Blood, Fire, and Smoke (2)

Introduction

Sunday Nite Power; Restore Atlanta; stay vigilant.

Spiritual Power - Training to unleash the power of the Holy Spirit on our lives and in the world.

We are engaging in this training by studying the book of Acts. Acts is a book about how ordinary people did extraordinary things through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the name of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit is a personality of the triune God. God is singular, but He has a triune nature: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Water, you...

This will help guide us...

The Holy Spirit is a personality who exists to unleash Spiritual Power in the life of the one who has called on the Name of Jesus.

The book of Acts chronicles this power that was unleashed. Power to witness about Jesus. Power to witness about one who lived, died, was buried, and rose again. Power to tell the masses of the saving power of the Name of Jesus.

Power to be an agent of the Kingdom. Power to be a priesthood of believers. Power to turn the world upside down. Power to help make ready a people for the Lord.

What I call Spiritual Power. And if you are a baptized believer of Jesus. One who has been cleansed and cleared of the stain and sentence of sin. You have the power.

You are more than just a member of the church; you have Spiritual Power.

The world needs the power unleashed.

Blood, Fire, and Smoke.

Background

Let me bring you into this, so you can see it, feel it, and experience it.

Acts 2:14-21

The text today contains the events following the coming of the Holy Spirit upon the disciples of Jesus who had taken Jesus at His word and waited in Jerusalem for the power to arrive.

In Luke 24:49 - Jesus told His disciples to stay in Jerusalem (the city) until you are clothed with power from on High.

The promise of Jesus is that the power of the Holy Spirit would overwhelm them. They had to be in the right expectant position.

I’ve told you about positioning yourselves underneath the commands of Jesus if we are to be filled with Power today. Are you willing to do what He said?

So do we.

In Acts 2:1-11, we see the Holy Spirit thus descended upon the followers of Jesus and allowed them to speak in languages representative of every nation under heaven, to Jews who were from each respective nation on the Jewish Day of Pentecost, fifty days after Jesus was crucified. Telling them the might works of God.

Power had come to earth and was being manifested by followers of Jesus doing the extraordinary.

This would have been a chaotic and marvelous scene. One that would have left people scratching their heads of how something so spectacular, so powerful could have taken place.

v.12

What does this mean? What is the meaning behind this?

Remember when the Falcons blew the Super Bowl and we are all like, “How in the world did that just happen?”

Insert Falcons PIC

That’s the sense here. What in the world?

But our human mind always seeks to have resolution to questions. And the human minds of the Jews were at work this day.

But there was some that just mocked the situation.

v.13

There is only one meaning that they can come up with for this fantastical situation. Only one explanation for how these folks are speaking in languages that no one can really understand but the group that speaks the language.

They must be drunk. Blame it on the alcohol.

They Can’t See It

v.14

Standing with the eleven. They had been sitting and waiting, but now they are standing and witnessing. They had been frightened, but now they are courageous. They had been timid, but now they are bold.

They embraced their power.

Someone here this morning needs to embrace their power...

A realization of your Spiritual Power changes your attitude and your behavior.

Lifting up his voice because the scene was chaotic.

Give ear - pay attention to.

v.15

Not drunk as you suppose. You assume that they are drunk because you can’t comprehend that it could be something other than fleshly. You’ve assigned the wrong meaning to it because you can’t see the big picture. You obviously have God in in a box.

We miss some things because our view of the triune God is limited.

Isaiah 55: 9 . 13B light years.

They missed the Messiah. Too blind to see. They are dominated by the flesh, so they can’t really comprehend the spiritual.

To be filled with the Spirit and move in power requires a separation from being dominated by the flesh and an openness to being dominated by the Spirit.

1 Corinthians 2:14 - The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. POST

Sometimes we miss what is possible.

They should be able to see that their assumptions were off because it was only 9am. Plus, any upstanding Jew would have prepared for the Day of Pentecost, plus the time to get drunk was at night (1 Thessalonians 5:7).

What’s happening with the crowd in the 1st century, too often happens with the church in the 21st century.

Our eyes are often closed to what the Spirit can do because we are too dominated by the flesh.

Too busy trying to run stuff; have stuff our way; fix stuff (in life and in the church).

What’s left for him to do if you are going to do it all?

What Should Have Been Seen

Here is what should have been seen...

v.16

What you see here is the Spirit’s explosion on the earth.

What you see here is the Word of God come to life, through the Spirit’s power.

Peter is quoting Joel 2:28-32

A text that was written 500 years before the events of Acts 2. What he wrote about 500 years ago, by the Holy Spirit, is coming to life today.

Look at It

v.17-18

The last days. This is the last dispensational time period.

We are in the last days. The Spirit would be on the earth in the last days.

It shall be…IT IS GOING TO HAPPEN…GOD DECLARES. Joel says that God says...

The Spirit would be poured out on all humankind and then Peter gives an example on what that could look like.

Sons and daughters. For men and women.

Young men and by inference young women.

Old men and by inference old women.

EVEN on the servant.

I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; all flesh will have Spiritual Power.

Acts 5:32 goes further. All humans, who have faithfully obeyed the commands of Jesus, have Spiritual Power.

Spiritual Power is for everyone who surrenders and obeys.

The old, young, rich, poor, educated, the uneducated.

The same Spirit that was upon Christ is within me.

Let me bring you back to the text: What Peter is saying is that on that day, the words of Joel were coming to pass and the Spirit had come to earth and the power is upon all flesh.

I Can See It

v.19-20

This is symbolism and maybe even apocalyptic language that I don’t want you to get lost on.

What he is saying is that when the time of the Spirit comes, the time will come with miracles and wonders in the heavens and earth below.

When Jesus died there was darkness on the earth.

Luke 23:44 - there was darkness on the earth from the sixth hour to the ninth hour.

Ancient theologian - Tertullian -wrote that Pontus Pilate wrote to Caesar Tiberius and told him that on that day, the moon was like blood.

On the earth, the land did quake. The veil of the temple was torn from top to bottom.

On the day of crucifixion there were wonders in heaven and on earth.

The Day of Pentecost was a day of blood, fire, and smoke not only because of the many sacrifices that day, but because this was a day of wonder. The Spirit was active that day.

Peter is saying that Scripture is jumping off the page in their lives then.

Two dimensional vs. four dimensional.

What I want you to know is that if the Spirit is filling your life today, we can still be in the time of blood, fire, and smoke. We can still see great wonders of the Holy Spirit. We can have a 21st century time of blood, fire, and smoke.

Someone is going to meet that and say the Holy Spirit doesn’t necessarily work the same way. I agree, but that doesn’t mean He does less.

The Holy Spirit is active, but our ignorance of Him does not invite His activity.

What I want you to see is that the same Holy Spirit that you read about in Scripture can leap off the page today. We can have our own period of blood, fire, and smoke!!

The Holy Spirit and His power are still with us today.

John 14:16-17

There had never been a promise of an abiding Spirit in the lives of any of the people who existed before this point.

Maybe we don’t see the Spirit working like this because our faith is so low that we don’t think it is possible.

What Will You See

The prophecy of Joel was originally given following a locust plague that ravaged the land, creating a severe famine. Joel called the people of Judah to repentance and promised restoration of their prosperity and pointing to the Day of the Lord.

Joel was showing hope that could come from repentance.

This is the same thing Peter is seeking to show his audience.

Not only is the Holy Spirit for all, but salvation is for all.

v.21

Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Joel is pointing to this and so is Peter. Truthfully, everything points to this.

Salvation comes to those who call on the name of the Lord is as relevant today as it was then. That’s how you open yourself up to the power.

Let’s be clear who the Lord is that Peter refers to. The Lord is Jesus Christ. Acts 4:11-12 - This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

All men need to be saved because as, v.17 put it, we are in the last days. At any moment Jesus will return.

He will gather those who have been saved and sealed with the Holy Spirit, who as Ephesians 1:14, says is the guarantee of our inheritance.

He is eventually going to tell them that they need to repent and be baptized and the would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Everyone can be saved. Everyone can receive the Holy Spirit.

Everyone can be filled with Spiritual Power on this earth today.

Baptized believers have this power.

Conclusion

It is still the time for Blood, Fire, and Smoke, but you have to unleash the power in you.

Scripture can still leap off of the page into life when we call on the name of Jesus and are filled with the Holy Spirit.

But you have to allow the Spirit to fill your life and then unleash it.

Having power and not unleashing it is like being Lebron James and never touching a basketball.

It is like being Steve Jobs and never looking at a computer.

It is like being Michael Jackson and never attempting to perform.

It is like being Whitney Houston and never singing a note.

It is like being Jay-Z and never writing a rhyme.

It is like being Oprah and never conducting an interview.

It is like being Steven Spielberg and never yelling “action.”

It is like being Martin Luther King and never speaking up for injustice.

Your Challenge: Fill Me with the Holy Spirit. Unleash your power through me.