4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
Peter’s Sermon at Pentecost
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.116 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. 21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And at this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
Peter’s Sermon at Pentecost
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.116 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 “‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. 21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:
Act 2 versus 4 through 20 21. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now they were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And at this sound, the multitude came together and they were bewildered because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
Speaker 1:
And how is it that we hear, each of us, in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans, and Arabians. We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, what does this mean? But others mocking said, they are filled with new wine.
Speaker 1:
But Peter standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk as you suppose since it is only the 3rd hour of the day, But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams, Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Speaker 1:
This is the word of the Lord.
Jeffrey Heine:
Thanks be to God. If you would, pray with me. Our father, we thank you for your word. We pray that through your spirit, you give us great clarity. Lord, I pray that our hearts will be soft and receptive for what you have for us.
Jeffrey Heine:
I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, but lord, may your words remain, and may they change us. I pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. Last week, we began to look at Pentecost and we saw how when the spirit of God fell down and baptized these disciples, what was actually happening was a fulfillment of the Jewish day of Pentecost that was already happening. It was Pentecost was a Jewish celebration, a Jewish holiday that happened the 50th day after Passover is when they celebrated the giving of the law at Mount Sinai.
Jeffrey Heine:
And they also celebrated, the first fruits of the harvest as they came in. And you can see Pentecost through that lens. You can see it through that Sinai lens. And instead of, having the fire fall down on the mountain and the storm coming to the mountain and God writing his law on, on tablets of stone. Here at Pentecost, you have fire, you have the wind, the rushing wind, But God writes his law on individual hearts, and that's why the fire rests on individuals here.
Jeffrey Heine:
And it's the ushering in of the new covenant. And this is also the fulfillment of the first fruits in which now that we have received the holy spirit, Paul calls the Holy Spirit in Romans 8 the first fruits, and we now get a taste of heaven, a real taste of what awaits us. And that was last week. What we didn't talk about last week was the speaking, speaking in tongues and a number of you immediately came up to me afterwards and it's like, are you just gonna jump right over the whole speaking in tongues thing? You know, that's why I came tonight was to hear you talk about tongues.
Jeffrey Heine:
Well, we're going to talk about it. It was interesting this morning in my office. My office has like 2 dead bolts and a regular, you know, lock there and bars and yet still strange people somehow find themselves in my office. And there's a guy who actually lives in the room next to me in my office. He lives there and he was blasting.
Jeffrey Heine:
I think it was, TBN this morning. I'm not sure. But blasting some preacher. And it was just so loud. It was actually really hard for me to concentrate, but this preacher was saying, what we need is Pentecost power.
Jeffrey Heine:
We need Pentecost power. And I was like, well, I'll just take some notes. All right. You know, here we go. And then what he meant though by Pentecost power was we need tongues.
Jeffrey Heine:
We we need tongues to be ushered in to our congregation. And, then I quit taking notes because certainly tongues is here, but it's not the emphasis. Don't don't get lost with that. It's it's not the thrust that we see of Pentecost here. And usually the type of tongues that is sought for and prayed for is different than the type of tongues that is mentioned here in Acts 2.
Jeffrey Heine:
The word for tongues here is simply the Greek word meaning language. Meaning languages. When the holy spirit fell on the these disciples, they began to speak in other languages. And then these these pilgrims who would come in from from all these different nations to be part of the Pentecost holiday, began hearing the gospel in their own tongue, in their own language. This is different than the type of tongues that Paul talks about later in 1st Corinthians, in which it's kind of a heavenly language.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's not a known language. This is a known earthly language here. But you have to ask the question, why was this necessary? Why was this necessary here? Because you have all these people, true, they're all gathered together and they come from all these different nations and stuff, but almost all of them would have spoken Greek or Aramaic.
Jeffrey Heine:
Greek, Greek then is kind of like English is now. You could pretty much go all the way around the world and you can, you can at least communicate the basics. Pretty much everybody spoke Greek. So, so it wouldn't have been necessary. It didn't have to happen that these disciples had to speak in native tongues and people's own original languages.
Jeffrey Heine:
Therefore to communicate the gospel, they could have communicated the gospel just by speaking in Greek, just by speaking in Aramaic. Yet God does this miracle here. And the reason that he does this right at the start in this first preaching of the gospel. He does it here to show that the gospel is for every culture. For every culture.
Jeffrey Heine:
It is for every race. Jesus is the king of every nation. If Peter had gone out and is the very first sermon he had preached would have been in Hebrew, people would have thought, this is this is just a Jewish thing. He's preaching about just a Jewish king. Or if he come out and he had just preached in Greek, people might have thought, well, this is just a Greek thing but here, they're all hearing about king Jesus in their own language and they realize that this king is for me.
Jeffrey Heine:
It is for my nation. The gospel is for my culture. This isn't some kind of foreign intrusion. One of the reasons, that the Protestant reformation actually failed in the country of Ireland. Is because, the missionaries who went there did not take any time to learn the language.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so missionaries will come in. You have, you know, the Protestant Reformation is sweeping over all these different parts of Europe. Missionaries go to Ireland, but they never took time to translate the Bible into Gaelic. They, they held worship services, but they never held them in Gaelic. And so you have all the people of Ireland, they they rejected it because they said this is some kind of foreign intrusion.
Jeffrey Heine:
You're trying to change our culture. You're trying to no longer let us be Irishmen. And here we see at Pentecost, and when the gospel first goes forward to saying, hey the gospel does not change culture. It works within every culture. Now many Americans, I I think, seem to forget this.
Jeffrey Heine:
Many Americans seem to forget that there is no one nation that has a hold of Christianity. You know, you see this on mission trips all the time, you know, American churches, we go on mission trips, and we we go to maybe a church in a foreign country, and then we are like, woah, woah, woah, woah. That's not how you do it. That's not how you worship Jesus. Let me let me tell you how you're supposed to worship Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
Let me tell you what your buildings are supposed to look like. Let me tell you what modern English songs are supposed to sing. Let me tell you how you're supposed to dress. Have you heard about VBS? You know, you need to start VBS and you gotta have puppets, you know, and, and none of those things are wrong, but it's a very American Christianity.
Jeffrey Heine:
And and I've been, you know, I have seen in a third world country where there's these people holding up white Anglo Saxon puppets, and and teaching the the children through these white white Anglo Saxon puppets and it is so obvious. It's like this does not at all fit into your culture. But some American team had came up with the brilliant idea of we're going to give you these puppets so you can have a dynamic children's ministry. And Americans kind of have that attitude of Christianity belongs to us, and this is what it's supposed to look like in the world. But that's not the case.
Jeffrey Heine:
Not the case at all. A matter of fact, we need every culture to uniquely worship Jesus. Because Jesus is the king of every nation. And so we can get much better picture of who Jesus is when we start seeing people of different tongues, people of different tribes, people of different nations, all worshiping Jesus within their own culture. We get a much more beautiful and complete picture of who Christ is.
Jeffrey Heine:
What's important when we think of Pentecost power here, we don't think of what I heard this morning blasted on the television. What we we understand that tongues really isn't so much the emphasis. What is the emphasis is Christ going forward, the gospel going forward in every culture and in every nation. This good news is for everyone. And the response that the disciples get here is interesting.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's it's twofold. 1st, you have some people who are amazed. Look at verse verse 7. It says, And they were amazed and they were astonished saying, are not all these who were speaking Galileans? How, how is it that we hear each of us in our own native language?
Jeffrey Heine:
The people couldn't believe what was happening because these were Galileans. They were the hicks of their days. This, this would be, I hope this doesn't offend any of you. This would be like going down to South Alabama. Alright?
Jeffrey Heine:
Or somebody from South Alabama coming up to you, you know, getting out of their pickup truck, putting away their Dixie flag, coming up to you and being like, parlez vous francais? You know, and just like, it starts speaking to you in French. It would bewilder you. You'd think the world's coming to an end. You know, this is just not supposed to happen.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so, they're amazed. These country bumpkins, they're not this educated. They don't know all these languages. That's the first response. Then we see mockery.
Jeffrey Heine:
Look at verse 12 and 13. All were amazed and perplexed saying to one another, what does this mean? But others mocking said, they are filled with new wine. So some people see and they hear what is going on and the response is they're just drunk. Alright.
Jeffrey Heine:
They're they're they're just drunk. Don't don't listen to them. I mean, come on now. And this obviously is not a well thought out response. You know, they're not really putting a lot of thought.
Jeffrey Heine:
They're not trying to interact with Peter and the disciples that they, as they do this because it's obvious the disciples are not drunk. If, if you were to get drunk, which I'm sure none of you would do, but if you were to get drunk, I doubt you just start speaking in foreign languages. And if you did, I doubt people would actually be able to understand you. You might think you're speaking in foreign languages, but it's what people would hear and they would say, no way. So, so this is a bad argument, but they want to mock them, and they want to throw this forward.
Jeffrey Heine:
Christianity, I believe, still gets some similar arguments against it. I can remember I was sharing my faith with a college student one time and asking him a bunch of questions. And, one of, one of the questions I asked him was, all right, you know, you, you, you've studied history. How is it that that you can get a small, disjointed band of poor, uneducated people? How can you get that all of a sudden within just a few centuries, their religion has has spread over all of Rome and even the emperor himself is now a Christian.
Jeffrey Heine:
Ex just explain to me, how can that happen? And he looks at me and goes, because they're stupid? Fuck. Really? Because they're stupid.
Jeffrey Heine:
And I said, you know, mockery actually isn't a response. Mockery is usually used when you don't have a coherent argument. So I ask you the question again. You just didn't respond. But that's usually the best defense that the world gives.
Jeffrey Heine:
I mean, I love it when people really want to engage, but usually it's just mockery. And, and, and the shameful thing is so many Christians just shy away from it. Instead of just being bold, me like, that's not an argument. I mean, come on, seriously. Listen, can can you I'm asking you just give me a rational answer.
Jeffrey Heine:
Let's have a dialogue about this. Be bold concerning this. Don't just cave in because somebody, gives you a groundless mockery. Peter gets up and he immediately addresses the mockery. And I love it because he does it in somewhat, somewhat humorous way.
Jeffrey Heine:
He says, come on now. Because we're not drunk. It's 9 AM. It's like, you know, the the liquor stores aren't even open till 12 on Sundays. I mean, it's like, you know, this is not possible that we're drunk now.
Jeffrey Heine:
And of course, I'm sure he got a little chuckle from the people. He's like, imply, you know, maybe we'll drink later, but it's only 9 in the morning. And that's enough to get people's attention. They start focusing in on him and then he explains to them. Now that I got your attention, let me explain to you what is actually happening.
Jeffrey Heine:
And he turns to Joel 2. Look at verse 16. I I love it when I just think this is this is Peter. This is the one who this is the one who ran. This is the one who denied Jesus.
Jeffrey Heine:
And here this Peter gets up and he preaches this amazing message. Said, this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions. And your old men shall dream dreams.
Jeffrey Heine:
Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy. Now to understand what, what Peter is saying here and to understand kind of the context of this, I want you to turn in your Bibles to the second book of the Bible. Turn to Exodus chapter 18. Let's turn to Exodus 18. This passage in Exodus takes place shortly after God has rescued the Israelites from slavery in Egypt.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's right before they finally arrived at Mount Sinai. Moses has been leading the people there, and he's just now beginning to realize this is going to be a very hard task. Confronting pharaoh is easier than dealing with God's people. And this is just now starting to dawn on him. He would spend all day having to make decision after decision.
Jeffrey Heine:
Anybody who's who's led a mission trip understands every 5 minutes you get asked a question. Moses here is leading over a 1000000 people. Okay. And they're constantly asking questions. He constantly has to make judgements.
Jeffrey Heine:
They don't have the law yet. So if they want to know what God, what does, what does God want for me to do in this situation? They have to go to Moses and Moses has to tell them. And he's he's being exhausted by this. Absolutely exhausted.
Jeffrey Heine:
It's a burden too heavy for him to carry. Moses's father-in-law said to him, what you're doing is not good. You You're not able to do it alone. Now, obey my voice and I will give you advice and God be with you. The way in which they must walk and what they must do.
Jeffrey Heine:
Moreover, look for able men from all the people, men who fear God, who are trustworthy, and who hate a bribe, and place such men over the people as chiefs of 1,000 of 100 of fifties and of tens, and let them judge the people at all times. And so this is the advice that Jethro, Moses's father-in-law, gives him. He's like, alright. You don't need to be doing everything. Find some capable people, and just, you know, outsource the work, delegate the work to them and let them carry this burden for you.
Jeffrey Heine:
And so he does this. And then later, we we we see that God himself kinda picks up on this plan. I mean, it was a God breathed plan through Jethro, and now God does a little bit more later in numbers. Go go 2 more books over. Is that right?
Jeffrey Heine:
Exodus Yeah. Two books over to numbers chapter 11. And it's the same principle, but this is from the Lord. Numbers 11 verse 24, So so Moses went out and told the people the words of the Lord, and he gathered 70 men of the elders and the people and placed them around the tent. God had told him to do this, find 70 people.
Jeffrey Heine:
And said, and I'm gonna put the spirit that I've placed in you, I'm gonna take some of that spirit and I'm gonna put in them So they can shoulder the burden. Verse 25 says, Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to them and took some of the spirit that was on Moses and put it on the 70 elders. And as soon as the spirit rested on them, they prophesied. But they did not continue doing it. We'll keep reading on it.
Jeffrey Heine:
It says that now 2 men remained in the camp, one named Eldad and the other named Midad. I can only assume they're brothers. Young man ran and told Moses, Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp. And Joshua, the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth said, My Lord Moses, stop them. So so here's what's going on.
Jeffrey Heine:
God he sees the plan that's been in place through Jethro and now he says, you need more help. The people have grown. You, the people are, are growing in number. You need more administration. You need more delegation.
Jeffrey Heine:
Pick 70 men and I'm going to take some of my spirit, which is on you and I'm gonna give it to them. And so this happens and immediately they begin prophesying. And 2, you got 2 kind of rogue prophets, you know, they're out there in the camp and now they're prophesying and, and Joshua receives word of it and, and he's scared. It bothers him because he thinks, wait, wait, wait, nobody's supposed to prophesy except for Moses. And so he goes to Moses, almost like a tattletale, and he says, 2 people are prophesying.
Jeffrey Heine:
You need to put an end to it because people are gonna start listening to them and they're not start listening to you. And this is Moses's response in verse 29. This Moses said to him, Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them. Moses hears what Joshua is saying as he Stop right there.
Jeffrey Heine:
I wish God would pour His spirit out on everyone. And all of them would begin prophesying, That would solve my problem. If God would just pour it out on everyone, not just 70, I hope someday He will do that to all of them. And then later, Moses's prayer actually becomes a prophecy in Joel chapter 2, when Joel prophesies and says a day is coming. In the last days, God will pour his spirit out and young and old will prophesy.
Jeffrey Heine:
Everyone will. And so that is what we see here when we come to Pentecost. We see this fulfilled. Peter stands up and he says, this is being fulfilled. What Joel had prophesied is being fulfilled.
Jeffrey Heine:
What Moses longed for is happening. Ministry is no longer for just a few select people. Ministry is no longer just for the professionals. You know, those those professional ministers who are called by God, who who they're the ones who are supposed to do everything. Not anymore.
Jeffrey Heine:
That's been a burdensome task. Now, everyone gets to speak God's truth. Everyone gets to serve. Everyone gets to proclaim the gospel. Not just a few inspired prophets.
Jeffrey Heine:
I hope you see this. What what I want you to see is that the new covenant, the new testament church is fundamentally different than the old. Fundamentally different. No longer has the spirit of God just been given to a Moses. No longer has the spirit of God just been given to to 70 able men that they might lead.
Jeffrey Heine:
Now the spirit of God is being given to everyone, so that they all might serve, so they all might minister and work. Let, let me ask you, does your view of the church more resemble what's found in the old testament? Where the ministers, the professional minister does everything? Or does it resemble the new? In which you have God's spirit being breathed inside people that they might minister and serve.
Jeffrey Heine:
Which one? Do you see yourself as an answer to Moses's prayer? The fulfillment of Joel's prophecy? Do you see yourself as having that Pentecost Pentecostal power that you might share the good news? Well, because the spirit of God has been poured out on all believers, we are not now you've heard the phrase, we are now the priest.
Jeffrey Heine:
We are a priesthood of believers. All of us. This doesn't mean that you're supposed to quit your job and become professional ministers. Some of you might, but this doesn't mean all of you need to quit your job become professional ministers. But it does need mean that you need to start ministering in your profession.
Jeffrey Heine:
Absolutely. Wherever you are, wherever you go, you are a minister of the gospel. So be open to giving to God, giving you a word from him to be sh shared, be, be open to him giving you a vision that might change your life and be open to him giving you a dream about how you can be personally involved in what God is doing. Perhaps, perhaps maybe one of the reasons that, that, that you feel like you don't have this, this God vision or this God dream is because your dreams are against his dreams. You what do you what do you dream about?
Jeffrey Heine:
What what is it that you, that you long for and you want? Is it the the proclamation of the gospel to all nations or is it, you know, I'd like a really a dream about a bigger house. That's what I daydream about. I dream about all these worldly things. Is is that if so, it's it's opposed to the dreams of God.
Jeffrey Heine:
So be open to God giving you dreams, giving you visions, allowing you to speak his truth into people's lives. Let me ask you, when is the last time you have sought him and asked him, show me, show me, give me whatever vision, but show me what your will is for my life and I will follow and I will do it. I pray that this week, you would take time to realize what Pentecost was for, and you would begin to be the ministers God's called you to be.