Sermon Tone Analysis

The Day of Pentecost

Today we are looking at what for some has become a controversial text, but for all Christian is one of the defining moments in history.

What we have before us today is the beginning of the church era, where God by his Spirit dwells in His people.

We see the Gospel message of Jesus Christ overcome all obstacles that can ever be laid in its way and overcome even a God ordained obstacle of Language.

The text we have before has so shaped and defined the church that to get it wrong would set you in the wrong direction with the wrong emphasis.

This passage is so extraordinary and powerful… This passage makes much of God and the Gospel… This passage should put our attention on the Holy Spirit and not on ourselves.

When we get it wrong we “put the emPHASIS on the wrong SylLAble”...

Growing up in a pentecostal environment we often heard this passage and had experienced weird things that was always ascribed to the Holy Spirit when in fact it was not that at all.

I had a close friend explain it this way… When I was young it was always weird when the Holy Spirit would “show up” in church.

It was kind of like being at a sports event when the mascot would wander through the crowd and mess with people… You would always want to see him mess with people and even be close to your section, but you never wanted him to mess with you.”

Maybe you have had an experience like this in a Charismatic church, maybe you have heard this passage preached on many times, and maybe this seems like it is very odd because you never heard of anyone having such strange experiences… Today we will look at the text and see what it say and deal with its implications.

day of Pentecost.

Lit. the “fiftieth day” after the Sabbath of the Passover week (Lev.

23:4–7, 15, 16).

Pentecost was celebrated on the first day of the week and was one of the three great annual feasts of Israel, preceded by Passover (Lev.

23:4–8; Num.

28:16–25) and followed four months later by the Feast of Booths (Lev.

23:33–43; Num.

29:12–38; cf.

John 7:1–44).

Pentecost is also called the Feast of Weeks, because it was celebrated seven weeks after Passover (Deut.

16:10); the Feast of Harvest, because the first fruits of the harvest were gathered then (Ex.

23:16); and the “day of the firstfruits” (Num.

28:26).

In Jewish tradition this feast was associated with the giving of the law, since Israel reached Mount Sinai about two lunar months after crossing the Red Sea (Ex.

19:1).

Hold that thought… that it was associated with the giving of the Law.

Please also notice that the 120 disciples along with the Apostles are all in one place… still… 10 days after Christ had ascended into heaven.

They had remained faithful and obedient to the commands of Christ.

Now if we simply read this passage without knowledge of the OT it is no doubt dramatic, yet we will miss something major.

Let me ask you, why was there wind and fire that accompanied the inspired speech that we will get to in a moment?

Simply put this scene was a sign of God’s presence.

They were waiting and wondering what Jesus meant by, Not many days from now you will be baptized by the Holy Spirit… This was first a sign to them… Jews who knew what God’s presence had been like in the past...

Let’s look at them individually… wind and fire...

Wind is a symbol of the Holy Spirit’s Presence

These 120 Jewish Believers in Jesus the Messiah knew the stories of the OT, they were familiar with the Prophets and the scriptures.

we see many places where Wind is mentioned but the most important comes from the Prophet Ezekiel...

In there is a Prophecy about a Vision that the Prophet has.

God shows him a valley of dry bones and asks him “can these bones live”??? there has been some funny teaching on this, but it is a picture of God asking Man… Can dead people live again?

In the natural the answer is NO, but it is actually a picture of Salvation and spiritual life.

In this vision God tells the Prophet Ezekiel to breath on the dry bones and command the winds to blow...

eze37.

Are you seeing it?

the wind carries the Breath of God that makes the Dead Live again!

Look what God goes on to tell the Prophet about this...

eze37.

IS this not a picture of Salvation?

Ephesians says we were once dead but now alive in Christ… this picture God gives Ezekiel is a picture of God raising his people from the dead by the WIND carrying his Breath to them and from that point he said he will PUT HIS SPIRIT WITHIN US!!!!

So when the wind came it was more than a strong breeze… It was a picture of God breathing new life into his people.

Fire is a Symbol of Cleansing and Judgement

Everywhere in scripture we see Fire it is representing either Judgement, Cleansing or refinement, and God’s Holiness.

And example of this would be at the Burning Bush… Moses sees a bush burning but not consumed… He is told to take off his sandals because it was Holy ground in the presence of God.

Fire was burning at the altar for sacrifices and represented God’s judgement in the temple.

And Fire was exactly what one of the last and greatest Prophets told people Jesus would bring...

While there is so much that could be said here, for sake of time I simply want to point out that while Fire represented God’s holy Presence and judgement, that John the Baptist prophesied that Jesus would do exactly what they were experiencing… Baptizing with the Holy Spirit and Fire.

So why was this important???

For those in that upper room to know that they were Filled with the Holy Spirit there had to be a sign of his Coming.

There had to be something more than an inward change that we could point to as the exact moment when the Holy Spirit was poured out.

The Wind and the Fire was the Triumphant Arrival of the Holy Spirit!!!

Remember when Jesus was Born? remember the signs of his coming?

Born of a Virgin, A star would be seen?

How about the Triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem?

The sign was a king riding on a Colt and people spread out their cloaks and waved palm branches shouting Hosannah!

This scene before here is the triumphant entry of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus has physically gone up to heaven and said that he was sending the Holy Spirit and this was the moment when everyone saw it.

So what would happen now that the Holy Spirit had come?

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Ok… Notice the language used here… what does it mean for a human being to be filled with something? it implies of something that happens on the inside and no one can see it happen.

They were Filled, meaning something was now inside of them that wasn’t there before.

So if this is an internal thing that happens, how we be sure that something happened at all? Do we just have to take their word for it?

that they felt different?

We know this happen because of a miracle that accompanied it… they had an Inspired speech… they spoke in tongues.

The word Tongues here is literally translated from the greek word Glossa meaning “other known Languages”.

So, they may not have known it in that very first moment but we will see in a few minutes here that they were speaking in other known languages, and this was a sign that something new was inside of them enabling them to speak.

Please also notice it says “as the Spirit gave them utterance” meaning they did not control this gifting and couldn’t turn it on and off, but the Spirit directed it.

now the Big theological picture we need here is the difference between the Holy Spirit in the OT and now in the NT.

It is important that you understand that the Holy Spirit was working in the OT, just that there was a significant difference.

look at these passages...

judges

1sam

is

What do you notice about these OT verses about the Holy Spirit???

The Word Upon.

In the OT we see the Holy Spirit operating but he comes and goes.

The Holy Spirit would come upon God’s people but would not stay.

Why?

Because there was Sin to be dealt with and before God’s presence could indwell his people their sin needed to be taken care of.

That is why after the cross and resurrection the Holy Spirit can now come and live inside of God’s people.

That is why it is called being FILLED with the Spirit… It is an internal thing that began on the day of Pentecost!

But again how can we know if something inside of someone was really there?

do we just take this story at face value and end it here… there was wind and fire and inspired speech?

The story does not end here, let’s keep reading.

The important thing to see here is that there are Jews from EVERY NATION in Jerusalem

Why is this important?

Because it is all about timing.

God was having them wait in the upper room, not just to test them and see if they were really faithful, but they had to be in the right place at the right time.

This was the right place at the right time, because Jerusalem was filled with Jews from all over the world who had come to celebrate Pentecost.

So the question is, how is he going to intersect these people from all over with his 120 newly Spirit filled and empowered to witness people?

Now stop and think about this for a moment...

At this sound… What Sound?

Well what sound are we told about in this story?

The rushing mighty wind.

These people heard a loud sound of wind mixed with many voices speaking many different languages.