Pentecost
Acts • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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What happened on pentecost
Opening Text: Joel 2.28-32
Passage Text: Acts 2.1-21
The amazing event explained.
The second chapter of Acts opens with the followers of Jesus at the Pentecost observance in Jerusalem. Some have said they believe the events of Chapter 2 took place in the upper room. However, the public nature, time, and need for the Temple make me believe you can see the gather place as the Temple (more specifically the southern end of the Temple grounds.
John Philips said,
1500 Pentecosts have come and gone since Moses instituted it in Deuteronomy. It was a special observance. Built to keep their focus to the coming Messiah.
On the day of Pentecost, in Old Testament times, the Jews took individual grains of corn, ground them into flour, added oil and leaven, and made two loaves of bread. The loaves were then offered to the Lord along with the sacrifice of seven lambs without blemish, one young bullock, and two rams for a burnt offering—ten sacrifices in all, to symbolize the perfection and completeness of Calvary.
All symbolized what took place fifty days after the resurrection of Christ. Pentecost always fell on the first day of the week, symbolizing, even in Old Testament typology, the end of the Sabbath and the consecration of a new day for a new dispensation - John Philips
Then an amazing scene breaks out.
1. A sound from heaven of rushing wind
2. Little flames of fire appear above the heads of the disciples
3. The believers began to speak in other tongues (languages)
(Note: what has been called the gift of tongues could be accurately called the gift of ears…the disciples were speaking in their own language and it was being heard in the speakers language.7-11)
To make sense of what is happening around them a crowd gathers and begins to offer up ideas.
Maybe God is sending a message
Maybe this is a wonder or miracle
Maybe they’re their just drunk.
This is where our text breaks in. Peter steps up and declares that the idea that they have been drinking is wrong with he only proof and evidence being that it is to early in the day to be drunk.
He explains that what they are witnessing is happening as a fulfillment of Scripture. He is giving the people a reason to trust the Word of God.
The explanation of the day of Pentecost is given to us by PETER the preacher. Understand that the events of Pentecost were an opening illustration of the Sermon on the day of Pentecost. The real Sign and Wonder is that God’s Word is being justified as true through the writer Joel.
Understand that the only thing we have as believers is the word of God. Without trust in this book we are nothing. WE are not people that think good thoughts, or act in good ways, we are people of a book that are instructed how to approach God in worship, prayer, and Scritpure. We are people of the book. If you have no relationship with God today I ask you to give Scripture a level of trust. So did Peter in the first century. HE taught those that trusted the Bible to see in it the fulfillment of the promise of God.
The Fulfillment of the Promise. (16-21)
Peter tells the crowd that the prophet Joel foretold all this (see Joel 2:28–32
And it shall come to pass afterward,
That I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions:
And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids
In those days will I pour out my spirit.
And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth,
Blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
Before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered:
For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance,
As the Lord hath said,
And in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.
The Locust Plague and the Day of the Lord - Joel writes in the midst of crisis.
A devastating locust plague had attacked Israel and left virtually no vines or grain:
joel 1.4
That which the palmerworm hath left hath the locust eaten;
And that which the locust hath left hath the cankerworm eaten;
And that which the cankerworm hath left hath the caterpiller eaten.
joel 2.3
A fire devoureth before them;
And behind them a flame burneth:
The land is as the garden of Eden before them,
And behind them a desolate wilderness;
Yea, and nothing shall escape them.
But for Joel the tragedy is felt most keenly because
The meat offering and the drink offering is cut off from the house of the Lord;
The priests, the Lord’s ministers, mourn.
The plague was no accident. Joel sees it as a judgment from God on the people who had left the Lord. The locusts are God's army:
And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army:
For his camp is very great:
For he is strong that executeth his word:
For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible;
And who can abide it?
Joel calls for repentance:
joel 2.12-14
Therefore also now, saith the Lord,
Turn ye even to me with all your heart,
And with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning:
And rend your heart, and not your garments,
And turn unto the Lord your God:
For he is gracious and merciful,
Slow to anger, and of great kindness,
And repenteth him of the evil.
Who knoweth if he will return and repent,
And leave a blessing behind him;
Even a meat offering and a drink offering unto the Lord your God?
And the people respond to Joel's preaching with the result that God's jealousy for his people is stirred up.
Yea, the Lord will answer and say unto his people,
Behold, I will send you corn, and wine, and oil,
And ye shall be satisfied therewith:
And I will no more make you a reproach among the heathen:
Then after he has spelled out the richness of their restoration, Joel lifts his eyes by divine inspiration to the more distant future in 2:28 and delivers God's word again:
And it shall come to pass afterward,
That I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh;
And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions:
And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids
In those days will I pour out my spirit.
And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth,
Blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke.
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
Before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.
And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered:
For in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance,
As the Lord hath said,
And in the remnant whom the Lord shall call.
Joel had called the judgment of God in the locust plague "the day of the Lord"
And the Lord shall utter his voice before his army:
For his camp is very great:
For he is strong that executeth his word:
For the day of the Lord is great and very terrible;
And who can abide it?
But now he sees another "day of the Lord" coming, "great and terrible"
joel 2.31
The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood,
Before the great and the terrible day of the Lord come.
But before this cataclysmic judgment occurs, God promises that a great outpouring of his Spirit will happen: "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh" (2:28).
Pentecost and the Prophecy of Joel
Hundreds of years later the apostle Peter stands up on the day of Pentecost and announces the fulfillment of this prophecy, and he says in Acts 2:16,
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel;
The Outpouring of God's Spirit on All Flesh
There is a stark difference between seeing the picture of a swimming pool and being pushed into the swimming pool.
The Holy Spirit was God no longer simply moving on a person here or a person there but was now the spiritual condition of all that “call upon the name of the Lord.” He is no longer a distant object to be calculated he is a reality that is a part of who we are.
All God's People Will Prophesy
They will dream dreams
They will see visions
They will prophecy
All of these things are given and then fulfilled in the book of Acts. We don’t have to be uncomfortable with this truth. There were a lot of visions, dreams, and prophecies. This is how God expanded his church, and revealed his word to us His church.
But he that prophesieth speaketh unto men to edification, and exhortation, and comfort.
Remember that Scripture does not just refer to prophecy as a prediction. The idea of prophecy is to declare that which is certain. What is more certain than the revealed word of God. This was the context of I Cor 14 that the church could come together and declare the truth that they knew for certain and Paul called it prophecy.
Pentecost and the promise of the Spirit was not about God’s people knowing the future about every part of their lives, but living with a closeness to God and a knowledge of God that comes out in our daily speech.
The gift of “ears” was about communicating the certainty of the resurrection from those that knew it and those that needed to hear it. So you and I walking close to God through His Spirit are not trying to “Save the World”. We are simply speaking up about what is certain.
This removes the Clergy/ Laity need. “the Spirit will be poured on all flesh—whether you are man or woman, old or young, servant or master, the promise is for you.
Baptists have always insisted on the priesthood of all believers. But should we not also say, Would that all God's people were prophets! Would that all God's people were so filled with God that our love and admiration could not but spill over into words. Would that every Wednesday night and every Sunday night we might come together so deeply moved by the Spirit that we would fall over each other to testify in prophetic words of edifying praise to what we have seen of God.
What is it that hinders us? What is it in our tradition that has locked us into ourselves and imprisoned us in solitary cells of silence? Why, why in the name of Pentecost are we so reticent to speak of God when opportunity is given the church and beyond? I don't know why. But this I know: it is not the Spirit; it is not the Spirit of God that seals your lips and makes you think that praise and exhortation is a private affair.
Does This Promise Apply to Us?
The time is right.
The day of the Lord began to be fulfilled at Pentecost with the pouring out of the Spirit on the 120 and with their prophetic declarations of God's greatness. In verse 17 Peter says that this prophesy refers to the last days, and so he also gives us to understand that the era of fulfillment in which we live is a mercifully extended end-time period.
Second, The ”day of the Lord," is coming. This was not clear in the Old Testament prophecy but is evident from our perspective. The day of judgment for all the nations is surely coming (Acts 10:42; 17:31).
Third, we are in the time of Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord. All flesh does not mean every individual; it means every sort of individual in every nation. It means that no one can look at anything he is by birth and say,