#245 - The Pentecost Connection: God's Spirit, Our Witness

Transcript

0:07

You're listening to Al Pastor, the show that helps you love God, love your neighbor and eat more tacos.

I'm your host, Pastor Brian.

Welcome to the show.

Hey friends, I want to welcome you to today's podcast.

0:23

We're going to be walking through Acts chapter 2 verses one through 13.

That's the goal.

Can't make any promises, but we're going to do the best that we can.

I have Martin in studio with me.

Martin, welcome once again.

Appreciate you having me again, Pastor.

Good, good.

Well, I'm excited and I appreciate you being here.

0:41

So our goal, like I said, is going to be one through 13.

We're going to probably cover the 1st 4 verses, spend most of our time on this.

And then of course, we'll go through and there's some really, really interesting things that are in here.

So let's start.

0:57

Let's read the first 4 verses all at once, and then we'll break it down.

So it says.

When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

1:17

And there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire and one sat upon each of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance.

So Martin, I want to tell you what I appreciate about you is that you're you're putting in the work not only just for the podcast, but in, you know, in general of our discipleship guides and studying the words.

1:43

So I want to kind of build off of what it is that you've been studying and and your understanding and then we'll go from there.

So let's start with verse one.

What do you, what do you have?

What are your takeaways?

So right off the bat with the first one, I went straight to the the importance of the Pentecost, OK, and from what I got with from the guide was that this was probably the the most filled that Jerusalem would be throughout the whole year.

2:09

Yes, just because that was probably the most important like holiday for the for the Jews at the time, right yes, where about over a million would come from all over the the land known land yes, and they would travel over the Mediterranean and stuff like that, like that just to be present in Jerusalem for that day.

So I think that was very interesting as to why maybe God chose that day specifically and had the disciples wait those 10 days where they were all in fear and wary.

2:34

And it makes sense looking back at it now, it's probably in for very important reason that so they can get to more believers.

OK.

So let me kind of bounce off of that and ask you some questions and then I can I can fill in some commentary with that.

OK, Why?

2:49

OK, why do you think the Day of Pentecost was the most popular?

Or did you?

And I'm not even sure if it's in there because I've read multiples.

So I got to go back and say, does it say?

And I think it might.

Let's see.

I I highlighted the the importance or the the word firstfruits OK, which I was like very not sure of.

3:10

And then come to find out that was the kind of like the the people during that time, they would give like the first fruits of their harvest of their income, whatever it was to to give up to God.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

So the reason the Pentecost, there are 7 feasts in the in the in the national Israel's calendar, seven of those out of the 7/3 are required for every person to attend.

3:38

It is Passover, it's Pentecost and it's tabernacles.

And with each of these they have different significance which is based on the history of Israel.

So with Pentecost, this was the most popular festival and the reason that it was is because travel was easier because it was later in the spring.

3:59

I did read that too.

And so that was the reason that this is one of the most popular ones.

And so, yes, it's estimated about a million people would come into Israel.

The next thing I want to make sure that we understand is, is where were all these people coming from and why would they have to travel there?

4:16

Do you do you know the answer to that?

OK, the the key to this is a term that's called the Diaspora, which means like the dispersion of the Jews.

So in their history, they've been, you know, persecuted much like we have anti-Semitic language today.

4:33

And, and the, the narrative about the Jewish people, that still happens.

But back then there was an initial capturing and we, we deportation's the wrong word because you can't really be deported out of your own land.

4:49

But technically, I guess you could.

The Assyrians came and captured the 1st 10 tribes, the northern 10 tribes of Israel and they were dispersed among the nations and eventually they they settled in those lands and made homes, those that weren't killed.

5:06

There was another wave of conquering from the Babylonians and many of the Jews were captured and taken to the land of Babylon.

There was a return to the land from Babylon to begin to rebuild and repopulate, but many of the Jews stayed in Babylon.

5:26

And so as a result, this was a people that had been dispersed across the known world at the time.

And they still would practice Judaism, of course, they would form their communities often times would be in isolation and then they would travel to Jerusalem for these feasts.

5:45

So Pentecost was a big one where you had a lot of of travelers and within Israel as well, we would say Israel proper.

OK.

And then there was a lot more because it was like you said, it was easier for them to travel during this time of year, right?

Yes, weather.

Weather was much, much, much better to travel during that time.

6:05

I think they mentioned the Mediterranean Sea.

It was difficult in other times of the year and I guess during the time of Pentecost was much easier on people to travel oversea.

You got it land in sea.

So, so that's the, the day of, of Pentecost.

The other thing is we could in, I would recommend for all of us that are listening at home to make sure that we have a good understanding of the Old Testament basis for this and what it is a representation of and why it was instituted.

6:34

We can find this in Exodus and in Numbers and also in in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

So these were established by God for the people of God to have a time of consecration, separation, to acknowledge him and to worship him.

6:52

So that's great.

Really, really that's a, that's a great thing that you spent some time on that.

What else do you have out of this?

The one that I that I love from the previous chapter with one accord.

So they will continue to pray and to suffer to worship all in one accord.

7:10

They were all like one body, one environment, yes, one ecosystem, all worshipping under one roof, under one place, yes.

So that was pretty cool to see again.

Yes, absolutely beautiful.

Anything else out of verse one?

In one place that was I, I'm guessing they're still in that one, that one place, right, that they were praying and they're all hiding in the one spot, right?

7:32

Or yeah, yeah, the upper room.

The upper room, yeah.

Definitely, definitely, although we'll see in the discipleship guide once the the fulfillment of the Scripture with the Holy Spirit coming, you know, the he he he leaves room for interpretation as to there's a little bit of a debate.

7:48

We did that, you know, all the people hearing it, Did they hear it outside?

Did they move downstairs?

There's there's I don't think that's necessarily important, but let's let's move on to verse 2.

It says.

And then suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

8:08

So what do you what do you have there?

In my notes I did write the where it says sound from heaven and from what I got from it, it was probably like the divine presence and control of the Holy Spirit entering there prior for them receiving it.

8:24

Yes.

So I think that was that was pretty cool to unravel.

Yes, yeah, absolutely.

So I don't think that there's a whole lot that we really got to unpack out of this verse.

It's wouldn't be I, I could save to Luke's audience, especially whether it's a Gentile or even Jew that have any knowledge of the Old Testament.

8:45

This wouldn't be unfamiliar language either, because these are often signs.

I'm going to use a really technical term with you of what we call theophanies and a theophany.

Maybe you figure that out, the word Theo, right?

9:00

Theophany, an appearance of God in the Old Testament.

So anytime there would be an appearance of God, you would often times there would be an accompaniment of things like a, a wind or a Thunder or fire.

9:18

These were theophanic events that would occur.

So this this would have been what we would call par for the course for an appearance of God or a manifestation.

That's actually a better term, a manifestation of God of here.

I'm glad you mentioned all that because I was literally my next couple of notes.

9:37

Like, oh, fire.

It's like God's presence, the wind, God's presence.

It's all like Old Testament references.

Absolutely, Absolutely.

And so, all right, verse three, it says then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, and one sat upon each of them.

9:56

You got anything out of that verse?

I, I, it was just kept going back to the, the Old Testament prophecies and the the references and then I and I did write something about the fire being the accepting the church body as a new temple of the Holy Spirit.

10:12

Yeah, that's actually a really, really powerful statement that that Horton had wrote.

And the reason why that is significant is because in the Old Testament, God's approval of a sacrifice would be indicated by fire.

10:30

And so there were several occurrences when this fire was supernatural, which which signals God is pleased and he has accepted it.

Now, I'm not saying that all the fire in the Old Testament, like in the what we've called the temple and the Tabernacle, because they had an institution set up of animal sacrifices, they would keep that fire burning.

10:51

But the idea is that God had initiated that fire.

And then it was the job of the priests and those that took care of the temple to continue that burning and keep the fire or a log on the on the altar going continuously.

11:07

So yeah, that was a that is a powerful, powerful statement.

In fact, let me let me see where he has that, that we make sure that we we read that.

I don't see it.

I, I know I had that highlighted as well.

11:24

All right.

Anything else out of out of verse 3?

I also acknowledge how the flames were on top of their heads and that was kind of like the acceptance as their bodies being the temple of the Holy Spirit for each individual.

Correct?

They didn't receive it.

Correct.

Now let's let's sit on that for a second because that is a powerful, powerful statement.

11:44

And let me let me find that in here because I want to actually want to read that out of our out of our guide, because that was that was powerful.

Well, here it is, it says, rather than cleansing or judgment, the fire here signified God's acceptance of the church as the new temple or sanctuary of the Holy Spirit.

12:24

Now here's First Corinthians 316 it says, do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?

Now I don't want to take for granted, Martin, that you are well versed as well versed maybe as some in the Old Testament, but in the, in the Old Testament, God dwelt, his presence dwelt in what we would call the Tabernacle.

12:51

That was a mobile tent that housed the that allowed God's people to worship as they traveled out of Egypt to the promised land.

Once they settled there, they built a temple so that they could worship God in that manner.

13:09

And God promised that he dwelt there.

And specifically it was in a place called the Holy of Holies.

And so in order for you to get into God's presence or in proximity to God was dependent on your worship, and it was also dependent on things that you did, meaning you would have to bring your sacrifice or you'd have to be clean.

13:33

And there would be things that would make you unclean.

Like for instance, let's say you accidentally touched a dead body.

You'd be unclean for seven days and you weren't, you would not even be allowed proximity to the temple because you could defile that because this is the place that God dwells.

13:52

Now we see a shift.

The activity of God is now within us.

So he's gone from God with us.

He walked among us through the person of Jesus Christ.

Now in the in the person of the Holy Spirit, He dwells in us.

14:09

We now are the temple, Temple, the sanctuary of the Holy Spirit.

Ephesians 221 through 22, it says I have to back up a little bit.

Let's go to verse 19.

14:25

Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the Saints and members of the household of God.

Here Paul is talking to people that are not Jews, they're Gentiles.

So he's telling them the good news, like listen, you are included in this having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets.

14:51

Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple of the Lord, in whom you are also being built together for a dwelling place of God in the spirit.

15:11

So this is all what we would call temple language that the Apostle Paul later is going to help unpack.

So although we are individual temples, we also collectively, collectively together through our fellowship through the church are are constituted as the as the temple.

15:35

And so there's an awesome contrast.

And then we would call it a rhetorical sandwich within Acts that Luke is also creating because we're going to see on one, one side, and I didn't, I have to credit the Bible Project for this.

There.

15:52

There is like a literary bracket.

What I mean by that is Luke is portraying the new temple, the old, the old system, the temple has neglected the very essence and core of what God has ordained, meaning to take care of people.

16:10

We're going to see that they're in their context, widows and orphans and the common people have been neglected and forsaken.

The temple has been flipped on its head from the from the sense of Judaism.

They are neglecting the essence of what God had in mind for his people to to provide mercy and grace to help people connect with God.

16:38

For them, the reason it's the opposite is they have used it for political posturing and for their own financial gain and for their own status.

And so these things are at the forefront and we're going to see this in Acts.

The old institution begins to persecute the new institution, old temple, persecuting the new temple.

17:02

The irony that's created is that the new temple, the people of God are doing the very thing that God originally had intended for them to do.

They're going to be taking care of the widows and the orphans.

They're going to be giving the good news.

They are a light to the nation's.

17:17

It's really a beautiful, beautiful picture the way that it's portrayed in here.

And so again, I've got to give credit where credit is due.

Where did I get that from?

Got that from Tim Mackey from the From the Bible Project, and that's part of his introduction to the Book of Acts.

17:35

And by the way, for those of you at home, I highly, highly recommend that video if you haven't seen it already.

And if you have seen it, go back and revisit that.

And so we're talking about the temple.

We've talked about the a little bit of the fire is it will, is that what was the last thing that you had or on there for that verse?

17:57

Oh, that the fire was kind of accepting the church body as a new temple of the Holy Spirit.

Yes.

And their bodies were the temple now, not just a physical building.

Correct, correct.

What a what an incredible thought that you know when we say have you been saved?

18:13

And I've said this and you might not have heard me.

I'm not a big fan of the phrase invite Jesus into your heart because it we don't see it anywhere in the Bible, but I understand what that means.

It means Jesus comes and he makes his dwelling place in us through the person of the Holy Spirit.

18:33

This language.

There's a verse in Revelation 320.

Let me, he says.

Jesus says, behold, I stand at the door and knock.

If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come into him and dine with him and he with me.

18:53

This is symbolic language.

The Bible's much more than symbolism.

It's literal as well.

But Jesus, he knocks on the door of our hearts.

He says, I want you to live for me.

I want you to follow me.

And when we do that, He enters into US via the Holy Spirit, and He makes His dwelling place with.

19:12

Us.

I love that verse because I always see references to that verse.

I was like, Jesus is such a gentleman.

He doesn't force his way into your heart.

He's just knocking at the door, just waiting for you to answer and hear him.

And a lot of the time, it takes a lot of painful experiences for us to finally open that door, myself included.

19:28

Now, have you ever seen the the the artistry behind that verse?

I have not.

OK, I'm going to show you an an an image.

Oh, I've seen.

I have.

Seen that right?

I've seen that earlier today.

Now some people, this is significant to point out, is on most of the depictions, there's no doorknob.

19:48

I haven't even noticed that.

Wow.

Which means you've got to open the door.

That's what you just said.

Jesus is a gentleman.

He's not going to force his way in.

Wow.

So I just pulled up for those of you that are listening.

Pulled up.

And you can do this too, just Google Behold.

I stand at the door at knock and you can see some of the classic representations or artist depictions of this verse through paintings and drawings.

20:12

There's not a single door knob on the outside.

Yeah, correct.

That's beautiful.

Yeah.

So, yeah, that is that is beautiful.

All right, now let's see.

So we have we have divided tongues as of fire.

Again, this is normal.

20:30

Like we said, par for the course, typical language of what we would call it a theophany of a manifestation of God with Similarly, all throughout the Old Testament, our discipleship guide went through that about about various appearances of fire.

20:46

There is a cleansing aspect, there is a, a aspect of judgment as well with fire in this case, Luke is excluding any indication or language of judgment here.

So again, I want to make sure that we get this fire can be both cleansing and a form of judgment.

21:07

In this case, it is a it is a cleansing, it's a purifying and it's a sign of acceptance.

So verse four.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

21:27

What do you have on that one?

Not sure, let me just give me a second to go through the notes.

You're all right.

This is this is a heavy, heavy verse.

So I'll be preaching on this for Sunday, these 4 verses and I'm not holding it.

21:46

What I mean is I'm not holding back of it.

You know, I'm not keeping anything in the tank.

I'll give us whatever we want, but I'll but this will be the emphasis for Sunday these these 4 verses.

I guess in my notes I did just kind of recognize that this was, it was only needed once in order to be the start of the temple.

22:06

It wasn't like they had to receive the Holy Spirit on the daily, daily basis.

It was just a matter of receiving it once.

And that was the the beginning of the of the new church, the new temple, the new covenant.

So let's let's let's build on that and clarify on that a little bit.

The once aspect of this was not in the sense of them receiving the Holy Spirit because the Bible.

22:28

There's a couple of indications here.

For for instance, this word began doesn't necessarily denote A1 time experience.

In fact, the Bible tells us continuously that we need to be filled and keep on being filled.

So the once aspect is in the sense of these wondrous displays, the mighty rushy wind, the fire that is in the sense of a one time event.

22:58

Now the reason is, is this is echoing an Old Testament story of Mount Sinai.

Now the Jews would celebrate and commemorate the giving of the law on Pentecost.

23:16

And I don't want to lose you here, so I'm going to try to make this as simple as possible.

The first feast of Israel is what is known as Passover.

This is when God saved his people, liberated them from the bondage of Pharaoh.

It's a representation of the world.

23:31

He brought them out when they escaped the yes absolute Moses yes.

Now after they got out.

It's not an exact science.

The Jews just have made it this, but approximately it said the Bible tells us in Exodus in the third month, they begin to camp out and wait where they were led by a pillar of fire at night in a pillar of cloud during the day.

23:57

So there was a cloud and a fire and, and when that moved, they moved and this pillar of fire rested over what we call Mount Sinai.

And they were to wait and they camped out there and they waited much like the disciples were waiting.

And it was at that time that we have what is known as the giving of the law.

24:18

And at the giving of the law was God's covenant to his people.

Moses went up on the mountain, received the 10 commandments, that whole story.

Maybe you have some familiarity with it.

And with that there had been, there was an accompanying of signs and wonders that occurred, what we would call the theophany language, Thunder, lightning, fire, the earth shaped.

24:45

They heard and that happened and it did not happen again.

So it is in that sense that this initial outpouring of the Holy Spirit had with it as well these accompanying signs with the wind and with the fire.

25:04

Now the difference is, is as they begin to speak with other tongues.

The word here is languages because we're going to see as we go throughout this happened throughout the rest of of the biblical narrative in the Bible.

25:21

So when we trying to bring this full circle this one time is those signs.

Does that make sense?

No, it makes total sense.

Yeah, yeah.

And the reason is, is I don't want you to just take what I'm telling you and say, OK, I believe it.

25:38

But when I say began to speak in this feeling with the Holy Spirit, this is not a one time occurrence.

Let me just give you off, for example, Ephesians 5/18.

It says do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit.

26:04

So here's Paul commanding people to be filled with the Spirit.

These people have been filled with the spirit in this word filled.

It's interesting because it means it literally means filled, but it is in the sense OK, there are different senses in Greek like past, present, future.

26:24

They have they have like 9 different senses.

It literally means to be filled and to keep on being filled.

A continuous feeling of the Holy Spirit.

And the idea is that we can be depleted much like a gas tank, so you need to constantly come back to God to get filled back up.

26:45

Yeah, whether it's through his Word, his prayer, through worship, all of those things.

You get filled in the in the purpose of that to be filled as we're going to see in these this initial chapter of Acts chapter 2.

Well, maybe we can get to the purpose and that or maybe that can be a second separate podcast.

27:05

The purpose of this is Acts one and eight to be a witness.

It is an empowerment for service to be able to dispense or disperse the word of God according to what he would have us to do in a prophetic sense.

27:23

So I'm using a very, very heavy word with you, prophetic because that comes with it.

Like all of these ideas and connotations, but the, the sense of the prophetic is a declaration of God's word under inspiration meaning like we, we, we use words today like maybe anointed or, you know, powerful or charisma.

27:46

We, we use these things to describe people that maybe move us right?

And that can happen whether it's in a political speech or sports speech, or it can happen behind a pulpit as well.

But it's in this sense that there is a definite divine empowerment to do just that, to help move the hearts and minds of people under inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

28:13

Not that we can do it, but he does it so that we can be a witness to what God has done through his word.

That's the sense of what we mean by, well, I say we.

That's the sense of the way that I've come to understand this prophetic connotation here.

28:31

So they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak with other tongues.

I think it's important to note here as well that when when it says they were all filled, this is not limited to the 12.

This was all of them, all 120.

28:49

So there were, there were women there as well.

They were all filled and SO11 commentator his name is Craig Keener and I've he's got too much.

He calls this the democratization of the Holy Spirit and what that means is that now the the empowerment of God for his service is not for just a select 2.

29:17

The apostles have been set apart and they have their function of being guardians of the church in this sense, but for the service of God as the new people in the temple of God, it is now democratized.

It is for everyone.

29:33

And we're going to see Peter quote that in his speech because he says this is a fulfillment.

This is for your sons, your daughter, for your old men, your young men is for everyone.

Now there's an interesting parallel.

I don't know if we'll go there or not, but it's found in the book of Numbers and this is in the Old Testament.

29:52

And there was a scene when Moses was having a hard time with leadership.

Everything was on his shoulders and he goes to God and he says, God, I need help.

And he says, I want you to bring to me the elders that you've appointed.

There were seventy of them, 70 representation of of of the nation's, but for them it was their nation.

30:14

So he says, bring them to me.

And he says, I'm going to put my spirit upon them.

And when that happened, they prophesied and they went through the camp because they were camped out.

It's a talk about an incredible scene.

These leaders begin to prophecy.

30:32

And then the Bible says after that they prophesied no more.

And there's a line where it says, oh gosh, I need to find it.

Moses says, I wish that all of God's people would prophecy.

Now, when when it says that they prophesied, they did the exact same thing that happened here.

30:54

Not they weren't foretelling the future.

They weren't Nostradamus or Mama Cleo, right?

They were declaring the glory and the righteousness of God by his word.

That's what we're talking about prophesying.

And so we see what we would call a glimpse or foreshadowing of something to come that now has been.

31:19

We use the word democratized.

It's for everyone.

And it is.

It is really, really incredible.

Because that would make a sense why they were speaking in other tongues, Because it wasn't just for the Jewish people.

It's for all people of all nations, right to the end of the earth.

You got that right.

31:35

That is, that is the, the, the main thrust of what is going on.

And in fact, let me let's go a little bit deeper here because we're, we're going to talk about tongues.

Verse 5.

It says in there, we're dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men.

31:52

And notice this term that Luke uses from every nation under heaven, every nation.

Now we can get technical here, but we're not going to because the Bible isn't being as technical.

But when he says every nation, this is the biblical concept of the boundaries and confines that God has instituted.

32:12

OK, I, I'm going to, I'm going to give you a lot here.

And this is going to be, I don't expect you to take my word for all that.

And I tell people all the time, don't take my word for this.

But there is a biblical precedent that we find in Genesis chapter 10 and in in 11.

This is the story of the Tower of Babel.

32:29

And then what happened is, is do you remember?

They built a, they built a tower.

God confused their languages and they dispersed.

This dispersion is what is known in Genesis chapter 10 and 11:00 as the table of nations.

32:45

The reason I bring this to your memory is because it is there are 70 nations that are listed now today we have what 210 nations or something?

We're talking about the biblical concept God marked out and he said here are these nations and because they were spread out.

33:04

The Bible also describes as God disinheriting the nation's meaning got his original design.

His intent was for you to come under my wings, my protection, my umbrella.

But because of your rebellion, because the first rebellion was the the flood of Noah's day, God had to flood the whole earth.

33:25

Shortly thereafter, all the imaginations continued.

What we, what I mean by that is the Bible uses that language to say they continually became corrupt and evil.

So we see the first government system set up at Babel and a man by the name of Nimrod was in defiance to God.

33:45

The Tower of Babel is not just, I'm going to build a tower, it was a place of worship where they would go and make sacrifices.

And it was man, I'm going to this, I don't like this mental picture, but giving the middle finger to God, this was Nimrod.

34:04

He was a hunter of men as well.

And the reason that's important as well is because man is made in God's image.

And so one of the ways that the enemy wants to hurt God is by hurting his image.

This is why some of the ideologies such as like homosexuality and transgenderism is so dangerous, because it's trying to pervert and thwart God's image and plan and God's design, although we're not talking about conservative things right now, but Nimrod.

34:35

The way that he would do that is by attacking and killing.

God had already made a promise that he who sheds innocent blood, there would be vengeance taken upon him.

And so this man, Nimrod, he was known as a hunter of men.

So he would kill for sport.

34:53

So there would be not, not just animal sacrifices, human sacrifice as well.

So this tower.

Very demonic.

It was also one of the first astrological figures that is at least mentioned in the Bible now.

35:10

It doesn't take a genius any most people, you know, become highly, highly entertained with, you know, like ancient aliens and all these theories and all of these things all.

All.

All that, exactly all of this stuff.

So they they had what we would, the Bible calls it the Mazzaroth, which is the Zodiac, all the constellations and they had what we would call secret or forbidden knowledge.

35:34

That's a whole other topic.

How did they get that?

How did they procure it?

It was by means of of these various entities or demons that were allowed to be in those boundaries.

Here's the point of all this.

God, once he spread those nations, he disinherited them and said, I'm going to leave you to your own vices.

35:53

There were seventy of them.

And out of the 70, God said, here's what I'm going to do.

I'm going to pull one person.

His name was Abraham.

Abraham at the time.

He says I'm going to pull him and I'm going to make him out of this one person, a great nation.

And Abram had a wife and her name was Sarai.

36:12

She was barren.

So I'm going to take one man and an infertile woman and out of him I'm going to make a nation.

It's an incredible story.

She dealt with infertility.

The the the birth of her son, which is by the name of Isaac is very, very famous in the Bible because this is like when God said I want you to sacrifice Isaac.

36:35

It's like, man, we've waited all these years.

So what God did was he made this nation which became to became known as Israel out of the 70 and out of that when God confounded those languages, he had to do so for a time to bring about the Messiah.

36:55

This right here.

I say all of this I it's like, where are you going with this?

Why are you talking about all this is because Luke is demonstrating from every nation.

The dispersion has now reversed.

37:13

They now have come back and now these languages that are being spoken because we go through right there, like are these not Galileans?

Look at look at all this.

And Luke doesn't give us an exhaustive list.

But how is it Parthians Meats, Elamites, Mesopotamian, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius I Now if you were to go through and you were to chart this all out, which people have done, in fact, you would notice that Luke is is, although again, not being exhausted, he's not lit, not recounting the table of nations.

37:45

But what he's doing is he's making a big giant circle to point to the fact that it is everywhere converging back on this.

So now God now what got well, now what is God doing brought them all centralized.

They are now what we would call baptized in the Holy Spirit.

38:05

The initial evidence of them.

How would you know that you were baptized?

Well from verse 4 because they begin to speak with tongues.

So that's what we would call the initial physical evidence.

That's part of some doctrine that we'll go over on Sunday as well.

38:25

Now they're going to go out.

Remember Acts one and eight that we memorize.

But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is to be my witnesses.

Now they're going to go out into all the world and we're going to see the spread of the gospel, the empowerment of the gospel.

38:44

It is, it is incredible.

Any anything I can clarify so far?

I'm, I'm right there with you.

I just love, I love that idea of like how you mentioned, like the what was it the the temple or the where they were trying to make that whole tower tower.

39:01

Of Babel.

Tower of Babel and how he dispersed the 70 nations and now with the the new coming of the Holy Spirit, it's kind of like God calling these people back like through the Holy Spirit with the Speaking of tongues.

I think it's just a beautiful connection altogether.

It is.

39:16

It is.

It's.

In fact, I will have to find it.

I need to make myself a note, but there is one particular scholar that that has created a list of side by Now, it's not mystery in the sense of being woo woo.

39:51

Mystery simply means something that was hidden and is now revealed.

So like if I was to put a cloth over this cup that I have in front of me, you could probably guess that it's a cup under here, right?

But it's still hidden until I reveal it.

You can see a shadow, you can see a form of it, but it's not until I pull that back that you can see it fully.

40:13

In the Old Testament we have this all over and over, types and shadows.

Babel and Isaac and all throughout This is why Jesus on the road to Emmaus with those guys in the end of Luke begin.

He says he started with Moses and the prophets and he began to point out all the things concerning him.

40:32

That's why I, I, I made a statement.

I'm like, let's start in Genesis.

That's me.

That's me all throughout.

Jesus is all throughout it.

And that's when they saw everything.

Everything clicked for them Where you said they they had the light switch on.

Yeah.

I thought it was amazing.

As soon as that happened to them, that's when Jesus abandoned.

40:49

She's like, my work here is done.

I'm back up into heaven.

I thought that that hit me.

That hit me when we heard your sermon on Sunday.

Yeah, that is that is very powerful, incredible.

So there are there is a lot of things that is going on here.

Now this is extra biblical.

41:06

So this is for all of us listening home for you as well.

I've got the receipts for this.

This extra biblical doesn't mean that it's true, but the Jews have a collection of writings known as the Talmud, which is their oral traditions, and the Jews taught that during Sinai when God spoke to Moses, it describes when he spoke as if it was Thunder, and their tradition says doesn't.

41:34

Again, doesn't mean it's true that God spoke Moses heard it in Hebrew, but that every nation under heaven also heard God's voice in their own language, which is crazy.

41:50

That is a crazy idea.

It is just the visual.

Doesn't mean it, doesn't mean it's true.

But here's the point.

What do we do with that?

If this was a normal way of thinking for a Jewish mind to see this event happen on the Day of Pentecost and to hear about this event evokes #1 the imagery of covenant meaning what happened to Sinai, fire, thunders, Lightnings, all those theophanies appearances, the things that accompanying it.

42:23

They're hearing about languages here again.

It is now being revealed that God's plan or God's program of salvation is expanding for the whole earth.

God's promise to Abraham.

And let me read this to you because see, godson was not exclusive, although he was for a time.

42:46

When I say exclusive for the nation of Israel, it had nothing to do with their ethnicity or their blood.

It had to do with those who took part of the covenant.

We have to, I have to make that explicitly clear because there's a false idea out there and it really, really gets my blood boiling.

43:06

Has nothing to do with ethnicity whatsoever.

So.

Good luck trying to get a Jew to to believe that.

Yeah, yeah.

So look at this.

Here's here's the promise.

Lord had said to Abram, Remember when I said he pulled him out and Abram came out of this event at Babel, pulled him out of Babylon?

43:29

He was a Pagan worshipper.

He he, he was.

Wow, I didn't know the back story to that's so that's crazy to to know.

So here's here's his command.

Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house to a land that I will show you.

I will make you a great nation.

43:48

I will bless you and make your name great and you shall be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you and I will curse him who curses you.

And in you, here's the key.

All the families of the earth shall be blessed.

44:05

So when he says and in you he's referencing, I'm going to start with you.

I'm going to form a new nation and in you is your seed.

That seed is Jesus Christ.

That's what we celebrate.

44:21

He was born Jesus is was good news for every nation and that's in fact the proclamation of the angels in the nativity scene as well.

So the fulfillment of this is found in Jesus Christ and what I'm using the term here, the program of salvation to bring about the Messiah, to bless the entirety of the earth.

44:46

And that's John 316 For God so loved the world, the world that he sent his only begotten Son.

And then as we go here and we, as you go through Genesis, Abraham departs from Babylon and he walks, he's walking by faith and he has no clue.

45:05

He doesn't know.

He says all God says is to a land that I will show you God's going to be with him along the way.

Now, Abraham has some missteps.

He's not praised.

In fact, it is the Bible doesn't shy away from it.

Abraham did some crazy things like, you know, but his wife, he was barren and he ends up in Egypt and and crazy story would take us a long time to go through it.

45:32

But that's beautiful, beautiful story.

Let me give you one more.

I'm going to give you Deuteronomy.

I think it's 32 to show you about this, Deuteronomy 3289, it says this is a reference back to the Tower of Babel.

45:50

It says when the Most High divided their inheritance to the nation's.

What does that mean?

What this means is I told you God disinherited the nation's because mankind was in rebellion to him.

46:05

It's the idea of the prodigal son.

Do you know the story of the Prodigal Son?

Luke, it's in Luke, right?

Yeah.

And it's the idea of this, this young man that says, Father, give me my inheritance.

Now I want to go do my own thing.

And the father says, all right, go ahead.

46:23

This is what happened here.

So when the Most high, it says man, the world was in rebellion.

When the most High divided the their inheritance to the nations.

He says, here, let me give it to you because God's original.

If we were to say, what are we going to inherit, right?

46:39

What is it that God has for US?

Number one is salvation #2 it'll be at the end of the Book of Revelation, a new heavens and the new earth.

The God is emphatic.

The earth is mine.

He started with a garden.

He told man to be fruitful and to multiply, to expand that garden.

46:59

Man failed.

He gave a nation a piece of land to a people, to Abram.

They were to do the same thing, to expand that across the whole earth.

They failed where they failed.

Jesus didn't because he took back.

So when the Most High divided the inheritance to the nations, when he separated the sons of Adam, He set the boundaries of the people.

47:23

We would call this borders and territories.

You get this part, you get this part, you get this part. 70 nations is what he split at Babel, according.

And then it says according to the number of the children of Israel.

47:39

Well, how many were the number of the children of Israel?

I'll get to that in a second.

It says for the Lord's portion is his people.

Jacob is the place of his inheritance.

In other words, God says you get everything.

I'm going to get one thing.

47:54

I'm going to get one man and one small insignificant piece of land which he claimed as Israel.

That was his territory, his borders.

So when it says according to the number of children of Israel, let me go to Exodus, man, I'm going.

48:10

I'm going all over the place.

But it's all tied together.

Yeah, let's see.

Oh, right here, it says.

Now these are the names of the children of Israel who came to Egypt.

Each man in his household came with Jacob and it names them.

48:29

And then notice right here it says all those who were descendants of Jacob.

Jacob is Abraham's son, or 70 persons, for Joseph was in Egypt already.

Always a reference to the same numbers.

There's 7070 nations, 70 people, God divided though.

48:50

It's incredible.

There's also other other things too.

But anyway, so let's get back into acts.

Otherwise it's going to get we're going to get really into here.

So we've covered one of the significance we've covered the the the acceptance by fire that this is now the people of God in chapter 1.

49:15

Remember we, we talked about the, the 120 being being how you would constitute a Sanhedrin.

Remember that as a, as a so we saw a glimpse of, of a new community.

Now we see God's affirmation of this as this new community by fire, part of this witness.

49:36

And the evidence of that is through them speaking in other tongues as the Spirit gives them utterance.

What and what are they speaking?

Let's go into 5 and 6.

They were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.

49:52

We hit that.

It is every nation.

I know some people kind of I, I, I have to say it like this, maybe gag at this and they'll be like, well, really, what about China?

What about the Bible doesn't distinguish those nations in that way?

The way that we again see it there.

50:09

I can promise you this, though.

Was there Chinese people there?

I don't know, but but but if it's there, if there's if this is a representation of the totality of the world, somebody as a representation of Asia was there.

Do you, do you see what I'm saying?

50:25

No, Yeah, yeah, 'cause.

We're back then, they didn't know the world like we know it now.

Exactly.

It's hard to make that difference.

Yeah.

So this is this is this is every nation.

And when this sound occurred, notice that there's something that is audible.

OK.

50:41

And by the way, there is a sound in Exodus 19 as well.

Wow, the sound of God.

The multitude came together and we're confused.

Notice is very intentional.

I'm going to make that fire right there.

They were confused because God it says the Bible specific to.

They were confused at Babel because everyone heard them speak in his own language.

51:03

Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, look, are not all these who speak Galileans?

And how is it that we hear?

There's the emphasis.

They hear each in our own language in which we were born.

Now they go through enlist, OK, from verses 9 all the way down.

51:23

And then here's the key.

At the end of verse 11, what do they hear?

We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.

In other words, they are preaching, declaring the goodness, the righteousness of God, like they're just it like doesn't have to be anything profound, just saying God is good or whatever it is.

51:47

So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what could this mean?

Others mocking saying they're full of new wine.

I have a question.

Sure.

So during that time, all these people from all these nations that never heard the word of God had, or I'm assuming that they never heard the word of God because I guess the scriptures were only available in Hebrew and Aramaic during that time, correct?

52:08

Well, let's let me go, let's go back because I I got a little confused.

Say that again.

So I'm asking with all these nations and being mentioned then the the people of God speaking in in tongues are they're doing so because they're the scriptures weren't available to the other nations in their own languages at the time.

52:33

Yes and no.

Here's the key.

It says there was dwelling in Jerusalem.

Who are these Jews?

Jews.

And what are they?

Devote men, devout men, or devout.

So this means they knew the word.

Now in in in the ancient world it was highly common to be trilingual.

52:52

Bilingual.

You would speak your mother tongue wherever you were born.

You would speak Aramaic.

You maybe also spoke a little Latin is why when when Pilate put the sign Jesus King of the Jews, he did so in three languages, Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and in Latin.

53:13

That way nobody's confused, right?

In case they're, in case you're not trilingual, you at least hit one of these.

But most everybody was.

These were Jews, but they had what we would call a mother tongue as a result of the Diaspora.

OK, so somehow they're dwelling in Jerusalem.

53:30

They've made a, a return.

So this is not in the sense initially that they have not heard the word.

They know the word because the Bible says that they are devout.

So we need to make sure that we contextualize and define what is devout mean for Jew means you.

53:47

You follow the Torah, you know it in.

You know the word inside and out.

That didn't memorize since they were young.

You were.

Faithful, you go to the hours of prayer for 9:00 AM and 3:00 PM You you celebrate and commemorate you follow the law.

54:03

Devout, devout.

Now we're not talking the legitimacy of that by any means and whether it's religion.

Now the Pharisees and the Sadducees made an absolute perversion out of this, but that does not negate the fact of the devotion of these people on this day that heard an unmistakable sound and sign of saying this was entirely supernatural and they heard the wonderful works of God.

54:32

So in this sense, in this sense, it is, it is a witness to who Jesus is that he is in fact the Messiah, as we're going to see as we get into Peter's sermon, because Peter's going to break it all down Now that's for that's that's for tomorrow from 14 all the way down.

54:55

I don't know how far we're going to get.

And by the way, hopefully Memo is going to be able to join us for that and we can get through it.

But if we thought in chapter 1, like, let me say it like this, the awesome nature and wonder of Peter quoting Scripture and that this is at a whole other level because he takes it like it's nuts, what's the difference?

55:18

It's from being born again to being baptized in the Holy Spirit.

That's the difference.

So a couple of takeaways for us today #1 here's what I'm going to do it.

We're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back and we're going to wrap this up, OK?

55:34

Sounds good.

All right, we're back from break.

We had to take a little break and we don't get to hit the pause button on the podcast, maybe like you can at home, but that's all right.

All right, so how we're going to wrap this up, Martin, is what are the implications for today?

55:50

What are some of the the takeaways that I feel would be for you and for our listeners at home?

I think #1 is for us to acknowledge and recognize that God is still at work today, that although that initial, those initial signs of wind and fire don't happen in the same way, but His empowerment for service via the gift of tongues still happens today.

56:21

That's number one.

We cannot discount this gift that God gives us, or we would say it like this, that there is an experience that happens subsequent or apart from salvation.

It's different.

56:37

That is known as the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the evidence of that still today is to speak in other tongues.

Now in this case there are five in the book of Acts, there are five, what we would call cases of this occurring.

56:57

And we can see other glimpses throughout the New Testament.

And just as our discipleship guide had noted, the author's, I think he said his grandmother and mother and he, he quoted the Azusa St.

Revival.

I did.

I didn't remember being.

There, there are instances of there the Bible lists that there we would put tongues as an umbrella statement saying here are tongues.

57:22

There are also what we would call diverse tongues because that's the way the Bible describes it.

Meaning some tongues are for language, known languages.

Some tongues are for what we would also call a private prayer language that God gives us to empower and uplift and edify ourselves to build this up.

57:43

And then there are also a classification of tongues that we'll see in the Bible as well that demand a an interpretation and especially in a congregational setting.

Now this is found in the book of Corinthians chapter 12 and chapter 14.

58:01

Now, when it comes to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, there comes with that the same evidence of speaking in other tongues.

It can be a known language.

Most often, however, what we're going to see throughout Acts and in the rest of the Bible, that is what we would call your prayer, private prayer language.

58:23

And when I say private, it means that it is, it is a gift that you can exercise at any time in prayer.

And So what would be the purpose of this?

The purpose of this is for the empowerment of witness.

58:40

And it is again, God democratizing his gifts also with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

It is, it is it opens a door for all other spiritual gifts.

58:55

Now, the Bible is very specific In First Corinthians, there are 9 gifts of the Spirit.

There's there's, I'm just going to name a few of them.

There's the gift of, of prophecy.

There's the gift of like discernment, words of wisdom, words of knowledge, the gifts of healing.

59:14

There are various gifts.

This is what we would call the gateway into the things of the Spirit as well.

That's a whole, whole other topic.

So what we do today is we still believe that this is for today.

59:33

I'm going to read this particular paragraph and here's the dividing line.

And when I say dividing, I am not meaning that Pentecostals or people that hold to this theology are better than anyone else.

But what has happened is most people do not differentiate between being born again and the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

59:55

They lump these two things together.

This is why I took great time in my sermon on Sunday and a little bit in these podcasts to say, no, the experience of becoming born again had already happened.

These particular people, the disciples, have been born again.

1:00:14

Why?

Peter already had the ability by the Holy Spirit.

A natural man does not.

Discern or receive the things of God right?

Peter was already born again the wind Jesus breathed on him.

Now the reason this is important is because people blend these two things.

1:00:34

They say this is salvation.

No it's not.

This is a separate experience apart from salvation.

So let's read this right here.

The author, Stanley Horton says some suppose these tongues constituted a baptism of fire, bringing, cleansing and fulfilling John the Baptist prophecy.

1:00:56

Now that's a loaded statement.

However, the hearts and minds of the 120 were already open to the resurrected Christ, already cleansed, already filled with praise and joy.

1:01:11

Luke 24, they worshipped him already, responsive to the Spirit, inspired Word Acts 116 already, and won a court.

I'm going to say what he isn't seeing explicitly.

In other words, these folks are saved, they're born again.

1:01:28

He says rather than cleansing or judgment, the fire here signified God's acceptance.

What we've already read of the Church as the new temple or sanctuary of the Holy Spirit, then when the single flames rested on the heads of each individual, it signified accepting them as also being temples of the Spirit.

1:01:49

Thus the Bible makes clear that the Church was already in existence before the Pentecostal baptism.

Now this is important on 2 levels.

One, often times people say this is the birthday of the Church.

The Church was born.

1:02:05

Well, no, no, actually it isn't.

This was just the day that they had been affirmed and accepted, but the church had already been in existence because it was made-up of people that have been born again already.

This is what he's talking about.

And then he goes on.

1:02:20

He says from the resurrection day when Jesus breathed on the disciples, the church was constituted as a new covenant body.

And then as here's here we go here, it is important to notice that these signs preceded the Pentecostal baptism or the gift of the Spirit.

1:02:41

They were not part of it, nor were they repeated on other occasions when the Spirit was out poured.

Now when he says signs, he's talking about the fire in the wind just as we talked about.

And then he says Peter, for example, identified the feeling of the Gentile believers at the House of Cornelius with Jesus's promise that they would be baptized in the Spirit, calling it the same identical gift, but the wind and fire were not present.

1:03:11

So let's go there real quick.

Here's Acts 11 and 7:17.

I'm going to go right here, and I'm going to try to get through this a little bit quickly.

Here's a short intro as we jump in this because we're parachuting in this Peter is because he's been empowered to service.

1:03:32

He is instructed by God to go to a man that's not a Jew, a Gentile, and he says I want you to go preach to him.

This is very difficult for Peter.

Even though Peter has been saved, born again, filled with the Spirit, now baptize.

All those words I use interchangeably.

1:03:48

Baptize and fill.

Even though this has happened, he still has some cultural baggage that he's dealing with, meaning you don't go to Gentiles.

So this man Cornelius is a high-ranking official with the Roman authorities.

Peter says, I want and, and God says, Peter, I want you to go.

1:04:05

Peter receives a vision.

He had a dream in essence.

And in this dream he sees these animals, unclean animals for Jew, this is like taboo, right?

And he and, and these animals fall down like with a blanket, like a parachute.

And God says rise up and eat Peter's like, no, Lord, I can't.

1:04:24

I've never ate anything unclean.

In other word, he's a devout Torah observing Jew.

Like I don't eat pork, I don't eat these unclean.

And let's go here.

I'm going to start in verse 4.

So this is the context.

He's explaining this dream.

1:04:42

He says I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a trance.

I saw a vision, an object descending like a great sheet let down from heaven by four corners.

And it came to me.

When I observed it intently and considered.

1:04:58

I saw 4 footed animals of the earth, wild beasts creeping things in bird of the air.

And I heard a voice saying to me, Rise Peter, kill and eat.

But I said not so Lord, for nothing common or unclean has at any time entered my mouth.

1:05:16

But the voice answered me again from heaven.

What God has cleansed, you must not call comment.

I want to pause there because this is an illustration of God saying I have cleansed the Gentile people because Jews consider Gentiles to be unclean.

1:05:35

So God is using something that hits home.

Hold close to home for Peter, his dietary restrictions.

God doesn't care what you eat, man.

If you don't want to eat pork, don't eat pork.

If you don't want to eat shrimp, don't eat shrimp.

God honestly doesn't care.

That was considered like the old law and the old correct.

1:05:50

Correct, You could still do it, but that's not how you that's not your means of salvation, Pete.

But what God is doing here is he's using this as an illustration to hit home and say, Peter, here it is.

What God is cleansed.

You must not call common.

God is about to cleanse the Gentiles and says now this was done three times and all were drawn up again to heaven at that very moment.

1:06:16

OK, so like all of a sudden he wakes up.

Three men stood before the house where I was having been sent to me from Caesarea.

You don't know this, but Caesarea was a Roman foothold, stronghold like military base.

Then the Spirit, notice it's the spirit, told me to go with them, doubting nothing more ever.

1:06:41

Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me and we entered the man's house and he told us how he had seen an Angel standing in his house, who said to him, send men to Joppa and call for Simon, whose surname is Peter.

1:06:59

This is a Gentile that received a vision from God.

This is.

Highly.

Highly like crazy this because the reason this is significance is because this is the mark of a new beginning of the spread of the gospel and he's using Peter who has some as I said cultural baggage, some biases.

1:07:18

I don't use the word racism.

He has some that.

Was the idea that I had in my head, Yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

And so he's got this in him.

So he all of a sudden now God's just blowing his mind.

Like what?

You gave me a vision.

Not only were you giving me a vision, you sent an Angel to this man's house and told him my name.

1:07:35

And they sent these entourage of Romans to come get me and knock on the door.

It's like, hey, Peter, Simon Peter is like, yeah, come with us.

Holy Spirit just said go.

You're good, right?

And so he says, call for Simon, whose surname is Peter, who will tell you the words by which you and all your household will be saved.

1:07:59

And as I begin to speak, notice this.

Now the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning.

How did he know?

We'll get into this probably on Sunday.

How did he know that the Holy Spirit fell upon them?

1:08:17

Let's go, it says.

Then I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John indeed baptized with water, but you should be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

If therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God.

1:08:36

And when they heard these things, they became silent and they glorified God, saying, Then God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.

Two things here, Peter is telling this story to a council, he's OK, he's retelling.

It's like a testimony.

So he's telling them to the Jews.

1:08:55

How did Peter knew?

So these two people, the this Cornelius in his household had two things occurred, they were saved and they were baptized with the Holy Spirit at the same time.

Prior to prior to meeting Peter.

No, as a as a result of Peter going over there, because Peter walked in, he says.

1:09:14

And I began to speak.

What happened?

The Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning.

Beginning of what?

Pentecost.

How did he know?

We'll find out because then other places they begin to speak with other tongues as well.

There was an evidence, something that he could hear and that was visible.

1:09:32

So they, so the Bible does a couple of things.

This baptism of the Holy Spirit can occur at the moment of salvation, or it could be subsequent to salvation, meaning that you don't have to, there's no delay.

Like sometimes people say, well, have you been saved?

1:09:47

Have you been baptized in the Holy Spirit?

And they may be like, well, what does that mean?

I mean, have you have you spoken in other tongues?

That can happen the moment or after doesn't matter.

In this case, God did both because Peter's quoting baptized with water, but you should be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

1:10:05

And he says they received the same gift as he gave us.

So there's salvation and baptism wrapped into this right here.

It's a beautiful, beautiful story.

So This is why in the in the commentary here it says Peter, here it is.

1:10:23

Peter, for example, identified the feeling of Gentile believers at the House of Cornelius with Jesus's promise that they would be baptized in the Spirit, calling it the same gift.

But in this case, the wind and the fire were not present.

1:10:42

So he didn't have an evidence of wind.

He didn't have an evidence of fire.

The Bible doesn't tell us and it, and I understand too, some people might say, well, it doesn't say that they spoke in tongues, but that's the only thing that is left in order for Peter to be able to identify and say with authority they have received in this sense.

1:11:00

And we'll go through and Sunday I'll outline all of these different experiences.

So again, the take away is, is that there is a wonderful experience that we would call becoming saved or born again.

There is also wonderful experience becoming baptized in the Holy Spirit.

1:11:17

And with that, the initial evidence is this gift of speaking in other tongues.

And so a beautiful, beautiful thing is for all of God's people.

It's not limited to just a few.

1:11:32

Do you have any thoughts or any things of clarity so far?

I'm just, I'm just amazed by God's word.

I'm always like, it's something that I always experience when I come on here and talk with you, pastor, or even in your sermons.

1:11:49

I'm just amazed by God's work and the, the connection from the Old Testament and New Testament.

And from all this, it would be fair to say to consider that the Holy Spirit is like a, a being, right?

It's like God is how the Holy Spirit is the same as Jesus and God is God.

1:12:07

Correct.

The Holy Spirit is a person.

So this is this, historically speaking, what we would call or classify Orthodoxy, meaning from the very beginning, the Holy Spirit has always been and he identifies as a person.

1:12:24

He is not a force.

He's not, even though he is a spirit there.

This distinction is important theologically that the Holy Spirit is a person.

And with that, would, would you consider like treating that person as like when, when it talks about being filled with the spirit and like, like refilling it and stuff like that?

1:12:47

Would it be considered like kind of like a relationship?

You're, you're nurturing that relationship and doing what is necessary to be very close and and compassionate with that relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Yes, yes.

Now most of the examples that we use are inferior.

1:13:06

Like we use these because we're using language to try to describe what that is like and it can never compare.

Divine.

Yes, so it it is the idea because you might think, well, if he is living in a sea, it's the Holy Spirit that lives in us.

1:13:23

But it is it is the Trinity, it is God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit.

They are three, yet they are one.

So the Holy Spirit in the with the language we would use is the person of the Holy Spirit is the representation of God the Father and God the Son.

1:13:39

Imperfect unity.

This try try unity of God resides in us through the person of the Holy Spirit.

Now, if you need to be filled and if he's living in you, how does that work?

Well, you're starting to think theologically now, OK, we use these terms to describe so how it's nurturing the relationship.

1:14:02

Now, it's not in the sense that the Holy Spirit is like dormant or sleep on the inside of you, but there are scriptures like Paul tells Timothy Fan, the flame that is inside of you.

In other words, it's like the Holy Spirit can be a small flickering flame or he can be a roaring fire that is dependent on how you cultivate and nurture your walk with him.

1:14:27

And just as Jesus is a perfect gentleman in the sense that he will not force his way into your life and knock on that beat, you know that door, there's no doorknob.

So too is the Holy Spirit.

He's not going to force you to do anything as you do these things that we talk about, these things that we do, like reading God's Word and prayer and go to church, These things, these are not the things that save us.

1:14:52

We do these things to nurture our relationship with God so that we can be more receptive and more sensitive to what it is that He would have us to do.

And you will notice along the way, God does this with each of us.

Yes, God speaks primarily through his word, but he also speaks to our conscience and our hearts.

1:15:15

So when you hear like we just saw like, and the Lord said to Peter, the Holy Spirit said to Peter, go with them.

God does that too, right?

Like, and how did Peter know that was the Lord?

Because he's been walking with the Lord.

He's been walking in his word.

He's been walking in discipleship.

1:15:32

So when you are when you are in God's word, you begin to become more acclimated to his way with you in your life.

It's not the same for everybody.

So if I were to say, you know what, I really sense the Lord is saying, I'm not trying to be spiritual and I'm not trying to be woo woo because people use and abuse this so much today and try to monetize and.

1:15:55

Catch that in your sermon as well.

Can't.

I can't stomach that.

I can't.

But if I say I sense, I feel like the Lord is saying, yes, like if you came and said, you know what, pastor, I'm, no, I'm not the voice of God.

But let's say you had a problem.

1:16:11

There is a gift of the spirit called words of wisdom.

You're supposed to seek counsel from those that have walked this journey right for a while.

And you say, Hey, I'm, I'm having this issue.

Well, I could point you to God's word.

1:16:27

I should be able to first and foremost and say, here's what I believe the Lord is saying according to his Word.

And I have a general sense.

So as you're on this journey, you're going to discover more and more God's voice in your life because of what you've been doing.

1:16:46

And so in this sense of being filled, This Is Us.

Now imagine all you do is you show up to church on Sunday.

You're not.

You're never in God's word.

You go because you think you somehow you have tied showing up to church as like.

1:17:07

Like a chore.

Yeah, like I, I just go, right, Like, and this isn't just a Christian thing.

Catholics do it to Catholics and Christians, right?

I show up, I do my little thing.

I'm not in God's word.

I don't even pray.

Most people don't even know I'm a Christian.

1:17:25

OK, so you need to be filled, you need to be born again all.

Those things, Jesus, all those things you were you're mentioning right now, it just, it reminds me of the song Monday Morning Faith.

I haven't heard it, but I can imagine what that is.

It's an amazing song.

It mentioned that the devil's not scared of a Sunday praise, of at least that empty praise.

1:17:44

You know, got to have a Monday morning faith.

Like one day out of the week is not enough for God.

You got to be in his word and talking to Him every day.

Absolutely.

And it makes all the difference in your life.

And I can I can speak from experience.

Dude, it's, it's it's for all of us.

I mean, I'm in situations it's like, you know, I can take, I can't take this pastor hat off, you know, proverbially speaking, right?

1:18:06

Like I got to go out.

I got to remember not, not just because I'm a pastor first and foremost, because I am AI am a child and a servant of God.

Put the pastor thing to the side like man.

We should all be doing.

That it's like, man, if someone found out that I serve Jesus and that I'm a follower of His, I should represent Him better.

1:18:25

And you know what?

I'm not the best of that either.

None of us.

We all fall short.

But we all, we, we need to get this.

This is the idea.

We, we allow he who was in us to become greater.

We're filled with the Spirit.

We do the things that are necessary.

1:18:41

And So what that looks like for most people, like I'll put it to you this way, on Sunday, I'll be preaching about this initial baptism of the Holy Spirit, about this whole thing with speaking in tongues.

We'll get down to the nitty gritty.

But then there are people, let's, I'll just give you an example.

1:18:57

Let's say it one time in their life, I don't know, 15 years ago maybe they had an encounter with God, like a radical encounter with his presence.

They felt him, they were overwhelmed.

Sometimes there's a motion that comes with that.

Sometimes there's no emotion.

But let's say that they received that gift and they spoke in tongues, but they've never had a an instance of that happening again for like 15 years.

1:19:23

Well, you need to be filled again.

You are a candidate because once we receive that gift, we use that gift that God has given us to edify and build this up.

I'll go ahead and go there right now a little bit because it's First Corinthians 14.

1:19:45

Got to type it better.

I went to 16.

My thumbs are fat.

Here we go.

Here's 14, Paul says.

So you might say, well, what am I saying when I, when I speak in tongues?

1:20:03

Speaking in tongues, by the way, is is prayer.

So it means for he who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men.

But to God, so first of all, who am I?

What am I doing?

You're speaking to God.

And then it says for no one understands him.

1:20:19

However, in the Spirit he speaks mysteries.

This is a different type of tongue than what we just saw on the day of Pentecost, because when they spoke in tongues, it was known language, known languages, technical terms called Zenalalia, crazy word, but it means a known spoken language.

1:20:39

This particular tongue that Paul's referring to most often is what accompanies the baptism.

However, you cannot say exclusively that you would not speak in a known language because just like in a service, I'm going to be like, hey, you were just speaking Dutch, that there are testimonies of that still happening today or you were speaking Mandarin or you, whatever it is, right?

1:20:59

But like, how would you, you know, we're in Arvin.

So it's like unless we had some weird, like I shouldn't say weird people are weird.

But let's say we had somebody from Punjab here.

Like dude, you speaking Punjabi.

Like what?

Like that's crazy.

But here here's listen, he who speaks in a tongue is not speaking to me.

1:21:19

So what are you saying?

I don't know.

I'm not talking to you.

I'm talking to God.

No one understands him in the spirit.

He speaks mystery and then he and then it says verse 4 for he who speaks in a tongue edifies himself.

So Paul's differentiating between in these verses, tongues and prophecy, but he who prophecies edifies the church.

1:21:41

So what's the difference?

Tongues is a is in the personal sense gives you the ability when you go into your prayer closet to edify.

That means to build yourself up.

It's like a spiritual workout.

You can pray in English.

You can read God's Word and then when you run out of things to pray for or you can't quite articulate what God is doing, he gives us this prayer language is a private prayer language that you can pray to build yourself up.

1:22:09

Prophecy, on the other hand, is in the sense of like preaching a sermon is the way that Paul's defining it, by the way, not, not, not, not Nostradamus, not Mama Cleo.

Prophesying edifies a church.

So I'm not saying that I'm a prophet and I'm not saying, but there is a prophetic edge to preaching.

1:22:31

What am I doing?

What is the goal of preaching?

It's to edify the church.

That's the goal.

I want to build up the church, not we're not talking like, oh, you want new numbers?

No, we're not even talking about that.

I want to build you up spiritually speaking to fortify your walk with God.

1:22:49

I can't do it for you.

It's only by the power of the Holy Spirit.

But my job is to speak in the sense prophetically, the mind of Christ for the body.

So Paul is differentiating between prophecy and tongues in this sense.

So when you receive this gift, see verse 5, Paul says, I wish you all spoke with tongues and even more that you prophesied.

1:23:13

And then he says, for he who prophesizes greater than he who speaks with tongues, unless indeed he interprets.

So he's all he's talking about here about the, the, the, the edification, the building of the church.

And this church, the whole background of Corinth was wild and crazy, but that's a whole separate story.

1:23:33

So that's just a little bit on tongues.

And we'll, we'll get, we'll get down.

And then he talks about more with, if I come to you speaking with tongues, what shall I profit you unless I speak to you there by revelation, by knowledge or by prophesying or by teaching.

And he goes through because what had happened is this particular group of people equated the gift of tongues to being super spiritual.

1:23:55

If somebody speaks in tongues, you're not super spiritual.

Like you're still the, the, the, the, the elevation of the church, the geography is all flat at at the cross.

There's no one greater and higher and less and none of that.

1:24:12

We're all equal.

So Paul is in these people were making this like status, like we're in elite club.

The Bible doesn't teach that.

It really does it.

So these people were using a carnal approach to spiritual gifts, using it as an excuse to exclude others from their elite club that they have constructed by saying we speak in tongues.

1:24:37

You don't or they would do it as to show off.

They would walk up in somebody and just start speaking in tongues and be like, bro, what's up with that?

Like this person's like, it's when you get into this, it's crazy.

And so.

That just goes back to like them lean on their own understanding and trying to make it like to benefit themselves rather than glorify God.

1:24:57

Correct, correct.

So there is, there's a lot.

There is a lot.

Which I feel like there's always been like the the same story in history.

It is every generation, cross culture, cross everything.

Yeah, this is this is 1.

It's a common story.

It it is we have we have to be careful, you know, we have to be careful on how we present ourselves and the posture of our heart.

1:25:22

Why are you know, what are we doing?

What are we doing?

Do we want to you know, and I have to always check my motives as well, even doing a podcast or even if I ever do a YouTube video, you know what I mean?

Like it comes in like why are you doing what you're doing?

Are you trying to like go viral?

1:25:37

You trying to trend?

No, no, I, I mean, if I was to ask myself this right now, I'm doing this for the church.

To edify.

You know what I mean?

Like for real, like I'm not trying to bro.

If we were trying to get popular, how far are we right now?

What what's the time?

1:25:53

This goes against all conventional thing we'd be doing Tik toks and shorts and you know what I mean, Drama.

Saying that anything outlandish just to get clicks and exactly that's not what God would want.

Exactly.

So all right, I guess we'll wrap that up.

1:26:11

Do you have anything closing?

We asked that probably 20 minutes ago.

Yeah, we did.

But now I just want to continue to encourage people to, you know, to dive into God's word and to fill the Spirit that we all have in in us because we're all the, we all have a temple of the Holy Spirit.

1:26:29

And I try to glorify that and try to make it better every day, even through working Now I pray before I work out and I tell Lord, let me, let me glorify you and worship you with every workout, every Rep.

It's the same pray that I do every single time before I go to the gym.

1:26:45

And I always remind myself in saying my prayer, like, let, let me make my body stronger to be a better temple for the Holy Spirit.

You know, like as your word feeds my, my soul and my faith, like, let my workouts and whatever my routines do the same.

1:27:02

Yeah.

So it's just something that I, I've taken a lot of pride in and I agree with you and anything to glorify the, the Lord because, yeah, I've lived a lot of, a lot of time of my life without him.

And I just want to dedicate the rest of my life to him, you know, just to make up for all that lost time.

1:27:17

Hey, that is awesome.

You know what I've got.

I've just a confession.

I'm I, I'm the same way.

I couple years ago, I lost a lot of weight and I was getting in shape and my main motivating factor was a conviction that I want to be, I want to extend my life as if God would allow it.

1:27:35

He's the one that numbers our days and controls that right.

But I said, you know what, Lord, I want to be more effective for you.

I want to have a better capacity to focus because let's face it, man, when you're, when you're trekking, you're in shape and you're eating right, There's a cognitive benefit as well, right?

1:27:53

And I'm in I would be like sharp laser focus and that conviction God hasn't changed.

I have I still have that conviction, but it was it's not as loud.

So I need to get refilled in that sense of this issue of, you know, by yes, my body is a tempo.

1:28:12

I'm not going to go to the extreme and, you know, turn into Hulk Hogan or nothing like that, right?

Like, but I need to get back.

I got to get back, man, because I want to be, I want to be as available as I can for God.

And I find I'm much more efficient.

1:28:31

Yeah, when I when I exercise and when I eat right.

Also get enough sleep too, because I, I, I noticed a difference in me when I sleep good, I'm way more productive, laser focused.

And days that I don't get enough sleep is just, I'm just not myself.

1:28:46

And it's not the best.

It's not, it's a version of myself I'm not proud of.

Yeah.

And I'm just more like cranky and just don't have patience for anything, you know?

So those are the days that I definitely got to ask God to like, help me push through the day.

That's one of my that's I'm good on that.

1:29:02

This is my non negotiable man.

I'm, I go to bed most of the time at the same time, wake up at the same time, man.

I guard my, you know, I guard my sleep blackout curtains.

I've got, you know, I control the temperature of the ruler, like the sleep aid system, all that stuff, man.

So I'm trying to get better at all that right now than myself.

1:29:19

That part I have optimized.

I just got to dial in my nutrition and my activity.

And anybody who knows me, they know I'm always like that.

So I was teasing.

I think I had talked to Memo yesterday because I told Noah.

I said we're starting today.

So you know what we did yesterday?

1:29:35

We went and got, we went to, we went and got a milkshake and some tacos, bro.

I'm like, why do we always do that?

You know, like.

Man, it happens to the best of us.

I was I was tempted to get some McDonald's after after working out, but I I stuck to just a coffee, a coffee from there the their dollar coffee off their app instead of ordering a couple of Mcchickens to add on top of that, because I've always, I'm always tempted for some Mcchickens.

1:30:02

That's a guilty pleasure.

But I I decided to just go straight home and make some eggs with some chicken, some meat.

Throw in there some some my Mexican people nopales.

Throw some nopales.

Hey man, that's good stuff.

It was a great breakfast.

It was, yeah.

My, my father-in-law, he's from Brazil, so when he first came here, we went to Mexico, we went to Ensenada and we visit what I call my Mexican mother.

1:30:26

Well, two things.

My father-in-law was offended because she served him for the first.

We got there late at night, so in the morning she had breakfast for us.

She served eggs, refried beans with some nopales.

OK.

Well, in Brazil, you only give refried beans to old people who don't have teeth, right?

1:30:43

Like it's from.

Yeah, it's like old dying people.

So he's like, does this woman think I'm old or what?

Like and nopales are for cows.

Like so like, yeah, so.

In Brazil.

In Brazil, OK, in Brazil.

So he it was like a double strike because they never even heard of a tortilla man like Brazil.

1:31:02

I mean, it's a little different now.

They've imported, you know, now, but I'm talking like 8-9 years ago you couldn't find Taco anywhere.

No concept of it.

Wow, I would never thought that.

So yeah, South, South America.

Yeah, I remember it was Chile.

Chile it is refried beans with some no Polish like man.

1:31:21

That's the best, Yeah.

Classic breakfast.

Good.

You can never get tired of it.

It was.

I still tease my father-in-law to this day about that breakfast.

You want some refried beans?

Exactly.

Yeah.

Oh, man.

You want some?

Get you some.

No Polish too.

I like no Polish.

So.

My dad has no shame in that every he could eat no refried beans every single day if he could, or even the whole beans.

1:31:42

He's a very big fan of them.

Yeah, no, I yeah, unfortunately if I'm going to stick with this, I'm going to kick start with a little bit with carnivore and then transition maybe to keto.

We'll see.

You know what we should we we'll keep each other, we'll keep everybody accountable.

1:31:59

So if you're going after it, I think Memo is too maybe some other if you hey, if you're listening still and you want to join in, I know it's past the new year already, but yeah, we need to get in shape have.

Have the people around you to hold the accountable.

I need ABS by the summer man.

Time is ticking.

1:32:17

We better get to.

It all right, well, thanks so much for listening and we'll see you guys on the next episode.

Thank you for listening to Al pastor with Brian Overturf.

1:32:34

If you found value in this, please subscribe and get updates.

Most places podcasts are available.

We're right here on Anchor FM through Spotify, also on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Amazon and iHeartRadio.

1:32:50

I hope you'll TuneIn for the next episode.

Until then, we'll see you later.

#245 - The Pentecost Connection: God's Spirit, Our Witness - Acts 2:1-13

Introduction (0:07-0:23)

Discussion Highlights

Key Themes Explored

Applications for Today (1:32:17-1:35:50)

Closing (1:35:50-1:37:17)

Resources Mentioned

0:07

0:23

0:41

0:57

1:17

1:43

2:09

2:34

2:49

3:10

3:38

3:59

4:16

4:33

4:49

5:06

5:26

5:45

6:05

6:34

6:52

7:10

7:32

7:48

8:08

8:24

8:45

9:00

9:18

9:37

9:56

10:12

10:30

10:51

11:07

11:24

11:44

12:24

12:51

13:09

13:33

13:52

14:09

14:25

14:51

15:11

15:35

15:52

16:10

16:38

17:02

17:17

17:35

17:57

18:13

18:33

18:53

19:12

19:28

19:48

20:12

20:30

20:46

21:07

21:27

21:46

22:06

22:28

22:58

23:16

23:31

23:57

24:18