Acts 2:1-4
Sunday
Morning Bible Study
Introduction
After rising from
the dead, Jesus appeared to His disciples for a period of forty days.
Just before He made
His final ascension into heaven, Jesus instructed the disciples to wait around
in
As we've mentioned
before, they would have to wait for seven days before the event occurs.
:1-4 Pentecost arrives
:1 And when the day of Pentecost was fully come
fully come - sumpleroo - to fill completely; to complete
entirely, be fulfilled
The word typically
means to "fill completely", but here it's talking about a particular
time being "filled", or being "fulfilled".
This is talking
about some kind of prophetic fulfillment.
:1 Pentecost
The feast of
Pentecost was one of the three feasts each year where all Jewish men were
required to come to
This means that
Jewish people from all around the world will be in
It was called
"Pentecost" (meaning "fifty") because it was celebrated 50
days after the Passover, and was also known as the "Feast of Weeks",
because it occurred on the day after a "week of weeks" (7x7=49 days)
from the Passover.
Jewish tradition has
it that it was also the date that the Law was given by God to Moses.
It was also known as
the "Feast of First Fruits" (Ex.34:22), and was primarily a
celebration of the beginning of the summer harvest, where the first sheaves of
the harvest were offered up to God as a reminder of Who was providing for the
nation.
It's not
coincidental that the Holy Spirit fell upon the church that day, bringing in
the "first fruits" of the cross, the "first fruits" of the
gospel, as 2,000 people will respond to the message preached and be saved, and
the church will be born.
It was a prophetic
fulfillment of the feast.
:1 they were all with one accord in one place.
with one accord - "with a single passion" - this is the
same phrase we looked at a few weeks ago back in chapter one:
(Acts
We mentioned back
then what an essential part that unity plays with the work of the Holy Spirit.
But here we see an
additional element. They weren't just "with one accord", but were
also "in one place".
Lesson:
The
importance of being together in church.
Some folks like to
say that they just worship God out in the mountains.
On the day of Pentecost, all those folks
would have missed out, because the Holy Spirit only fell on those that had been
gathered together in that place.
Sometimes we can
fall into the mindset that going to church is "optional". It really
isn't.
(Heb
10:24-25 KJV) And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good
works: {25} Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the
manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the
more, as ye see the day approaching.
We need to be
together in church because we need to have others who will encourage us in the
Lord, provoking us to love and good works.
The catch is, we
also have to stick around to get to know each other if we're really going to be
encouraging each other.
Illustration
The church is often
compared to a body.
How would you feel
if your kidneys decided to spend the day on the golf course, when the rest of
you was at work?
You'd feel like
being in a hospital.
We need each other.
We need each other's contributions to the whole.
:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven
Now, how did they do
that?
Lesson:
This was a work
of God.
I think we do
damage to the work of God when we try to whip people up into an emotional
frenzy in order to receive some kind of spiritual experience.
Illustration
A traveling
evangelist always put on a grand finale at his revival meetings. When he was to
preach at a church, he would secretly hire a small boy to sit in the ceiling
rafters with a dove in a cage. Toward the end of his sermon, the preacher would
shout for the Holy Spirit to come down, and the boy in the rafters would
dutifully release the dove. At one revival meeting, however, nothing happened
when the preacher called for the Holy Spirit to descend. He again raised his
arms and exclaimed: "Come down, Holy Spirit!" Still
no sign of the dove.
The preacher then
heard the anxious voice of the small boy call down from the rafters: "Sir,
a yellow cat just ate the Holy Spirit. Shall I throw down the yellow cat?"
They didn't have to
whip themselves up, God just did it.
:2 as of a rushing mighty wind
as of a rushing
mighty wind - the sound wasn't a
rushing mighty wind, but it just sounded like one.
It's not that
everybody's hair started blowing and papers started flying, it just got noisy.
The concept of wind
being related to the Holy Spirit is an appropriate one.
The word
"spirit" itself can mean "wind" or "breath".
Wind is invisible,
yet can also move to demonstrate great power.
Illustration
A week ago, the
town of
But the Spirit
doesn't always work as a "rushing mighty wind".
The Spirit can also
be seen as a gentle breeze as well -
Elijah had been
running from his enemy, Jezebel, and was hiding out in a cave, when God
appeared to him -
1Ki
19:9-12 (NAS) Then he came there to a cave, and lodged there; and behold, the
word of the LORD [came] to him, and He said to him, "What are you doing
here, Elijah?" 10 And he said, "I have been very zealous for the
LORD, the God of hosts; for the sons of
It was with the
gentle blowing that God began to speak to Elijah.
Lesson:
Be ready to
recognize the work of the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit
doesn't always work the way you think He will.
Sometimes He's a
mighty, rushing wind, sometimes just a gentle, blowing breeze.
It's wrong to think
that the Holy Spirit is going to work the same way every time.
Later on in the
book of Acts, it's not going to be with a sound of rushing wind, but with an
earthquake:
Ac
Yet even later,
people will be filled with the Holy Spirit, without any physical phenomena like
wind or earthquakes (Acts
Today, some people
have the idea that the Spirit is only working in certain situations where
certain phenomena are occurring like:
everyone must be
speaking with tongues.
people laughing out
of control or barking like dogs.
people
being "slain" in the Spirit.
Yet there is no
single outward phenomena that is going to mark the
work of the Spirit.
Perhaps if I spent
more time being sensitive to the things of God, He might not have to hit me
over the head with a 2x4 to get my attention!
:2 and it filled all the house
The sound was
everywhere.
:3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as
of fire, and it sat upon each of them.
First there was a
sound to hear, now there is something to see.
appeared - optanomai - to look at, to appear
There seems to be a
visible manifestation going on here. This word speaks of the eyes registering
some kind of input.
There have been
times when the Holy Spirit has had a physical, visible, manifestation.
John the Baptist
was able to see the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus:
(John
1:32-33 KJV) And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending
from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. {33} And I knew him not:
but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom
thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he
which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.
cloven - diamerizo - to cut in pieces; to distribute. This word is used in -
Mt
27:35 And they crucified him, and parted his garments …
The sense is that
the phenomena came down from the ceiling (from heaven) as a single unit, then divided itself among the individuals in the room.
We might translate
the phrase, "there appeared unto them tongues that were distributing
themselves"
tongues - glossa - the tongue.
This could be
talking about "tongues" as the sounds they were hearing, but it seems
that in this verse, the emphasis is on the thing they were seeing.
These
"tongues" were the shape of the fire-like manifestations above the
heads of the disciples.
like as of fire - wsei puroj - or, "as if, of
fire"
Apparently the
appearance of these "tongues" was like individual flames settling
upon each disciple.
I wonder if it
could also refer to the way that the tongues distributed themselves, spreading
across the group as a fire spreads.
This could be part
of what John the Baptist meant by:
Mt
Lesson:
Holy
Spirit fire.
Fire, as seen in
Old Testament worship, was the way the sacrifices were consumed on the altar.
It was the way in
which the animal was given to God, as it was totally burnt up in the flames.
The
Holy Spirit works in much the same way in our lives, consuming the
"me", and leaving only the "Him".
Quote:
Do you want to be
filled with a Spirit who, though he is like Jesus in his gentleness and love,
will nevertheless demand to be Lord of your life? Are you willing to let your
personality be taken over by another, even if that other be the Spirit of God
himself? If the Spirit takes charge of your life he will expect unquestioning
obedience in everything. He will not tolerate in you the
self-sins even though they are permitted and excused by most
Christians.… You will find the Spirit to be in sharp opposition to the easy
ways of the world and of the mixed multitude within the precincts of religion.
He will be jealous over you for good. He will not allow you to boast or swagger
or show off. He will take the direction of your life away from you. He will
reserve the right to test you, to discipline you, to chasten you for your
soul's sake. He may strip you of many of those borderline pleasures which other
Christians enjoy but which are to you a source of refined evil. Through it all
he will enfold you in a love so vast, so mighty, so all-embracing, so wondrous that your very losses will seem like gains and
your small pains like pleasure.
A. W. Tozer
(1897–1963)
:4 and began to speak with other tongues
other tongues - they began to speak with languages they did not
previously know.
There are two
questions I want to address, but in order to have time for communion this week, I'll address them next week.
They are:
1. Are the gifts like tongues and prophecy for today, or
were they just things for the times of the apostles?
2. Does everybody who is filled with the Holy Spirit
speak in tongues?
Let me just point
out quickly for today, that while it says that they were all filled with the
Holy Spirit, it doesn't specifically say that they all spoke in tongues.
But we'll get into
that more deeply next week.
:4 as the Spirit gave them utterance.
utterance - apophtheggomai - this isn't a word that
means gibberish, but speech "belonging to dignified and elevated
discourse"
They started
speaking lofty kinds of things.
As we'll see next
week, they are speaking of the wonderful works of God.
Note that it was the
Holy Spirit that was in control.
It was the Holy
Spirit giving out each "utterance", which would then be spoken.
You kind of wonder
if it isn't being done one at a time, since later in the chapter, all the
peoples of various languages are able to hear and understand what's being
spoken in their own language.
:4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost
Lesson:
Be filled with
the Spirit.
The concept of
"being filled" carries the idea that you're either empty to begin
with, or at least running dry.
And we're going to
see very clearly in the book of Acts that the same individuals are being
"filled" over and over and over again:
(Acts
Perhaps they have
to be filled over and over again because they leak.
Or maybe it's that
we get filled with something other than the Holy Spirit.
Quote:
If we are full of
pride and conceit and ambition and self-seeking and pleasure and the world,
there is no room for the Spirit of God, and I believe many a man is praying to
God to fill him when he is full already with something else.
Dwight Lyman Moody
(1837–1899)
But when we are
filled with the Spirit, then there's no room for the other stuff.
Illustration:
A man who drank
heavily was converted to Christ and lived victoriously for several weeks. One
day as he passed the open door of a tavern, the pungent odor drifting out
aroused his old appetite for liquor. Just then he saw this sign in the window
of a nearby cafe: "All the buttermilk you can drink -- 25 cents!"
Dashing inside, he ordered one glass, then another, and still another. After
finishing the third he walked past the saloon and was no longer tempted. He was
so full of buttermilk that he had no room for that which would be injurious to
him.
Jesus said,
John
7:37b-38 If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and
drink. {38} He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water.
Are you ready for
more?
Are you ready to be
filled?