All right, here's Matthew chapter
2 here. Let me read these first 13 verses. And when the day of Pentecost
was fully come, they were all with 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 a fire, and it
set 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 there were dwelling at Jerusalem
Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now when
this was noised abroad, 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 which speak Galileans? And how here
we every man in our own tongue were in we were born, Parthians,
and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers of Mesopotamia,
and Judea, and Cappadocia, and Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and
Pamphylia, and Egypt, and in the parts of Libya, about Cyrene,
and strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes. Greeks and Arabians,
we do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works
of God. And they were all amazed, were
in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others, mocking,
said, These men are full of new wine. I told them my message this evening.
Pentecost will fully come. Pentecost will fully come. Now
remember, our Savior told these disciples to tarry in Jerusalem
until the Holy Ghost should come upon them, until the Holy Ghost
would come, whom he had promised the Father would send. And he
says that after he had come, they would be witnesses unto
him, witnesses of his power, witnesses of his resurrection,
witnesses of his miracles, and that's why they wrote the New
Testament, to be witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ. And they
needed power to be witnesses unto Him. And the only way they
could be witnesses unto Him and have the power was if the Holy
Ghost comes upon them. They didn't have power to bear
witness to Him when they came to take Him in the garden, did
they? They didn't have power to bear
witness to Him when He stood before Pilate. They didn't have
power to bear witness to Him when He appeared before Herod.
They didn't have power to witness unto him when he stood before
that hall and mob, and they cried, crucify him. And they didn't
have power to even believe his resurrection. When Mary and the
other ladies came back and said, you know, he's not there, he's
risen. Two angels told us he's not there. They went over there
and they doubted it. They seemed as if they were using
idol terror. So they needed power. They needed
power. And Pentecost here is, Pentecost
is, is a feast. It's a feast. When Pentecost
was fully come, when the time of the feast was fully come,
the Jewish day was from 6 o'clock in the evening until 6 o'clock
the next evening. And here, it was when it was
fully come, it was in the day, and it was the day of that Pentecostal
feast. And there were three great feasts
in Israel. And all the males of Israel were
supposed to go to Jerusalem during these feasts. That's why there
were so many Jews and so many people in Jerusalem at this time. The first great feast that they
had was the Passover. The roasted lamb and the unleavened
bread. That lasted seven days. They
put out all the leaven. They had unleavened bread with
the Passover. Now that was a feast. And then
they had the Feast of the Tabernacles. That's where the people, because
they went into wilderness and dwelt in tents, dwelt in booths,
there was a certain time every year when they would build them
little booths and they'd live under these little booths as
to show them that they were strangers and pilgrims without a place
to dwell. And then Pentecost is called the Feast of Weeks.
It's 50 days. 50 days. That's why Pentecost
means 50. 50 days after the Passover was
slain, after the Passover was offered. It was 50 days to the
day that they'd have the Feast of Weeks. And the Feast of Weeks
was the completion of the grain harvest. You can see that in
Exodus 34 if you want to read it. But that was when they would
come and they'd bring in the harvest, and it was the Feast
of Weeks, and they'd bring in the grain, and they would offer
the firstfruits as the Feast of Weeks. And so here there was
a great harvest, and what an appropriate thing, but it was
the feast of weeks, the bringing in of the harvest, the rejoicing
of God's blessing, the harvest, and they brought in the grain,
they've completed it, they've brought it in, it's been in the
storehouse, and now it's time to rejoice at the end of the
year, of the grain, and rejoice in the feast. And thus there
was a great harvest this day. This day. Not of grain. but of
souls. Three thousand souls were brought
into the kingdom of God. Our Lord said, lift up your eyes
and behold, the fields are white, ready to harvest. Well, the harvest
started right here. I mean, it started greatly. He
brought in a bunch. Brought in a bunch. And let me
tell you something about the coming of the Holy Spirit by
way of introduction here. That's what's happening here.
When the Pentecost was fully come, suddenly there was a sound
from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. And they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost set upon them
here. Now, the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost was
a once-and-for-all event. There's never going to be another
Pentecost. I don't care how many Pentecosts there are. I don't
care how many people call themselves Pentecostals. There was only
one Pentecost. Only one, and that was this day.
As far as this event took place, the character of what took place
on that day, that was the once and only time that had ever happened.
Never going to be happening again. This will never fall on everybody
again like it did this day. This was an unusual event. This
was an event that our Lord promised, says the Holy Ghost will come
upon you and He'll come. And so here comes the Holy Ghost
and it's a once and not to ever be done again. I don't care how
many people speak in tongues. I don't care how many run out.
I don't care how many people have hands laid on them. It don't
make any difference. This is a once in all event. Never going to happen again.
No more Pentecost. People praying, we need another
Pentecost. We're not going to have it. You know what? We need more than anything exactly
what happened when the Spirit came upon these people. Look
what it says down there in verse 11. Greeks and Arabians said,
we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of
God. We need men and women that's telling about the wonderful works
of God. What God's done. What God did
for us in Christ. That's what the Holy Ghost does
when He comes. He begins to talk about what God did. And so here's,
it's like the incarnation of God in Christ. That's the only
one that's going to happen. That's only going to happen when
Christ was born, virgin born. That's never going to happen
again. His death is never going to happen again. If a man can
be lost again after Christ has died for him and he can fall
away again, Christ would have to be crucified again in order
to redeem him again. That's why in whom he redeemed,
he's going to bring to himself and they're redeemed. They were
redeemed before they were born. And so you said, here's resurrection.
Not going to be no more resurrection. And all this is once in a lifetime.
These are one time events. Never going to happen again.
And Pentecost was one of them. So let's look at the coming of
the Holy Ghost when Pentecost was fully come. It says in verse
1, And when the day of Pentecost was fully come. When was the
time? When the day of Pentecost was
fully come. And I'll tell you something about fully come. Everything
that happens, happens when the time is fully come. Nothing is
going to happen before, nothing is going to happen after. God
has a time and a season for everything on this earth. Every event, every
minute detail has a time. I have a time allotted to me
on this earth. And when my time is full, I'm
done. Ain't that right? And when, there's a time for
everything on this world. And that, look, let me show you
over here in Galatians chapter 4. It was God's time, that's
what it was. He said when the time was fully
come, that means it was God's time. The time that God had appointed
from all eternity for this to happen. The time had come for
the Spirit to come upon the Lord's people as He had promised to
Abraham. This was God's time. Look here
in Galatians chapter 4, verse 4. And here we go again, when
the fullness of time was come, when it was fully time, what
happened? God sent forth His Son, made
of a woman, made under the law, when the time was fully come,
to do what? To redeem them that were under
the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And when
the time was fully come, He sends forth the Spirit of His Son into
our hearts, and we cry, Abba, Father. That's what happened
here. And oh, beloved God, God in what He wanted to say here
in verse 7 of chapter 1 of Acts, When they said, are you going
to restore the kingdom to us again at this time? He said,
it's not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the
Father hath in His own power. So you see, the time is in God's
hand. How many times has He mentioned
a time, a times, and a half time? Now, I don't understand what
all that means, but I do know this. When the time has fully
come, it's going to happen. We ain't going to rush it. We're
not going to hold him back. Let me show you something in
Genesis 21, and I'll move on. You remember when God came to
Abraham in Genesis 17. And he said, Abraham, I'm going
to visit you at that time, and I'm going to visit your wife
Sarah, and she's going to have a child. And Sarah just laughed. She laughed and said, Oh, that
ain't going to happen. That's just not going to happen.
That's just not going to happen. She said, My Lord's old and I'm
old. She laughed about it. And the
Lord said to Abraham, Abraham, why is Sarah laughing? Oh, I
didn't laugh. I didn't laugh. Sarah said. But
now look what happened. Genesis 21, morning 2. And the Lord did unto Sarah as
he had said, and the Lord did unto Sarah as he had spoken.
For Sarah conceived and bare a son in his own age," now watch
it, "...at the set time of which God had spoken unto him." See,
they got tired of waiting 25 years earlier than that. Well, several years old, I don't
know how many years it was, I don't know why I said it, but it was,
they waited 25 years. But they got tired of waiting,
and they said, let's have a child, Abraham. God ain't gonna keep
His promise, so let's have a child. And they had one with a woman,
with a maid. Alright, look back in Acts now.
It's only when it was full of time. Ain't you grateful that
everything has a time? You know, there's a time for
us to be tried. There's a time for us to be blessed. There's
a time for us, for people to be converted. There's a time
of blessings. There's a time of burdens. There's
a time of rejoicing. There's a time of weeping. There's
a time of being born. There's a time of being, of dying. There's a time, and God has all
these times in His hands. He has a season for us. He has
a season for you and I to go through certain things. And oh,
bless His holy name. That's why. That's why we can
look at Him, trust in Him, and believe in Him. Because He has
the time. And that's why the Lord said,
your time is always in Him. My hour is not yet. Your time
is always in Him. And then look at the circumstances
of the Holy Ghost coming. Dying, verse 1. And when the
day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord
in one place. That was the circumstances. All
of them in this other room, 120 of them, they were all in one
accord, in one spirit, in one mind, and they were in one place. Now I can't help but wonder when
I read this, and you know I mentioned a couple weeks ago that this
is mentioned, one accord is mentioned 10 times in the book of Acts.
And I can't help but wonder what kind of blessings we would enjoy
if we all got together in this one place. in one accord. Without
what we've done yesterday on our mind, what we did last night
and what we've got to do tomorrow, where we've got to be tomorrow,
how we feel, I wonder what kind of blessings we would enjoy if
we all was here and all of our minds and spirits was actually
in one accord. I wonder what it would be like. It would be something. You're
talking about preaching. You talk down here, that'd be something
with it. But that's not going to happen.
It's going to be a rare occurrence if it happens here. But here's
a wonderful thing. Look at the manner of His coming,
of the Holy Ghost coming. I call Him Him because He's the
second person of the Godhead. And suddenly, suddenly there
came a sound. They started hearing a sound.
There came a sound. And it was coming from heaven.
It was coming from heaven. It was coming down. as of a rushing
mighty wind, huh? And oh beloved, suddenly a sound
came from heaven, and it came as a rushing mighty wind, suddenly.
It didn't come through a process of them growing. It didn't come
through a process of them waiting on an altar until they began
to be filled with the Holy Ghost. It didn't come as a blessing.
It never evolved from their inner consciousness as they thought.
Somebody didn't get them to set apart and say, now this is how
you get the Holy Ghost. No, no, they were sitting there,
and they were in one mind, in one accord, in one place, and
there came a sound, a Like a tornado. That's what it sounded like.
Like a whirlwind. A rushing, mighty wind. And I mean, it was so great that
that's why I said it was noise to broth. There were people outside
that room. There were people outside that
heard that sound. That rushing, mighty wind. And
all this was the fulfillment of the promise where the Lord
says the Holy Ghost shall come upon you. And all beloved has
a rushing mighty wind, and the wind is uncontrollable. You can't
control the wind. In fact, we wish, oh, how many
times have we said, boy, I sure wish the wind would blow. Oh,
I'd sure like to feel a good breeze. That breeze feels so
good. And then there's other times when we say, oh, Lord,
this wind's going to blow us plum away. Well, that's why you
ain't gonna control it. And He come in such power, in
such force, in such might, that He came like a tornado on these
people. A whirlwind. God said, I'll come
out of the whirlwind. And you know the Holy Spirit's
often called the wind. Referred to as the wind with
Nicodemus. When our Lord told him he must
be born again, he said, how can this be? He said, Nicodemus,
you know something about the wind, don't you? He said, the
wind blows where it will. You don't hear the sound of it,
it just comes. But you see the effects of it.
You'll see it take trees and bend trees. And it blows where
it wants to. It may take a great big oak tree
and lay it down in one place. And it may take a little bitty
bush and just ruffle the leaves in some place else. And that's
what he's doing here, he's laying things down. Oh, it's sovereign. And he says, that's everyone
that's born of the Spirit. The Spirit's like the wind. And
you know when Ezekiel preached to those valley of dry bones,
and all the flesh come, all of the bones came together, and
this, that, and that, they're still in animate objects. Looked
like people, had ears like people, had eyes like people, had arms
that looked like people. A whole army of people standing
there. But they wouldn't have no life in them. And then God
said to Ezekiel, Ezekiel preach unto the wind and say, O wind,
come and breathe on these. And they lived when the wind
blew, when the Holy Spirit came upon them. And oh my, that's
why God, when he made Adam out of the dust of the earth, he
walked up and breathed into him and made him a living soul. You
see the wind, and that's why he's the second person of the
Godhead. And this is a mysterious thing to me, and I started studying
about this. I never had given it much thought.
To where it says in verse 3, And there appeared unto them
cloven tongues like as a fire, and it set upon each of them.
Now that word cloven means to partisan there. To part asunder. You know, you cleave a piece
of wood, you hit it, and you part asunder. Well, clothing
means to part asunder. So here comes the Holy Spirit
like a fire. And it appeared as a fire. And
when it came down, it just scattered out all over those people. It
didn't just stay on one, it didn't just stay on two. It had come
on them as a flame of fire. The tongues appeared as a flame
of fire. And ain't that what our Master
said over here in Acts chapter 1 and verse 5? For John truly
baptized with water, but you should be baptized with the Holy
Ghost. And in Matthew 3.11, be baptized
with the Holy Ghost and with fire. And our tongue is often
referred to as having fire. James says the tongue is a fire. The tongue is a fire. In Isaiah 5 it talks about a
tongue of fire that would come and divide them, a stubble. And
the Holy Ghost appears as a fire here. And as the Holy Ghost appears
as a fire, He gives grace and gifts to God's elect, God's people. And it's only the Lord's people
here that He comes upon. He appears often as a fire. He
said, He'll baptize you with the Holy Ghost, but there's coming
one after me who will baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with
fire. Now what does fire do? Well,
the first thing fire does is it purifies. It'll purify something. It'll burn a dross out of gold,
burn a dross out of silver, and it brings light. Fire brings
light. You can strike a match in the
dark. Build a fire in the dark. You can see. And oh, fire brings
warmth. It brings you some heat. It warms
you up when you're cold. It brings you up. Jeremiah said,
the fire shut up in my bones. Not only that, but fire also
brings judgment. And when the Holy Ghost comes,
He judges us, convinces us of our sin, and convinces us of
the righteousness of Christ, convinces us of our unbelief.
And He purges us from the dross. And Hebrews 12, 29 says, Our
God is a consuming fire. So these tongues appeared as
fire, and come out of these people, and it looked like fire, and
they thought it was fire, and it had the power of fire. It
burned, and it brought purity, and it brought light, and it
brought forth, and it brought judgment. When Simon Peter began
to preach, these men said, cried, Men and brethren, what must we
do? And I'll tell you, the Holy Spirit's
irresistible. He's irresistible here. They
say people resist the Holy Ghost all the time. They do, yes. They
do. But when the time has fully come,
He's coming. He's coming on the Lord's people.
Ain't that right? And look at the effect it had
upon these people here, the 120. First of all, they were all filled. They were all filled with the
Holy Ghost. Not just the apostles. Not just the men and women. Not
just the prophet. But also the people. And look
what it says there in the last part of verse 2. And it filled
all the house where they were sitting. You know how the Shekinah
glory would fill the tabernacle and the wilderness? That's what
happened here. The Holy Ghost came and filled that whole building.
Filled that whole building. And what that was like, I have
no idea. But I do know this. It was God there. It was Christ
in the person of the Holy Ghost. It was God there in their presence,
and they were conscious of God being there, of life being there,
of a power being there that they had never experienced before,
even when our Lord was with them. And, oh, it was not just for
the prophets. Look down in verse 16 here of Acts 2. Not just for
the apostles. But this is that which was spoken
by the prophet Joel. And this shall come to pass in
the last days, saith God. And let me say something about
these last days. People think about the last days
as going to be somewhere out in the future. The last days
began when our Lord came to this earth. Those were called the
last days. In the last days, the Messiah
would appear. The Messiah would come. And we've been in the last
days since Christ came. And it shall come to pass in
the last day, saith God, watch this, I'll pour out my Spirit
upon all flesh before the prophets, just the Spirit of God will come
on the prophets, and not all the time, just occasionally. But I'll pour it out, and that's
what he's doing here, he's pouring it out, pouring it out in the
form of wind, pouring it out in the form of fire, pouring
it out in the form of power, And your sons and your daughters,
they're going to prophesy. They're going to say things about
me. And your young men will see visions. They'll see visions
from the Word. And they'll see visions of God
and His blessed Word. And they'll see visions of sinners
lost. And they'll see visions of the
blessed blood that cleanses from all sin. And your old man will
dream dreams. and on my servants and on my
handmaids, and I will pour out in those days of my Spirit, and
they shall prophesy." And that's what all these people are doing.
Right now, everybody is speaking in tongues. Every person in this
building starts speaking. And let me tell you something,
though. To be filled with the Spirit. He says here, and they
were all filled with the Holy Ghost. Now, to be filled with
the Holy Ghost is to receive as much as the Holy Spirit as
one can contain. Now there's been a time or two
when that happens, and when he leaves, you're just rung out.
You're just rung flat out. And to be filled is to be filled
as much as you can possibly contain of him. John the Baptist was
filled with the Holy Ghost from his mother's womb. When he got
from his mother's womb, he was full of Holy Ghost all the days
of his life. And you find that they were filled
at different times throughout the Scriptures. And there's two
things happening here. I want us to see. First of all,
there's the baptism of the Holy Ghost. That's what happened here.
They were baptized in the Holy Ghost. And then secondly, there's
a filling of the Holy Spirit. A filling of the Holy Ghost.
They were baptized here in the Holy Ghost. And now the baptism
is once and for all. There'll never be another baptism
of the Holy Ghost. This baptism here is final. Now
there may be many feelings. There was times that they were
filled again. And Peter would stand up and
be in full or filled with the Holy Ghost and preach. But he
never was baptized in the Holy Ghost again. And there's people,
we get baptized by the Holy Ghost. Now baptism of the Holy Spirit
takes place at our conversion. When we're converted, the Holy
Spirit comes and gives us life, and we're baptized then in the
Holy Ghost. Let me show you that. I can show
you that. Look over in 1 Corinthians 12. And you know, I'll tell you,
this idea that... I know something about this Pentecostal
business. And they'll tell folks you know
to go and stay there until they get the baptism of the Holy Ghost.
And I'll tell you, you start looking for something other than
Christ, and the Scripture never tells us, no words in the Scriptures
did tell us to seek the baptism of the Holy Ghost. Have you ever
found that anywhere in the Bible? Where our Lord said, now you
still seek the baptism of the Holy Ghost. The Apostle said,
you go and tarry there until you're baptized with the Holy
Ghost. No, no. No, that never happened. No,
then the Bible don't tell us how to be baptized in the Holy
Ghost. It don't tell us how to be filled
with the Holy Ghost. We need to be filled. We want
to be filled. We want the presence of God.
We want God to come and fill us with His Holy Spirit to hear,
to believe, to witness, and to live for His glory. But there's
only one baptism. Here in 1 Corinthians 12, 13.
For by one Spirit, Are we all baptized into one body? The Holy Spirit baptizes us into
Christ, immerses us into Christ. If we have not the Spirit of
Christ, we're none of His. Whether we be Jews or Gentiles,
bond or free, I said He poured out on all flesh, didn't He?
And have all been to make drink of one Spirit. Now that's one. Let me show you another over
here in Titus, that little book right before Hebrews. Let me
show you another one here. Titus chapter 3. You know, we're not told to seek
the baptism of the Holy Ghost. We're not even told to seek to
be filled with the Holy Ghost. We're told to seek the Lord.
We're told to call on the Lord. We're told to walk His life.
But look here in Titus chapter 3 and verse 5. Not by works of righteousness,
which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us. Now
watch this, by the washing of regeneration. The word by the
Holy Spirit comes and washes us. Washes us from our conscience
from dead works. Washes us from vanity. And renewing,
watch this, of the Holy Ghost which He shed on us abundantly
through Jesus Christ, our Savior. Even the Spirit prays through
us, but good only cannot be uttered. And let me tell you something
else about the baptism of the Holy Ghost, or the filling of
the Holy Ghost. The baptism takes place one time.
One time. That's at conversion. The filling
comes many times. Many times. And the Bible doesn't
lay down any conditions. for us to be filled or baptized.
It doesn't lay down any experiences that we're supposed to have to
give us evidence of speaking or being filled with the Holy
Spirit. Some people say, well, you don't
know if you're filled with the Holy Ghost unless you're speaking
in tongues. Well, preaching Christ to most people is speaking a
foreign language. Ain't it, Gary? Speaking a foreign language to
them. And they were baptized and filled to witness of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And every time you find them
filled, that's what they're doing. That's what they're doing. When
Philip was sent to the eunuch, the Spirit sent him down there
to do what? To preach Christ to them. And these were filled
with the Spirit. Those that are filled with the
Spirit, they speak of Him. They talk about the wonderful
works of God. And we'll see next week how that
Peter began to preach, and he took this in hand. as a starting
place and ended up with people shut up to Jesus Christ on his
throne. And oh, look what happens next.
Now, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and they began
to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
I'm going to say something about this. I don't believe all these
people started speaking at the same time. God's not the author
of confusion. You know, if all of us start
talking right now while I'm up here preaching, and there's 120
of these people here, if they all start talking at the same
time, do you know what it would be like? It'd be so confusing,
it'd be a madhouse, and people would just go, oh my goodness,
what's going on here? But they began to speak in chorus.
One would be talking, and another would be talking, and another
would be talking. And who says it's the Spirit who gave you
letters? The Spirit would come to one and give them letters,
the Spirit would give another letters, and that's what, the tongues
refers to a foreign language. And let me tell you something,
tongues, tongues, and that's why it's called a foreign language
because you look here and it says that they heard every man
speak in his own language. They all said, these are Galileans.
How have we ever been speaking in our own tongue when we were
born? That's a fellow from Egypt. He said, he's speaking in my
language. That's one from over in Medes,
a Persian. He said, they're speaking my
language. Another one comes from way over
in Greece. He said, he's speaking my language.
Another one comes from Libya. He said, he's talking my language.
That's some Arabian. He said, well, he's speaking
Arabic. There were foreign languages. These weren't just tongues jabbered. You ever been in a meeting where
they're trying to teach people how to speak in tongues? They
do. They have meetings. Jimmy Scriber
used to have people go around teaching people how to speak
in tongues. How do you teach somebody to speak in tongues?
If I'm going to speak a foreign language, I'm going to have to
go up here and go to school and get somebody to teach me how
to talk in Russian, French, In fact, most of the time, somebody
teaches me how to speak English, good English. But here they're
speaking in tongues, and tongues have ceased, I'm telling you.
Tongues have ceased. I want you to see this. Now,
look over the first Corinthians with me, just a minute. Chapter
14. These things were given to us
for a season. And you know, we We want spiritual
gifts. We want to have the spiritual
gifts. But look down here in verse 21
of 1 Corinthians 14. And Paul gives his whole chapter
here speaking in tongues. The Corinthians, they were blessed
with this gift and the Spirit would give them utterance. And
they got to use it like it was Something they could just turn
on and off and wheel, and was not using it to edify him. And
Paul was saying, now that's not the right thing to do. He said,
if you're going to speak in tongues, you let somebody tell what you
just said. You let somebody tell that. You let somebody interpret that.
Because if you're doing that, you're not edifying anybody.
You're not being a blessing to nobody. Nobody knows what in
the world you're talking about. Nobody has a clue what you're
talking about. And so he says, in verse 21,
in the law it is written, in the Old Testament, in the book
of Isaiah, if I'm not mistaken, with men of other tongues and
other lips will I speak unto this people. And yet for all
that they will not hear me, saith the Lord. They'll hear people
speaking in tongues and other languages, and yet they'll not
hear me. Wherefore tongues are for a sign, not to them that
believe. but to them that don't believe.
You see, that's what happened on the day of Pentecost. There
were Jews there from all over the world, and they were devout
men. These are people who are super religious. Had their Bibles
with them. They're up there praying. They're
up there attending the services. They're up there going through
these feasts. They went for the Passover. They stayed for the
Feast of Tabernacles, or for the Feast of Weeks, the Pentecost. And here they are, And they hear
somebody talking in their language. Now that's a sign. How's this
happening? This is the most unusual thing.
I've never heard nothing like this in my life. Now these people
here in this upper room, they didn't need him. Tom's first
sign for them, they believed Christ. They trusted Christ. It was for those that were listening.
those that were listening. Now, I don't need nobody speaking
in tongues to let me know that, to teach me to believe, to show
me to believe. I don't need a sign. I don't
live by signs. I live by faith. I don't want
to close the Bible and open it up and say, Lord, show me what
you want me to know. No, I'm not. He wants me to know the
whole thing. So I ain't no sense in me opening
it up and saying, Lord, show me what I need. Give me some
kind of a sign. I'm not looking for signs. No. And oh, they began to speak in
tongues. And now look, look what happens now. Now, tongues are
mentioned in three other passages, two in the book of Acts, and
then over in 1 Corinthians 12 through 14. But look here at
the effect upon these people. And it says in verse 5, there
were Jews dwelling at Jerusalem, bowing down, out of every nation
under heaven. Oh, they come from all over.
And they heard this. It was noise to God. Devout men. Oh, they were so serious in their
religion. Traveled long ways, come from
all over the world. You know, we see these pilgrims,
these Muslims, these pilgrims. Millions of them go to certain
places at certain times of the year, and they temple hundreds
to death, because they want to be in a certain place, because
it's a holy place. Well, these people came here
because of these feasts, and God told them to be there. They're
devout. They're law keepers. And then
they heard. They heard about this sound.
They heard this rushing mighty wind. They heard about this noise
that was made. And oh, this voice that was made.
And they came and they got together. And there they are, this other.
And the multitude start gathering around outside this upper room.
And the multitude start gathering around. And look what it says
next. And they were confounded. That
word confounded means troubled. They were troubled. Oh my, what
in the world, what's going on here? This is something. And
then look what else it says down there in verse 7. They were all
amazed. Not only were they amazed, but they marveled. People don't
marvel about people speaking in tongues. Hang on. I don't,
do you? I think they're fools. That's
what I think. But now, if I'd have been standing
there, If I went to Mexico and Jose Zul, Zul got up, I've known
Jose for a long time, passed out to cause a debate. If he
got up and I was down there and he started speaking in English, I'd stand amazed. I'd marvel
that I'd hear him speaking in my language. Or if I got up,
not knowing any Spanish, and Walter or Cody got up to interpret
for me, and I just got up and started speaking in Spanish,
fluent everyday Spanish, Pueblo Spanish, common Spanish, and
started speaking to them, they would marvel and they'd be amazed.
But that's not going to happen. That's not going to happen. If
it did, I mean, it would be something. And that's what happened here.
They heard all these people. They were troubled, they were amazed,
and they marveled. And oh, they said, oh, we hear everybody speaking
in our own tongue wherein we were born. And they're just,
ain't they all Galileans? Ain't they all Galileans? How do these Galileans speak
in our language? And oh my, and it says, Down
in verse 13, and others mocked. Others mocking said, these men
are full of new wine. You know what this mocking means?
They said, this is a joke. They're pulling a joke on us.
They're making fools out of us. They're drunk. They're drunk.
They're drunk on new wine. The first of the grapes that
they make wine with, the first grape. It's brand new wine. Brand
new. And oh my, they're drunk and
they're just playing a joke on us. They're mocking. all the
questions in verse eleven. Greeks and Arabians, we do hear
them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. That's what happens when somebody's
going to speak the language that God gives them. They're going
to speak the wonderful works of God. They weren't speaking
everything. They were speaking of the wonderful works of God.
And when they said, these bins are full of new wine, and this
is what we'll take up next week. Peter standing up with the eleven. The eleven stood up with him.
Twelve of them standing there. Lifting up his voice, this multitude
gathering. And you know, as 3,000 souls
were saved this day, so there's a great crowd here. You men of
Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto
you, and hearken to my words. And he preached to them one of
the most glorious messages ever been preached on this earth.
And we'll try to deal with that next week. But oh, you know how
you can tell if anybody's got the Holy Spirit? Do they speak
of the wonderful works of God? Do they speak of Christ? Do they
speak of what? God's salvations of the Lord's,
the work of God. Salvation was perfect. God has
a time and a purpose for everything on this earth. A time for a person
to be brought into the kingdom. A time for Christ to be magnified. Oh, the wonderful works of God.
That's how you tell if anybody has the Spirit.