The Acts of the Apostles 4

Subtitle: The Comforter Has Come!

Acts 2:1-13.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on May 22, 2022

Today, we will talk about the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon the followers of Jesus in Jerusalem.  This is The Promise of the Father that Jesus explained to his disciples in John 14-16.  He told them in John 14:16, “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever…”

Let’s look at our passage.

The disciples are filled with the Holy Spirit (1-4)

In verses 1-4, we have arrived at the awaited day.  For ten days, the followers of Jesus have been meeting to pray, asking God to send the promised Holy Spirit.

Of course, God was not holding out on them.  It was quite the opposite.  They were about to receive great help from God.  They would be filled with the Holy Spirit, and baptized into the Spirit of God.

The tragedy of losing faith because things do not happen on our time table is great.  God has very good reasons for the timing that He picks.  Satan’s lie to us is like that of that ancient serpent in the Garden of Eden.  He convinces Eve that God is holding back something great from her, you shall be like God.  The truth is that God was all along working to truthfully and rightly bring all humanity into a place where we will be like Him, perfectly imaging him to the universe around us.  May God help us to trust Him for the timings in our own lives.

We are told that the Holy Spirit comes on the Day of Pentecost.  It is formally called the Feast of Weeks because it occurred seven weeks (seven sevens) plus one day after the first day of Unleavened Bread.  Harvest is a huge theme in the Feast of the Lord given to Israel.  In the spring, the Feast of Firstfruits celebrated the beginning of the barley harvest.  Pentecost celebrated the beginning of the wheat harvest, and in the Fall the Feast of Ingathering/Tabernacles celebrated the completion of all the harvests for the year.

We are also told that the disciples were all “in one accord.”  We saw this phrase back in Acts 1:14. After 10 days, they were still united around the singular passion for receiving what Jesus had promised would come, the Holy Spirit.  Unity is good, but it must be focused upon what God has promised, not what our flesh wants.

May God give us a singularly-focused passion to be filled with the Holy Spirit for the days that we are in.  We should lift up our eyes and look at the fields because they are ripe for harvest!  Who will go out into the field and bring them in?  O Lord, we pray that you will send laborers out into Your great harvest, and let it start with us!

There are some signs and wonders that are associated with this first outpouring of the Holy Spirit.  They are called signs and wonders because, on one hand, they are amazing things that get our attention regardless of our spiritual state, and on the other hand, they are signs that mean something to those who have eyes to see and ears to hear.

The first sign is a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, that fills the whole house.  This is a real sound, but notice that it doesn’t actually say there is wind blowing in the room.  Wind is a term in the Bible that connects with the Holy Spirit.  The same word could be used of a spirit, wind, or breath.  When a person is alive (i.e., they have a spirit in them), it is natural for them to breath.  Breathing is a sign of a spirit inside.  It takes little extension to see the wind as a breath of God over the earth, or even ill-winds as the breath of bad spirits.  The disciples would have no doubt that this sound of a rushing wind was the promised Holy Spirit.

The second sign is divided or distributed tongues of fire that appeared over the heads of each of them.  Fire was often a sign of the presence of God going back to the wilderness wanderings with the cloud by day and pillar of fire by night.  Again, there would be no doubt that the Holy Spirit was coming upon each of them.

At this point, the Holy Spirit fills them and our third sign occurs.  They began speaking in different languages that they would not naturally know.  The Holy Spirit was giving them what to say.  We cannot say how it felt for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit, have an urge to declare the wonders of God, and have a foreign language come out of their mouths.  Regardless, these 120 people filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in many different languages is a sign that pointed to something amazing that God was doing, but more on that in a bit.

The significance of the commotion (5-13)

It doesn’t seem like the crowd is drawn by the sound of a rushing wind, or that the sound of the wind continued.  It is the sound of 120 people proclaiming the wonderful things of God in many different languages that draws them.

We are not told exactly where this house is in relation to Jerusalem or the temple mount.  However, few houses would have been able to accommodate 120 people.  This is probably a place that is built close to the temple mount with large balconies and openings.

Jerusalem is also filled with people from all over that part of the world.  They are hearing languages of the places that they had come from.  There would naturally be many languages spoken in Jerusalem: Aramaic, Greek, Hebrew, and perhaps even some Latin, but the emphasis is on languages that are from far away.  There would be no reason people to learn most of these in Israel, much less Galileans.  They are speaking about the wonderful works of God.

The crowd is amazed and perplexed about how it is possible for these Galileans to be speaking all of these languages.  Of course, some mocked them saying that they were drunk, but that is only a refusal to try and understand what is happening.  Drunk people do not suddenly speak languages they haven’t learned declaring the wonders of God.

We will talk more about this event over the next two weeks.  For today’s purposes, we will focus on two important connections to what God is doing here.  We already know that this is connected to a harvest of believers coming into the Kingdom of God from among all nations.  This is essentially what Jesus said was the purpose of the Holy Spirit being poured out.

The first connection regards the sound of wind and the presence of God hovering over the people.  This harkens back to the imagery in Genesis 1, where the Holy Spirit hovers over the waters of the earth preparing for God to bring order to His new creation, and to fill it with creatures.  Here, the Holy Spirit hovers over these new creations of God, and prepares to fill them with His Spirit in parallel to the waters being filled with water creatures, the skies with flying creatures, and the earth with terrestrial beings.  These new creations would be filled with the Holy Spirit of God Himself!

The second connection regards the giving of the Law at Mt. Sinai.  Moses led God’s people out of bondage in Egypt to Mt. Sinai.  At Mt Sinai, a covenant was cut with God, and God gave them a gift of The Law.  It would teach them righteousness, but also be a sign of the true righteousness of the One True God to the nations that would encircle them later.  In Acts chapter 2, Jesus has led God’s people to Mt. Zion (Jerusalem) where he cut a covenant with God on the cross.  God gave them the gift of His own Spirit.  It would teach and empower them, but it would also be a sign of the righteousness and grace of God to the nations of the earth. 

These picture two very different messages to the earth:  Behold, the severity and the goodness of God.  Of course, there was goodness under the Law.  Just ask, Rahab, Ruth, and many others.  However, the Law emphasized the righteousness of God. He is fundamentally a God of Truth.  There is also righteousness during the Age of the Spirit of Grace.  However, the pouring out of the Spirit emphasizes the grace and mercy of God.  He is fundamentally a God of Loving-Kindness.

There are also word and picture similarities between the two events.  Both events describe the presence of God accompanied by loud sounds and fire.  The people of Israel stand amazed at the presence of God in both cases.  There is also a sealing of a new covenant with God in both cases.  And, both are being sent to be a witness of God to the nations.

The third connection is with the events at the tower of Babel.  The tower of Babel involved the rebellion of Nimrod and the people of the earth.  God had told them to spread out and fill the earth, but Nimrod counseled those around him not to do that.  They build a god-gate, most likely trying to connect to the pre-flood “gods” that had brought “civilization” to the ancient world.  This ended with a judgment from God in which He confused their languages, gave them boundaries on the earth, and gave them into the hand of false gods by disowning them.

There are two words specifically used.  The first is the word translated as “divided” or “distributed.”  The divided tongues like fire that are placed above the 120 points us back to a time when all of the nations were divided (Genesis 10:32).  Deuteronomy 32:8 talks about a time “When the Most High divided their inheritance to the nations and separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the peoples…”

The second word is the word “confused” or “Perplexed.”  The crowds are confused by what they hear and the same word is used of Genesis 11:7 where God says, “Come, let Us go down and there confuse their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech…”

Essentially, God is signaling that a reversal of the Babel Judgment has begun.  At Babel, they could not understand one another.  At Pentecost, God the people are able to understand.  At Babel, they are dispersed in judgment and disowned by God.  At Pentecost, God is dispersing His people to go to the ends of the earth and bring whosoever will back into the people of God, His called-out ones.

This event was as significant to the god of this world as the trumpets of Joshua were to the giant-clans of Canaan. The evil spirits of the world would be quaking as they began to hear about this spirit-filled people who were coming out into the nations.

How about you, my friend?  Are you filled with the Holy Spirit, and do you hear that mighty trumpet blast of the Holy Spirit calling us to follow Him?  O, God help us to not trade our inheritance for a bowl of beans!

Comforter Has Come audio