Acts 2:14-21
Last week when I preached from the first thirteen verses of Acts 2, I made the point that Pentecost was an historical event, like the birth of Jesus and the death and resurrection of Jesus. And in this sense, Christmas, Easter and Pentecost are all unrepeatable events. After church someone came up and asked me how Pentecost differed from the revivals that have come since Pentecost.
I referred again to my analogy of my Renault 4. When the battery was stolen in the night and I tried to get the car going without a battery, it was impossible to do so. To jump start a car, there needs to be a little electric juice left in the battery to do that. At Pentecost, God put a battery in the church. Since then, we have received jump starts from the Holy Spirit when he brings individual, community-wide or culture-wide revivals.
I do not believe it is helpful to go beyond this and try to distinguish between what God did at Pentecost and what God has done in revivals since then. If we try to say, for instance, that at Pentecost the disciples spoke in other languages but since then people speak in a tongue that is unintelligible except with the gift of interpretation of tongues, if we try to make that distinction, what is the consequence? The consequence is that we are trying to limit God to our understanding of what he has done in the past. We are trying to put God in a manageable container so we can understand what he does.
God can do the exact same thing he did at Pentecost if that is what he chooses to do or he can do something entirely different. We do not worship a god who can be contained, put in a box and be predictable. We worship the divine creator God who rules and reigns with creativity, power and love and we stand in awe of him waiting to see what he will do next.
**************************************
Pentecost was the turning point in history. It is like a 20K race I used to run each May when I lived in Ohio. After four kilometers there was a steep, steep hill that went up for more than 2 kilometers. This was a very hilly region of West Virginia and so there were a lot of lesser hills to conquer but then with just 3 kilometers to go, there was a steep 1 kilometer hill and then it was downhill to the finish line and a wonderful feeling of satisfaction.
In this analogy, I view Pentecost as the point on top of the last big hill. Remember what is written in I Peter 1?
Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, 11 trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. 12 It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things.
Pentecost is coming to the last turn and heading home to the finish line. For all of the history of Godâs people, they looked to the coming of the Messiah. When Jesus came and then ascended to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit, we moved past his coming and now look eagerly to the finish when he will return to take us to be with him for eternity.
It is not easy. Even the last couple kilometers in a 20k race can be difficult but it is wonderful to have turned the corner and be heading home.
Imagine that you were living in Jerusalem that day. It is the festival time so you had three men from Egypt staying with you. The extra money you received from travelers coming to the feasts in Jerusalem three times a year helped supplement the money your husband made making pottery. It is morning, about 9 AM. You have been up for three hours, made bread in the kitchen for breakfast, prepared the meal for your family and guests, cleaned up afterwards and it is time to get on with the chores for the day.
All of a sudden you hear a loud noise. There are no trains or planes yet so you canât identify the noise as the sound of a train or a plane. It is a roaring sound. Remember that there was not the noise we associate with a city, no cars, no horns blaring, no radios playing. In modern day Rabat, this noise might not have been noticed, but in a city without electricity, where what you heard was the sounds of people talking and carts rolling by and the sounds of occasional sheep of goats, this was an extraordinary noise.
So you drop what you are doing and go outside to see what this is. The noise is coming from a house just up the street. You are not the only one out in the street trying to figure out what is happening. When you get to the house the noise has disappeared but now there is a new noise. There had apparently been a meeting taking place at the house and it looks like at least 100 people are now yelling out praises to God. Nothing happened in Jerusalem that people did not know about and these people were known to be Galileans who had been associated with the prophet Jesus who had been crucified. Rumors went around that he had not really died but something odd had happened. And now these Galileans were yelling out praises to God.
There was no order to what was happening. The sound like a roaring wind had been loud and so was this chaotic scene with these men and women yelling out their praises to God. Something struck you as strange, it wasnât clear what it was and then it dawned on you that they were speaking but not with the strong Galilean accent. They were speaking the way you and your neighbors spoke. That was strange.
But then you noticed something even more strange. The Egyptians who had been staying with you were staring open-mouthed and they told you the woman just over there to the left was speaking in the language they spoke in Egypt. Where did these Galileans learn to speak Egyptian?
As you stand there watching and listening, you discover that everyone, those born and raised in Jerusalem and all the foreigners are hearing praises to God in their own language.
It is chaos and with all the noise and the jumping up and down of these Galileans, some begin to say they must be drunk.
This is the scene. It may be then or it might have been later in the Temple, but that day Peter stood up with the eleven disciples behind him and began to explain what it was that was happening.
There were many miracles that day in Jerusalem. A sound like wind, fire resting on each disciple, praising God in the native languages of those who were in Jerusalem, these were all quite miraculous. But I think this first sermon of Peter was also miraculous. When Peter stood up to speak, he spoke with the power of the Holy Spirit that had come upon him and the words he spoke were words that went with power into the hearts and minds of many of those listening to him.
He began by explaining his and the rest of the disciplesâ behavior. They were not drunk as some were saying. Their ecstatic behavior, loud praises of God, jumping and hands waving, that was all explained by what the prophet Joel had prophesied 400 to 500 years earlier.
When Peter quoted Joel, he made a slight change in the beginning. In the book of Joel 2:28 we read
And afterward,
but here Peter said,
In the last days, God says,
This is why I talked about Pentecost as the end of the 20K race I ran each May. At the top of the hill I knew that it was now the last part of the race. I could sense the end. I could feel the end. I knew that if I just pushed on a little longer I would get to the end. I was in the last kilometers of the race.
We are in the last days of earthly history. Lord Shaftsbury, the great 19th century social reformer in England, wrote in his journal, âWhy do we not pray for [the Second Advent of Christ] every time we hear a clock strike?â Every click of the clock moves us one second closer to the end. Although the disciples would have been shocked to know that the church would still be waiting 2000 years later for the return of Christ, we are now almost 2000 years of seconds closer to the time than they were then.
We are coming to the end. We donât know how much longer that will be, but we are getting every second closer to the time. We are in the last days.
In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit
The word pour does not mean a little bit of water. It is not just a sprinkling of water. It is not just a nice gentle rain. What is being referred to is a downpour, the kind of rain that if you stepped out of the church and ran to Café Lina just down the street, you would be soaked to the skin by the time you got there.
There times when we see the outpouring of the Holy Spirit very clearly, in times of revival but I think it is a mistake to think because we do not see the dramatic events of revival that the Spirit is not being poured out. The extent of the daily outpouring of the Holy Spirit will become more clear as we move along in this message.
In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
How do you think Peter understood this? He clearly did not think âall peopleâ included Gentiles. It will not be until we get to Acts chapter 10 that we will see Peter coming to the new understanding that Jesus died for Gentiles and not just Jews. Peter had an encounter with Cornelius and God spoke to Peter in a vision to help him to this new insight. But at Pentecost, âall peopleâ was limited to Jews.
But Pentecost opened up Peterâs world even with his limited understanding that day. From Peterâs perspective, from what we now call the Old Testament, the Spirit in the past had been poured out on prophets, kings and priests. God gave his Spirit to special men on special occasions for special tasks.
Now at Pentecost it was revealed that the Spirit was poured out generously on all the disciples, not just the leaders, not just the men, but on all people.
When Luke wrote this account some thirty years after Pentecost, he clearly understood the significance of Peterâs quotation of this prophecy from Joel. Not only was the Spirit poured out on all Jews who called out to Jesus but on all Jews and Gentiles. The Spirit was poured out on all people.
In Numbers 11 Moses spoke to Joshua, âI wish that all the LORDâs people were prophets and that the LORD would put his Spirit on them!â The wish of Moses was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost.
In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
Prophecy, visions and dreams.
I donât think it is helpful to try to distinguish between these three in this prophecy of Joel. Prophecy, visions and dreams are all ways in which God makes himself known to us. They are ways God speaks through us to reveal himself to the world. Later Luke will talk about those with the gift of prophecy and that is different. Only some have this gift, not all.
In Joelâs prophecy, what is being communicated is that God will communicate through all those who call on his name, making his name known to all people through his Spirit. No longer will his communication come through a special few. He will now speak to all people through prophecy, visions, dreams and in the many other ways he speaks to us.
In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
The Spirit is poured out in the last days on all people. This includes men and women. The Spirit is not poured out on men while women sit by and wait for the men to tell them what God said. The Spirit is poured out on all people without respect to gender.
I always thought of the scene at Pentecost as Peter and the other eleven disciples sitting around and then the Holy Spirit descended on them. But that is not what Scripture indicates.
Acts 2:1 says they were all together in one place. Who are they? Go back to chapter 1:12. Then they returned to Jerusalem …Â 13 When they arrived, they went upstairs to the room where they were staying. Who were they? The 11 disciples were there. … And with them were the women and Mary the mother of Jesus.
The women and Mary, the mother of Jesus were among those on whom the Spirit came and who then began speaking in the languages of those visiting Jerusalem.
When the Spirit was poured out on women as well as men, the church grew as it could not have grown if the Spirit had been poured out only on men. In Paulâs letters he praised women who were leaders in the early church. The church suffers when women are not permitted to use the gifts God has given to them.
The Spirit is poured out on all people without respect to gender.
In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
The Spirit is poured out on the young and the old. There is still truth that wisdom comes with experience and the old need to be respected because of the wisdom they have acquired over the years. (This becomes more important to me the older I become.) But here we are talking about God revealing himself and his truths through all people and that includes the young and the old.
Luke records that when Jesus was twelve years old, he went with his parents to Jerusalem for the Passover Feast.
After the Feast was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished.
The Spirit does not discriminate between the young and the old. The Spirit is poured out on all who call on the name of the Lord.
In the last days, God says,
I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
your young men will see visions,
your old men will dream dreams.
18 Even on my servants, both men and women,
I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
and they will prophesy.
Even servants will prophecy, see visions and dream dreams. The experience of Peter and all of Israel had been that the Spirit came in a restricted way, on priests, prophets and kings, for a limited time. So do you see the incredible extravagance of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? The Spirit was poured out on all people, men and women, young and old, servants and masters, rich and poor, clergy and laity.
We are awed by the work of the Spirit in revivals but we do not appreciate enough the work of the Spirit across the world each and every day. All over the world the Spirit is being poured out in millions of lives who then reveal to the world the love of God for his children.
At the end of this prophecy from Joel comes the incredible news:
And everyone who calls
on the name of the Lord will be saved.â
It is not just a select few, those with the proper education or those with the right pedigree or those with societyâs standard of beauty or those with the right nationality. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
There is no exclusivity. It does not matter what your circumstance is. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
In Romans 10 Paul explains what this means.
if you confess with your mouth, âJesus is Lord,â and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved. 11 As the Scripture says, âAnyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame.â 12 For there is no difference between Jew and Gentileâthe same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, 13 for, âEveryone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.â
I know there are people in this congregation who for one reason or another have resisted calling on the name of the Lord to be saved. Let me help you to decide to call on the name of the Lord by giving you two reasons to do so.
The first is that I want to warn you this morning that time is running out. We are in the last days. We are approaching the end. Even if history has a bit longer to go, we as individuals may be very close to our end. We call it salvation because through it we are saved.
We are saved from drowning when someone pulls us out of the sea. We are saved when we call on the name of the Lord because we are headed toward eternal destruction and only calling on the name of the Lord will save us from that fate.
God may have disappointed you in the past. You may have prayed a prayer that was not answered, at least from your perspective. You may have been raised in a church where people did not talk about being saved. But I tell you this morning that you are coming closer, with each tick of the clock, to the time when time for you will run out. So call this morning on the name of the Lord. Pray asking God to help you. Ask him to forgive you for having ignored him. Tell God you want to give control of your life to him and that you want to do what pleases him.
I plead with you to respond and call out to the Lord and ask for his help so you can be saved.
Call out to the Lord not only so you can be saved but so that you can experience the extravagant outpouring of the Spirit in your life. God has given such an extravagant gift. The Spirit has been poured out on all people who call on the name of the Lord.
We come to the communion table this morning to share in a meal hosted by Jesus. He invites you to come to him and share in this meal of bread and the fruit of the vine. You need not worry that you are not good enough to come, not dressed well enough to come, not educated enough to make good table conversation. All who call on the name of the Lord are invited to come and share in this meal.
If you have not called on the name of the Lord, then this meal will do nothing to help you. You will not take enough bread to satisfy your hunger. You will not take enough juice to satisfy your thirst. But if you have called on the name of the Lord, then you will find that this meal feeds you and strengthens you to follow Jesus.
This is not an exclusive club. All who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.
