Acts 2:1-6
The Spirit Came
Last week, I preached on the topic What Jesus Left. This week, I want
to look at the topic When the Spirit Came. These two chapters go
together. The first details Jesus leaving. The second the Holy Ghost
coming. The one created a gap, a loneliness, an emptiness. The second
creates a new relationship with God, a filling, an empowering.
This was not an accident on God’s part. These two chapters being end
to end are God’s way of telling us that no Christian will ever lack
for the presence of God ever again! should want to read of the Lord’s
ascension without also wanting to read if the Holy Spirit’s coming.
Let’s divide this up into two parts. First, let’s notice what the
disciples where doing when the Spirit came then let’s notice what
they did after He came.
I. Before the Spirit came…
A. Before the Spirit came, there was praise.
1. \\#1\\ Pentecost was a day of praise and thanksgiving for
the Jews.
a. Pentecost has come to be recognized for several
events by the Jews, but the book of Deuteronomy 26
makes it clear that it was to be the day of
thanksgiving for the harvests in Israel.
b. Among the several other names this holy day is called
the Feasts of Firstfruits.
2. To understand this holy day, we need to back up two other
holy days, Passover and the Week of Unleavened Bread.
a. Passover and the Week of Unleavened Bread were back to
back Holy days.
(1) Passover began on the 14th day of Nissan and
the Week of Unleavened Bread began on the 15th
day of Nissan.
(2) All Jewish men had to be in Jerusalem for the
Week of Unleavened Bread
\\#Deut 16:16, Ex 23:15\\.
(3) Since Passover was always the day before and
both the Passover and first day of Unleavened
Bread were holy days on which you could not
travel \\#Lev 23:4-8\\, the men also had to be
in Jerusalem for the Passover.
(4) By the way, it was the first day of Unleavened
Bread that moved the Jews to finish Jesus’
crucifixion in haste in \\#John 19:31\\ not the
normal Sabbath Day.
(a) Any day that was a holy day where no work
could be done was referred to as a Sabbath
Day, like the first day of Unleavened
Bread.
(b) If you will read John 19:31 carefully, the
text tells us that it was Sabbath Day
BECAUSE it was a HIGH DAY.
(c) High Day means a Great Day.
b. From the Old Testament we know Passover as the day the
Passover lamb was slain and the blood applied to the
door posts for God’s death angel went through Egypt
that night, killing the firstborn of every family who
had not applied the blood of the Passover lamb to
their door.
c. From the New Testament, I believe Passover was the day
on which Jesus, our Passover Lamb was slain.
d. DO NOT SHARE THIS THOUGHT. IT IS UNNEEDED OVERALL.
However, Passover was also the beginning of the grain
harvests for Israel.
(1) The first grain to be harvested was barley and
the barley ripened around the Passover.
(2) The Jews were bring the firstfruits of their
barley as an offering to God the day after the
Passover.
https://ahbjewishcenter.org/harvest.htm
e. From the first day of Unleavened Bread, the Jews were
to count 7 weeks of 49 days, then bring in their
Firstfruits offering.
(1) The New Testament calls this holy day Pentecost,
the Greek word meaning FIFTY, referring to 50
days after Passover.
(2) In the Old Testament, it is often referred to as
the Feast of Firstfruits.
3. It was on this day in Acts 2, Pentecost or the first
day of the Feast of Firstfruits was day that the Holy
Ghost came.
a. This was a big and festival holy week for Israel.
(1) The people had been anxiously counting down the
days since Passover.
(2) As the fruits began to ripen, the Jewish farmers
would look across their fields to find the first
rip stalks which they would bind with a cord to
mark them.
(c) As the 49th day approached, they would cut those
stalks and place them in a special basket woven
with gold and silver. The baskets would be
loaded into a cart that was pulled by an ox with
garlands of flowers. Then the family would head
to Jerusalem, joining with others families as
they went. Each city or village they passed
through would greet them with music and soon
they became a parade.
(d) When the families arrived, they would present
their offering to the priests as a thank you to
God for the harvest, then they would celebrate
their blessings together in a nation-wide
celebration for a week.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shavuot
http://www.templeinstitute.org/shavuot.htm
b. Everyone, including the disciples, would be offering
their gifts to God and thanking God for the bounty He
had provided to them.
c. And then, it happened.
Acts 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled
all the house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues
like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost,
and began to speak with other tongues, as the
Spirit gave them utterance.
d. In the midst of that kind of praise, God the Holy
Ghost blew in!
4. How important was praise to the Holy Ghost’s coming?
Psalm 22:3 But thou art holy, O thou that
inhabitest the praises of Israel.
Ps 50:23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me:
Psalm 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath
praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.
a. Praise is the prelude to every true worship service.
b. Praise is man’s way of inviting God to join him.
c. Before the Spirit came, people were praising the Lord.
B. Before the Spirit came, there was prayer.
1. Events had been moving pretty fast for the disciples when
the Spirit came.
a. Just 50 days prior, Jesus had been crucified
(Passover).
b. Jesus arose three days later or, from the disciples
perspective, 47 days ago.
c. \\#Acts 1:3\\ tells us that Jesus stayed with the
disciples after His resurrection for 40 days.
d. So, from the disciples perspective, 7 days has past
since Jesus ascended.
2. What had the disciples been doing those 7 days?
a. Jesus had told them to "wait for the promise of the
Father… the Holy Ghost" \\#Acts 1:4-5\\.
b. It appears that they decided to do their waiting
together as much as possible.
Acts 1:13 And when they were come in, they went
up into an upper room….
c. I am sure that they could not stay together every
minute during those 7 days, but the Scripture does
say they were together A LOT and it tells us what
they were doing A LOT.
Acts 1:14 These all continued with one accord in
prayer and supplication,
Acts 2:1 …they were all with one accord in one
place.
d. They were praying!
e. Before the Spirit came, there was PRAYER.
C. I do not know that praise and prayer brought the Holy Ghost.
1. Jesus told the disciples that the Holy Ghost was going to
come and He might would have come had they been playing
games.
2. But praise is our way of getting God’s attention and
prayer is our way of inviting God to come.
3. It would not hurt us at all to devout time, energy, and
effort to praise and prayer.
II. When the Spirit came…
A. When the Spirit came, a Person came.
1. The terms Holy "Ghost" and Holy "Spirit" may give to some
the notion that the Holy Ghost is an IT and not a HIM.
a. Not so.
b. The Holy Spirit is a Person just like the Father and
the Son are Persons.
c. Remember the Father IS a Spirit and the Son WAS
a Spirit before He put on flesh.
2. The Holy Spirit’s form is different from Jesus’ because
His role is different than Jesus’.
a. The Father was in the heavens above us.
b. The Son was on the earth beside us.
c. But the Spirit abides inside of us.
d. God has moved from being above and about us to being
within us, and nothing like this has happened before.
(1) I know the Holy Ghost came UPON people in the Old
Testament, but that was always temporary.
(2) It was for a purpose and then the Spirit left.
(3) But now the Person of the Holy Ghost is inside of
every believer for all eternity.
3. The thing about the Holy Ghost being a Person and abiding
within us is that when we have Him, we have a new
personality.
a. You can see that in the lives of the disciples.
(1) The confused became the courageous.
(2) The fearful became the fearless.
(3) The can’t became the can.
b. \\#6-11\\ The biggest display of this Person’s
presence was the gift of tongues that day.
(1) In THIS text, the gift of tongues was not on the
disciples as much as it was on the people.
(2) The lost people suddenly had the ability to hear
the message being preached in their own language.
(3) Because of the many scatterings of the Jews,
they had already been dispersed across much of
the world.
(4) On this holy day, they had returned to Jerusalem
as the Law had demanded.
(5) Most of them spoke Hebrew. They had kept their
native language.
(6) But they had been born elsewhere and spoke
another language as their primary tongue.
(7) Yet the Holy Spirit worked so that no matter what
was their native tongue (at least 14 are
mentioned), they could hear the disciples in
that language.
c. So many people want to argue about what the gift of
tongues is and is not, that they miss the point.
d. The point is that we can do impossible feats for
Christ because of the Person of the Holy Ghost who
abides within us.
4. We really need to note something else about this Person.
a. His power was not to aid the disciples but to bring
glory to God by winning lost souls to Jesus.
b. I am no expert on the Holy Ghost or God’s power, but I
do not believe God will give either for any other
purposes than those.
5. So when the Person came…
a. Courage came. The disciples may have needed comfort
and clarity, but what they got was courage to tell
others about Jesus.
b. Capabilities came. This men probably spoke two or
maybe even three languages, but they did not speak
fourteen.
c. Commission became valid. Jesus had commanded the
disciples and us to go tell the world about Him, but
He also said wait until the Holy Ghost came. The
wait was over. Now it was time to tell the world
about Jesus and it has been that time ever since.
B. When the Spirit came, preaching came.
1. Preaching was something that was new and it came with the
Holy Ghost.
a. There had been teaching before, but teaching is not
preaching.
b. Someone says, "What’s the difference?"
(1) Preaching has the anointing of the Holy Ghost on
it.
(2) Many "preachers" have never preached.
(a) They have only taught.
(b) Maybe they taught truth and maybe it was
good, but it was not preaching.
(3) Preachers fall back into the teacher category
when the cease to rely on the anointing of the
Holy Ghost.
2. You can read Peter’s sermon.
a. \\#14-36\\
b. There is nothing all that powerful in the words Peter
used.
c. You may not discern an outline.
d. You may not see any alliteration.
e. But when Peter finished preaching, the Holy Ghost had
done a work and 3,000 souls will be saved and
baptized.
3. Paul will talk about how foolish it is for a man to stand
up and preach the Word of God to sinners
\\#1Cor 1;18-21\\.
a. And it does seem foolish, yet it is also the POWER of
God that brings salvation.
b. In these times, people use protests, demonstrations,
riots, sit-ins; they lie and bribe witnesses; they
threaten, insult, and bully.
c. But the people of God will just proclaim the truth
with the anointing of God on it and they will
accomplish all that God wants to accomplish.
In closing, I will say that when the Sprit came, power came. Power to
change a life. Power to change a community. Power to change a city,
state, and nation. This is not conjecture. It has been proven so by
2,000 years of verifiable history. We need the Spirit to come again.
<OutlineIndex>
<Close Window>
