this title of this book when
it says the Acts of the Apostles, we understand it, these were
things that they did, but they did them by the grace of and
the enablement of the Spirit of God. We look through the book
of Acts, it covers about 30 to 35 years. is about the number of years
that the Book of Acts is concerned with. And all that these men
did, Peter, James, John, of course later the apostle, the great
apostle Paul, And his ministry covers over half the book. But all that they did, they did
because God used them and God enabled them to preach the gospel. Folks, we can't do anything without
the Lord. Without God, we fail. The Savior said to his disciples,
without me, you can do nothing. And I'll tell you, the quicker
we understand that and realize that, the better off we'll be.
And that's not only standing up here preaching. I realize
this without the Lord. I can't do anything this morning.
But you, as you sit there, as you listen, or you watch and
listen on the internet this morning, you can't do anything apart from
the Lord either. We can't worship. Worship is
foreign to us. To render honor and glory to
God? We're just not made that way. We want to render honor and glory
to ourselves. We feel like we're self-sufficient
and that everything revolves around us, but it doesn't. Listen,
we're here to worship God. It's not about you, it's not
about me, it's about God. It's about His glory. It's about
His honor. If we can understand this, we
won't receive anything today. We won't understand anything. We won't perceive anything. We won't grasp anything unless
God shows us. If we could understand that,
if God would really reinforce that to our hearts, then we'd
be asking God, Would you teach me then? Would you speak to me?
Lord, this gospel, this gospel, I'm not naturally drawn to it. Because I'm self-centered and
so are you. And the message of grace, the
message of this great salvation all in Christ Jesus, that He
accomplished everything. That this is His work. If we don't see that, and if
God doesn't give us understanding of it, we're just not going to
make any progress in the right direction. These are the acts of the apostles
by the enablement of the Spirit of God. And one of the things that I
noticed as I read this passage of scripture, and even as Ron
read it just a few minutes ago, something kind of jumped out
at me. That's in verse three, and I'll
give this to you even before we begin to go sort of verse
by verse here. Acts chapter two, verse three,
and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire,
and it sat upon each of them. Don't miss that little word,
each. It isn't that the Spirit of God
came upon that congregation, what we assume, 120 people, that
He came upon them in a general way. But He came upon them, each
one of them. That's what we need there. We
need the Lord to deal with each of us. Lord, speak to me. Lord, exalt Christ Jesus in my
heart. Oh, Spirit of grace, would you
teach me? And would you teach this man
and this woman and I can go all the way around this auditorium.
The Lord has got to teach each of us. We don't want the Spirit
of God to work in a general way, but in a specific way. in a particular
way. You know, the Bible is about
the grace of God to particular people. These people were appointed
unto God's salvation before He made the world. He chose us in
Christ, each of us. Each of us. If you're a believer,
He chose you. And then the Lord Jesus came
and He died a particular death for a particular people. He died
for each of those the Father gave Him in the covenant of grace.
And the Spirit of God comes to us through the preaching of the
gospel and He deals with us individually, each of us, as it pleases Him,
whenever it pleases Him. But this is the point. The Spirit
of God came upon these dear people of the Lord, upon each of them. That's what we want. Lord, come
and speak to me. Lord, come and speak to this
one. Speak to this one. And this should
be your desire right now. Lord, here I am. Empty me of self. Empty me of
self-righteousness. Empty me of all thoughts about
personal goodness and worthiness. Oh God, deal with me. and empty
me, because only as I'm emptied can I be filled. And fill me
with your love, and fill me with your grace, and fill me with
faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, who alone accomplished redemption. Lord, deal with me. Would you
ask God to do that? Then ask God to be pleased to
speak to your neighbor. and ask God to be pleased to
speak to me and through me. You see, maybe, maybe the reason
we have not is because we ask not. Isn't that what the Lord
said? He said you have not because
you ask not. He said ask. Ask, and it shall
be given. Well, Lord, I'm asking. Lord,
I'm asking. Seek, and ye shall find. Lord,
I'm seeking. Knock, and it shall be opened.
Lord, I'm knocking. Lord, I'm just a mercy beggar. And so are all of these dear
people here and those who are watching. We're mercy beggars. Oh, God, speak in mercy to me. into each one of these. That's
one of the first things that jumps out to me from this passage
of scripture. Now, you know that our Lord Jesus,
back in Acts, the first chapter, he said to his disciples, he
said, I want you to wait, wait for the coming of the Spirit
of God. He had given them a great commission. I read to you there from the
book of Matthew, he said, all power is given unto me, that's
all authority is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Now go
ye therefore in all the world and preach the gospel. But he
said, I want you to wait till the coming of the Holy Ghost. I want you to tarry. That's what
he says in the book of Luke chapter 24. He says, just tarry. You
know what that word tarry means? Sit down and wait. Just sit down
and wait. And I feel quite certain that
every day that they waited as the people of God, they asked
God, Lord, will the Spirit of God come today? And they'd ask
one another, you think it'll be today? And these men whom God gave the
gospel to, these men who were instructed in the faith of the
God's elect, these men who knew the very truth of God, these
men who had been tutored and instructed by the king himself,
They sat at his feet nearly three years, and they were ready to
go, ready to preach, anxious. The Lord had prepared them. They
could have no better teacher than the sovereign Savior. He
was getting them ready for their jobs. They could go out and preach
the gospel. After all, for those three years
nearly that they followed Him, you know, He was the one who
did most of the miracles, He did most of the preaching, all
of those things that fell on Him, but He's getting them ready
for their ministry. For their ministry, because He
said, He said, I send you forth as sheep among wolves. I'm sending
you forth because I'm going back to the Father. So he's getting
them ready and now he's gone. Before he left, he said, you
go out and you preach. But you gotta wait. And he didn't tell them how long.
Just wait. It's very difficult to wait,
isn't it? When you're anxious to get something done, You're
anxious to go forth. And yet the commander in general
says, not yet. Not yet. And so every day, I'm sure they'd
offer this prayer, Lord, will you send your spirit today? Will
you send your spirit today? They were anxious to begin their
ministry. And so we get to Acts chapter two and verse one. And
when the day of Pentecost was fully come. That just simply
means it began, it began at the evening hour when the sun had
set on the previous day and now it's the next day and it's fully
come. Pentecost was fully come. This was a Jewish feast, you
know that, and of course you know that Pentecost means the
50th. The 50th. The 50th day. This was a feast. A feast ordained
by God, celebrated by the Jews, and this was 50 days after the
Passover. It was held at the beginning
of the first harvest, that is the harvest of wheat. The wheat
was to be gathered into the garner. This was a time of rejoicing,
a time of thanksgiving, as the Jewish people acknowledged the
goodness and the kindness and the generosity of the Lord in
blessing them with another harvest. What can we learn from this right
off the bat? Well, we learned that we should
acknowledge that all mercies come from God, and we're fully
dependent upon him for our daily gifts. This is what the Jews
are doing. They're thanking God, acknowledging the fact that God
gave him the harvest of wheat. We're to be a thankful people.
David said in Psalm 100, enter into his gates with thanksgiving. If you can enter into the gates
of God, enter in with thanksgiving. He says, and into his courts
with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless
his name. Psalm 107, 22 says, and let them
sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoicing. David said in Psalm 116 and verse
17, I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Here's what the Apostle Paul
says in 1 Thessalonians chapter five. In everything give thanks. In everything give thanks. For
this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. In everything give thanks. What
you deem to be the good things and what you deem to be the bad
things. in everything give thanks because
it's the will of God. James says every good gift and
every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father
of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow
of turning. Be thankful. And did not the
great apostle Paul say, thanks be unto God for his unspeakable
gift. Give thanks to God. This is what
Pentecost was about. It's about thanking God. It's
about rejoicing in the goodness of God. Can you not rejoice in
the goodness of God? Do you? Certainly in the temporal
mercies that God has given you, would you not be thankful to
God? Will you not acknowledge that all the mercies that you
enjoy every day come forth from the throne of God? Will you not
acknowledge that? Will you not bless Him for the
good things He sent to you? Life, whatever measure of health
you have, whatever measure of prosperity you have, will you
not bless God for it? And do you not know, do you not
understand, will you not trace all of these mercies back to
the very throne of God? And then the spiritual blessings,
and these are the real treasured gifts from God. This salvation
that we enjoy, this reconciliation, righteousness in Christ Jesus,
forgiveness of all of our sins. Will you not and are you not
full of thanksgiving to God for all of these mercies to you?
For His grace to you in Christ Jesus? And will you not echo those words,
thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift for Christ Jesus Himself? Are you not thankful for the
life of God and the soul? You've been regenerated. You're
not dead in sins anymore. There was a time when the gospel
of God's grace didn't move you. Forgiveness of all of your sins. Well, that was a passing interest
to you. Standing righteous before God
really meant nothing to you, but now you stand in the beauties
and the perfections of Christ Jesus. Oh, God help us to be
thankful. God help us to be thankful. You
see, this day of Pentecost was a day of thanksgiving, a time
to be grateful. So that's the first significant
thing about Pentecost. It was a time of thanksgiving.
But here's the second thing. The Feast of Pentecost was more
than a feast of gratitude. Being held at the very beginning
of a wheat harvest, it typified the beginning of a spiritual
harvest. The great in-gathering of redeemed
sinners. by the regenerating power of
the Spirit of God. And I'll enlarge upon that a
little bit later. But you see, Christ, our Passover,
has died. He died 50 days before this. That great sacrifice for sin,
by one offering, He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified. Christ has died. He died to satisfy
God's justice and God's law. It was a legal matter. And I
know we experienced salvation and I'm thankful for that. I'm
thankful for the regenerating power of God. But there was a
legal transaction that took place at the cross. It was between
God the Son and God the Father. And our Lord Jesus was redeeming
us. He was reconciling us. He was
making us righteous. He was putting away all of our
sins. He was doing business with God
for us. That's why we read in 1 Corinthians
4, Christ, our Passover, is sacrificed for us. That's what the Passover was
all about, the death of the lamb, a male of the first year without
spot, without blemish. That lamb that was inspected,
that lamb who was then slaughtered, and the blood caught in a basin,
and with a bunch of hyssop, a father went outside and put blood over
the door and on the side posts, because God said, I'm coming
through Egypt. And only those who had the door
marked with blood, only the firstborn of that household is going to
live. Otherwise, I'm going to get death at the house. And the Israelites, believing
God, did what he said. They put up the lamb, got the
proper lamb, went through the procedure as God had laid it
out, because God said, when I see the blood, I will pass over you. And that was 50 days. This Passover
celebration and feast was 50 days before Pentecost. Our Lord Jesus has died. He's
offered to God that which fully put away the sins of all those
that are represented. Oh, we believe in the accomplishment
of salvation at the cross, don't we? And the Lord Jesus, his name
Jesus means he shall save his people from their sins. Did he
save his people? The answer is yes. He did save
his people from our sins. He did it when he died upon the
cross of Calvary. That is Passover. And now 50
days have gone by. And all of the saints of God
there that God had called together, apparently 120, they were in
an upper room. It says in verse one, with one
accord and one place. I hope we're all in one accord
this morning. It is for certain we're in one
place. But are we in one accord? Are you with us? Oh, I know you're
here physically. But are we in one accord? Do
we have one mind? One heart? Are we in unity about
honoring and glorifying and magnifying Christ Jesus the Lord? Are we
in union? Are we together on this to worship
God only? to give God all the glory and
all of the honor. Are we in one accord? Surely
there's no division in here. Surely there's no one who would
want to have man's will bragged on. Or for me to get up here
and say, now God has done all He can do and now it's up to
you? No, there's nobody in here that believes that way, that
wants to hear any of that kind of tomfoolery. We want to hear
the Lord exalted. We want to hear the Lord praised.
We want the Lord to be lifted up. More of Christ and less of
us. That's what we want. We want
to be in one accord, of one mind, united in goal, united in heart,
united in voice, united in mind, united in purpose, to glorify
the God that made us, and the God that saved us by His grace.
These people work together. Together. One accord. No fussing. No fighting. No division. Sounds good, doesn't
it? And nobody quarreling. Nobody
got an axe to grind. Nobody being, insisting that
you better dot every I and cross every T exactly as I do or you're
not in the kingdom of God. No, I tell you, we better dot
every I and cross every T that God has. I want to be in agreement with
Him. And then we all want to agree together that what God
says is right and what we think is wrong. I had a man tell me not too long
ago, he said of a certain person, he said, he lied to me. And I
said, I got news for you. The Bible says all men are liars. We all are liars. There's only
one truth. That's the truth of God. The
Lord Jesus said, I am the way, I am the truth, I am the life.
No man cometh unto the Father but by me. So here, these saints
of God are together. Look with me in verse two. And
suddenly, and suddenly, they'd been waiting. They'd been waiting. And now, something's gonna happen. And you know what? It's gonna
happen very publicly. The death of the Lord Jesus Christ,
it happened in a very public way, didn't it? You remember
when Paul was speaking to King Agrippa? And he said to the king,
he said, these things weren't done in a corner. The death of
the Lord Jesus is a very public thing. Now the Jews didn't want
it to be like that. They said, not on the feast day,
not at Passover. We don't want it to happen when
there are a lot of people around. But that's when God had ordained
that His Lamb die. And He died when, in public view,
thousands of people witnessed His death. There's no doubt that
Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. Men saw Him. Men witnessed it. The Jews and the Gentiles as
well, and those who were passing by. That happened in a very public
way. And now, 50 days later, when
the Spirit of God is given, guess what? It's going to be a very
public thing also. Just like men will be made to
acknowledge that Christ Jesus died upon the cross of Calvary,
they will also be made to acknowledge that the Spirit of God was given
by the grace of God in great power and authority at the time
of Pentecost. You see, the Lord Jesus had been
sacrificed to the justice of God. The bread of heaven had
come down and given Himself the life of His people. He's the
firstfruits of them that slept. He's been raised from the dead.
And now at the very beginning of this chapter, we see another
great event, the giving of the Holy Spirit. in all of His power,
in all of His authority, and in all of His grace, and this
also is a very public thing. And men will know that which
happened, happened due to the purpose of God being fulfilled.
As we shall see as we look at this again this evening, when
people and the community began to see what was going on. Some
of them began to mock and say, these guys are drunk. What in
the world's happened with them? And Peter said, these guys aren't
drunk. This is the Lord's doing. The
Lord's doing. You see, let me tell you this.
In the Passover feast, we see the Lamb of God suffering and
dying. In the Pentecost feast, we see
the Lamb of God exalted. We see Him proclaimed to be the
Lord. So suddenly, suddenly, there
came, watch it, a sound from heaven as of a rushing, irresistible,
unstoppable, mighty wind and it filled all the house where
they were sitting. Suddenly, the Spirit of God came
upon that place in unusual power, like a rushing, mighty wind. And I wonder if the disciples
of the Lord didn't go back in their minds several months when
the Lord Jesus was speaking to a man by the name of Nicodemus.
Go back to John chapter three. I wonder if they didn't think
about this as they heard the sound of a rushing, mighty wind. I wonder if they didn't think
about this very passage of scripture, John chapter three, when our
Lord Jesus was teaching Nicodemus about the necessity of the new
birth. He said in verse seven, marvel
not that I said unto thee, ye must be born again. And then
he said this, the wind, the wind bloweth. where it listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof. And I'll tell you, these disciples
in Acts chapter two, they heard the sound of it. They heard the sound of it, but
canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth. So is every
one that is born of the Spirit. The Spirit of God like a rushing
mighty wind, rushing, unstoppable, can't be hindered, mighty, full
of strength to accomplish the purpose of God. And it went forth. And you see, that's the way it
is with the work of the Spirit. You can't make Him work. Those
men and women, They waited, they waited ten days from our Lord's
ascension to the giving of the Holy Spirit. And they couldn't
make the Spirit come. They couldn't force Him to appear.
They waited, they tarried, they prayed. Lord, when will you give
us your Spirit? But they couldn't make Him appear.
You know when God gave the Spirit? when it pleased Him to do so. When it pleased Him to do so.
And this wind, it blows where it wants to. There you sit. And the wind of
God's grace, the wind of God's Spirit blows to you, blows in
your heart and breathes in you the breath of life, the breath
of spiritual life. You didn't bring it about, you
didn't cause it, but you can't stop it either. You can't make
the Spirit of God work, and when He goes to work, you can't stop
Him either. You can't hinder Him. Our God
is sovereign in every aspect of this salvation, and when He
will work in a man or a woman's heart, no power in heaven, earth,
or hell can stop it. It's a rushing, mighty wind of
grace, of life, of salvation. God does the work, but you can't
force Him to work. And you can't stop Him from working.
You can't hinder the work of God. Isn't that good to know? A man told me recently, he said,
you know, I think about my days back in false religion when I
preached a false gospel. He said, I've wept over those
days. And I said, I understand. There's a time when I preached
a false gospel, too. But I said, yeah. And while I
regret all that I said and all that I did in those days, I'm
thankful for this. I couldn't hinder the purpose
of God. I couldn't damage what God had set out to accomplish. And you can't either. You can't
either. The Spirit of God, all of a sudden,
He came. A rushing, unstoppable, mighty
wind. Thank God there's somebody that's
got a will stronger than our will, who makes us willing to be saved
his way by grace through the substitutionary death of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And so I'm sure that these men
remembered that passage and that occasion when the Lord Jesus
talked about the wind blowing where it wants to. That's the
sovereign aspect of the work of the Spirit. He works in one,
He doesn't work with another. He works with you and maybe the
person right beside of you. They may feel no breeze at all. That's God's business, isn't
it? I'm just thankful he blew my
way. It's like the scripture says
about Adam. The Lord God formed man out of
the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath
of life. And the Spirit of God, to those
of you who love this gospel of substitution and satisfaction,
you believe because the Spirit of Grace breathed into you the
breath of God. God said to Ezekiel, come on
out here in the desert, let me show you a battlefield now filled
with Dry bones. He said, I want you to call upon
the bones. He called upon the bones. And
then the Lord said, now call upon the wind. Because the bones
are not going to come back to life. You can cause a rattling
and you can cause a staring. but you're not gonna cause any
life to come into them apart from the wind. So after you've
called upon the bones, then call upon the wind. And that's what
we do for all of us, for our children, our grandchildren,
people who mean a lot to us, people that we want to see saved
by the grace of God. We call upon them. I'm calling
upon dry bones now. You've gotta hear the gospel. And you might reason this way,
why preach to dead bones? I'm sure that's what people said
to Ezekiel, why are you out there preaching to these dead bones?
And that made just about as much sense to the natural man as us
preaching to those who have spiritual dead bones. But we preach Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. Every time we get together, we're
exalting the Lord Jesus. And then we call upon the wind,
which is the same word as spirit. We call upon the spirit. Breathe
upon the slain. We die. We died in the Garden
of Eden. We died in that battle of man
against God. We died. And we're dry bones. We have no life. Oh, wind, breathe
upon these dead that they may live. And if the Spirit of God
breathes upon us, we'll live. We're totally dependent upon
Him. We're shut up to the sovereign grace of God. Preacher, the way
you're saying it, we have no hope in ourselves. Right! You're
getting the idea. You've backed us into a corner.
We have no one who can save us but God alone. Right again! Only He can do the work. And the Spirit of God came in
like a rushing mighty wind. It filled all the house. And
then look at verse 3, And there appeared unto them Flames of
fire, an individual fire upon each of them. It sat upon each
of them. Oh God, send the fire of your
presence. When you think of a fire, don't
you think of God? Our God is a consuming fire,
a consuming fire. And it's set upon each of them
to consume, to consume all hopes of salvation due to self. To burn it all up, burn it all
up, Lord. And warm us by your grace. Thaw
out my cold heart. Thaw it out. And verse four says,
they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. They began to speak
with other tongues. As the Spirit gave them utterance,
they began to speak the gospel in other languages that they'd
never studied those languages. And this was the amazing thing
to the people who heard them. Look down here in verse six.
Now when this was noised abroad that these men and women were
speaking of the Lord Jesus Christ in languages Identifiable language,
this is not gibberish that they were preaching and talking about.
This was the thing, look at verse six, when this was noised abroad,
the multitude came together and were confounded because that
every man heard them speak in his own language. What was the
gift of tongues? Here's the gift of tongue. In
the Bible, when we read about the word tongue, it either means
this, meaning our mouths that we use, the tongue, or languages. That's right, isn't it? That's
what it means. This is not some kind of heavenly
gibberish that nobody understands but God. This was the declaration
of the Gospel of God in a language that had not been previously
known but was all of a sudden known and then declared, the
Gospels declared in that language. And it says in verse 7, they
were all amazed, they marveled. They said to one another, behold,
aren't these just Galileans, uneducated? Galileans, and how
do we hear every man in our own language in which we were born?
And in verse 11 it says, we do hear them speak in our tongues
the wonderful works of God, the work of creation, the work of
divine Providence, the work of grace, the work of salvation,
and it's amazing! I understand the message! I understand
the message. I know there are those today
in the so-called charismatic movement, and they claim to have
the ability to speak in some kind of heavenly and they say,
you know, that's proof to other Christians that I got the power
of the Spirit of God. But let me show you this passage,
and then I'll quick, my time's back on. Look at 1 Corinthians
chapter 14. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 14, and verse 22. 1 Corinthians
14, 22. And you may have people in your
family, people who are friends of yours, people that you work
with perhaps, and they are wrapped up in the Pentecostal movement
or the charismatic movement, and they're all the time asking
you, do people at your church speak in tongues? Well, you know,
it's a sign of spirituality. It's a sign of growth in godliness. It's a sign of the second work
of the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 14.22, where for
languages or tongues are for a sign, they're for an evidence,
they are for a proof. Not to them that believe. Not
to them that believe, because you see, we've already been convinced. We've already been convinced
this gospel is the truth. God is God. I'm a fallen sinner. Christ died for sinners. There's
no hope except in Him. His blood and His righteousness
alone. I'm already convinced. I don't
need to hear anybody speak in another language. God has taught me the language
of grace. But watch this. It's not a sign
to them that believe. but to them that believe not.
These men went forth preaching in Acts chapter two. And it was
a sign and evidence that God was with them, that they had
God's message. And here, you know, Ron read
to us about people from what, about 15 different languages
represented here. And here are men who went forth
preaching the gospel in these various languages. And it was,
the amazing thing was they understood. They understood. God sent it forth in a way that
they could comprehend. And we ask the Spirit of God,
give us understanding of this message, because I'll tell you
this, Unless God makes this Gospel
understandable to us, it will be like another tongue, another
language. It will be a foreign language
to us. But once the Lord teaches us in the heart, we'll understand
the language of grace. We'll understand the language
of salvation is of the Lord. Well, I'm going to pick up where
we left off there. I'll pick that up tonight.