PrivacyPolicyTerms ofUse. I didn't know how to read a board to tell me these things. Bold, Men and brethren, he begins to explain what's happened. That's the famous road to Emmaus experienced from the book of Luke, "and they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either." Well, the real answer is for you and I, the same things that are going through your mind right now, and my mind. Originally, Pentecost was a Jewish holiday held 50 days after Passover. A sermon for Pentecost - Durham Cathedral. No one could learn that song except the 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth. The. But the Holy Spirit enabled Paul to see what this false prophet was doing and prompted him to pronounce a curse on Bar-Jesus. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.". I would suspect that it may have been during that 40-day interval between our Lords resurrection and His ascension. The church acknowledged the leading of the Spirit and laid their hands on these men, and then sent them off. And what was the key to that? . And therein, lies a key to the understanding of what had taken place with these individuals here. Why, then, does Luke include these verses? John has another set of accounts, and then he kind of ends and he leaves it wide open. Now it has become popular to carry this theme over to homes, where pitiful or plain houses are transformed into palatial homes. They were alone. He also is a residentfaculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. And this dramatic miracle took place, of wind, and fire, and language, and hearing, and people took notice. And over a three and a half year period they had had their lives transformed and then they'd watched Him die. If we begin to look at one another as less than trustworthy, then that has other consequences in relationships, and that's taking place among the disciples here at this moment. They also point out that Lukes account depicts this selection in a favorable light, and that nothing negative is said about the action taken here. He was the one who was the leader of that doubt and fear and terrified approach, because he denied Christ three times, and he had to be pointedly taught by Jesus. He and his wife, Debbie, have served in the ministry for more than 43years. That is what caused them to banish their fear, trouble, doubt, and unbelief: Christ in them through the Holy Spirit. Let us give thought to the way Luke prepares us for what is yet to come. "Behold, He said, My hands and My feet, that it is I Myself. It appears to me that this upper room may well be a place well known to the apostles, perhaps a room owned by someone close to Jesus. The Great Commission was not only given to the apostles; it was given to the church. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth . The Greek word means "fifty" and refers to the fifty days that have elapsed since the wave offering of Passover. And then the 50th day came, the morning of Pentecost, and they were gathered together. 5 Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as if it were coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God, 6 who made us adequate to be servants of a new covenant not based on the letter but on the Spirit, for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. Ben Hadad, the king of Syria, was threatening war against Israel and its King, Ahab. We are going to be taking giant steps toward creating that kind of Church that we read about here in the book of Acts, that has been imbued with the power of the Holy Spirit, and changes are being made. Peter was the first one to preach on the day of Pentecost after the coming of the Holy Spirit and he was the first one to proclaim Christ to a . That they're not drunk, that this is of God. The Holy Spirit will come upon you shortly to empower you to carry out this task, so wait in Jerusalem until you receive this power.. Think about that among our own relationships with each other. So if I can come back to the question that I asked, what was going through their mind on that morning of Pentecost? Back in Mark's account, chapter 16 of Mark, we see that the same thing lingered among the wide group of people there. "Also for this very reason, giving all diligence into your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, the divine nature. Articles that are published in our magazine or scripting for our television programs goes through a very, very thorough review process. These are the ones who are not defiled with women, they are virgins, spiritual virgins. What do we do now? in 1971. And to live with the reality that there is a God who judges, who sees, and who knows. They have two sons, who are both married, and four grandchildren. Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's what the gift of the Holy Spirit is for us. It is the ideal to which every subsequent church period has wished to be able to emulate, including ours today. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. It would further seem that this is the room where the apostles had been staying the previous 40 days. So He begins to teach them from the Scriptures that they might understand, and that they might comprehend what He was and how He had fulfilled everything that they would have understood to one degree, and then even more they had begun to develop a fuller understanding of the prophecies of Isaiah, or Joel, or Jeremiah, or Ezekiel, the statements about the Messiah. "And He said to them, 'Thus it is written, thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer, to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and the remissions of sins would be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem, and you are witnesses of these things. I was standing there gazing, not quite knowing what to do. He made it clear that the Holy Spirit played a key role in their appointment. Finally, verses 15-26 are the account of the selection of Matthias as the twelfth apostle, a replacement for Judas. In the end, I think we must acknowledge that we must read between the lines a great deal to conclude that the replacement of Judas was wrong. 12 Then when the proconsul saw what had happened, he believed, because he was greatly astounded at the teaching about the Lord. United Church of Godis a501(c)3organization. "Standing with the Lamb on the Mount of Olives," in Revelation 14:1, "144,000 with the Father's name written on their foreheads. After Jesus' ascension, his followers, about 120 of them, continued to meet in Jerusalem. I remember taking my little bag and walking over and kind of looking around, and sitting down on a bench. Because they were seeing Christ risen and they saw Him in a bodily form, but then they were attributing something different to that. The apostles then found themselves speaking in foreign languages, inspired by the Holy Spirit. In the midst of all of the gnats, let us not miss the camel of this text, namely that the Holy Spirit was soon (not many days from now, verse 5) to come upon them, empowering them to carry out the Great Commission. Pentecostal Christians believe in the direct experience of the Holy Spirit by believers during all of their services. Up until this point, Paul (known as Saul until now) was clearly Barnabas assistant. The Roman Empire was not anything to fool around with. The mystery of this paragraph is to explain why Luke went to so much effort (and space) to describe an event which appears to have little impact on the events that follow Pentecost. Let me last observe that Acts 1 is the beginning of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in Acts. Based upon Pauls words in Ephesians 3, I am inclined to assume what a portion of this conversation may have been: 4 When reading this, you will be able to understand my insight into this secret of Christ. And perhaps like you and I would today, we might look at it as a little bit odd. Pentecost is celebrated 50 days after Easter and is when Christians remember the gift of the Holy Spirit. And it is Christ in us that is that hope of glory. They stood there, transfixed. [Darris McNeely] On the morning of Pentecost 31 AD, what do you think was going through the minds of the assembled disciples in Jerusalem? But let's go back, let's look at a few of these scriptures in a little bit more detail and see exactly what had been taking place among the disciples during this period of time, that brought them to that morning of Pentecost. The Bible teaches the following concerning how the Holy Spirit was involved with the formation and the functioning of the church. It commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and other disciples following the Crucifixion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Jesus Christ (Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2), and it marks the . Verses 40 to 47 is a summary of one of the most remarkable periods of the church experience. 6We can easily deduce this since Pentecost was 50 days after Passover. I have my own Star Trekkian-type of way to imagine how Jesus ascended. And of course, one of the most dramatic scenes in all the Bible occurred with the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the gathered disciples, and the speaking in tongues, and a mighty rushing wind that we find it hard to imagine what it was like, because it's not part of our custom to try to pray that down today like some other denominations and religious forms do. If I were to summarize it, it would probably be like this: Your mission until I return is to preach the gospel to all nations. Find the date for Pentecost 2014 in the multifaith calendar. Pentecost is the festival when Christians celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit. Somebody will tap me on the shoulder and tell me what to do next, but you know what? Acts 1, consistent with the rest of the Book of Acts, reminds us that it is not about us; it is about God. And let's look at it beginning in verse 36, this is after His resurrection, "As they said these things," this is the two that He had appeared to on the road to Emmaus, "Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said to them, 'Peace to you.' Thus, whether it was the selection of leaders or making important doctrinal distinctions, the Holy Spirit played a key role from Pentecost on. He certainly became one of the boldest witnesses for the faith. After seeing how God works through His Spirit in Acts 2 and beyond, who would ever want to go back to the old? The translation project originally started as an attempt to provide an electronic version of a modern translation for electronic distribution over the Internet and on CD (compact disk). The disciples had seen what would happen because Christ was arrested and had come before the high priest. As I got up this morning, prepared to come over here, go through the day, same things that will be in my mind tomorrow, and next Thursday, and a month from today. He understood that, and again, He is just laying it out that they were troubled and there was doubt. If all the facts were known, I believe that these two accounts would perfectly compliment each other. And He leaves them on the Mount of Olives, which is a very, very significant geographic feature there on the east of Jerusalem across from the city, and through the Kidron Valley and up on this Mount called Olives. And you will be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." The ministry has had those two themes for the past two conferences. Jesus was appearing to the apostles for 40 days until His ascension, and so there had to be 10 days left until Pentecost. Jerusalem was swelled with pilgrims, at this point in time, and this added to the drama of the moment. If we can make that decision and live with that reality that there is a God who lives, and before Him we stand every single day of our life and every major decision, every small decision of character, and the decisions that we make in the privacy of our own mind, and in our own actions that not everyone knows about, not even our mate, all are in accordance with righteousness and a desire for righteousness. It is regarded as the birthday of the Christian church. And so they had become a part of something that again, they were still trying to understand. Unmistakable. The following is an excerpt from "A Year of Grace: Collected Sermons of Advent through Pentecost" written by Bo Giertz and translated by Bror Erickson (1517 Publishing, 2019). And there wasn't a Jew in Jerusalem, not a rabbi, not a priest who'd ever understood Joel or the Psalms in that way, nor would they have ever dreamed of applying it to what had happened just weeks earlier, with the arrest, crucifixion, and death of this Man called Jesus of Nazareth. First, there was an unmistakable "sound like a mighty rushing wind" that "filled the entire house" where the believers had gathered. Verses 15-26 immediately precede Pentecost, but do not appear to have any profound impact on the apostles or on the community of believers. But they were terrified, and frightened, and supposed they had seen a spirit." I believe that this upper room became headquarters for them during the entire 50-day period after our Lords resurrection. We've just read it. Then I finally figured out, "Oh, I got to do this myself. Handle Me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have." So it was a bodily appearance that He made completely to them, and He showed them His hands and His feet. The Holy Spirit is the third part of the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that is the way Christians understand God. They left the selection of these leaders to the people, but they did set the qualifications. The apostles stayed in Jerusalem, as instructed, and they devoted themselves to prayer, along with those who were closely associated with Jesus in His earthly ministry. They'd likely not seen it. The apostles did as the angels implied; they returned to Jerusalem to wait. The apostles were all Galileans (see Acts 1:11; 2:7; see also Matthew 26:73), so they could not stay in their own homes. Prior to His death, the disciples were constantly with Jesus.
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