Welcome to Acts chapter 2.
Acts 2 and read from verse 1.
So many have asked us about this subject
of the Holy Spirit.
And because of the word that our brother
gave us on Friday afternoon, I feel led
of the Spirit to take up a series
now on the Holy Spirit.
This afternoon I want to speak about the
glorious advent of the Holy Spirit.
On Tuesday, what do we mean by the
fullness of the Spirit?
Wednesday, the conflict of the Spirit and understanding
that conflict.
And then on Thursday, the last meeting as
far as we know.
The activity of the Holy Spirit in a
believer's life.
Now shall we turn to Acts 2 and
read just the first few verses.
And when the day of Pentecost was fully
come, they were all with one accord in
one place.
And suddenly there came a sound from heaven
as of a rushing mighty wind, and it
filled all the house where they were sitting.
And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like
as a fire, and it sat upon each
of them.
And they were all filled with the Holy
Ghost.
And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout
men, out of every nation under heaven.
Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude
came together and were confounded, because that every
man heard them speak in his own language.
And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying
one to another, Behold, are not all these
which speak Galileans?
And how here we every man in his
own tongue wherein we were born.
Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and dwellers in
Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, and Pontus,
and Asia.
Phrygia, Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts
of Libya about Cyrene.
And strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes, Cretes,
and Arabians.
We do hear them speak in our own
tongues the wonderful works of God.
Now the Lord will bless that portion of
his word to us.
Ever since the day of Pentecost we have
been living in the age of the Holy
Spirit.
If you were alive in the Old Testament
and someone had received the Holy Spirit, he
would be exceedingly special.
In fact you would say something like that.
That man or that woman has the anointing
of God upon them.
But when we come to the New Testament,
which is really the initial stages of this
great day of the Holy Spirit, we find
that the Holy Spirit indwells all believers.
And therefore each believer becomes a functional priest
in the presence of God.
Now what I want to do just for
a few moments is to give you an
outline on the glorious advent of the Holy
Spirit.
First of all I want you to look
at the time of the advent.
Then I want you to look at the
place of the advent, which is very instructive.
And then I want you to look at
the conditions that were relevant at the time
of his advent.
And then is this time, and I do
trust we may be able to major on
this, the glorious symbolism of the advent of
the Holy Spirit.
The time.
When the day of Pentecost was fully come.
Quite frankly dear friends we cannot understand that
little statement until we understand the Feast of
Jehovah.
And in those seven great feasts in Leviticus
23, we have an outline of God's religious
programme.
The first feast that's mentioned is the Sabbath,
and that will be fulfilled completely in the
millennium, when man on creation has its glorious
rest.
So God begins where we would finish.
He always sees the thing complete.
Before he gives us his programme.
The second feast was the Feast of Passover,
and according to the Apostle Paul when he
writes to the Corinthians, that was fulfilled at
the cross, Christ our Passover.
Following the Feast of Passover there was the
Feast of Firstfruits, and that was fulfilled at
the resurrection, when in Corinthians 15 he tells
us Christ our Firstfruits.
Then after the Feast of Firstfruits there was
seven Sabbaths, that began on the day after
their Sabbath.
So that was Sunday.
And that approximately made 50 days.
And after the seven Sabbaths, thus began the
Feast of Pentecost.
And the Feast of Pentecost undoubtedly speaks of
the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and thus
the beginning of this great age, which we
call the Church Age, or the Age of
Grace.
Now in the Feast of Pentecost there were
certain matters of importance.
The most important thing were the two giant
wavelets.
I wish you could see them.
It would give you some idea of what
the feast really meant.
But there was something mystical and strange about
those wavelets.
All the cereal offerings that they offered were
to be without leaven.
But those wavelets had incorporated in them leaven,
that which puffed up like our yeast.
Now why should the most significant thing be
these two wavelets?
The first company of people to receive the
Holy Spirit would be the Jewish Christians.
Then the second great company to receive the
Holy Spirit would be the Gentile Christians, when
the Holy Spirit fell upon them when Peter
was preaching in Acts 10.
And so those two wavelets represent the Jew
first and the Gentile, and they're all brought
together through the Holy Spirit in one glorious
body.
Now with those two wavelets they offered seven
lambs, and then they offered one bullock.
Then the priest would offer two rams, and
all these would be offered as burnt offerings
with these two loaves.
Then a goat would be offered for a
sin offering, and then last of all there
would be two lambs offered for a peace
offering.
Now what is the Spirit of God saying
to us through this?
The Holy Spirit could not possibly be poured
out until Jesus Christ suffered on the cross.
And therefore when he died upon the cross,
he furnished all the motives of the Father's
love and brought glory to the throne of
God.
That's the burnt offering.
Then he dealt with our sins to the
satisfaction of God so that God could be
righteous and still forgive the sinner.
That's the sin offering.
Then he brought together through the cross both
Jew and Gentile by first of all breaking
down the middle wall of petition and then
through the glorious baptism of the Spirit joined
the two companies together.
So you can see we must never, never
divorce the work of Calvary from the work
of the Spirit.
That's why when Paul speaks about the work
of the Spirit in Romans 8, he says
the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus.
You see you cannot separate his work from
the work of the Lord Jesus.
And so we have the day of Pentecost.
Again if we look at the day of
Pentecost very clearly, we shall find according to
the Gospels that it was prophesied, it was
fulfilled, and then it became an historical event.
For instance John the Baptist looked at the
baptism of the Holy Spirit in prospect.
In Acts chapter 2 we have it in
aspect.
And then in 1 Corinthians 12 we have
it in retrospect.
Therefore John made it quite clear I baptise
with or in water but the one that's
coming after me shall baptise you in the
Holy Spirit and with fire.
Now that was a prophecy.
In Acts chapter 2 the fulfilment of that
prophecy was seen when the Holy Spirit came
as of a rushing mighty wind and cloven
tongues of fire.
And then the Apostle Paul looks back to
this great day of baptism and he says
by one spirit will you all baptise into
one body.
So have you got that?
Baptism by John the Baptist was a picture
of the coming of the Holy Spirit in
retrospect.
Acts 2, the aspect, the fulfilment.
And then in 1 Corinthians 12 the retrospect.
Looking back to the event.
Now I believe that's clear.
Now please note the place and I think
this is very important.
The rushing mighty wind filled the house where
they were sitting.
You would never, never find that statement in
the Old Testament.
If someone said that the glory of the
Lord filled a little house In the Old
Testament you would say something like this.
You must be joking.
You see the Holy Spirit in the Old
Testament was always associated to a place and
to a few people.
And therefore when the tabernacle was erected the
glory of the Lord filled it and the
symbol of his presence in the holiest of
all was the Shekinah Glory.
And that was the abiding place of the
Spirit of God.
Again you will remember when Solomon built that
ornate temple probably the greatest building that's ever
been constructed in human history.
The glory of the Lord filled it in
the form of that cloud and the priests
could not minister because of the glory.
But you see it was confined to an
ornate place.
Now you find the blessed Holy Spirit missing
all the confines of Herod's temple.
In fact this is surprising and it's true.
The Lord Jesus never went into the holiest
of all in Herod's temple.
Never even recognised it.
But now you find in a house, probably
an upper room, the presence of God.
Why?
No longer does God dwell in temples made
with hands but he dwells among his people
and he dwells among his people who are
gathered together in his name.
And therefore in a simple building like this
we can claim the very presence of God
and that should cause us all to worship.
Then I want you to note the conditions
that were relevant at the time of his
coming.
They were all with one accord in one
place.
Now here is something that I believe is
quite surprising.
We mustn't imagine that these first century Christians
were supermen.
They had all failed.
They had failed theologically.
The Lord Jesus told them on five occasions,
just ten days before he died that he
was going to be killed, he was going
to be buried and he was going to
rise again, but they never cottoned on to
it.
And when it happened, they were badly shaken.
Secondly, we find that they not only failed
theologically but they failed devotionally.
On two occasions, perhaps three occasions, they were
caught arguing who was going to be the
greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
Just a fortnight before the Lord Jesus died,
on one occasion he stepped out of the
midst to allow a little child to take
his place and then on another occasion he
laid aside his garment and took a towel
and girded himself with that towel and washed
their feet in the presence of this spirit
of exhortation.
And then they not only failed socially but
they also failed devotionally.
When it came to the crunch, even Peter
let down his Lord with an oath and
with a curse.
I don't think many of us would ever
do that.
And when the Lord turned round and looked
at Peter, he wept bitterly.
So can you see by that little black
background that these men were not supermen but
they had all been broken.
They had all given themselves afresh to the
Lord.
And they were all in the upper room.
Now here's another surprising thing.
According to 1 Corinthians 15, there was an
occasion when 500 brethren met the Lord at
once.
So that was a planned meeting.
But according to Acts chapter 1, when they
were gathered together there were just 120.
Where were the 380?
Where were they?
But this is the glorious fact.
Although there were some absentees, the Holy Spirit
came and the 120 were there to welcome
and receive the glorious Holy Spirit.
But you will notice now they were all
in one place and they were of one
accord.
That meant the 120 were in absolute unity.
Now if we wait for our 500 or
to get right with the Lord, we shall
never see revival.
But isn't it wonderful that sometimes God can
work with the 120.
And if he can find a remnant of
us that will go the whole way, God
will bless us.
Now I must hurry on.
Let's look at the glorious advent.
First of all, there came a sound from
heaven as of a rushing mighty wind.
Now my dear friends, this is totally unique.
The wind is always a picture of the
external evidence of the presence, the precedence and
the power of God.
Now let's consider that.
Immediately that wind filled the room, the presence
of God was with his people.
Note, not in an ornate temple, but in
a simple room, in a simple house.
To me that's exquisitely beautiful.
You see all the signs and symbols had
been fulfilled.
All the Old Testament sacrifices found their amen
in the death of the Lord Jesus.
And therefore the days of symbolism were all
over.
Now the church was going to come right
out of Judaism.
And it was coming right into the glorious
liberty of Christianity.
And so they meet in a common house.
And there was the presence of God.
Now with the experimental presence of God, what
are the characteristics?
First of all, when God's presence is manifested
in a building, every heart is us.
The glory of Jehovah is among us.
Our hearts will beat highly when we sense
God.
Every person in the Old Testament and the
New Testament that came into contact with the
living God was struck with awe.
And when our hearts are taken up with
that rushing mighty wind and the presence of
God begins to fill the room, we shan't
reverence the building because that's idolatry.
We shall reverence the Lord with awe.
We need that revived today.
Secondly, with the presence of God there's peace.
I'm not thinking so much the legal peace,
peace with God that comes through the blood.
That's essential, but it's more than that.
I'm not speaking of that experimental peace that
comes to us when we cast all our
cares upon him.
Then he protects our minds from any enmity
that would come in from outside.
And we have peace of God.
But this is something deeper.
This is the God of peace dwelling with
us.
Now the word peace in the Hebrew is
brilliant.
It means binding together.
Have you noticed that sin disintegrates?
It breaks up society.
It breaks up lives and personalities.
It destroys nations.
It leaves thousands in bits and pieces.
But God's peace binds together.
He brings your spirit, soul and body together
and you begin to function as a human
being with dignity when you're saved.
Then he brings families together.
He brings God's people together.
For the God of peace binds us.
Out there in that dark world, there's no
peace.
That's why thousands are living on tranquilizers.
Unsafe people should be able to come among
God's gathered people and say, here's the very
peace of God, his presence.
With God's presence there's joy, joy.
You see in the Old Testament we read,
in thy presence is the fullness of joy,
at thy right hand pleasures forevermore.
You remember when David was bringing back the
ark the Levitical way?
What did he do?
He danced with all his might before the
Lord.
The joy of the Lord's presence.
Now of course I have to be careful
when I say that.
I'm not advocating dancing, but I am advocating
dancing in the heart.
Mind you there's two kinds of Christians.
There's the charismatics and the rheumatics.
And we have to discover who we are.
But you know dear friends I must say
this, with God's presence there's joy.
When the Lord Jesus was born there was
great joy in heaven.
When the prodigal son came back to the
father, there was music, dancing and joy.
When Jesus Christ came among his gathered disciples
in that resurrection room on that resurrection evening,
when they saw the Lord they were glad.
In fact when we read through the book
of the Acts, one of the hallmarks is
this, they were praising God, having favour with
the people.
When you read through the Philippians and the
man who wrote it was in prison, 18
times he uses the word joy and rejoicing.
And when you come to the book of
the Revelation, what a book, you will see
this, alternate scenes.
Every scene in heaven is full of joy.
Every scene on earth is full of sorrow.
And therefore you can see there's joy among
God's people.
May I say this dear friends from my
heart, we must recapture that joy.
The reason why so many of our brothers
and sisters have gone among our charismatic friends
is this, because they find that we are
miserable worshippers.
The hallelujah has gone.
And all we have are ignorant grunts.
It would be lovely if we could see
the joy of the Lord restored to his
people.
And then with the presence of God there
is love.
Why?
God is love.
Love is not an attribute.
All God's nature is characterized by love.
And therefore when the glory of God is
manifested in a building, there's awe, peace, joy,
love.
May God restore that to us.
Then you will notice another interesting thing.
The rushing mighty wind filled the house.
Now it's the same word that we have
in verse 4, filled with the Holy Spirit.
Therefore it means that the rushing mighty wind
was totally preeminent in the room.
And this shows to us that when God's
presence is really restored experimentally, there is a
wonderful sense of his predominance and preeminence.
You know, we must get back to this,
beloved, because unfortunately, and you certainly know I'm
not saying this critically, we have moved from
the organic back to the mechanical.
And the reason why monotony has come in
is because the flesh has come in.
And what we need is not monotony, we
need variety.
And when the Lord is totally preeminent and
Lord among his people, he will give the
gifts.
And then he will control those who are
gifted and all the activity of the local
church.
And we shall see in a few moments,
he will empower those who are gifted so
that the one who is in control is
the Sovereign Lord.
Now we need to get back to that.
Then I want you to note, it's a
rushing mighty wind.
Now this afternoon I was going through my
Bible as carefully as I could and I
discovered there's such a thing in the Old
Testament as a mighty wind.
There's such a thing in the Old Testament
as a rushing wind.
But you will never find in the Old
Testament a rushing mighty wind.
What does it speak of?
It speaks of the exclusive power of God.
Therefore when God comes among his people, we
have not only his presence, we have not
only his presidency, but we have his power.
You see this is not a separate breeze.
This is a rushing mighty wind.
And if you read through the book of
the Acts, you will find in the first
ten chapters this wind blowing with great force
in those chapters.
For instance, Peter stands up to preach and
when he had finished preaching they were pricked
in their heart.
They cried out, men and brethren what shall
we do?
And three thousand men were convicted, converted and
then baptized on one day.
What a wind.
Then in the next chapter we find Peter
and John going up to the temple at
the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour
and they are introduced to a man that
has never walked in his life.
We would call him a spastic.
And he cries out for arms and one
saucy theologian said he got more than arms,
he got legs.
I loved that when I heard that.
And Peter fastened his eyes upon him with
John said, silver and gold have I none
but such as I have give I thee
in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth
rise up and walk.
And then he took his right hand and
he just gives that right hand of his
a grip and then the shock came.
He let up.
Now I want you to see the miracle
and the wonder of it.
When you go home tonight some of you
young men and women I'm not asking the
older ones.
Get on the carpet in a sitting position
like this man would be and cross your
legs and you try and leap up.
If you can you're exceedingly fit.
This man had never walked in his life.
And he leapt up, stood up and walked
leaping and praising God.
Shall I say it again?
What a wind.
Then when you come to the fourth chapter
you read the churches together in prayer after
Peter and John had been released and when
they had prayed the place was shaken.
What a wind.
Wouldn't you love to have been in that
prayer meeting?
Then when you turn over to the fifth
chapter Ananias and Sapphira were basically singing I
surrender all and they were keeping half back.
You see in the previous chapter there was
a man called Barnabas and he sold his
land and gave everything to the Lord.
But they had sold their land and they
were keeping half back.
And they come into the presence of God
and they are judged.
Can I say it again?
What a wind.
Then you move into the seventh chapter and
Stephen stands up to preach and his face
lights up as an angel.
Why?
Because God always visited Israel with angelic manifestation.
So the face became like an angel.
And he preached the greatest sermon in the
book of the Acts.
And they were spilled out.
But they were not only tricked they were
cut to the heart and they rejected him.
And as the stones were falling on Stephen
he gave them a replica of Calvary.
He left the world with this legacy.
Lord lay not this sin to their charge.
What a wind.
And then Philip went down to Samaria and
he preached the gospel to them and the
whole city believed.
The whole city.
And there was great joy.
What a wind.
If someone said to you if you were
alive in the first century who's the last
person you would ever imagine to become a
Christian?
You would say without thinking Saul of Tarsus.
On the Damascus road he saw a light.
Heard a voice.
And he was gloriously saved.
What a wind.
Then reluctantly Peter goes to the household of
Cornelius and he preaches the gospel.
And while he's preaching the gospel something supernatural
took place.
The Holy Ghost fell on all them that
heard not those that believed, those heard.
And therefore he connected that movement of the
Spirit with the same movement that took place
in Axto.
And the whole family was converted.
Now you might say ah but brother Peter
we're not living in the first century we're
living in the twentieth century.
May I throw back the question to you?
Has the Holy Spirit changed?
Has he lost his power?
Is he not the Spirit of God?
My dear friends because that glorious Holy Spirit
is still with us we can still see
manifestations of his power.
But you say what's the secret?
The cloven tongues of fire.
Now my dear friends I must rush through
this but first of all I want you
to note they were purifying tongues.
You see the wind was the public manifestation
of the Spirit of God.
The cloven tongues of fire set upon each
of them therefore this was the individual manifestation
of the Spirit of God.
But they were tongues of fire.
What does that mean?
When the Holy Spirit came upon the Lord
Jesus he did not come upon him as
a cloven tongue of fire.
He came upon him as a dove.
You see there was nothing inconsistent with his
life.
He was all fair within and perfect without
Jesus Christ the Lord.
But when he came upon the disciples they
had the leaven in them that's why the
loaf was bacon with leaven.
They had the flesh.
And therefore when he came into them he
came into them to cause the conflict.
And that was to expose within them the
presence of the flesh and to give them
power to crucify it.
And that's the secret of a spirit filled
life.
It's not improving the flesh it's mortifying it.
Now we've got to learn that next week.
So thank God for the tongues of fire
they purified.
But then they were practical tongues.
As far as I can tell there are
13 nations and probably 9 languages.
Now these were not psychic manifestations.
You see within the realm of your soul
you have psychic propensities and that can do
sometimes miraculous things.
But that's not of the spirit.
For instance hypnotism is a psychic manifestation but
that's not of the spirit.
You see there is a book called Puritive
Hypnosis.
I know it was written by an unbeliever
but there's a lot of truth in that
book that sometimes our mind and psychic power
causes some form of evil.
But you will notice here they spoke with
tongues that people could understand.
Now you will note they said these are
Galileans.
Now why?
At the time when he gives us a
brilliant background of the Galilean race said one
thing that upset me a little he called
them the Cockneys of the East.
I didn't like that.
But you know the Cockneys are not good
speakers.
We find it hard to say the TH's.
We prefer to say the 3's instead of
3's.
And therefore he calls them the Cockneys of
the East and you know what was said
of Peter his speech bereath him.
In other words you could tell a Galilean
a mile off and Peter was a guttural
speaker.
You mustn't imagine that Peter had a dark
brown cultured voice.
When he stood up and spoke he was
a typical Galilean but he was filled with
the spirit.
And therefore these people who were not linguists
were standing up speaking fluent languages.
Now why?
Isaiah 28 verse 11 says very clearly that
he was going to speak to his people
in other tongues and therefore it was a
sign to Israel.
Now how were they speaking?
They were speaking in the language that the
people could understand.
You see there at Babel's Tower God confused
them by the multiplicity of languages but now
he's going to unite them together through redemption.
But they were practical languages.
Now please do bear that in mind for
that is the main gift of tongues in
the word of God to speak a language
that people down on earth can understand.
But then I want you to note that
they were praising tongues in these other languages
they were speaking out the wonderful works of
God.
Now for some of us it's hard to
understand but if you were there you would
see a Galilean filled with the spirit and
he would be speaking perhaps in fluent Latin
and he would be saying something like this
I want to talk to you about the
creatorial glories of God and that person would
be giving a wonderful manifestation of the creatorial
glory of God.
Another Galilean would be speaking about the glory
of the Lord in the giving of the
law.
The wonderful doings of God through the miracles
that were seen through Moses.
Another Galilean would be speaking out the wonderful
works of God in the incarnation.
The work of the cross and the glory
of the resurrection.
And they were all spellbound.
They were speaking out the wonderful works of
God.
You see, it wasn't superficial.
It wasn't gibberish.
They were speaking out the wonderful works of
God.
And beloved, when we are filled with the
spirit we shall come together around the Lord's
table and you will hear young and old
speaking out the wonderful works of God.
And then lastly, they were preaching tongues.
You see, immediately they were filled with the
spirit.
Peter stood up and preached after the praising
and three thousand were pricked in their heart.
I love that.
That's the strongest word for pain in the
New Testament outside of hell's fire.
And it's the idea of a red hot
needle going through the sensitive part of a
person's flesh so that when he feels the
prick he says, Oh!
Oh!
You've all seen naughty boys doing something that
they shouldn't.
And if you've got that picture you've got
the meaning.
And when Peter preached they were pricked in
the heart.
They cried out, Oh!
But they put it like this, Men of
Bethlehem, what shall we do?
Wouldn't you like to see a repeat of
that?
And then he says, Repent and be baptized
every one of you in the name of
Jesus Christ for the remission of sins for
the promises unto you and to your children
and to all that are far off.
And three thousand were saved.
Three thousand were baptized and added to the
chapel.
Beloved, every revival in history has been the
means of inducing people back to the upper
room.
Not, my dear friends, to have another Pentecost.
There never will be another Pentecost.
But recapturing the power and the glory of
Pentecost a little group of men and women
in lacquer got together and God cleansed them
and purged them.
They were filled with the Spirit of God
and thus began the great Welsh revival.
Wouldn't it be lovely if God gathered companies
together and we got back to the upper
room and we rediscovered the presence and the
power of God the Lord granted for his
name's sake.
Amen.