Declare the wonders of God! (Acts 2:1-13)

Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon January 27, 2008

The first verse, we are introduced to what it is called “the day of Pentecost.” To understand what is going on in our text, it would be helpful if we can get a grasp on the Jewish Feasts that were instituted by God in the Old Testament.

So, I would like to begin this morning by teaching you some of the important Jewish feasts that you find in the Old Testament. The day of the Pentecost is one of the feasts that the Jews observed in the Old Testament. It was considered a spring feast, along with the day of Passover, the day of unleavened bread, the day of first fruits.

The first feast or holiday observed is Passover. You see this account in Exodus 12:1-28. Usually occurs in our calendar sometime in March or April. This year, it will be on April 20.

The Passover commemorate Israel’s deliverance from Egypt; it was also the day to remind the children of Israel how God spared their firstborn (Exodus 12:27). Now, the New Testament significance for the day of Passover is this fact that Jesus Christ is our Passover. In John 1:29, when the John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The Passover lambs during the time of Exodus were to have no broken bones. While the soldiers broke the legs of the criminals hanging next to Jesus, when they came to Jesus they didn’t break Jesus’ legs realizing that Jesus was already dead. You read this fulfillment in John 19:36. Apostle Paul explicitly stated in 1 Corinthians 5:7, “Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” Apostle Peter called Jesus as “a lamb without blemish or defect” in 1 Peter 1:19.

The after Passover night began the feast of unleavened bread. You read this Exodus 12:15-20. For seven days, the Israelites were to eat bread made without yeast. After the Passover, the Israelites left Egypt immediately. They didn’t have time to prepare their bread with yeast, to wait for it to rise before baking. So, during the feast of unleavened bread, they were to eat only unleavened bread, to remember again the time of Exodus when God demonstrated his power to deliver the Israelites out of Egypt. The connection between the day of unleavened bread and the New Testament is that the day of unleavened bread signifies when Jesus was buried.

Another major feast, holiday observance is the day of first fruits. You read about this in Leviticus 23:9-14. It was to be observed when the Israelites first entered the Promised Land. On calendar, it comes on the third day from the day of Passover and a day after the day of unleavened bread began. It is when the firstfruits of barley harvest were to be dedicated and consecrated to the Lord. The connection is to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. In 1 Corinthians 15:20-23, apostle Paul called Jesus Christ as “the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep,” one who was raised from the dead first to live eternally and as a guarantee of the bodily resurrection of all believers, “those who belong to him” when he returns.

So these three Spring Jewish feasts, the day of Passover, the day of unleavened bread, and the day of firstfruits all point to Jesus for his death, crucifixion, his burial, and his resurrection.

Now what comes next in the spring feast is the day of Pentecost.

Passover marks the beginning of the barley season. And, the day of Pentecost marks the beginning of the wheat harvest season. The word Pentecost comes from the Greek word for “fiftieth”. So, the day of Pentecost was fiftieth day after the when the first sheaf, first grain from the barley harvest was presented to the Lord; when you consider Passover, it is the fiftieth day from the first Sunday after Passover, which is the day of firstfruits.

There are other names for the day of Pentecost. In Leviticus 23:15-16, it is called the Feast of Weeks. It was called because it came after a period of seven weeks of harvesting that began with the offering of the first barley sheaf during the Passover celebration, the Feast of firstfruits. In Exodus 23:16, it was called “the Feast of Harvest.”

This day of Pentecost, or also known as the Feast or Weeks or Harvest was along with Passover and the fall feast called the day of Tabernacles when all the Jewish males were commanded to present themselves to the Lord at the temple. This is why you see the presence of the God-fearing Jews from everywhere in verse 5.

Another significance of the day of Pentecost is this day was considered by the Jews as the anniversary of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai. They figured this from the chronological date indication from Exodus 19:1.

What were the significances of the day of Pentecost?

1. The day of Pentecost was the day of the Spirit’s outpouring as Jesus promised.

This was the day that Jesus was talking to the disciples in Acts 1:8, the day “when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The day of Pentecost was the day when the Counselor Jesus promised in John 16 came on the believers. This Counselor, the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost began to convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment; in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” The word of God never fails. As Jesus said it would happen, it happened.

The day of Pentecost was a day to celebrate the anniversary of the giving of the law at Mount Sinai for Jews. Yet, on this day when they celebrated the giving of the law, now the Spirit came on them. This was the day Ezekiel’s promise was fulfilled. Ezekiel 36:26-27, “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws.”

2. The day of Pentecost was the day the intimate and personal encounter with God began.

The day of Pentecost began with the spectacular display of the Holy Spirit coming on the believers were all together in one place. “Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven.” Now both in Hebrew word ruah and Greek word pneuma can either mean wind or spirit. It is understood either wind or spirit depending on the specific context you find it. In Ezekiel, you see the wind as the breath of God blowing over the dry bones in the valley. Ezekiel 37:14 says, “I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the LORD have spoken, and I have done it, declares the LORD.”

And, the Spirit of God in the sound of wind breathing on to believers came down on them what appeared as “tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them” in verse 3. As the wind was often understood as the Spirit of God, the fire also was understood as a symbol of the divine presence. You remember how Moses encountered God for the first time. It was the burning bush in Exodus 3:2-5 where Moses met God. During the time of Exodus and in the wilderness, it was in the pillar of the fire that God guarded and guided them by night (Exodus 13:21). And, you read God’s terrifying presence shown in the consuming fire on Mount Sinai in Exodus 24:17. And, in the wilderness, you see the first that hovered over the wilderness tabernacle in Exodus 40:38. And, in the New Testament, John the Baptist often spoke about the coming of the Spirit with fire as in Matthew 3:11 and Luke 3:16.

What is very important to notice in this account is the fact that “the tongues of fire separated and came to rest on each of them.” In the Old Testament, the Spirit came to Israel as a corporate entity and upon the leaders of Israel for specific and special purposes like the Spirit did for the prophets like Elijah and Elisha. But, what we see in the chapter is that the tongues of fire, the Spirit of God, didn’t come to collectively rest on them. What we see is the Spirit of God coming down and resting on them individually. Through Jesus Christ, the promised Holy Spirit to the church is not experienced in the collective sense firsthand, but it begins with each of us as individual. The experience of God that is now available to us is not lost in the crowd. God meets us personally. And, the Spirit of God bears witness to the suffering, death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ to each of us. Church exists because individuals of church know Christ personally through the Holy Spirit. In Christ, each of us matters. In church, each of you matters.

The big picture is there is no such thing as healthy church without healthy members. There is no such thing as growing church without growing individuals in the church. Many of you desire for our church to grow, to mature, to be a gathering of people where God is experienced powerfully and truthfully. The building block to this growth begins at the level of each of us. When each of us is growing together, church will grow.

3. The day of Pentecost was the beginning day of the declaration of God’s wonders.

The end result of the filling of the Spirit, the Spirit resting on the each of those gathered in one place was that they began speaking in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. The word here tongues is also used to describe languages. And, from what followed, how other God-fearing Jews from every nation under haven, each of them heard these Spirit believers speaking in their own language. The Spirit of God enabled them to speak in foreign languages that they had never learned.

Now, a side note, the tongues as we commonly understand as the gift of the Holy Spirit from 1 Corinthians 14 and often you hear exercised in our church prayer meetings as well in others settings required the gift of the interpreters to understand the meaning of the spoken tongues. Now, the gift of interpretation was not just merely someone who could speak foreign languages. It is the ability to understand the undecipherable words. So, in this sense, the tongues in the second chapter of Acts was of different kind than the one that we commonly understand as the gift of tongues.

Going back to our text, from all around Jerusalem, people gathered to worship God. Each of the God fearing Jews heard in their own languages from the Spirit-filled believers.

Look at this map.

There were two kinds of responses to what happened here. Some were amazed, but some made fun of them saying they had too much wine.

Now, here is what’s really significant. What did they hear from the Spirit-filled believers? Verse 11, “we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!”

What was the purpose of the Spirit coming and resting on them individually? What was the purpose of the Spirit filling them? This was the beginning of the breaking-in of the testimonies from the lips of the believers about salvation in Christ, salvation available for all people. The spirit filled them and they declared, they spoke boldly of God’s wonder in Jesus Christ.