Pentecost
Pentecost Sunday • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Mic
Prayer
Alice and I are glad to be back with you… our family. We always miss you when we are gone. And this is a great day to be back.
Today is Pentecost Sunday.
Pente stands for 50 and it was just 50 days ago that we were celebrating Easter and the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus paid the price for our sins on the cross at Calvary. He was crucified, He died and was buried to pay the price for our sins. but He was and is the God of life!
He is our creator. He loved us so much that He was willing to die for us.
He was the good shepherd
11 “… the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
But Jesus did not stay dead.… on the 3rd day He rose from the dead just as He had prophesied!
as we read in
21 From that time Jesus Christ began to show His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up on the third day.
That was what we were celebrating last Easter, and that is why the church now meets on the first day of the week instead of on the Sabbath.
But this is now 50 days later and we are at the time of Pentecost.
Pentecost was one of the three annual feasts where every Jewish male was required to go up to Jerusalem.
The three feasts were Passover (or the Feast of Unleavened Bread), Shavuot (also known as the Feast of Weeks), and Sukkot (or the Feast of Tabernacles).
Shavuot occurs 50 days after the offering of the first fruits and passover… and celebrates the newly harvested wheat and barley as well as the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai.
It is also called the Feast of Weeks because of the seven-week counting period from Passover. Pilgrims would travel to Jerusalem to offer thanks to God for their harvest and participate in Temple worship, giving this both an agricultural and spiritual significance.
This is all in accordance with the Law as given in Leviticus.
15 ‘You shall also count for yourselves from the day after the sabbath, from the day when you brought in the sheaf of the wave offering; there shall be seven complete sabbaths.
16 ‘You shall count fifty days to the day after the seventh sabbath; then you shall present a new grain offering to the Lord.
As we stated this feast served two purposes. They would give a thanksgiving offering. On Shavuot, the wheat harvest was celebrated by bringing the new wheat crop to the Holy Temple. The firstfruits from the wheat, along with other crops like barley, figs, grapes, dates, olives, and pomegranates, were offered in gratitude for the abundance of the land.
They also celebrated the giving of the Torah on Mt Sinai and this feast marked the beginning of the agricultural season in Israel.
It was a time of joy, a time of celebration, and a time of thanksgiving.
You may recall that after the crucifixion of Jesus, even after His resurrection the believers were holed up in a room hiding. They were afraid for their lives. The Jews and the Romans had captured their leader, taken Him prisoner and then crucified Him. If they did that to Jesus , what would they do to them?
However, to their credit, they had been commanded by Jesus to stay in Jerusalem, until they had received what the Father had promised.
4 And gathering them together, He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, “Which,” He said, “you heard of from Me;
5 for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.”
6 And so when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
8 but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”
and
12 Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away.
13 And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying; that is, Peter and John and James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James.
and so on the day of Pentecost we find them in the upper room waiting for the gift of the Holy Spirit.
That was a day that would change the world!
1 And when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
2 And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent, rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.
3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
5 Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men, from every nation under heaven.
6 And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were bewildered, because they were each one hearing them speak in his own language.
7 And they were amazed and marveled, saying, “Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans?
8 “And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born?
9 “Parthians and Medes and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia,
10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes,
11 Cretans and Arabs—we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God.”
12 And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, “What does this mean?”
13 But others were mocking and saying, “They are full of sweet wine.”
Picture the scene. The disciples are still all gathered in the upper room just as they had been for the last 10 days. That would be from the time that they had watched Jesus ascend into heaven.
It was around the 3rd hour… that would have been around 9:00 in the morning when all of sudden there was this loud sound like a violent rushing wind. It would have sounded like a tornado just outside your door.
This noise was so loud that the whole town was aware of it and came running to see what was happening. It filled the whole house where they were sitting.
and that was not all… There appeared this light coming down… call it a holographic light shaped like flames of fire. And the light all of a sudden broke apart into several pieces of smaller flames … like tongues of fire.… which came upon everyone in the room.
It was not actual flames of fire… but it looked like flames of fire.
And as the flames came to rest on the people they began to speak in various tongues. The text is very clear. It does not say that they were speaking in Hebrew. It says they were speaking in other tongues. It does not say they were speaking in some heavenly language. The text goes on to describe the various languages and they were know spoken languages at that time, as the Spirit was giving them utterance.
In verse 6 it says, each one was hearing them speak in their own language. The word for language is “διαλεκτῳ”, from which we get our English word dialect.
This is not saying that one person came out of the room and someone from Egypt heard that person speaking in Egyptian while at the same time someone from Crete heard the same person speaking in Creatian. That would be a gift of interpretation or hearing.
It says they came out speaking in different languages.
One person was speaking in Parthianian, another in the dialect of the Medes… and another in the dialect of Mesopotamia.
In fact in 1 Corinthians 14 addresses this very issue in
22 So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers; but prophecy is for a sign, not to unbelievers, but to those who believe.
23 If therefore the whole church should assemble together and all speak in tongues, and ungifted men or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are mad?
They would say they are mad because they could not understand what they were saying. It would sound like a bunch of people speaking gobbledygook.
They would hear the words.. but none of it would make any sense.
In this case they were speaking in various tongues but it did make sense to those who were from the region of the dialect they were speaking.
The equivalent for us today would be that we them them speaking. … some in Spanish, some in Russian, some in Italian… Some in German. All of a sudden this group of Galileans came out speaking perfect German, or Spanish, or Portuguese and they are all praising God and the people are saying What is going on?
Are these people all drunk? and at this Peter get’s up and explains.
No they are not drunk… it’s only 9:00 in the morning. This is what was prophesied by the prophet Joel...
17 ‘And it shall be in the last days,’ God says, ‘That I will pour forth of My Spirit upon all mankind; And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, And your young men shall see visions, And your old men shall dream dreams;
18 Even upon My bondslaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of My Spirit And they shall prophesy.
When the Holy Spirit came upon these new believers They were suddenly Changed. They came out into the streets and began openly praising God IN PUBLIC.… can you imagine that?
And not only that.… Peter who had denied Jesus three times… This Peter now takes a public stand for Jesus. He steps up as a spokesman for the whole group.
14 But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them: “Men of Judea, and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give heed to my words.
