Dennis Tuuri

# Acts 2:1-41

Please stand for the reading of God’s word, Acts chapter 2.

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all at one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues, like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.

And they were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Now when this was noised about, the multitude came together, and were confounded because that every man heard them speak in his own language, and they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, “Behold, are not all these who speak Galileans. And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born.

Parthians and Medes and Elamites and the dwellers in Mesopotamia and in Judea and Cappadocia in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia in Egypt and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians. We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. They were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another, “What meaneth this?” Others mocking, said, “These men are full of new wine.” But Peter standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice, and said unto them, “Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words.

For these are not drunken as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams, and on my servants, and on my handmaidens, I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy, and I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood, and fire and vapor of smoke.

The sun shall turn into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Ye men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that he should be holden of it. David speaketh concerning him.

I foresaw the Lord always before my face for he is at my right hand that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad. Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope because I will not leave my soul in hell. Neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known unto me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day.

Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, he, seeing this before, spake of the resurrection of Christ. That his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which he now see and hear.

For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes my footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye hath crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do?

Then Peter said unto them, Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, “Save yourselves from this untoward generation.” Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls.

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We thank God for his word and pray that he would illumine it to our understanding.

I was at the first Reconstruction Conference in Seattle and I was intrigued and went largely because of the title of the conference. The theme was how Christians will reconquer the world. Well, if my understanding of the scriptures is correct, that’s basically what we see addressed in Acts chapter 2. The subject of my talk is Pentecost and the salvation of the world.

I was thinking about this big hubbub over Jurassic Park and I don’t know if you know about that or not. I’m sure most of you do. They take blood from old dinosaurs found in mosquito bellies and grow dinosaurs, I guess. And that’s the idea of it. Rush Limbaugh has had kind of a parody of it, Geriatric Park, where they find old liberals and get their blood and reconstruct them—tax-and-spend liberalism and that kind of thing. These as in Jurassic Park, the things they have grown from blood are not so friendly. They come back and are quite ravenous as Tom Foley approaches people for their checkbooks.

Well, I was thinking that in a way it’d be nice if we could, instead of taking dinosaur blood, take the blood of Peter, the blood of these men who were filled with the Holy Ghost and who spoke forth the word and essentially evangelized the whole known world in the book of Acts. Of course, I’m speaking tongue in cheek. But what those men understood, their commitment to the faith, their proclamation of the word of God in honesty and courage, forthrightness, but also in love and in grace—is what does conquer the world and what does change the world from being a place inhabited by those who are in rebellion against Jesus Christ to be established by those who love the Lord and Savior and to see all of life in relationship to him.

You know, I teach—I guess in homiletics classes, which I have done—to find such contemporary illustrations and relevance of the word to our day and age.

As I was reading through the account of Acts and meditating upon this past week and looking at the political scene in which we found ourselves, we’ll see later that if this model I’m looking at is correct, that we see at the day of Pentecost a microcosm of the world gathered, and then the salvation of the world through the preaching of the gospel. We will also see a pertinent antidote to another attempt by our culture to usher in peace and justice in the world. That attempt is multiculturalism.

You know, it’s interesting. Those who reject Christ, the answer to all things, swing back and forth between anarchy and statism and don’t know what to do. And yet, the conservatives only react against this stuff and don’t understand how many times the problems that are being addressed are real problems. We see in the salvation of the world, in the diversity of tongues, for instance—we have diversity of cultures represented, diversity of languages spoken—yet we have unity in the faith of the Lord Jesus Christ. So we have a true multiculturalism.

God doesn’t change all the nations of the world to make them one great nation but rather he speaks in the tongues, implying an affirmation of the cultures that, after all, he created and he brought to pass in the cultures of mankind. So we should think about these big themes as we read the scriptures. Remember, we said that one of the things that Peter tried to do with the replacement of Judas with Matthias was to apply the word of God to contemporary situations, and we should begin to if Christians will reconquer the world in our day and age.

It’ll be because we begin to take every thought captive to the Lord Jesus Christ and see every subject and area of our lives as ones that must be brought captive to an understanding of the word of Christ as found in the scriptures. And so, to analyze these things, look at the scriptures, run them through that gridwork, understand that pagan man goes back and forth in these wild swings back and forth that never bring about justice, only bring about chaos and more division.

Well, let’s talk about the text and how the Christian will reconquer the world—the day of Pentecost and the salvation of the world. And what I want to do here, and I’ll give you right now, I’m going to tell you, we’re not going to get through this outline. Those who have given, I’ve got orders of worship, extra copies out at the handout table. Those will be for the following week. I’m going to have to make up new orders of worship for next week because I’ve decided not to—I’ll only get at the most through points one and two on the outline today.

I don’t want to rush this, you know. Beginnings are quite important. And you’ll notice in under the outline number two, where I talk about the salvation of the world, and we’ll talk about it, there’s a series of beginnings there. Beginnings really in the scriptures kind of have the whole thing all bundled up and then it’s extracted out through the rest of the story of a particular book or in the scriptures themselves.

Everything in the first chapters of Genesis is then wound out throughout history. And in Acts, what we’ll see in the book of Acts is really the winding out of the summary account of the salvation of men through the preaching of the gospel that we find in chapter 2. And it has great relevance for us.

You know, what we want to do here is look at an overview of the text. Then we’re going to look at how this text, the central meaning of the text—this story that God gives us, so to speak, this historical account—the central meaning, I think, is to be found in the salvation of the whole world. But there is an exhortation in this text for us as well.

This text instructs us the preaching of the gospel challenges the idolatries of the day. The way that Peter challenged the idolatry of the Jews who crucified the Lord Jesus Christ in an attempt to get rid of him. And the state crucifies the Lord Jesus Christ afresh, so to speak, when they try to get rid of any implications of Christ in his word in terms of civil government, public schools, etc.

And we must preach against the idolatries of the day. We must, as the apostles did, also take the gospel and call for repentance to the churches of the day. And that’s a continual theme as they battle the established church of Judaism in the first century of the church. And so that’s the second implication, the exhortation we find in the third point of your outline.

The third one is we must take a word to Judea, the gospel to our neighborhoods. Remember, we’ve talked before that Acts can be sort of structured in when God, uh, Jesus Christ tells us that they’re going to be his witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and then into the uttermost parts of the world, and so into Samaria and the uttermost parts of the world.

And I think that by way of application here, not by way of interpretation of the text, but Jerusalem can be seen as the seat of government, the seed of the church government as well. And so the call to bring repentance to the church. Judea can be seen as the neighborhoods in which we come from, which we live. And it’s important to take evangelism into our local neighborhoods.

But the book of Acts is also filled with, the call, as is the first, is the first sermon preached recorded for us that is by the Christian church. It also brings to us an exhortation to take that word to the uttermost parts of the world and to think in terms of world missions from the very inception of the preaching of the gospel. They thought globally, they acted globally, right? With the first establishment of the church in the new covenant era in Acts chapter 2.

So, what I’m going to say when we get to this in more detail in next week is that it isn’t a matter of first you take care of Jerusalem, then you do this, then when that’s all done, then you move on to Samaria, then you move on to the uttermost parts of the earth. No, I think there’s implications for all of those things at the same time. And that has immediate implications for this church and to analyze how well we’re doing these particular tasks and then to allow our lives to be reconstructed, reformed, transformed by God’s word if this is the correct application of it to make sure we’re doing these things and putting a good faith effort that God will bless in terms of these particular exhortations for the day of Pentecost and the salvation of the world.

And then finally, the scriptures—and we’ll be seeing kind of overview now of these next two weeks really—the scriptures and Peter’s preaching of the scriptures brings men both a charge, a call to repentance and a charge to do the things we’ve listed here to do, but they also bring great comfort and hope as well. And there is in the context of the Christian life the preaching of God’s word never brings simply a call to duty and obedience without the blessing of comfort and joy that God gives us, ultimately found in his presence.

And so, you might have noticed, we’ll point it out next week and a little bit today, that as Peter quotes from the Psalms about the resurrection of the Savior and how he is not left, his body is not left to destruction, that he has joy in the countenance of God the Father. And so we have joy in the midst of this message. The preaching is accompanied with joy.

You know, really the song we just sang, “In Thy Pentecostal Splendor,” is really much of what I hadn’t thought of this till we sang it. I certainly picked it for a reason. But you notice verses 1 and 5 of that song talks about the contemporary application of the truths found on the day of Pentecost that we’re now reading about, the preaching of, in Acts chapter 2. And the middle three verses of that song—so one and two kind of say that we need this understanding now—gives an understanding through verse 2, 3, and 4, and then gets back to the exhortation to apply it in our lives in verse 5.

And that exhortation, that explanation of the day of Pentecost is found in this song, and the writer of this song, analyzing the scriptures, it’s really quite good. We see in chapter, in verse 2, the giving of the law of Moses. We’ll get to that in a little bit. But after that historical account, then in verse 3, there’s a discussion in the song, as there is in Peter’s sermon, of the death of Jesus Christ and then his glorification, and then him giving gifts to men.

And that’s what Peter’s sermon is all about. Jesus died, you crucified him, he’s been glorified, and because he’s been glorified, he gives gifts to men. The ultimate gift, which is the Holy Spirit. And that’s what the content of Peter’s sermon is really all about. And then in verse 4 of our song, there is the direct reference to the giving of the Holy Spirit. And it says at the last line, “Thou art liberty in love.”

I was talking with Roy a little, a couple minutes ago before the service started. He said that the gift in promise and deliverance talks about the gift of the holy spirit as being the gift of love, and certainly that’s true. Romans tells us that God has shed abroad the love of the Father in our hearts through the holy spirit, and so the gift of the holy spirit brings liberty—the liberty of God’s law and the power of the holy spirit to walk in accordance with that law and to preach that law forth and convert the nations. But that nation, that preaching is in the context of love for the elect of God, and so love is in this as well.

So that’s kind of an overview of what we’re going to do here for the next couple of weeks.

And what I want to do first, as I always do, is look at the text itself. You know, what I want to do here is what I did in Joshua. We move through it fairly rapidly through the book, so we get the flavor of the full story, so to speak, the full historical account that’s given by God, rather than go through it a verse or two at a time. That’s okay. It has its place. But what I, for my purposes, I want to see the book of Acts relationship to Joshua and other big events in the scriptures so we can understand what the New Testament church is all about.

And as a result of wanting to have that happen, I want us to have continuity as we move through the book of Acts. On the other hand, we can move through it so quickly that we lose many of the important teachings. And I’m telling you, Acts chapter 2 is just loaded with extremely important teaching.

So, in any event, because we use these big blocks of text, I think it’s helpful to go through it to review it a little bit before we then talk about the application of it. So we understand what’s being said. I know, as you sit out there and I stand up here and read 41 verses and you try to follow along in your Bible, it’s a little tough to get the flow. And so what I want to do is kind of summarize it for you.

It would be helpful, of course, as well—I might just say this—of course, that as you know what these sermons are going to be about, to try to read the text in your family worship or your private worship in the week leading up to the sermon. That will help as well with these big blocks of text that we’re working with. Okay?

And so an overview of the text first, and then we’ll move on to some of the application. I don’t know how much time we’ll have to get to that today. We’ll continue this on into next week. And so everybody’s on notice now that the songs I’ve selected supposedly for next week are actually two weeks away now. Those songs have to do with the communion of the community of God.

It’s a very interesting thing: the book of Acts. Where you have these exhortations and these sermons preached and these charges given, along with the promise, of course, interspersed in these historical accounts of the book of Acts are little snippets of information about the church and its fellowship together. You know, in the book of Joshua, we saw where they would go back to Gilgal, their kind of their base of operations as they went out to these foray and conquer that particular nation for God.

And so the church is kind of the base of operations for then this going out, this going to and fro in victory. The church engaged itself in the book of Acts. So it’s important to understand that, it’s important to notice the flow of that, and that’s what we’ll try to do. That’s why I broke off the last a few verses from Acts 2 for a whole separate sermon. Verse 41 is kind of the segue where you read about the baptism of 3,000 souls added to the church, and then verse 42 at the end of the chapter talks about what happens in the context of that church, and I want to spend a separate week on that.

Well, in any event, let’s go through a little bit of the overview of the text, then, these first 41 verses of Acts chapter 2. And you’ll see here on your outline that what I, how I’ve laid it out, is there’s a setting given for us at Pentecost. And then there’s the actual event itself, that is the focal point of the chapter—the gift of the Holy Spirit. And there are visible manifestations of the Spirit, the second time in the scriptures where that’s given to us.

The other time being the descent of the dove on the Lord Jesus Christ. And by the way, that’s very important. In the tapes now, the tape labels that I’m making up—instead of just seeing the book of Acts at the top and then the particular week sermon—what I have is Acts, the Acts of Christ through his church. And that’s what I think is going on in the book of Acts: we have the acts of some people. You know, subtitled the acts of the apostles.

Well, there’s the acts of a lot of people. I don’t believe it was just the apostles, for instance, who were filled with the Holy Ghost here. All the assembled people were 120 or however many it was. I think they all spoke in foreign languages. And so it’s the acts of the church, but it’s actually the acts of Jesus Christ. And you can see that right here because as the spirit descends upon the people of God, it’s as if it’s the same there’s a visible manifestation, the way there was a visible manifestation as the spirit descended upon the Lord Jesus Christ after his baptism.

So secondly, then, there’s the gift of the spirit and its manifestations. Third, the reaction of the people to this event. Okay? And I say the reaction of the divided world because that’s what you always have when God works wonders in the midst of men. You have two kinds of responses to that: positive responses and negative responses, depending on their state, that which God has brought them to—if they’re elect or not elect.

And then fourth, we’ll see that Peter then explains. He answers the detractors. He gives an explanatory sermon which then serves as a vehicle to explain what has happened to the people. So he preaches, and then as a result of his preaching, there’s the conversion of 3,000 souls that day, that very day.

So we have a setting given. The central act is this descent of the spirit and the preaching of the gospel in these foreign languages—the mighty deeds of God. And then the people respond to that in two different ways. And then Peter answers the detractors and with that sermon gives an explanation of what’s occurred, and that brings about the growth of the church and the conversion of 3,000 people on that day.

So, let’s go through it now a little bit slower.

First of all, the setting for the text is the day of Pentecost. Very important: as you read any kind of historical account, story—so to speak. I like the word story because it helps us to think in terms of literary structure, but I don’t like the term because it makes you start thinking that it’s not true. And of course, it is true. These are historical events that happen, and God records them in such a way as to give us truth in the context of these historical events. So he lays these things out for us, and in Acts chapter 2, we have in the very first verse, very importantly, the setting.

Frequently, you’ll see in an event in scripture a setting given for it. It may only be a verse, may only be a couple of lines in the middle of a verse, but it’s important because God puts it there and wants us to understand that this is the setting in which it’s found.

In verse 1 of chapter 2: “When the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all at one accord in one place.” So the setting is the disciples of Christ in one accord in one place. Very likely, we don’t know for sure, it was the upper room. We don’t know where they were exactly, but we know that they were together. Very important. Matthew Henry comments on this: he says where brothers dwell together in unity, their God gives the blessing, referring back to the psalm, you know how beautiful it is when God’s people are united. That’s when God pours forth his blessing upon the garments of Aaron, run down to the oil of God—the blessing of God comes upon a united people.

And so these disciples were united. They were all together in one place, and God’s blessing is poured forth upon them. And that particular day that it’s poured forth is the day of Pentecost.

This is quite important, and we don’t always have as much understanding of the Old Testament as we should. There were three major feasts of the Old Testament, and Pentecost falls in the middle of these three major feasts. Now, you remember when I talked about family camp a couple weeks ago. That’s from the Feast of Tabernacles or Booths. That’s later in the year. Prior to the Feast of Pentecost is Passover itself. And Passover is followed by the Feast of Pentecost. It’s called Pentecost because Pentecost, following Passover, is the Feast of Pentecost.

Now, these—it’s interesting. J. Alexander points out that the major feasts in the Old Testament, these three major ones, or at least two of the three major ones, have three elements to them. There is an agricultural theme involved. There’s a relationship to a historical event in the life of the Old Testament church, and then there’s a meaning for the future involved as well.

So, Passover: you can think about Passover, of course. What the historical event was: the deliverance from Egypt. Remember, the angel of death passed over those who had marked the doorpost of their house with the blood. The agricultural event that the Old Testament clearly associates with Passover is the early harvest, okay, the beginning of the harvest.

The Feast of Tabernacles—we talked about that a couple of weeks ago. We talked about family camp. Although I’m sorry I left off the third element. The three elements, then, are first: agricultural element is the first harvest, first of the harvest, for the day of Passover, the Feast of Passover. Secondly, the historical event is the deliverance from Egypt. And the prefigurement of Passover, of course, is the Messiah of God who would come and make full satisfaction for the sins of the people.

The expectations of the people of God then for the promises of God, and particularly relative to the Messiah, were pictured at Passover. Feast of Tabernacles, which is the third feast in the middle—is the day of Pentecost here. The Feast of Tabernacles, which comes along late in the season, September, October. Its agricultural reference was the in gathering of fruits, the late harvest. Its historical event was related back to their journey through the wilderness when they tabernacled in the wilderness. And the prefigurement is the future rest to come for the people of God. That’s what it looks to in the future.

Well, the day of Pentecost is sandwiched—well, it’s not really. It’s much closer to Passover, being 50 days after. Pentecost occurred about this time of year, early June basically. And its agricultural significance is clearly pointed out for us. It’s the in gathering of the cereal or the grain crops, and so it’s a harvest festival.

But the historical significance is not laid out for us directly in scripture. Now the historical church has assumed, as this song that we just sang did, that this was the day of the giving of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai. 50 days after Passover, God gives the law to Moses. Augustine said that as the law was given to the people of old, 50 days after Passover, written by the hand of God on tablets of stone, so the Spirit—whose work is to write that law in our hearts—the same number of days after the resurrection of Christ, who is the true Passover, fulfills what had been prefigured in the giving of the law.

And so we don’t know that from the scriptures that’s the connection God wants us to make. But it seems to be the correct connection, the historical connection. So it’s a feast of harvest with the material grains. And it is also related, then—I believe Augustine is right—and certainly the dates correlate, that the day of Pentecost historically reminds us of the giving of the law on Mount Sinai to Moses. And as a result, of course, it talks about the giving of the law. The Holy Spirit comes to do what? To write the law in our hearts. That’s what the scriptures plainly speak of. In the new covenant times, the spirit will come to write that law upon our hearts.

The spirit comes and he directs the apostles and the rest of the people gathered to preach forth the word of God, when the law is really an element of that word. But what does Pentecost speak to in the future? Alexander thinks that Pentecost speaks primarily to the organization of the church to come. But I think that the text of Acts will show us—we’ll get into this a little bit later—that Pentecost actually has reference to the fullness of the harvest of the preaching of Christ’s gospel. And I think that’s fairly evident from the text, and we’ll see that as we go through it. Okay.

So this is the day of Pentecost, and it’s important to keep that in mind because it has historical reference. It helps us understand the gift of the law, the harvest theme, and then the harvest of the world in terms of salvation as well.

Now, secondly, then, in the midst of this particular setting, a particular activity occurs, and that is the gift of the spirit and his manifestations in verses 2-4. And it says there: “Suddenly came a sound from heaven, because of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house they were sitting. There appeared under them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Okay, what’s going on here? First of all, in verse 2, you should know that the word for wind isn’t really the word normally used for wind. It is a violent wrenching sort of affair going on here. It’s not some nice calming breeze coming in from the sea coast or something. This is a mighty heavy rushing wind. In fact, it could even be spoken of—this word is spoken of at times as a heavy breathing. So it’s as if God breathes again. Remember, Jesus Christ breathed upon the disciples earlier and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit,” new creation. And now you can see this is the breath of God, a mighty rushing wind of the Holy Ghost coming upon this place. And the house is shaken and the place is struck with the power of God.

It says that there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire. So the first manifestation is there’s a sound associated with it, and then there’s sight associated with it as well: cloven tongues as of fire.

Now, the word cloven tongues—if J. Alexander is right, and he is the best scholar that I know of relative to languages and the study of languages, and I think he probably is right—what this really means is not that the tongues themselves were split on the head of the apostles, but rather the tongues were distributed to each one of the apostles and the rest of the congregation that was there as well. In other words, you could say there appeared unto them distributed tongues like as of fire. So it doesn’t mean that the manifestation of the fire was split, but rather they were deported amongst the people. Each of the people had this manifestation of tongues like as of fire.

And of course, we’ll see that the tongues of the people is what preaches forth, of course, the word of God. And that word has a manifestation, has effects in two ways: those who hear the word and are converted are saved, and those who hear the word and are not converted, but who rebel and say, “These guys are drunk,” for instance—they’re burned up. And they’re going to be burned up literally in A.D. 70 when the apostate nation of Israel is burned with fire from God from heaven above. So the manifestations are first an audio one, an audio manifestation, then a visible manifestation.

And then the end result of this in their lives is they were filled with the Holy Ghost and they spoke with other tongues. Now, I don’t want to get into the subject of tongues a lot yet. There’ll be other places in the book of Acts where tongues will figure here. However, I don’t think what we have is some sort of ecstatic language. The miracle that goes on here, the power, the miraculous act of God is not in the hearers. The distribution of the spirit is specifically said to come upon each of these followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. They’re the ones who receive power and enablement from God, not the people hearing.

So it doesn’t mean that they were and it doesn’t say that they spoke in ecstatic utterances. Rather, it says they spoke in other tongues, other languages as the spirit gives them utterance. So if I understand what this verse means correctly, what we have going on here is we got 120 people or more—and the spirit comes upon them. It could be thousands. We don’t know how many believers there were. We know in the room of 120. We don’t know how many there were here gathered, but in any event, probably at least 120.

The spirit of God comes upon them with mighty force, the power of God. When God comes and makes himself manifest, this is usually accompanied by this tremendous noise throughout the scriptures. God comes in a tremendous blast. He’s powerful. He’s magnificent. And he comes to a purpose, which is to bring separation into the world—to save some and to destroy others. That’s what God comes for: comes to save the elect and to destroy those who are not called by him and are reprobate.

And each of these then people received a gift. They get the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit then gives them the ability to speak in a language which they had never heard before, did not understand. And as a result, then, these people who are gathered from all over the world understand what’s being said because it’s said in their particular tongue. So one guy would be speaking in a language that those from Cyrene would understand. In other words, maybe two or three or four or five—whatever it is—some people would be speaking in that language; others of the group would be speaking in other languages.

Now, it’s interesting there’s a commentator who is not a good commentator—Greg always winces when I use this guy Barclay in his commentary in the book of Acts—but it is an interesting thing he says here. I’ll read a couple of sentences from Barclay’s commentary here. What Luke says about this manifestation of tongues, he says he tells the story as if the disciples suddenly acquired the gift of speaking in foreign languages. As if Barclay says, “It is much more likely that this passage refers to that strange yet coveted gift of speaking with tongues that is ecstatic utterances.” He says the reason for this is that foreign languages were unnecessary. And in a way, that’s true, you know. I mean, as we have English today, which is a common language, they had Aramaic and Greek, and if you could speak in Aramaic and Greek, probably all these Jews who were gathered, all these people from all over the world, could probably understand in those languages.

It wasn’t necessarily really important that foreign languages be used. So Barclay says, “Well, we know that later on these with these ecstatic utterances—that must be what’s going on here. And Luke just has it wrong.” He says, “Luke, a Gentile, had confused speaking with tongues with speaking with other tongues.” Now, the point of this is twofold. One: to show you this is why Greg doesn’t like this particular commentator because the guy always questions scripture with his own knowledge, which is, you know, the height of presumption, of course, say well, you know, scripture just wrong here because obviously the foreign languages weren’t needed.

But I cite it because this man wants it to be ecstatic utterances, and yet he knows the text clearly speaks of the use of foreign languages, and so he has to go out of his way to, you know, malign the text in his desire for it to be foreign languages. Jay Alexander also thinks this is clearly foreign languages, as most commentators I read do believe, and it seems clear from the text itself that’s what’s going on.

And we’ll talk about ecstatic utterances later in the book of Acts, but not today. Jay Alexander makes the same reference, though, that Barclay does: is that it isn’t really necessary for this speaking of foreign tongues. So why is it that these men are given the gift of speaking in foreign languages? Matthew Henry in his commentary on this says the following. It says that they were tongues for from the spirit we have the word of God, and by him Christ would speak to the world. And he gave the spirit to the disciples not only to endue them with knowledge, but to endue them with a power to publish and proclaim to the world what they knew.

And so Matthew Henry is saying, as many of the older commentators did, that what’s going on here is he’s getting the church ready to go into all the world. They’re going to go, they’re going to preach to these people there in Jerusalem, but they’re also going to go out, and they have been given this great gift of God, of this foreign language. They can go to whatever country, Italy or wherever it is, and speak in that language and preach the gospel.

Then there’s some truth to that, of course. I mean, you do have to see it that way. Alexander’s point is that well, it wasn’t really necessary for that. Rather, he says there’s a couple of things being pictured for us here. One: the gift of foreign languages shows it is a sign, as a miraculous thing, that a man who cannot speak the language of particular people could all of a sudden like that speak it and speak it very well—is what the text indicates to us. And so it’s a sign of the miracle of God upon these particular people. And the importance of that is obvious.

Secondly, Jay Alexander says that it’s a sign also that the Gentiles now are going to be converted—because they’re speaking these foreign languages from places where the proselytes are from, those who had converted into the Jewish faith. But the sign, then, in that foreign language means that country itself will hear the gospel. And so it’s a picture for us immediately that the gospel will go into the Gentile nations as well in terms of all the world.

And then third, Alexander points out—and I’ll speak about this more next week—that we have here a reference to Babel. And any good commentator, I think, sees this. Matthew Henry talks about it. Jay Alexander talks about it; other people do. That as at Babel all the languages of the world were divided and tongues were separated, so in Acts, while the tongues are still foreign languages, yet they hear the same manifestation. And so Babel—the confusion of the world—is reversed, so to speak, and now everybody hears the gospel, and they hear it in their own particular language for their particular culture. And so the reference to Babel is quite important.

So what we have here going on, I believe, is the gift of the spirit that then lets these people speak in foreign languages, and these people then who are listening to them hear in their own particular tongues.

Now, before we move on, I just want to point out here that, and Peter will address this, Peter will address the fact that what we see has a reference back to the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven. Peter will say that Jesus has been glorified—as the song we just sang talked about—the glorification of Christ—and gives gifts to men. Peter will say Jesus has been resurrected and he’s ascended to the right hand of the Father. He’s been given this gift that he now gives to his church. And the reason why it happens now is because the Son is glorified now. So it points, as the spirit always does, to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, Jesus himself told the disciples in John chapter 7, he says, “In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood up and cried, saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believeth in, as the scriptures have said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. But this speaking of the spirit, which they that believe on him should receive, for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified.”

So the text tells us explicitly that the gift of the spirit is a demonstration of the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now that has tremendous significance. And when we get around to talking about world missions, I have some quotes from “The Puritan Hope,” and the exaltation of glorification of Jesus Christ was the dynamic factor that led the missionaries of the Reformation—John Calvin and others—to say this gospel be preached forth into all the world, and it will convert the world because Jesus Christ has been glorified. This gift is given; that gift is effectual to bring all enemies, make all his foes his footstool, as Peter also quoted from. So we have this descent of the spirit as the result of the glorification of the Lord Jesus Christ in heaven, and he gives forth, gives to men the great gift of the Holy Ghost.

The Holy Ghost enables his church to preach forth the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, the mighty deeds of Christ, the mighty deeds of God—that is—to all the world, now gathered in the convenience of God at Pentecost, on the day of Pentecost. But a picture, then, of the final harvest to come as that gospel is preached forth through the ages and the whole world is converted. Okay.

Now, this is what happens. And then people have a reaction to this.

We’re now told a little more explicitly there were people from all the world. Says in verse 5 of chapter 2, “There were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven.” Now Alexander says, and he’s right, this is hyperbole. It doesn’t mean that every nation necessarily was represented. It means that essentially most, so it’s a hyperbole to show that all these nations are represented. And he goes on to list them, then, who these nations were.

So we have people gathered from all the world, so to speak, by way of representation, and they then hear these things. And in verse 11, after giving the list of these nations, it says, “We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” That wonderful work in the King James—I don’t know what it says in the New American Standard—but a better word would be magnificent. It has the connotation not just of kind of wonderful but of really remarkable, magnificent works of God. In the Latin Vulgate, the Latin translation of the New Testament, it is referred to as the Magnalia Dei. And I bring that up because later, next week probably for sure, I’ll be reading some quotes that Greg got out of “The Magnalia Christi in America,” Cotton Mather’s book on the great works of God in America—the great works of Christ, that is, in America.

And that’s really essentially what the preaching of the gospel is. It’s the declaration of what God has accomplished through Jesus Christ and the application of that in the history of men. And so that is the same thing that is involved in the preaching of the gospel today.

Well, in any event, these people hear this preaching in their languages, individual languages. They hear the preaching of the wonderful works of God, and they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another, “What meaneth this?” Some people hear the wonderful works of God, and they ask one another, and they ask an explanation of what’s going on. But look at the second reaction.

Others among them said, “These men are full of new wine.” Some people accuse them of drunkenness. And I just point out to you here that we have a divided world. Whenever you preach the gospel, you’re going to have two kinds of response to that. There are people who are going to understand this is the work of God going on, and they’re going to ask more questions for more clarification. Other people are going to reject it and they’re going to scoff at it, and those people are going to be burned up by the fire of God as the gospel is preached forth.

So there’s a reaction given in Acts chapter 2 to this manifestation of the spirit, the visible manifestation relative to the preaching in foreign languages of the great works of God.

Then in response to this, the bulk of the chapter then is Peter’s sermon.

Peter’s sermon to the crowd, those who have ears to hear what God has accomplished through the Lord Jesus Christ. And let’s go through this now. The sermon of Peter beginning in verse 14. Peter stood up with the eleven, lifted up their voice, and said unto them, “Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my word.”

Now, you notice he says two things there. He wants them to know something, and he wants them to hearken unto his words. He’s preaching information. He’s going to give them information, but he’s going to call for a response. And whenever God’s word is applied to a situation, that’s what you do. You bring the light of God’s word, understanding from God’s word, but you elicit, and you make clear to people that you’re doing this—you elicit a response from them. You want them to hearken to it. You want them to do something as a result of it.

And Peter then goes on to preach. He says, “These guys aren’t drunk.” First thing he says is they’re not. He’s answering their objections. These guys are drunk. People saying, he says they’re not drunk. It’s not even the third hour of the day. Now, their day started at 6:00 a.m. So he said it’s not even 9:00 in the morning. And he’s not saying that guys don’t get drunk in the morning. What he’s saying is that on the feast days, the day of Pentecost would be one of these, the holy days of God—the Jews would not drink or eat anything until 10:00 or even 12:00 if you were really into it.

And so he’s saying, “Hey, you know, we’re not even eating or drinking anything here until 10:00.” But he then, after answering their thing, he says, “No, they’re not—they’re not drunk.” He then explains to them what is going on.

And he says, “It shall come to pass in the last days, saith God.”

Well, excuse me, I got ahead of myself. Verse 16, “But this is that which was spoken of by the prophet Joel.”

It’s not drunkenness. It’s what’s spoken of by the prophet Joel. And then he quotes from the book of Joel. “It shall come to pass in the last days. I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. And he’s saying this is what’s going on here. God is pouring out his spirit on all flesh. Now, notice that right away in Peter’s sermon, he turns to the scriptures, the Old Testament scriptures. And it’s very important here to recognize that the place of the spirit of God coming upon Peter in power with authority and giving him enablement to preach the gospel of Christ immediately has Peter correlate to the scriptures.

The spirit comes to speak of Jesus Christ, but it comes to take the word, the scriptures of God, and make them applicable to us and to others. Matthew Henry said that Christ’s scholars never learn above their Bible, and the spirit is given not to supersede the scriptures but to enable us to understand and improve the scriptures. And that’s what Peter is doing here. He understood the relationship of the prophecy of Joel to the contemporary event of which he was speaking. And so he speaks to it. He says it’s not this, but it is this. This is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel. And he says that the prophet Joel said that in the last days I will pour out my spirit on all people. And so we have a reference here to the last days.

And I just want to talk about that for a little bit. Most of us were raised in dispensationalist churches that talked about the last days as somehow the days that we’re in.