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Good Tuesday morning to you my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
When is the last time you found yourself ‘amazed and perplexed’ with something remarkable and wonderful, yet confusing at the same time? Has this ever happened to you in your relationship with God?
I find the Bible filled with stories of people who had such amazing experiences with God they were both ‘amazed and perplexed’. How about Moses at the burning bush, or Joshua as the walls of Jericho fell, Daniel in the lions den surrounded by hungry lions with their mouths closed, or Daniel’s three friends walking around in Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace?
Today let’s look together at Acts 2:5-13 and we’ll see it happen with a large group of people, many of them close friends and family of Jesus, in the days after He left this earth, returning to heaven. Come with me, let’s join the gathering of about 120 people who have been spending the 10 days since Jesus’ ascension miracle, talking about their experiences with Jesus, praying for God to guide them in what they should do next, and of course sharing some meals together. This is happening during the Jewish “Feast of Weeks” festival so Jerusalem is packed to overflowing with pilgrims from all over the world. The “Walking with Jesus” yesterday gave us a good explanation of what Jerusalem was like in these days. Can you picture it?
Dr. Luke tells us in Acts 2:1-4 an amazing miracle has taken place in the gathering of these 120 followers of Jesus. He writes: “a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were…and they saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues (languages) as the Spirit enabled them.” Jesus had been very clear. He’d told them that He would be leaving them, returning to heaven, but He would not leave them alone. God the Father would send the Holy Spirit of God to be with them, another ‘Counselor’. (John 14) Jesus had told them to wait in Jerusalem for this great gift from God. But Jesus did not say when or how the Holy Spirit would come. (Acts 1:4-8) It was undoubtedly a remarkable and probably frightening experience!
Look at what Luke writes next: “Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed they asked: ‘are not these men who are speaking Galileans? Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language?…Amazed and perplexed they asked one another, ‘What does this mean’? We hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues (languages)! (Acts 2:5-12)
If you’ll look closely at vs. 9,10,11 you will find a listing of some of the ethnicities of the people and some of the areas from which these people had come to Jerusalem. If you take out a map you’ll see the area described stretches even beyond the Roman Empire to include what we know as Europe, Central Asia, the middle east, north Africa, and even regions east of modern Israel!
This leaves us with three really important questions…
1. WHAT was actually happening here? How could simple fishermen and others from Galilee speak in languages they’d never learned or even never heard before?
2. WHY was this taking place? What purpose could God have in this amazing and perplexing miracle?
3. Was this a one time miracle or some type of new phenomenon which God was intending for the future for all followers of Jesus Christ?
Let’s unpack these questions one at a time, are you ready?
What was actually happening here? God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son of God were fulfilling the promises Jesus had made. The Holy Spirit of God was being sent from heaven, to reside on earth, IN those people who fully trust in Jesus Christ to be their Savior. This event was the Holy Spirit’s initial coming in undeniable and unforgettable power, just as Jesus had promised. From this moment on, every person who trusts Jesus Christ for their salvation will also receive the Holy Spirit into their lives. Not normally in such a visible, dramatic way, but in reality none the less. This Holy Spirit LIVES within every authentic, born again, follower of Jesus Christ, beginning with this event.
Also, God was giving to these normal Jewish people, most of whom lived in the Galilee region of Israel and had believed in and been followers of Jesus… a miraculous, specific empowering, and anointing by the Holy Spirit of God, for a very strategic purpose on this special, historic, Pentecost day in Jerusalem. This miracle was the supernatural gift of languages. These people suddenly began to speak languages they did not know, understand or in some cases had never even heard before! Now that is amazing and perplexing.
Being bi-lingual myself, I can understand how this may have worked. I think in English, since it is my mother tongue, but when I am with Haitian people, I speak Haitian Creole with them, because I learned their language as boy living in Haiti. So I think in one language, and simultaneously translate what I want to say into the language which my listeners will understand. But of course in order to do so, I must know both Haitian Creole and English. Perhaps many of you have the same ability. Do you see this my friends?
But for these Galilean Jewish Christians, the languages which came out of their mouths, were foreign to them. They had never spoken them before and may not have even understood them. Thus it was God who moved their minds to think the words, and moved their tongues to form sounds, which were languages known by the pilgrims who had come to Jerusalem from far away places. Do you see God’s strategic purpose here? The Gospel truth about Jesus Christ, the Messiah, was being proclaimed in many different languages, to Jewish people, from all over the world, all at the same time, in one place, Jerusalem, on this Jewish festival of Pentecost!
Why was this taking place, is our second question. Jesus had made it clear to His friends. “As you are going through life, make disciples of all peoples…” (Matt. 28:18-20) “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, all Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8) Jesus had completed His redemption mission, and now the good news, the Gospel of what Jesus had accomplished, was to be communicated to all people, in every place around the world, in every language. This Pentecost event ‘kick started’ the global spread of the Gospel in dramatic fashion. Normally it requires several years for a missionary to prepare, leave home, move to another country, learn the language and culture well enough to finally be effective in communicating the Gospel of Jesus to the people of that foreign place. Here, God did it in a few moments and with many different people groups, from all over the world, all at the same time!
Within a few days these Jewish pilgrims all returned to their home countries, in some cases many hundred miles away, and what do you suppose they told their friends as soon as they arrived home? Do you see that within weeks of this event, the Gospel of Jesus Christ was being told to people all around the world of that time, by people who had first hand experience of the power of God displayed at Pentecost in Jerusalem! This is why no matter how far Paul or Peter, or any of the disciples traveled, they often found someone who had already heard of Jesus, from this Pentecost day miracle.
Was this a one time miracle or some new phenomenon God was intending for the future followers of Jesus? is our third question. We know it was NOT a phenomenon God intends for ALL followers of Jesus, for even in the ongoing story of Acts, in the months which followed this event, many people trusted Jesus Christ and were authentically born again, but did not receive a special anointing of the Holy Spirit for speaking in languages they did not know.
This was a unique, one time event, especially considering its magnitude. We have no other Biblical record of a violent wind from heaven and tongues of fire settling on people as the Holy Spirit came upon them. We also have no other record of such a sizeable gathering of people receiving this miraculous languages gift all at the same time.
There is a similar experience in Acts 10 when a group of Gentile worshipers of God believe in Jesus Christ and receive the Holy Spirit. This was a precedent for it broke the barrier and opened the door for Gentiles to become authentic, born-again, followers of Jesus, just as Jews had become. Similar to the Jewish Christians in Jerusalem at Pentecost, these Gentile believers in Jesus also began speaking in languages which were not their mother tongues. Since Peter and ‘some of the brothers from Joppa’ (Acts 10:23), had come and shared the good news of Jesus with them in Caesarea, we presume these were Greek speaking Gentiles who suddenly began to speak in Aramaic or Hebrew which Peter and his friends would have understood. This moment validated that what God was doing with Gentiles was the same thing He had done with Jews in Jerusalem.
It’s important to note that the special gift of languages given in Acts 2 were ALL recognizable, understandable languages known by the listeners but not by the speakers. This is why the Apostle Paul insists that an interpreter or translator must be present to give validity and understanding whenever God gives this languages gift to a person. (1 Corinthians 14) “Unless you speak intelligible words with your mouth, how will anyone know what you are saying? There are all sorts of languages in the world and none of them is without meaning… If anyone speaks in a tongue (language)…someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the one speaking in the unrecognized tongue (language) should keep quite.” (1 Cor. 14:8,10,27,28)
My friends, over the next few days I’m excited to trace with you, step by step, the remarkable events of what took place in the days and weeks following Jesus’ departure, His return to heaven, beginning here with this miracle on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem. For today, I hope you’ve gained a clear understanding of what God did and why, and how it was evidence of the arrival of the Holy Spirit, and His power unleashed into the lives of people who fully trusted Jesus, and what God strategically accomplished in this unique moment of history.
If this raises questions or comments you’d like to make, we welcome that! My partners and I have designed our web page to be interactive, so please contact us, we are always delighted to engage with you.
Almighty God we praise and thank You for the miracle of the arrival of the Holy Spirit that Pentecost day in Jerusalem. Please help us to fully understand what YOU want us to learn about what is recorded for us regarding this ‘amazing and perplexing’ event.
Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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