of Jesus, our Savior, amen. Amen. I want to remind you that all of these events are taking place during the time, or the feast, I should say, of Pentecost. Pentecost is also referred to as the Day of First fruits and also the Feast of Ingathering. And it was named so because it took place during the very first of the wheat harvest. This is 50 days from Passover. The wheat has now sprouted and it's ready to be brought in and they just begin to do it. And God orchestrated this time of rejoicing, this time of feasting, to celebrate the goodness of the Lord, and as I said, it was also referred to as the Feast of Ingathering. And it is no coincidence that during this Feast of Ingathering that we see the very first ingathering of souls that takes place with the proclamation of the gospel, post resurrection. But one of the things we need to recognize here in this passage is what launched this ingathering. Well, we read here in verse 1 again that, “the day of Pentecost arrived, they were … together.” And we know what they were doing. When they got together, they'd come together and worship and pray and fast and so forth. And Luke tells us in this description of what took place that there “suddenly there came from heaven a sound” and he described it as a “mighty rushing wind.” He said that, “it filled the entire house where they were sitting.” And then he went on to say that there were these, “divided tongues as of fire (which) appeared to them and rested on each one of them.” Interestingly. And it says, “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” You would be good to circle or highlight that phrase in your Bible. And then Luke goes on to say, “And (they) began to speak in other (languages) tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.” And what that means, is that they began to speak in languages that they had never learned before. And the reason this is a miracle is because that doesn't usually happen. I can speak in English, not very well, but at least I've got one under my belt. But that is because I learned it naturally, the same as you. What we're seeing here is these individuals speaking supernaturally. And that means not according to natural abilities, but according to supernatural. And that is why it says specifically here, that they spoke in other languages, “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Now, I want to remind you that from our previous study that this phrase that I encouraged you to highlight. This “filled with the Holy Spirit” is again used many times throughout the course of the Book of Acts. And it refers to the Spirit coming upon a believer or a group of believers. The Spirit would come upon, and that is always to empower, and that is referred to as, being filled with the Holy Spirit. That is not to be confused with being, indwelt by the Holy Spirit. We are indwelt when we come to faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit comes to indwell the believer. He takes up residence and you become a temple of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, however, comes upon to empower several times throughout the course of a believer's life according to the need. The Spirit comes to indwell once, upon faith, and that is the difference. And the working of the Spirit to come upon, once again, is to impart that supernatural power so that the believer might be able to function in the supernatural realm. Now, don't get weirded out by the weird by the word, supernatural. It simply means transcending the natural or to go beyond the natural. We all have natural abilities. Some of you have natural gifts, some of you are very athletic, some of you are very smart when it comes to things like mathematics. God bless you. Some of you, have this, or that, or the other, gifting or ability or natural sort of a thing that's going on in your life. And then God comes to impart supernatural abilities and we'll talk about these as we get further into this. These are called spiritual gifts. And one of them is the one that we see here, which is, and it's not the only one, but the one we see here, which is, speaking in other languages that a person has never learned. We'll talk more about it in just a minute. I find it interesting, however, that as Luke describes this event, he uses these interesting descriptive terms. He says that when the Spirit began to descend upon the assembled believers, they heard a sound. And the first thing was a sound. And he says it was first heard as a mighty rushing wind, and that's interesting in light of the fact that the word, wind, in both Hebrew and Greek is the exact same word that is translated spirit. In fact, it's the same word that's translated breath. And that's one of the reasons why Jesus breathed on the disciples on resurrection evening and said,

And that is when they received the indwelling Spirit. Now comes the Spirit to empower and He comes like a “mighty rushing wind.” The next picture that Luke gives us here during this Spirit baptism is this picture of these, “divided tongues as of fire (that) appeared to them and rested on each one…” This is an interesting phenomenon, and even though the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which is what Jesus called it, happens many times throughout the Book of Acts, this is a one off, here, in terms of this particular manifestation. This happened on the day of Pentecost, and it happened once, and never again. But you have to remember what's going on here. God is doing this for the sake of the Jews. These are Jews that are hearing and seeing these things, not Gentiles. And the reason that's important is because these Jews, who are there in Jerusalem at the time, they've gathered for a feast. We know that they are devout Jews, meaning they are practicing Jews. They're very serious about their faith in God through the Mosaic law and so forth, and they know the Bible. They know the Hebrew Scriptures. And they know that God has been manifested throughout the Scriptures in these very ways; through mighty winds and through fire. We see this through the Old Testament in several places and I think that's the primary reason that God allowed these particular manifestations to take place at this time. Because He was communicating to these Jews, that this is a work of the Spirit and you should not be surprised by this. You've read about this in your scriptures for years, about these sorts of manifestations. Now I want to remind you again, that this is happening during the Feast of Ingathering, Pentecost. and that means that Jerusalem is absolutely bursting at the seams with pilgrims. People who have gathered from all parts of the Roman Empire, they've come back to Jerusalem for this feast.

And we're told in verse 5, if you look with me in your Bible, “…there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews,” and the word, dwelling there doesn't mean living permanently. It means they were staying in Jerusalem for the feast. And it says, “devout men from every nation…” that was known at that time. Okay? And that's because the Jews had been scattered over the years into the various places that were now ruled by the Roman empire. And because they'd been scattered, they spoke many different languages, they were multilingual. I really have a great respect for people who are multilingual. I have a great respect for people who are bilingual. Some of you guys, again, speaking of natural gifts, my eldest sister speaks 5 languages fluently, which I've always have been impressed by. But that's just a gift that some people have. Well, these people spoke multiple languages because they lived in these various places that spoke those particular languages and dialects and so forth. And that's why Luke tells us in verse 6 that at the sound they heard, which was the rushing wind and the people speaking in their languages. It says, “they were bewildered,” and they came together because they could hear them speaking in their own languages. Now, here's the question that begs to be answered. What did they hear them saying? What were they saying? We know they're talking and we know they're talking supernaturally. Here's the weird part. The people who are talking don't know what they're saying. Okay? The people who are visiting in Jerusalem, who know those languages, they know what's being said. What is being said? Skip down to verse 11. At the end of that verse, this is the crowd speaking and it says, “we hear them telling in our own (languages) tongues the mighty works of God.” And I think that's a good section there to underline or highlight, because it is a key to understanding the gift of tongues, frankly. But what they heard them doing was declaring God's mighty works. What are we talking about? We're talking about praise, it's just praise. When you begin to talk about God and how incredibly He has worked in your life or maybe in your family and you start telling somebody, you say, let me tell you about what God has done in my family. Let me tell you how He healed me at one point or He healed my marriage and did this and took care of that and provided for the…

You begin to talk about God's mighty works. What you're doing is you're praising God. Well, that's what they heard them doing. They're praising God and declaring His mighty works. It's just pure praise. And again, hang on to that because that will help us understand more about the gift of tongues later on. Well, you can imagine their reaction. Verse 12 gives it to us. Luke writes, “And all were amazed and perplexed.” I find that a little bit humorous because people are still perplexed about the gift of tongues, they really are. Mostly perplexed and not amazed. It perplexes people to this day. What's this all about? What's this all about? And that's what the people were asking. If you look there still in verse 12, they were saying to one another, “What does this mean?” They didn't know what it meant. Why would this be happening? What's the purpose? What's the reason? And people still ask that today about the gift of tongues. What's the reason? What's the purpose? Why do you do it? Why in the world would God give it? Why would he give me a language to speak that I can't understand? What's the reason for it? Well, again, we'll get into that later when we talk about the gift of tongues at another time. But you'll notice that some of the people just said, oh, they've just been hitting the wine here, alrighty. And they mocked in that way and then, of course, that's one of the other responses that people have to supernatural events. Because there are certain people that just simply can't accept the supernatural. In other words, the natural is all there is and everything that happens in life can be explained naturally. And if it can't, then we don't believe it. Because we believe that everything has a natural explanation. That's literally the way some people feel about life, creation, you name it. And this is that and it comes out in the form of mocking, they've just had too much wine. Well, this is the point where Peter stands up and begins to address the crowd. And he begins by making a point that it's just, it's still early in the morning and people don't usually get blasted this early in the morning. And then he begins to explain to them what's happening. Because remember, that's the first thing on the agenda. They're wondering, what's this all about? Why is this happening? And that's what he begins to explain. And he begins to tell them that this is something that God spoke to them about in their Hebrew scriptures. And he begins to speak from the writings of the prophet Joel, where the Lord speaks.

In verse 16 it says, “…this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:” And then he goes on to read from Joel chapter 2. Now in just a second here, I'm going to put this passage from Joel chapter 2 up on the screen so we can read it together and we can see what Joel is actually saying. But one of the points I want to make here is that as we read through Joel's prophecy, you're going to notice that there is a time connection to it and it has to do with the last days of the last days. In fact, when Joel was giving this prophetically in Joel chapter 2, he was talking about the time right when Jesus returns, when the wrath of God has been poured out upon the earth, and there are Jews who survive the Great Tribulation period. You're going to see this. Joel actually mentions survivors. Joel's prophecy really isn't about the day of Pentecost, okay. You might say, well, it's not about Pentecost, then why did Peter quote it? Well, you'll notice what Peter said in verse 16 again, look with me again in verse 16. “But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:” In other words, what Peter is saying here, this is what Joel was talking about in his prophecy. Now the prophecy is about a time other than Pentecost, but the outpouring of the Spirit is what Peter is seeing now and he's saying Joel spoke of this outpouring. In other words, what he's saying to the Jews is, you shouldn't be surprised at this outpouring of the Holy Spirit, this is the kind of stuff God talked about in Joel. Now, Joel wasn't talking about this particular outpouring, necessarily. He was talking about an outpouring of the Spirit that's going to happen when Jesus returns at the end of the Great Tribulation to the survivors of Israel, okay? But an outpouring is an outpouring, and you shouldn't be surprised when you see or hear about an outpouring, because this is the kind of stuff Joel talked about. That's what he's saying. He did not say, this is a fulfillment of Joel's prophecy. He simply said, this is what Joel talked about, this is what he uttered and so forth. All right, let's take a look at that passage on the screen from Joel. It's from chapter 2, verses 28 through 32, and it goes like this.

Guys, that didn't happen at Pentecost, okay? He's talking again about the Tribulation Period and the conclusion of it. He goes on to say another thing that tells us about the timeframe.

(now check out these next descriptions) For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, (notice he refers to that) as the LORD has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the LORD calls.” All right. What did you see there? You see references to world events in Joel's prophecy, don't you? You hear him talking about the sun being darkened and the moon being turned to blood. Those are terms that go along with the Great Tribulation period and the time right before the second return of Christ. He talked about these survivors and those who escaped. Again, we're not talking about the time of Pentecost, Joel's time frame is different, and I want you to understand that. Peter is not saying that Pentecost is a fulfillment, it is a reference point to understand such outpourings of the Spirit. And then Peter went on to speak of the person of Jesus. And this is so important that we recognize this and we're going to look at what Peter said. And I want to just encourage you guys, when somebody comes to you and talks to you or ask questions about your faith, they may have a specific question that has nothing to do with Jesus, right? And it's important that you answer their question. But it's also important that as soon as you do, you get to the really important topic and that is Jesus Christ. When you're talking to someone, answer whatever question they have and then get to the real important meat of the conversation. Because guys, it's all about Jesus and that's where Peter goes now. And he says in verse 22, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know—” What's Peter saying first of all? He's saying, all right, guys, I've explained what you're hearing and what you just saw but now let's get to the topic. We're talking about Jesus here, this is all about Him. And I want you to know that this Jesus whom you crucified was attested by God. And the word attested, means to provide clear evidence. In other words, God the Father provided clear evidence as to the identity and the ministry of Jesus as you full well know. How did God the Father provide that evidence? Well, he says it here, “with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did.” God proved that Jesus is who He claimed to be through those signs and wonders, all right? And then, you'll notice the next point that he makes in verse 23, “this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” The next thing that Peter wants them to know is that the death of Jesus on the cross was not some random event. It was not what it even appeared to be, because it appeared to be an act of justice on the part of the Romans to put to death a criminal. That's the way they executed criminals, if they were Gentile anyway, or, excuse me, if they were non-Roman citizens, is what I should say. It was only a non-Roman citizen who could be crucified. Peter wanted them to know, this was not some act of justice. This was an act, at least not justice as they knew it. This was an act according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. Very important.

And yet notice that Peter doesn't mince words as to their culpability. He says, he is the very one “you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.” We can scarcely even believe that this is the same man who just 50 some days earlier denied 3 times that he knew Jesus to a servant girl and now he's standing in front of a multitude and he's saying, you crucified the Lord of life. But yet, here's the next point that he is making. Verse 24, “God raised him up,” And he's going to spend some time on this point. He says, “God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.” It's an interesting statement, isn't it? The next thing Peter wanted them to know is that Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of God. But did you see in verse 24, a double reference there to who raised Jesus from the dead? He says here, “God raised him up,” right? “God raised him up.” But did you see what he said at the end? You know why He raised Him up? Because it was impossible for Him to stay dead. It was impossible for Him, the Lord of life to stay dead. Do you understand what Peter is saying? He is giving credit both to the Father and to the Son as it relates to the resurrection. Yes, God raised Him up because death couldn't hold on to Him. Death can't hold on to Him. He's too powerful, He is the Lord of life. And then he goes on to kind of punctuate his points. He quotes from the Psalms, the writings of David about the fact that the Lord's body would not see corruption, which is another way of saying that it would not decay. Right? And Peter says that David wasn't talking about himself in case there was any misinterpretation of those prophetic writings. And he says in verse 29, “Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is (among) with us...” And you would never do it because of respect, but if you wanted to, you could open up that tomb and find his remains to this day. Right? That's what he's saying. He’s telling them, it's obvious David wasn't talking about himself, he was talking about someone else. And that's why he says in verse 30, “Being therefore a prophet,” David ministered in the prophetic “and knowing that God had sworn … an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to (the grave) Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.” In other words, His body did not decay. And he says, verse 32, “This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses.” And you'll notice here how much time that Peter is giving to the issue of the resurrection of Jesus. You might be wondering why. Well, it's clear from later writings in the Bible, such as from the apostle Paul, why this is such an important topic. Let me put it on the screen. 1 Corinthians 15:17.

…if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. There you go. Is it any wonder why people attack the resurrection of Jesus and try to get people to believe that it didn't really happen because they come up with some other explanation or something? Well, now you know why. If they can attack the resurrection successfully, we're a goner, we're done for. Our faith is predicated upon the empty tomb and that's what Paul is saying there in 1 Corinthians. And that is why Peter is spending so much time here talking about the resurrection to these people who are assembled. And then the final point of Peter's message is in verse 36, he says, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him (this Jesus) both Lord and (Messiah) Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.” And what he's saying here is, he wants them to know that this very Jesus who they witnessed crucified upon a cross has been proven to be both Lord and Messiah by this supernatural outpouring of God's Holy Spirit that they have witnessed this very day. That's what he's saying. These things are happening as a continuing proof from the Father that this Jesus is who He said He was. Now, the response of the people is very interesting. You look in verse 37 and it says, “they were cut to the heart.” And that's a rather poetic way of saying, they were convicted by what Peter was saying. And they “said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?”” And I appreciate this statement. I wish more people would ask it. What should we do? What do I need to do? I love that question when people ask it but not everybody does And can I suggest to you that if you're going around sharing Jesus with people and you're convincing people even, of who Jesus is, what He did, and the fact that He rose again from the grave. If you don't end up with now what they need to do, you've shortchanged them. I can convince people that maybe Jesus is who He said He was, but big deal if I never get around to telling them what to do about it. What do I do about it? Well, let me tell you what to do and that's where Peter goes on and he begins to speak to them. Notice here, he talks to them about repenting. What is repenting? It's turning away from your sin and turning to Jesus. Because you see sin is the whole reason Jesus had to come and die on the cross for us in the first place. Our sin had separated us from God and so Jesus came to bridge that separation by paying the penalty of our sin. The first thing we need to do is turn from our sin and turn to Jesus. That is repentance and some people just really get high centered on this issue of repentance. I remember I went out to the prison once to talk to our group of guys that meets there weekly. I don't get out there more than once or twice a year but one year I went out and one of the guys just was really hung up on the issue of repentance to the point where he was like, well, you got to repent just right. And he created this whole doctrine surrounding repentance and you had to do it just according to the way he thought. And if you don't repent just right. And it turned into this legalistic sort of, I got to do it just this way, I'm going to give you a recipe to repent and if you don't do it correctly, then you may not have the opportunity to be saved. Again, repentance is just turning to God. It's turning away from this, the old way of sin, turning to the Lord. When you come to Christ, repentance is kind of built into that. Right? You can't really come to Christ without turning away. You have to turn to Him and recognize Him, see He is who He says He is, and come to Him and embrace Him and say, I need a Savior. I'm a sinner and I need a Savior. That’s part of the package of repentance.

It's turning away from my life of sin and turning to the One who can help me related to that. It's important that we don't get too high centered on some of these terms. But he says, repent and then he encourages them, challenges them in fact, to submit to the right of water baptism, that they might make a public and outward expression of their faith in Jesus Christ. And he assured them that as a response of their faith, God would bring the ministry of blessing through the Holy Spirit. And he says, this promise is for everybody. It's for you, it's for your children, for all who are far off and so forth and so on. And then this section ends by telling us that Peter had a whole lot more to say as he talked to the people and it ends with the statement in verse 41. “So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” And “those who received his word were baptized.” So they took him seriously about making that public statement, which was a very difficult and risky thing for a Jew to do in front of others, unbelieving Jews, and so forth. But can you imagine in your mind's eye, witnessing 3,000 people being baptized in a single day? That's a lot of people getting dunked and how fun that must have been. What's interesting about that is that back in the early days of Calvary Chapel, and I'm talking about Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, they were having mass baptisms in the ocean, thousands of people at a time. It even drew the attention of Time Magazine. They put pictures in Time Magazine of the mass Christian baptisms that were going on at Pirate's Cove there in Southern California. And we all got to see this recreated this past year in the movie, Jesus Revolution. I sincerely hope you got a chance to go and see that movie or to see it somehow. It's streaming now on services online, but what a great film. Here's what you may not know. When they were filming the water baptism scenes in the ocean, people were getting baptized for real. People were getting saved for real during that time. Greg Laurie and Jesus Revolution was actually based on a book written by Greg Laurie. It came out, I think in 2018 and it's really kind of his story of coming to Christ and how the Jesus revolution affected him personally and so forth. But he was there that day when they were filming the water baptism at the ocean and he got in the water and started baptizing people when the camera wasn't rolling because people were getting saved at that very time.

In fact, let me read this. I found this online from a website that was talking about the event. I'm reading now from it. It says, “The box office sensation, Jesus Revolution, includes scenes of mass baptisms that required plenty of behind the scenes preparation and a multitude of extras. Incredibly though, the scenes sparked real life baptisms and salvation too. Co-director Andy Irwin and producer Kevin Downs reveal in a new video that the cast and crew members spontaneously chose to get baptized on location. The scenes were filmed at a beach called Pirate's Cove, the same place where countless young people were baptized in the late 60s and early 70s. ‘I've never felt anything like it,’ Irwin said. Kevin Downs said, ‘decisions for Christ were made on set during the filming of the baptisms.’ Jonathan Rumi, who plays Lonnie Frisby, baptized people behind the scenes. Downs and Irwin saw him baptizing and assumed he was just practicing for his scene.” And he said, ‘no, this is real.’ He's like, ‘I'm baptizing just like Greg Laurie taught me.’ Erwin said, Greg Laurie too baptized people on set. ‘He was baptizing without anyone knowing a large number of the cast’ said Downs, ‘you could tell that something extraordinary just happened to them.’” Isn't that cool? Oh, and by the way, let me show you. Here's a picture somebody took a picture of Greg Laurie actually baptizing people that day. He was out there.

--- And of course, the young man in the film that you clip there, that was the man playing Greg Laurie, but that's him today. He was out there getting people saved. I just think that's so cool. But you know what, guys? The reason that the Calvary Chapel movement is still touching people's lives today isn't just because they proclaimed the gospel and they baptized them. That's all wonderful, I mean, getting people saved is great. But the reason that it continues to this day is because pastor Chuck started teaching through the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. And then Greg went and started a church and started teaching through the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse. And then Mike McIntosh went out and started a church and started teaching through the Bible, chapter by chapter, verse by verse, and all of the other Calvary chapels that got planted did the same, and that's the hallmark. And that is the continuation. Revivals can come and go quickly, but if they are not grounded in the Word, they will fizzle out quickly as well. We've already seen that happen. I want you to understand, this is all exciting, this is all wonderful, but getting into the Word, digging into the Scriptures every day, this is where we get strong. This is where we grow up and mature in our faith. Amen? Alright, let's stand together. We're going to close in prayer.

If you need prayer this morning for any reason, we'll have some folks up front here across the stage that are available to pray with you. So let's pray together. Father, we thank you so much for giving us this time to be in your Word and to open our hearts to the ministry of truth that is declared so beautifully in the Scriptures. And Father God, we thank you that you are one who desires to empower us to accomplish the purpose of your will. You don't just tell us to step out in our own strength, but you empower us through your Spirit and enable us to go beyond the physical means of a human being and to do the works of God. And we thank you, Father God. And we pray for opportunities this week to come across people for whom we can share the gospel and bring to a saving knowledge of Jesus. We thank you, Father. We just continue to pray for ways to minister your Word and your faithfulness to all who will hear. We thank you for this time together. We praise you and worship you as King of kings and Lord of lords. We pray all of these things in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son and all God's people said, amen. Thanks so much. God bless you. Have a good rest of your day. ---