All Hail the Power of Jesus' Name!

“Immanuel Spirit” – Part 6

(Acts 2:34-36, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 30, 2011)

34 For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord,

Sit at my right hand,

35 until I make your enemies your footstool.’

36 Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

For David did not ascend into the heavens... (34)

King David was a man. Like every man since Adam, he lived and he died. When he died, one of his sons took his place. David was, among other things, a writer. We still sing his religious poetry today, 3000 years later. When David died, he was an honored man in Israel. His body was buried in a tomb, and people mourned. 1000 years after David, people in Israel still knew where David's tomb was. That's why Peter states very clearly that David, like all people, had a body that saw corruption. And that's why Peter was certain that David's poems were not all about David. Many of his poems were about a future man who would come, a promised Descendant.

When David died and was buried, his body rested in the grave. He did not rise from the dead, and his body did not ascend into heaven. He has a heavenly existence now, even a visible heavenly existence if we can learn anything from the way that Moses appeared with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. But David, in heaven today, is still waiting for the complete fulfillment of God's promises concerning his own flesh on earth. Jesus of Nazareth is not waiting for that fulfillment. When Jesus ascended into heaven, He did not leave anything of His earthly flesh behind in the tomb where his body was placed for three days. The flesh of David did not ascend into the heavens. The flesh of Jesus did.

The Lord said to my Lord... (34-35)

Peter insists on this point because one of David's poems has to be about Jesus in heaven. It cannot just be about David in heaven. This poem, that we call Psalm 110, is the third passage that Peter is quoting to a crowd of thousands who had seen amazing manifestations of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit from on high. The first passage was from Joel 2. In that text Joel prophesied about a coming age when the Spirit of God would ultimately be poured out upon all flesh. But that was not the only thing that Joel predicted. He also spoke about the Day of the Lord's judgment, and then he said, that all who call upon the Name of the Lord would be saved.

The second passage was Psalm 16, where David had given voice as a prophet to the future Messiah, saying that God would not let His Holy One see corruption. Peter insisted that this was a prophesy of the Messiah's resurrection from the dead. David had seen it from afar, and had written about it in Psalm 16. But Peter and the rest had seen it close up. Jesus had invited them to see Him and to touch Him so that they could know that He had a real body and that He was still alive. See 1 John 1.

Now Peter quotes his third passage, another psalm of David, Psalm 110. “The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” While this psalm was a wonderful piece of religious poetry that had been around for 1000 years at the time when Jesus ascended to heaven and took His royal place at the right hand of the Father, it contained a great mystery. Just a short while before the Lord's departure, Jesus had quoted Psalm 110, and had asked His enemies a key question about Psalm 110, and no one could answer His question.

Matthew 22:41-46 Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, “What do you think about the Christ? Whose son is he?” They said to him, “The son of David.” He said to them, “How is it then that David, in the Spirit, calls him Lord, saying,

“‘The Lord said to my Lord,

Sit at my right hand,

until I put your enemies under your feet’?

If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son?” And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

Even His friends did not understand the mystery of Psalm 110. But now, Peter understands, and you can understand. Jesus is Lord. He is David's son according to His human nature, but He is also David's Lord according to His divine nature. Mystery solved. Now we are able to look at the quote and to see even more. When Jesus of Nazareth returned to heaven, victorious from His mission of cross love for you, His Father welcomed His ascended Son back to heavenly realms. He said, “Sit at My right hand.” Jesus is in the place of greatest authority now.

But the Father continues. He says, “Sit at My right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” The Father is at work over these centuries, establishing the supremacy of Jesus over every usurper of the heavenly throne. Yahweh/Jehovah the Lord the Father, insists that Jesus, Adonai/the Lord the Son, is absolutely, entirely, exhaustively, uncompromisingly, and delightfully, the Lord. Throughout the centuries since His ascension, many have thought that Jesus was only a phase, and that humanity would evolve beyond the Jesus phase of our planetary spirituality into the next better religious alternative. This idea goes all the way back to Islam. Islam contends that Jesus was a great prophet of God, but that Mohammed is a superior prophet. David's poem, written 1700 years before Mohammed, quoted by Jesus, and now by Peter, insists that Jesus is the Lord forever, until and beyond the day when all His potential enemies are crushed under His feet. See Isaiah 45:23, Romans 14:11, and Philippians 2:9-11. Jesus used Psalm 110 to expose that no one knew the mystery of David's poem. Peter quoted Psalm 110 to reveal that mystery: that Jesus, the descendant of David, the divine Son of God, is Lord.

Let all the house of Israel know... (36)

Such a great assertion, that one man of history is the Lord of all history and all eternity, if it is true, demands a response. Peter does something that we don't do enough. He presses the divine claims of Jesus without ambiguity or apology. He says, “Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Peter spoke to the gathered house of Israel who were in Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost that year. You and I speak in our own place and time. The church still speaks with our words and with our lives. We speak with our songs. Not only do we sing the old, old songs, like David's wonderful poem. We also sing newer songs like “All hail the power of Jesus' Name.” We try to sing it to a tune that fits the words. We want to sing in a way that matches the character, the willing lowliness, the love, and the unparalleled majesty of the Lord.

If we can do that with a song, we can sing that same truth through the melody and harmony of our lives together. This is the way that the song lives, and is passed along to others. Jesus is shown to be Lord through your beautiful life. Jesus is Lord. Yours sins brought Him to the cross. We are guilty of the death of the one who is the Christ of God and the Lord and Savior of His people. But we know what it is to be saved. We can sing a new song to the Lord. We can live.

1. What happened to David after death? How was the experience of Jesus different?

2. Why does Peter quote Psalm 110?

3. How did Jesus use Psalm 110?

4. How is Jesus Lord and Christ? Are we guilty of the death of Jesus?

OT Passage: Psalm 110

The Missing Piece

“Immanuel Spirit” – Part 5

(Acts 2:25-33, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 23, 2011)

25 For David says concerning him,

“I saw the Lord always before me,

for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken;

26 therefore my heart was glad, and my tongue rejoiced;

my flesh also will dwell in hope.

27 For you will not abandon my soul to Hades,

or let your Holy One see corruption.

28 You have made known to me the paths of life;

you will make me full of gladness with your presence.

29 Brothers, I may say to you with confidence about the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. 30 Being therefore a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would set one of his descendants on his throne, 31 he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

32 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. 33 Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing.

For David says concerning Him, “I saw the Lord... (25-28)

David, the King of Israel who reigned 1000 years prior to the birth of Jesus Christ, spoke concerning Jesus. One of the poems that He wrote about Jesus was what we now call Psalm 16. On the day of Pentecost, the apostle Peter spoke about that poem now that the mystery had been revealed. The problem, if you can call it that, with Psalm 16 and many other psalms and many other passages, was that there was a missing piece that made it very hard to understand. But now that piece had been found. Now that it was clear that Jesus of Nazareth was the Messiah, the meaning of Psalm 16 had suddenly become more plain.

With Jesus revealed as the great Lord, David's words make perfect sense. The suffering Messiah, Jesus, when He was doing what He came to do, fulfilling His calling to be the Lamb of God, saw the Lord God always before Him. In all of His difficult ministry, God was with Him at His right hand. This Jesus was the fulfillment of perfection as the faithful servant/worshiper of God, and through it all He knew the presence of God so that He would not be utterly shaken, even on his way to the cross. Not only did He retain His composure despite many provocations; His heart was glad, and His tongue rejoiced.

David adds, in the voice of the Messiah who would come one millennium later, that He knew that His flesh would dwell in hope. His calling as the Lamb of God demanded that He die, and that He be buried, but He had perfect faith, even through the terror of taking our sins, that His flesh would live. Therefore He walked on in hope, with the assurance of the promises of God.

What was the promise of God to Jesus? That God would not abandon the soul of Jesus to Hades, the grave, the place of the dead. But the promise of God to Jesus was about more than his soul; his heart, mind, and will. The promise was about the body of Jesus, that the body of Jesus, the Holy One of God, the Messiah, would not see corruption.

Corruption of the body is the normal course of affairs for humanity. The poet Yeats wrote about the corruption all around us in a poem entitled “The Second Coming.” Here is the first half of it:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Things fall apart, and bodies face corruption; but not Jesus of Nazareth. His body faced death, but He was not given over to the corruption of the grave. David, in Psalm 16, wrote a subtle poem about the resurrection of Jesus. Poems are hard to understand some times. But now clarity had come, and Peter could show that 1000 years before that Pentecost, David wrote a poem about the resurrection of Jesus. The grave was not the final story for God's Holy One. God had made known to Him the paths of life, a life beyond the grave. God made Jesus full of gladness with His presence. The body of Jesus would not stay in the grave. He would live again, body and soul, in the presence of God. With that promise Jesus could face suffering with hope. Jesus was the missing piece of Psalm 16. Now the poem could finally be more fully understood.

Brothers, about the patriarch David, He foresaw... (29-31)

If Jesus of Nazareth, risen from the dead, is not the missing piece of Psalm 16, than what was David writing about? Could it be that he was referring to himself? Peter considers that. If David was talking about himself, then he was in error. David not only died, but He was buried. His body saw corruption. David, though the author of the poem, is not the living center of Psalm 16.

Though David was not the Messiah, he was a prophet. He knew that God had sworn to him that one of his descendants would be an eternal King. This was God's oath. (We will explore that next week in Psalm 110). As God's prophet, David was able to see ahead to Jesus and to speak about the resurrection of the Messiah, that He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did His flesh see corruption.

This Jesus has poured out this... (32-33)

This Jesus is not only the glory Psalm 16, He is the key to David's life and to your life. This Jesus God raised up. Peter and the others were witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus. He was exalted to the right hand of God. He received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, and He poured out that Holy Spirit, that Immanuel “God with us” Spirit, upon the church. The thousands who heard Peter were witnesses of this gift of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and the church, and the apostles and the church were witnesses of the resurrection of Jesus.

God has not abandoned your soul. Nor has He forever abandoned your body. There will be a resurrection of the dead, but you do not have to wait for the Second Coming in order to know that God is with us. You do not have to wait until the Second Coming in order to positively address the sad fact that everything falls apart. You can be part of the solution. You can live in hope. The Lord is always before you. He is at your right hand that you may not be shaken.

Can you make a joyful noise? Make that noise unto the Lord, who would not abandon His Holy One to corruption. Can you pray? Speak to the God who hears and answers the prayer of faith, and change the world. Can you build something of beauty and order? Do you hear the voice of someone who needs a friend? Can you teach a child, or help the lonely? Be glad and serve.

1000 years is a long time to wait for the Messiah. But the promise of God kept David going, and kept many going who read and sang Psalm 16, even though they could not see what it was all about. We are in a better position to live with hope than they were. Jesus of Nazareth is the Lord. He is preached everywhere throughout the world. We hear and we believe. He is with us.

1. Why does Peter quote Psalm 16?

2. What does he say concerning Psalm 16 as a prophecy?

3. Who are the witnesses of the resurrection to which Peter refers?

4. What connection does Peter make between Jesus and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit?

OT Passage: Psalm 16

You don't just believe in Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection; you live out Jesus, the cross, and the resurrection.

“Immanuel Spirit” – Part 4

(Acts 2:22-24, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 16, 2011)

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—

23 this Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

24 God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth... (22)

There were many Jews and proselytes who were in Jerusalem for the festivals. They came from all over; north, south, east, and west, at least as far as Iran on the east, Rome on the west, and Egypt and other parts of North Africa to the south. They came for Passover in the year when the real Lamb was revealed in horrible humiliation on the cross. They stayed through Pentecost in the year when the Lord of the Harvest poured out the Holy Spirit from heaven.

They heard and saw some amazing things in those days if they were paying attention at all. Now they were listening to a Galilean fisherman named Peter explaining to them the true meaning of the words of the Old Testament prophet Joel. Joel, centuries before, had recorded this word from God: “All who call upon the Name of the Lord shall be saved.” But for the very first time, this amazing announcement was being openly proclaimed to “men of Israel” from all over the world: This Lord that we have been waiting for... He has come. He is Jesus of Nazareth.

In the words of Isaiah 61, “Good news” was being preached to the “poor.” The brokenhearted” were receiving spiritual surgery by Word and Spirit; their deepest internal wounds were being bound up. The “year of the Lord's favor,” the year of Jubilee, was finally here in the arrival of resurrection power from heaven. A call was being issued to move forward everywhere to repair the ravages of sin and death, “the devastations of many generations.”

All of these great gifts are still coming forth from the ascended Jesus today. They are seen through the work of His church under the spiritual oversight of pastors and elders, but organized for generous acts of service according to the leadership of humble and spirit-filled deacons. Jesus touches the world through us, we who have ourselves been touched by Jesus of Nazareth.

People of Israel who had been paying attention over the last few months knew about Jesus of Nazareth. See Luke 24:18. He was known as a “prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people.” Peter insists that this man is the key to the transformation of everything. The nature of His miraculous signs led many to conclude that God was telling us that He was the One. Even those who were against Him recognized that, and they were concerned. They said in John 11:48, “If we let Him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him.”

This Jesus you crucified... (23)

Their solution was that Jesus should die, one man for the nation, so that the people would not perish. They thought the nation would perish at the hands of the Romans if things got out of their control, so they used the hands and mouths of both Gentiles and Jews to kill this man, thinking that this would be the way to be done with Him.

Instead, God was doing something beautiful through the lowliness of that cross. This Jesus, the Son of God, was atoning for the sins of His people, and establishing a pattern of life for all who would be called to follow Him. This is why the men who help organize us in acts of mercy and justice are called by the name “deacons,” or “servants.” They are servant-leaders among a company of servants. They follow the Chief Deacon of the church, the Lord who came to serve.

These men exhibit a spirit-endowed passion for the glory of the kingdom that Isaiah spoke of so many centuries before the coming of our Lord. Like the Lord that they serve, they love justice. They hate robbery and evil. They want to see ruined cities built up. They long to see “righteousness and praise sprout up before all the nations.” But this is not what sets them apart from others who are also able to tell good from evil and who desire to do good. What makes the deacons and the whole church different than the rest is that they believe in the power of the cross. That the Son of God, who came to give His life as a ransom for many, is able to do more through His power of lowliness than the powerful are able to do through publicity and money.

The cross is not something we understand. It is something we live out. Deacons help us to stay on track that way. They have learned that the cross is not only what men did to Jesus. It was something that God was doing. Peter says here that this happened “according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God.” This is what we believe and it is the pattern we follow in the church. Because of the cross, we are not all that surprised when the Apostle Paul tells the churches “that through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God.” See Acts 14:22.

God raised him up... (24)

But do not misunderstand what God is saying to you. The cross is not some depressing message of defeat to quietly subdue you into a life of low expectations and inactivity. We also believe in the resurrection. It is through the resurrection of Jesus Christ that we have evidence that a new age has already begun, and it is through the Holy Spirit that we can walk now, not only in the power of the cross, but in the victory of the resurrection. Deacons must follow Christ; yes, in lowliness, but also in victory.

We do not gather together just to comfort one another with the idea that no one's prayers are being answered. We gather in the Name of the Lord of the resurrection, and we are expecting Him to do great things. This is not because we understand the resurrection, or that we understand prayer. We just want to walk in these things with the confidence that God will use us.

Peter says here that Jesus of Nazareth broke off the chains of death that encompassed Him. He says that it was impossible for death to keep Him bound. Deacons, we are asking you to walk in these truths of the faith. Hold on to them with a clear conscience. We are asking you, by the grace that God supplies, to lead us forward as Jesus leads you in a life that is worthy of the cross and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth.

Congregation, Jesus is asking us to be willing to do what the residents of our town agreed to do when they founded this settlement in the 17^th century: “Live quietly and peaceably together in all godliness and honesty.” Do not think of yourselves more highly than you ought to. But do think of Jesus of Nazareth more highly than you every have before, and allow Him to lead these men and you with them in paths of righteousness for His Name's sake. May God be pleased to bring us a year of Jubilee, using us to “repair ruined cities,” overturning the “devestations of many generations,” and causing “righteousness and praise to sprout up before all the nations.” Amen.

1. How does Peter describe the activities of Jesus prior to the cross?

2. How does he speak of the cross from God's perspective?

3. How does he speak of the cross from the perspective of mankind?

4. How does he speak of the resurrection of Jesus?

OT Passage: Isaiah 61

Now for something completely different... plain preaching

“Immanuel Spirit” – Part 3

(Acts 2:14-21, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 9, 2011)

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.

16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:

17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,

that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,

and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,

and your young men shall see visions,

and your old men shall dream dreams;

18 even on my male servants and female servants

in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above

and signs on the earth below,

blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;

20 the sun shall be turned to darkness

and the moon to blood,

before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice... (14-15)

What is that enables some people to hear the great works of God in their own dialect, when others hear nothing but what sounds like nonsense to them? Why is it that the coming of the Holy Spirit and an experience of the presence and power of God working through people would divide people rather than unite them? Why doesn't everyone gladly receive the message of the love and holiness of God in the cross of Christ, and His power and promise in the Word of His resurrection? Why isn't everyone a Christian, and what is the church supposed to do about it?

These are difficult questions, and I am not sure that we have answers to them, but we do have this account of what the Holy Spirit led Peter to do on the Feast of Pentecost that came after the Passover when Jesus died. The entire group of 120 were waiting and praying, and God came to be with us in power. The sign of languages that He chose was a generous hint of what was to come: The whole world would hear. But not everyone “heard” that day. Some heard about the great works of God in a way that was unmistakably and personally calling them, and others heard drunken nonsense. I don't know why, but I do know what Peter, filled with Holy Spirit, did on that historic occasion. He addressed everybody, including the open skeptics. He preached.

And in the last days... (16-17)

He did something that had not exactly been done before. The prophets preached in the Old Testament times, but have you read their sermons? You heard part of one from Joel this morning. It was given in the shadows of the time of preparation. Jesus taught with authority, but He used parables, explaining the meaning to His disciples. What Peter did here was different. He took an Old Testament word out of the shadows and shined the light of Christ and the Holy Spirit onto it. He spoke plainly, trusting God that some would hear the Word of Christ and respond.

The reason why He did that was because the period that Peter calls here “the last days” had come. The time of living in the shadows of preparation was now over. The light of Christ and the Holy Spirit was shining brightly. The key to understanding the Bible had arrived.

I said that Peter called this new era “the last days.” He was quoting a prophesy from Joel. The wording was different. “Afterward.” (Joel 2:28) “It shall come to pass afterward...” Now the time of “afterward” had begun. The Law had been fulfilled in Jesus, in His life and His death as the Passover Lamb. The age of resurrection had begun in His empty tomb.

In Joel, God uses the sad occasion of societal and economic distress to wake up His people to reality. They need to eat, there are armies (or hordes of locusts) at the door, and the farmers (which is pretty much everyone) have dry dust for land instead of fertile soil. These things get everyone's attention. They call a solemn assembly. They worship God. They cry out to Him. He uses this occasion not only to help them in their desperate need (He does bring them rain, and restores to them what the locusts have eaten), but He goes on to talk to them about a better blessing and a more desperate situation that will happen “afterward.” How long afterward? He does not say. That part was in shadows, but Peter is saying the afterward has begun to come in this Pentecost event. We are still in that afterward today, right now, until heaven comes here.

I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh... (17-18)

First God talks about the better blessing. He will pour out His Spirit on all flesh. Everyone will be moved by the Holy Spirit. Your sons and daughters shall speak the Word of God. Young and old will have prophetic visions and dreams from the Lord. The Word of the Lord will be in everyone's mouth. All of what it means to have the Holy Spirit pour out on people and poured into people will happen to all flesh.

Sounds like heaven, and it is, only earlier than we dreamed. Peter is connecting these verses to that Pentecost. Afterward is now. Immanuel is with us today, and in a very good way.

I will show wonders in the heavens... (19-20)

But it is not all blessing. It is also a more desperate situation than back in the days of Joel, when they faced a dust bowl land for farmers with a sky that won't give a drop of rain. It will be worse than having the Assyrians at the gates in overwhelming numbers. It will be like Passover was for the Egyptians. It will be Immanuel too, but in a very bad way. He will come with wonders in the heavens to judge the unrighteous. It will be the Day of the Lord.

What do people do when Immanuel, God with us, is bad news for them. We run. We hide. We blame. We wonder if there is some honest way out.

And it shall come to pass... (21)

You have come to know know that there is an honest way out. Not a dishonest way of pretending that God will be satisfied with me just because someone said so. An honest way out through the blessing of Jesus. Jesus, the Son of God, who became God with us, and God for us. God for us in the manger, and God for us on the cross. God for us coming out of the tomb. God for us now at the right hand of the Father. Honest to God, with wounds that have canceled our debt, and righteousness for all who believe. Honestly revealing to us the Old Testament word, taking it out of the shadows and preaching it from heaven by His Spirit, but through the lips of men like Peter.

This is the opening up of a gift that had been carefully wrapped. This is Christ for you, and Christ in you. This is salvation. How does someone get that gift? You hear with your heart. I don't know how that happens, but when it does, then you call upon the name of the Lord. And He brings rain. And it has been raining since that Pentecost straight through until today, and God is saving people, so that they will get the blessings of Joel's prophesy and not the disaster part; the good news of the Immanuel Spirit, and not the bad news that we could never handle. So we open up the Old and New Testaments. So we preach. And so you hear, believe, confess, and worship.

1. What did Peter do to address the event of Pentecost?

2. What was the context of the Old Testament passage that he quoted?

3. What is the meaning of the words “last days” in this passage?

4. How can the last days bring both blessings and curses?

Would that all the Lord's people were filled with the Holy Spirit.

“Immanuel Spirit” – Part 2

(Acts 2:5-13, Preaching: Pastor Stephen Magee, January 2, 2011)

5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.

6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”

13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews... (5)

In the book of Numbers we read of an experience that the leaders of Israel faced as God was leading them through the wilderness of Sinai about 1500 years before the beginning of the New Testament church. God took some of the Spirit that was on Moses and put it upon the seventy elders who had been selected to assist Moses. All but two of these men were gathering in the presence of God with Moses, but two had remained in the camp. Those two in the camp began to have the same manifestations of the Holy Spirit that the others were experiencing in holy assembly with Moses in the presence of God. People were alarmed at that, thinking that something had gone very wrong. But Moses expressed a great longing when Joshua brought this urgent concern to him. Moses said, “Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

That desire that all the people of God would have the Spirit of God began to be fulfilled at the Feast of Pentecost after the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven. This work of God will not be completed until all God's people are perfectly moved and led by the Holy Spirit at the return of Jesus in the new heavens and earth. In between this Pentecost experience of Acts 2 and the return of Christ, it is the longing of the church to see the words of Moses more fully realized in our own lives and in the lives of others all around us. Our cry today: “Would that all the Lord's people were filled with the Holy Spirit.” God will do this in our lives just as surely as Christ died and rose again for us. We will be filled with presence and power of God. What will you be like then?

When this great new era of spiritual life began, Jerusalem was filled with Jews “from every nation under heaven.” Devout men gathered every year in Jerusalem from every place in the world where Jews lived in order to celebrate three major Jewish festivals. The population of the city swelled dramatically during those times, particularly during the fifty days between Passover and Pentecost. Instead of going back home after Passover and then making the long journey back to Jerusalem again for Pentecost, many people just stayed in Jerusalem. That meant that there were many Jews who witnessed or were aware of the events surrounding the crucifixion of Jesus Christ who were still in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was poured out upon the 120 who had gathered in the upper room waiting and praying as Lord had commanded them.

And at this sound the multitude came together... (6-12)

We often talk about the historicity of the birth, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. There were people present who were able to testify to the fact that these moments so important to the Christian religion were not myths, but were real. There were witnesses who were willing to stake their lives on these things. We need to add Pentecost to that list. Something happened that day. There were many witnesses. The church was an expectant group of 120 people at the beginning of the day and a gathering of over 3000 very changed people at the end of the day. Someone attracted the attention of a large crowd. Someone moved Peter and the apostles out from behind closed doors. Someone changed the hearts of thousands of people from observers of an Old Testament festival to believers in Jesus the Messiah; new disciples who were being baptized, partaking of the Lord's Supper, learning, worshiping, and caring for the needs of the poor among them with uncommon generosity. What happened?

There was a sound that attracted the attention of that crowd. Verse 2 mentions the sound from heaven “like a mighty rushing wind.” This must be what brought everyone together. When they got there they heard another sound – the church speaking in languages “as the Spirit gave them utterance.” The reaction of the crowd was not universal, and it was not immediate. People were bewildered. Some were astonished to hear their birth languages being spoken by people who were not from their various nations. The speakers were simple Galileans, but they were speaking the languages of nations from all over the Mediterranean world.

Imagine how shocking that experience would be; to be in a place where people who were all from an unsophisticated poor region were suddenly speaking all at the same time about the greatness and glory of God using languages from far away places unknown to them. It had to be a miracle. It was a miracle that caught up the hearers. The God who made it happen was speaking to them. Some observant Jew from Rome heard his local Latin dialect. God wanted him to hear. A Gentile interested in Judaism from the Isle of Crete heard the language of that island from the mouth of a person from Galilee. God cared about that proselyte enough to bring him there at that very moment to hear what everybody everywhere should know without having to hear it in your own language – that God is great; that He has done marvelous things. It was amazing. It was perplexing. But what did it all mean? Now that the Lord had their attention would He use someone to explain what this was all about? Don't just send me someone who says that God is great in my home tongue without explaining to me what is happening. I don't just want to be shocked by the experience. Tell me something I don't know. I know that God is great. Tell me something that will change my life. Send me a Word that explains why You bothered to get my attention this way.

But others mocking said... (13)

They were ready for a preacher. Some of them were ready to hear the news of Christ, the cross, and the resurrection that would follow. But the reaction was not universal. Thousands heard their home tongues and knew that God had something to say to them in particular. Others heard the babel, the noise, of people they assumed had been drinking. That was the best they could come up with to explain what was going on. 120 raving drunk people were shouting out sounds that meant nothing. So they thoroughly mocked them, and said, “They are filled with new wine.”

God was calling a church from the international community of the Jews. God was starting a missionary body that would hear, believe, repent, worship, and in due course, would go forth to the ends of the earth. Though this started from heaven, it would proceed through men. God was birthing the church. The gates of hell should take notice. Something was about to come their way that they would not be able to stop. The Holy Spirit was going out of the camp of Israel. God would use them to be living letters of a Messiah who would change the world.

What began that day continues now. It began with the Holy Spirit sent forth from the Father and the Son. It continues by that same Holy Spirit. May the breadth and the depth of His influence expand until all the people of God are filled with the Holy Spirit. What will we be like now?

1. Why were there so many people in Jerusalem from other places?

2. What did they hear?

3. What was their reaction to what they heard?

4. Why didn't everyone have the same understanding of what they heard?

OT Passage: Numbers 11:16-30