The Holy Spirit given at Pentecost
Acts 2:1-13 · Vern Peterman · Jan 29, 2017
Acts (2017-18), No. 04
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926547155094

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Good morning. It's with great anticipation that I'm looking forward to introducing this chapter. It is certainly a massive and momentous chapter, spiritually speaking. As a matter of fact, that's one of the points we're going to make here. We've got four slides for it. An eternally momentous day. So this one particular day, And the disciples didn't know in advance which day it would be. It was a day of God's choosing, and we would say specifically God the Father's choosing. God the Father is the one who chooses the specific points in time consistently and the great spans of time.

We could point back, for example, at the right time God sent His Son, right? So God the Father was the one who sent His Son. And when did He do it? At the right time, right? And at the right time He sent His Son, and at the right time His Son was crucified and raised and ascended, all those things chosen by the Father.

So this is a chosen day, the day of Pentecost. Jesus told the disciples that it would be not too many days from now. He didn't give them the specific time. This particular day was chosen by God the Father. So this was a God the Father chosen, to put the hyphens in there, day to begin the span of time that we call the church age.

So here's the point in time, this day, Day of Pentecost. And then He sets the spans of time which will come at the end of the church age, which will be the day of the rapture is coming for you and for me. I hope it's today. I hope I don't get to finish.

God the Father was on the throne, His Son was seated at His right hand at this particular time, if time means anything in that reference. This was an eternally momentous day as He was sent from the Father and the Son, that is the Holy Spirit, with intimate communication between them. We talked in the elective here how the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were all three involved in the Spirit's coming to earth on this particular day and time. The Father chose the time, the Son prayed to the Father to send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit didn't go reluctantly as in, oh, I guess I'll go, if you guys really think so, you know. I don't want to, but, you know. My heart isn't in it, but I'll go anyway. So it's not like that. This was all three persons of the Trinity, each having a different and separate role, choosing together for the Holy Spirit to come.

That coming of the Holy Spirit would come in a way, and with such an effect, and a set of unique ministries among them, and for all church-age believers, so that's you and me, unique to all time and eternity. There would be no time like this, no other equivalent time. This is a very special day, beginning a very special span of time. The body of believers that would begin this day would have a relationship with the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit that would be unique in all eternity past and on into eternity future.

There would be nothing like it. What you and I enjoy of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit is not like Isaiah did. It's not like the Tribulation Saints will. It's not like those living on earth from the earth in the Millennial Kingdom will enjoy. We enjoy a very special relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that others do not.

It began on this day. So beginning on this one eternally very special day, on a day set by the Father, these believers would be blessed and be positioned as no other body of people in all time and eternity. It would simply take them decades of time to discover what those blessings were. On this one single eternally momentous day, the unique believers gathered there in Jerusalem, numbering about 120 at first. We aren't given exactly the number on this day, although it may well have been similar. About 3,000 would be added to their number that day, and that was all by essentially surprise.

God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit chose and planned and moved to make this day, when many Jews were gathered there in Jerusalem, a very spiritually reproductive day. Not just productive, but reproductive day. And at the beginning of that day, none of them knew it, not even the disciples. This was the day.

So I'll read from Acts 2.1. This was on May 24th, 33 AD. And those details matter. We're saying that because the preponderance of evidence is quickly moving towards confirming that this is the specific day of the Day of Pentecost when this occurred. And those numbers matter. So when the Day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

All together gathered In one place we don't get any more details than that So this day of Pentecost was a day designated by the law of Moses as a feast It was 50 days after the day of the feast of firstfruits So what they would do is here's the day of feast of firstfruits Which is happens to be the day that Christ was resurrected and that's why Paul writes 1st Corinthians 15 Christ the firstfruits of those who are asleep. Okay that day is May 24th, 33 AD, Firstfruits. Excuse me, the day of Pentecost, 50 days after Firstfruits. It was a week of weeks, that is 49 days afterwards, after the Feast of Firstfruits, which is where this word pente comes in, that's designating the 50.

It's actually a Greek word. But that's the day. That's the day that the Father chose. So the evidence says that this was May 24, 33 AD by our calendar. If you came up to them and said, is today May 24, 33 AD? They would say, what? They would have no idea. So that's by our calendar.

And we not only know the specific day, but as we're going to see as we go through the passage, we're going to see the specific time of day there in Jerusalem, less certain about the specific location. where a great many Jews were gathered for the Day of Pentecost. The first day in the Jewish calendar that mattered was the Day of Pentecost, excuse me, the Day of Passover, and then would be the Feast of Firstfruits, two days after Passover would then be the Feast of, would be Firstfruits offered, and then after that, 50 days after, would be the Day of Pentecost. Here is in round form the Jewish calendar. Now don't get confused by the round form of it.

It simply means it's an annual event. We have it added to the usual Hanukkah, which Jesus actually observed. That's John 10.22. And Purim, which was added from the book of Esther. The rest of these feasts are all spelled out in the Law of Moses. And it's the second day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which is called the Feast of Firstfruits. The usual pattern in the year was that the barley harvest would be the first thing that would be ready out of the harvest season, and those were the things that were offered in that Feast of Firstfruits.

So here we are at the Day of Pentecost, 50 days after that day. And so this is the annual cycle. You'll notice 12 months. We have a leap year every four years where we add a day. The Jews didn't do it that way. They had a lunar calendar, which went loony after a while because the lunar calendar and the solar calendar don't match up. So they threw in an extra month once in a while to fix it. That's one reason why if you have Passover and Hanukkah and all those dates seem like they keep jumping around compared to our calendar, it's because they don't throw in that extra month except once in a while to catch up. Alright, so now here you have, and this is a slide on the bottom of page two, so here is the Passover lamb is slain, that was on Friday. Christ is crucified and buried.

The first day of this mosaic celebration, April 3rd, 33 AD. Then there would be the day in which Christ was in the tomb, and that would be counted as Saturday. And now this Feast of First Fruits, Sunday, which would be the third day, April 5, 33 AD. So that's how the Feast of First Fruits was counted. So it's 50 days after that that the Day of Pentecost was set. The Jews had no fogginess or question in their mind, here's when the Day of Pentecost occurs. The disciples, however, didn't know that that would be the day. But the Lord did. The Lord did.

Okay, so they're gathered together in one place. The appearance that the 120 are gathered in this place, that the ones speaking are identified as Galileans, may point, not certainly, may point to just the 12 apostles here referred to as having received the gift of tongues.

That, however, is not abundantly clear. We'll get some clues perhaps a little bit later. We don't know whether this one place is the same as the upper room, because it doesn't call it the upper room where the Last Supper was held, and where the 120 had been gathered some days earlier, and Matthias was chosen to replace Judas. It may be the case, but we just don't have enough clarity on that point.

So, here's Acts 2.2, and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind. and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

Notice, I jokingly put this fellow leaning into the wind, the reality is it says noise like a violent rushing wind. It doesn't mean that it was a windy day or that there was a wind experience. It was the noise like a violent rushing wind and we'll see soon why that was the experience there. Here they were gathered in this room in one place, and it says in Acts 2, 2, and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. So they were here beginning in the house, and what position did they largely have sitting in that house when the Holy Spirit came? So one of the things is this noise came from heaven. This was not an earthly noise. The people, in spite of the little joke we make with the guy going sideways holding on to the tree, in spite of the joke that we make, this is from heaven.

It was probably not a windy day. It was probably not a violent rushing wind throughout the city of Jerusalem. In no other case where the Holy Spirit was given, and we'll see this as we proceed through the book of Acts, was a violent wind said to accompany his coming or the noise of it. Whenever the Holy Spirit came, no description of this violent wind noise. Doesn't happen. So this appears to be unique. So I hear at this time was the coming of the Holy Spirit accompanied by this violent wind, or at least the noise of it, on the day of Pentecost when many Jews would begin their observance. Why this day?

Well, one thing, it filled the whole house. There wasn't any calm corners. It filled the whole house. Nothing about this noise was nominal or marginal. It was like a mighty wind, a violent rushing, and the noise filled the whole house. If you, just to take an example, had been taking a nap in the corner, the noise would have been such that it would have awakened you. Just like we have people falling asleep and I wonder, should I make a loud wind noise? At any rate, did the giving of the Holy Spirit have to come with these dramatic and intense audio effects?

And that's what I think I need to call it, because while it describes it as a noise like this wind, it doesn't really describe a wind. So what you have is this attention-getting noise. And I think that's one reason why we don't find this noise coming every time the Holy Spirit is given throughout the Book of Acts.

This is a particular day at a particular time, and are there lots of Jews in Jerusalem at this time? Oh yes. This is the second kind of set of feasts After the time of the Passover and unleavened bread and the firstfruits and all that which are all grouped together. This is the second one 50 days after firstfruits and and at this particular time the Lord chose When lots of Jews were gathered together to make not a violent wind or not to just make Jerusalem windy but to make a wind noise coming from heaven miraculously that accompanied the Holy Spirit's coming. And we're going to see why in just a minute.

These attention-grabbing audio effects were not essential to the giving of the Holy Spirit, were they? God could have said, you know, we're just going to do this quietly. We're going to give the Holy Spirit. These people are going to then begin The church, the body of Christ, they're going to have a position like all the rest in the body of Christ and we're just gonna do it quietly.

God could have done that, couldn't he? He chose not to. He instead picked a day when lots of Jews would be there to make a loud noise from heaven that people nearby would most definitely recognize. this violent rushing wind. As a matter of fact, if the Lord were to do something similar here, the whole neighborhood around would go, what's going on? Right? What's going on? And that was exactly what God had in mind. He drew attention so that Peter, who had just been empowered minutes before, would be able to deliver a message miraculously by the Holy Spirit's Very young empowerment to these believers gathered there.

By telling the disciples to wait in Jerusalem, that's the place, don't go somewhere else, don't even wander off into Bethany. They would often go to Bethany previously. You've got Mary and Martha, they'd be glad to put everybody up. But no, here, stay in Jerusalem. Where? on the day of Pentecost, a great many Jews would be gathered, and accompanied by a violent rushing wind noise. This would bring about a huge first day growth in the numbers of the church. Did Jesus let, or did the Holy Spirit let Peter and the rest of the disciples know, now get ready, Here's the countdown. It's 10 days from now. He didn't, did he? You wait, I'll pick the day and the time.

We'll see why that specific group was impacted and further fanned the flames. It was all set up to not only have these Jews here, but to take it elsewhere. The fact that the disciples were in a sitting position means that they were expecting the Lord to come at any time, but not at this time. And by the way, that's the way the Lord does things a lot of times. When He takes us home to be with Him, is He going to give us the countdown? No. I don't know when the time is, but He'll come. They're likely not expecting the Holy Spirit at this very moment that they're sitting down. God, however, was plenty ready, took everything about the place, the day, the time, the audio accompaniment. See, we had audio accompaniment here this morning, right? These guys had audio accompaniment. It was a very different character. There's a violent wind noise. And there was more about it, as we'll soon see. They just had to be there waiting.

Here's Acts 2.3, "...and there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them." Now, as soon as you see this description, I think, oh heavens, you know, this is like when Vern gets his hot sauce, right?

No, that's not exactly what he's talking about. It's not tongues on fire, it's tongues of fire. And probably more like this illustration, probably I would say more so than what you'll see out of the usual movie, Axe movie that I draw from, which looks more like this. And it looks like somebody smoking more than tongues of fire. So anyway, I prefer this presentation, but nonetheless, you get the idea. This also was something extraordinary that people would see.

So Dr. Luke did what the noise of the violent rushing wind described in Acts 2.2, which we saw just a couple verses ago. He describes the appearance of tongues of fire on each one that was gathered. Now, were they expecting a violent rushing wind noise? No. Were they expecting these tongues of fire on each? Nope. Not that.

So like with each, these were part of the giving of the Holy Spirit, and like there was no violent rushing noise later at the giving of the Holy Spirit, we also don't find this description of tongues of fire in subsequent givings of the Holy Spirit. This is a unique event. It isn't an event to be reproduced every time the Holy Spirit is given. So why was there this noise like a violent rushing wind and the appearance of the tongues of fire on each?

Well, it's not like we see now, is it? Should we expect that to be the way things are in our churches these days? There are churches that try to do that. We're sure looking for the wind and the fire. Even if we have to light the place on fire, we'll do that, right?

Okay, so the noise and the tongues were given uniquely that first day with the giving of the Holy Spirit and by any biblical description not since. The actions and events of that day brought about the church which marked the uniqueness of that day. One of the things that we'll see as we go through the book of Acts, we will see unique days And we need to avoid the tendency, at least of some, to be drawn to try to reproduce what was a unique day that the Father chose by His own choosing, not intended to be reproduced again and again.

Here's Acts 2, verse 4. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. So Dr. Luke wrote that they're all filled with the Holy Spirit at that moment and at that event. We're going to see as we look at this in a little more detail, not today, but farther down the road, that being filled with the Holy Spirit and being baptized with the Holy Spirit, those terms are not just to be used cookie cutter. This was a unique event, being filled with the Holy Spirit.

It is not something for us to continue to pursue in the same way. So it isn't proper to conclude that all filling with the Holy Spirit will sound and appear like this. As a matter of fact, most explicitly it does not sound and it does not appear like this. This is a specially appointed day, selected by God the Father to accomplish something never again to be repeated. The Holy Spirit's filling does not appear like this ever again. in all the rest of the Book of Acts, certainly, the rest of the New Testament.

The terms vary as well, and so we'll be examining these. Receive, give, fill, or full of, comes, send, all these different terms are used, and they don't all mean the same thing in every place, as we'll see. Now, one of the things that happens here, we speak with other tongues.

Not only in terms of the Greek word definition, but by context that follows, we're going to see that the Greek word here that is translated tongues means foreign earthly tongues, right? Got that? Foreign earthly tongues. And we're going to use that foreign earthly tongues or tongues or languages term, foreign earthly languages. We're going to use that in order to designate what this is and in order we don't get some idea that's off track.

As we will soon see, these foreign earthly languages weren't languages that those speaking the foreign earthly languages had been brought up in or trained in. So there was no training whatsoever, and we're going to see evidence, it's apparent that these are Galileans, in great part, who are speaking these things.

So as the Spirit, that phrase there, the speaking of foreign, earthly languages wasn't from a human cultural experience. It wasn't from training in those languages, nor anything that could be humanly explained. Dr. Luke wrote that these foreign, earthly languages were uttered as the Spirit gave them to the speakers. The Spirit gave these languages to the speakers.

They were not trained in it. When Nancy and I were getting to know each other, we were not engaged. took an eight-week long Spanish class. It was five hours a day, five days a week, and they had a different instructor for each hour. In the morning, at noontime, they sent you to lunch to sit down with another tutor who would sit there and talk to you about, you know, this word means that, and they discussed what you're eating and what you're eating with and everything else. And then the last hour was poetry and song and things like that in Spanish. At the beginning of the second day they said, that's it, no more English. If you speak English, and this is a whole year of Spanish in eight weeks, if you speak English we will reduce all of your grades one grade for the whole year if you speak one word of English from here on out.

Scared me to death. After going to Spanish class one day, I went to Nancy's house to visit her. I remember riding there on a bicycle. Her sister answered the front door. I was so scared I couldn't even speak to her in English. She looked at me and I wasn't saying a thing, right? Because I was scared to speak English. She says, you want to see Nancy? Yep.

So these guys had not gone under any training. They hadn't even been told, you can't speak a word of your Galilean dialect. They weren't told that. These guys just simply began speaking by the Spirit's utterance, and not because they were scared to death like I was.

The work of the Holy Spirit brought about this speaking. It was the Holy Spirit's work that made this. So think about this. This day was not anything that the disciples concocted or even expected. At some time the Holy Spirit is going to be given to you, some day, not too many days from now, at a specific time, and it's going to look like this. You're going to have tongues of fire, there's going to be a violent rushing wind noise, you know, and then it's going to look... No, they had no idea the Holy Spirit's work here this day, the day of the Father's choosing, the day that Christ had told them about, was all the work of the Lord and none of their own. But that's good, isn't it? Right? That's a good thing.

Now it says there were Jews living in Jerusalem whose families had lived in Jerusalem for a number of generations and even centuries. We're going to see as we go through this there were also those who were simply visitors and are going to make a variance between different kinds of visitors. I'll tell you that this word here, Jews living in Jerusalem, this is a settled down permanent living. This is not Jews who are visiting. This word here specifically means these are those who had settled down in Jerusalem probably for a long time, perhaps generations, perhaps even centuries of background coming into it. So that's the first part here.

These Jews had come from foreign lands but had retained a knowledge of their foreign language, perhaps by having family, perhaps by going back to visit a family where they had come from, they had retained the knowledge. They had been settled down and were actually living, not just visiting for a time there in Jerusalem, but they had somehow retained the knowledge of their foreign language. We're going to find out that these particular ones that Dr. Luke wrote about had not all been Jews for many generations. We're going to see that in a little bit here. Here's a very significant thing. It's unique to Dr. Luke.

He wrote that the ones here that he's referring to were not nominal Jews. We'll hear about, for example, somebody's a Jack Mormon or a Jack Baptist or whatever term, or that's sort of their cultural or family background. In this instance, these guys are not nominal. It says they're devout. their devotion to the God of Israel. They were devout men indeed.

This is a word that only Dr. Luke uses. He uses it in the Gospel of Luke and in the book of Acts here, and it's not used anywhere else in the entire New Testament. So it's a very special word. So these men that are gathered together, gathered there for the day of Pentecost, They're explicitly hanging around.

They're not going off visiting relatives or whatever. They're very devout men. They're very serious about why they're there and what this day means. These are not people who are thinking loosely or casually about their Jewishness or what that day means. It was used of Simeon when Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the temple.

This would be Luke 2.25 about Simeon, and there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon, and this man was righteous and devout. Same word. This is the first time that Dr. Luke uses that word. He's looking for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. That's the kind of man he was.

These are the kind of men who are showing up on this day. Here is a similar use of the word devout, but in a different context, Acts 8, 1-3, regarding the death of Stephen. After Stephen was killed, this was a death in which Paul witnessed and watched over the coats while the others stoned Stephen to death. It says, On that day a great persecution began against the church in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria. except the apostles, some devout men, same word, buried Stephen and made loud lament over him.

So that's what this word means. These people that are gathered together for Peter to speak to are people who were serious about God. Did they have some things yet to understand and to know and to learn? Oh yes. But they were serious. They were not just simply, I'm hanging out here because everybody else is.

One of the other descriptions that Dr. Luke put in here is every nation under heaven. We're going to see a listing of those nations here, and you see it in brief in the map off to the right there, where each of these foreign languages, foreign earthly languages, had come from. We'll see that these devout men had come from places inside and outside of the Roman Empire. Some of them within the Roman Empire, but some of them way outside, as we'll soon see here. Every nation under heaven was not intended for you to sit down with a listing of, here's all the nations, did you have one from each?

In truth, no. The answer is no. So it's not an absolute statement, but rather something more like from people far and wide, or all over the place, as we would put it. Not as an exhaustive term, but there were people from lots of different places around the world, the then known world, who were present.

Acts 2.6, And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered, because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language.

So this Greek word translated noise in verse 2, you'd recognize the word as it's carried over in English, ekos, we get our word echo from that, is modified by words meaning violent wind. But this Greek word translated sound, phonei, and we get our word phone, right, is not modified at all. So the idea is there's a noise or a sound. That's the focus here, not a violent wind per se. The idea we get from these two words together is that the loud, windy noise was intended to get the Jews' attention that morning, especially because it wasn't windy weather. If it was windy weather and you heard a loud, windy noise, you'd say, well, no big deal. If everything's calm and all of a sudden you hear a loud, windy noise, that's going to get your attention.

And that's what happened here. It seems very clear God intended to use the wind noise to get the attention of these devout Jews. Once they arrived, to get them wondering why. Notice God has a strategy here. He picks the time and He picks the time of day. He picks the circumstance. It's got to be in Jerusalem.

And He even, it appears, picks the circumstances such that here are these people very curious who are all devout men, and who all come from different language groups, at least of that background, these are drawn together to say, what is this noise I'm hearing? I can't explain it, because there's not any violent wind around, we just hear the noise of it.

Each of these devout Jews was hearing these disciples of Jesus speak in a language they recognized as being from back home. So they were confused. This doesn't make any sense. So in verse 4, each one was said to be speaking in another tongue, Glossa, which is another human language. As we said, a foreign, earthly language.

The word translated here is language, and this one is a different word, dialectos, which would allow the word dialects. The idea is there's variations of different kinds. In Uganda, where Hassan lives and ministers from, there are over 500 dialects in one country here, and Hassan knows about four of them. of the 500 dialects. This is the case here where there's certainly different languages but within that even subgroups of dialects, variations within a specific language.

So the Holy Spirit gave these believers on that morning in which the Holy Spirit was given the ability to speak foreign, earthly languages and dialects which these former foreigners recognize as from back home. Imagine this. Imagine this. Here is the Holy Spirit being given and these guys are not only speaking foreign dialects and languages, but they're speaking, only God could do this, they're speaking the foreign languages and dialects that are represented by those men who are present. If there are other foreign languages and dialects, they are not being spoken. Isn't that something? See, the Holy Spirit, if it was random, could have just blown it. But the Holy Spirit instead knew, what language background are these people who are gathered together here from? I'm going to miraculously provide to my disciples the exactly correct foreign language.

That is astounding. Here's Acts 2, 7 and 8, and they were amazed and astonished, saying, Why are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Whoa! How is this possibly happening?

They were confused, as we draw in from earlier description, amazed, astonished. And you can imagine, of course they were confused and amazed and astonished. There was no good natural explanation as to how this could have come about. Why did they hear the violent rushing wind noise at the outset? There was no good natural explanation as to why they all heard their own language and dialect. It wasn't, you know, that's a foreign language, and I can tell it's foreign, but I have no idea what they're saying. Ever been in that situation? People are talking, and it's like, well, you don't know what it is.

It's interesting, when Hassan came to visit with us, we have just to the south of us a couple of blocks, a goodwill store. Nancy and Hassan went to that goodwill store, and believe it or not, someone in the store was talking on the phone in the exact language that Hassan knew. And of course, Hassan runs up to this guy and waits for him to get off the phone, right? So Hassan recognized that language and it was amazing because it never happened subsequently. But he was very interested and excited.

This guy is speaking my language. Imagine that happening with Dozens and dozens and dozens of people. Wait a minute, these guys are speaking my language. Only it's not just some guy who happens to be where I'm from. And that's going to be the next thing.

Are not these guys Galileans? So Acts 2, 6, 7, 8 tells us, not at all surprisingly, these men were confused and were amazed and were astonished by what they saw and heard this very special morning. Now, we're not so sure what a Galilean accent sounds like, but it was apparently quite recognizable among the disciples who were gathered there that day and also among the Jews who were there. Very recognizable. These Jewish men who were drawn by the sound of wind and recognized their own language and dialect could not figure it out. speaking their own foreign, earthly language in their native tongue, but with a Galilean accent.

Now, why am I showing you a picture of Dr. Simon Ashiku? He was my high school math teacher. Brilliant man, and we were told that he spoke seven languages. We used to joke that it's too bad one of them wasn't English. So I went to high school in this little tiny town. I graduated with a record size graduating class of 30 students. And it so happened that Dr. Ishiku, who, by the way, I eventually took his place as a teacher. But anyway, Dr. Ishiku stayed on there for a number of years and such that my younger brother, almost 10 years younger than I, had him as well.

And he and several other guys got together. and said, Dr. Ishiku, would you please teach us German? Now, he was Albanian, right? But he supposedly knew German probably as well as he knew English. But he supposedly knew German. And so they got textbooks and my brother and just a few other guys sat down and they had a German course with Dr. Ishiku. Well, years later, My brother actually went to Germany, and he would start speaking with these people, and people would say, you know, your German is very good, but it's with an Albanian accent, right?

And the same problem here. These guys are speaking my language with a Galilean accent, right? So, here's Acts 2, 9-11. Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, and Cretans and Arabs, and we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God. This is an extraordinary event. So not only do we have, you know, hey, I I hear these guys speaking in my own tongue, but lots of people are recognizing that this is happening. Amidst what appears like noise, I can recognize my own language. And lots of people are experiencing this. So here is a mapping of the different places.

Here's the Roman Empire, and you see that noted in purple and in green, and that's basically a matter of timing. The purple areas were ones that tended to be later added, and then Off to the right-hand side of the map, you'll see some orange and brown areas. That's outside the Roman Empire. That's in what is known as the Parthian Empire.

And so here they were in Jerusalem. They had all the different districts we have identified here on this map. So people from North Africa, people over in the Parthian Empire to the east, And people from Alexandria. Alexandria had a significant Jewish population. They lived in the southeast quarter of Alexandria. And you could tell people were from there. From Arabia, essentially down near Petra, if you've heard of that. And all the way from Rome. And what we see here is explicitly mentioned is visitors and Jews, people coming from Rome.

Now, if you're interested in a handout with more detail on each of those languages and the background to it and a map, just like we showed you on the screen, you've come to the right place. There's a handout for that, a supplement, so you can grab one as you leave to the right. If we've run short, let me know. I'll be sure to get those to you.

So now, Jews and proselytes, let's talk about that. This is important for us to understand, because at the outset we said there were Jews living in Jerusalem, and those were settled down Jews who had been living there for some time, maybe even generations, and maybe even centuries, still probably maintaining contact with those back home. from their old home in the Gentile lands.

There were those among these Jews who were ethnic Jews from the various places, but who had moved to Jerusalem. They were settled down, they were living there. So that was one part of this population here. People that had been Jews, had moved from Babylon, Rome, wherever they were from, and had moved here. And then there were those in these locations who had become proselytes, they had converted to Judaism.

Interesting that the Jews actually, neither then nor now, go about trying to make proselytes, to convert people to Judaism. There isn't some active role there. These, however, were ethnically Gentiles. To be a convert to Judaism meant you had to be real serious. That goes along with being devout, that Dr. Luke had said earlier. There were specific requirements for proselytes, and we're going to give you the short list here. A person had to be a convert to Judaism, and they had to be circumcised if a man, okay? That's very important if you're a man, only do that. Okay.

Be baptized to symbolize purification. So the Jews had baptism, too, for those who were converted to Judaism. So a baptism of purification, that is why there in Jerusalem they would have, as we'll soon see, the capacity to baptize. One of the reasons. Three, they would offer a sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem. Now, was it that simple? It was more complex. What do you expect? They're Jews, right? It was more complex. Actually, that's just the start. There's a whole bunch of additional things, and essentially you're signing up for the whole law, right?

You're going to say, okay, I'm not just going to respect the God of Judaism, and we'll talk about that in a minute, but I'm going to do these things as a matter of starting into observance of the whole law. There was, in fact, a category of less strict requirement among the Gentiles to be a God-fearer, or sometimes called in the book of Acts, a God-fearing Gentile. We're going to see that as we proceed through the book of Acts. It is very likely that Dr. Luke was one of these, a God-fearing Gentile who became a believer in Christ.

And what were they saying as they spoke? Were they reading out of the Sears and Roebuck catalog? Were they reading through the phone book? Were they reading their homework? No. They told of the mighty deeds of God, each in this foreign language with a Galilean accent.

It was extraordinary and inexplicable. Not only can I tell that these guys have a Galilean accent, but they're speaking the foreign language. I know they don't know it. I know they haven't been trained in it. They haven't been scared to death like Verne with a threat to their grades, right? But these guys are speaking a foreign language they've never been trained in with a Galilean accent and we can understand what they're saying.

They're speaking of the mighty deeds of God. And we have no earthly explanation for that. We've never, ever, any of us seen anything like this. It wasn't secular or generic, not just nominal. It wasn't blah, blah, blah. Instead, they spoke, every one of them, recognizably, the mighty deeds of God, so that these men could understand them.

Here's Acts 2.12, And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, What does this mean? They all continued in amazement and great perplexity, and wouldn't you do just the same? Wouldn't you be perplexed and amazed?

There was no good natural explanation for what these Jews saw and heard. That is exactly where God wanted these Jews. They were drawn by the noise of the violent rushing wind. They were amazed and greatly perplexed by these Galileans speaking their native tongue. There was no good natural explanation, but some would try. We're about to read that.

Acts 2.13, but others were mocking and saying they're full of sweet wine. Code. They're drunk. Was that a good explanation for what happened? Is this what drunk men do? Is that how they behave?

Obviously going to be a very inadequate explanation and one quickly swept aside by Peter. That wouldn't explain the noise like a violent wind. It wouldn't explain these men speaking in specific foreign languages that a great many others heard clearly in their own native tongue and with a Galilean accent. Peter, of course, the first thing he's going to do is dismiss this explanation.

So these 13 verses, and we'll continue to proceed through the rest of the verses in the chapter, we've seen an introduction to this eternally momentous day. We're not done. We've got two more Sundays looking at this particular day and that message. We've seen the extraordinary things that God brought together miraculously for that day.

These Jews don't know it yet. They're going to find that being Jewish or even converting to Judaism, no matter how devout, is not what God desires, nor does He require it. You guys have converted to Judaism, you're very devout, that doesn't help. It's not going to do it for you. You're going to find that's inadequate.

So, what became true that day, and we'll be looking at that, everything about the believer's position, yours and mine, became true in history of each one who believed on that day. These people weren't to discover it for decades to come, but they were seated with Christ. That was true of them. They were made to be in Christ. That was true of them that day. That was the case for Peter and for the rest of the Christ's disciples when the Holy Spirit was given. It was true of every single one who believed that day, by the end of that day. All of those Jews who started that day not as a part of the body of Christ, the church, became part of the body of Christ, the church, first as the Holy Spirit was given among those disciples, and then as they believed later on that day in response to what Peter said.

Last week we took a look at, here's Mary who was sitting among the 120. I'd invite you to ponder this. Here's Mary, who 50 years before, approximately, had been told by the angel Gabriel, Oh, by the way, you're going to give birth to the Christ child. You'll bear a son. And the Holy Spirit will bring it about.

That day. That child that she bore within that year, that child that she bore, who was Christ, the one that Gabriel had told her about. On this day, she became the mother of Jesus, became identified with her son in his death, burial, resurrection, ascension, and seating. Mary became identified with her son in these five things. That day, The Son, the Spirit of the Son that she had born, came to be in her as much as she came to be in Him.

Now it's amazing, it's astounding for us to ponder that, but is our position in Christ and His position in us any different? No. It is no different. Mary's spiritual position on that day is the same position that you and I have. And it's all the work of God. We don't know how long Mary lived after this. She may never have learned that while she was alive.

But you and I can. Isn't that great? Isn't that phenomenal? What a privilege we have. Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for your word. We thank you for the amazing, astounding things that you have revealed. You've revealed them because you love us, you care for us, and it is quite apparent that that love and care for us is eternal. And we just thank you as we begin to look at this very special, eternally momentous day, as we look upon that day and begin to read about what happens next. We just thank you for the astounding thing that you've accomplished for eternal purpose. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.