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Episode 003 - The Wonder of Pentecost · The Holy Wonder Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign.
• 0:07
  Speaker B: Welcome back, everyone. Today we're turning to one of the most electric moments in all of scripture to explore the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter two. This is a story built around an occasion unlike any other. The small group of Jesus faithful disciples are gathered in Jerusalem, waiting just as he told them to, not yet knowing exactly what they're waiting for or what arrives is power.
• 0:29
  Speaker C: The power of the Holy Spirit poured out in a way the world had never seen. Tongues of fire, a sound like a rushing wind, and ordinary men suddenly speaking in languages they'd never learned. Pentecost isn't just an outpouring of power. It's the fulfillment of prophecy. As the Apostle Peter preaches, he shows the crowd that this had been promised long before any of them were born. This was a work of God in their lifetime.
• 0:54
  Speaker B: Beneath all of it is something even bigger. The coronation of the new Covenant. Pentecost isn't just a dramatic event. It's the moment the church in its present shape is born. The moment God's promise to dwell with his people takes on a whole new form. The moment when Jeremiah 31's message finds its home among the people of this world. In Acts 2, God's new kingdom takes its first step into a world perfectly positioned to welcome it, to shelter it, to, and to provide a place for its growth.
• 1:23
  Speaker C: As we continue this series exploring the moments of scripture where we find wonder, we want to sit in the occasion, rationalize the power, reveal the fulfilled promise, and marvel at the new covenant Pentecost inaugurates.
• 1:36
  Speaker B: I'm your host, Neal Mathis, here once again with my co host Andy Yant. And this is the Holy Wonder podcast. After a short break, let's dig in. Hi, Andy.
• 2:07
  Speaker C: Good morning, Neil.
• 2:08
  Speaker B: I'm really glad that we get to be back again, and I'm glad you guys at home are still listening. We're three episodes in and Andy and I are yet to really figure out this podcasting thing, but we're trying our best with all the technology and all the conversation, to provide something that's beneficial to you. I know it's been beneficial to me, and I hope that this becomes a blessing in your life regularly. For the last couple weeks, we've been talking about wonder. In particular the events in scripture that bring wonder into our lives, where we gaze at what God has done and how the world responded. And we are not just impressed, but we are humbled and excited to be able to connect with that and hope that you're connecting with it also. We gave a list a Couple weeks ago, of our three most wondrous moments in scripture, Andy's number three on the list was Job's patience. All of the events unfolding in that book, how God was patient with him. And if you listened, you know that we spent better part of an hour. Andy, it was a good hour. It was a great hour. And we probably could have done two or three, to be real honest. Today it's time to talk about my third choice, and my third choice is Pentecost, the events that unfold in Acts chapter two and everything that set it up throughout the Gospels and everything that follows it from Acts 3 on. So to get started, I want to make sure that we're all on the same page. Pentecost is a festival not all that different than festivals like Passover or the Festival of Lights, which we now call Hanukkah. It was a yearly observance that the Jewish people celebrated 50 days after the Passover. You can read all about the creation of it in Leviticus 23, in Numbers 28, Deuteronomy chapter 16. And if you want to stop the podcast right now and read about it, that'd be really beneficial for you. They use this as a celebration to mark the end of the harvest, the beginning of the seasonal offering of first fruits. A one day festival observed in a way like a Sabbath with a holy gathering at the. The tabernacle and the time of Jesus there. At the temple, loaves of unleavened bread were offered different animals for burnt offerings and sin offerings. And the people used this as one of three pilgrimage feasts to travel back to Jerusalem.
• 4:52
  Speaker A: So in the first century, and really in the, I guess you could say
• 4:57
  Speaker B: for the hundred or so odd years
• 4:59
  Speaker A: before it and after it, the Jewish people as a whole were dispersed throughout the Mediterranean.
• 5:05
  Speaker B: There's a term for it, it's called the Diaspora. A lot of that had to do
• 5:09
  Speaker A: with the political workings of their world. We're pretty aware of what the ancient world looked like.
• 5:17
  Speaker B: You had the Greeks that settled that
• 5:21
  Speaker A: area, then the Romans come in, and by the time you get to the first century, the area of Judea and Samaria have been carved up into their own kind of provincial, ruled loosely by these governors and these, we're going to use the term, they use kings that were given power just from Rome.
• 5:44
  Speaker B: Well, in the century before Jesus came, and really up until about 40 or 50 years after Jesus left this world, the Jewish population of Judea was just dispersing throughout the Mediterranean. And on these pilgrimages, these pilgrimage feasts in particular, A lot of the wealthier and the more I would just use this term, upwardly mobile Jewish people would come back to celebrate. So Jerusalem's population would multiply several times over and the city would almost swell. That's why you have such large crowds. Acts chapter two gives us a hint at what this looked like. In verse nine, it says there were Parthians and Medes and Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene. And visitors from Rome, Jews and Proselytes, Cretans and Arabians there in Jerusalem. Now, we don't have to know where every one of those places are to appreciate this, that if you looked at Jerusalem and you went north, south, east and west, you have someone represented in that list that descended upon the town. So these devout men of every nation had come to Jerusalem. I'm certain, Andy, that many of them were eyewitness to the circumstances around Jesus death. I would believe so it's possible that some of them were in the crowd yelling, crucify him. Crucify him. He's to blame. May his blood be upon us and our children. And so in the sermon, when Peter says, your hands are responsible for the death of Jesus, he might not be pointing at a particular person, but he's pointing at the crowd, these devout Jewish
• 7:38
  Speaker A: people who rejected Jesus as the Messiah.
• 7:41
  Speaker B: And so there's a wonderful kind of emphasis here of what the melting pot
• 7:47
  Speaker A: of the church looks like.
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  Speaker B: There are diverse cultures, but there's one real heritage.
• 7:53
  Speaker A: The Jewish people of many languages and many cultures were all children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. They were scattered abroad, but now gathered here. And the works of God were unfolding in front of them.
• 8:06
  Speaker B: So God chose this moment with the widest audience who would have returned home
• 8:12
  Speaker A: probably within days of these events, carrying
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  Speaker B: the message of Christ before the apostle Paul ever got on a boat sailing
• 8:20
  Speaker A: towards Greece, sailing towards Rome, before any
• 8:23
  Speaker B: other apostles had left Judea. The Gospel left with these converts.
• 8:29
  Speaker A: I think the scope of that is really worth mentioning today. We get caught up, Andy, in churches are located at addresses. We're the Fountainhead Church of Christ, where you and I attend, and it's on Fountainhead Road in a community that used to be called Fountainhead. And that's a part of our identity here.
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  Speaker B: But the church is not identified at
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  Speaker A: one location or address in the world. It's a loose affiliation of diverse cultures who have one heritage. Our heritage is our faith in God. So how similar Are we, incidentally, to how that group was then?
• 9:13
  Speaker C: We have a lot in common. If we take time and think about it. And when they are dispersing and going back home, I think about that excitement that they had to have felt and God's timing, using that excitement to spread the word beyond what we can imagine, especially what they could imagine probably at that time.
• 9:33
  Speaker B: I can picture, say, one of the. Let's do one of the Elamites as an example, right? What we're going to call this Elamite, let's call him Jehoshaphat. How about that?
• 9:44
  Speaker C: Right? Sounds good.
• 9:45
  Speaker B: Jehoshaphat, the Elamite, Right. Let's make him a shepherd. That sound okay? All right. So he journeys home to Elam. He's there around all these other Elamites. They're speaking the Elamite language. And he may have a scroll or two from the Old Testament, maybe one of the scrolls of Isaiah, talking about the suffering servant. Maybe he has a scroll of Micah, Joel. I don't know what he'd have, but let's say he's got somewhat. So he comes home and he's a successful shepherd, right? And so Jehoshaphat has dozens of servants that work for him. Most of them are probably going to be Hebrew. They're going to follow the same type of kosher laws. They're going to be anticipating the same Jewish Messiah. And he tells them, I think I know who Isaiah and Micah and Joel were pointing us to. And then after his house hears the report, they start asking questions and maybe some level of belief appears. The next Sabbath happens, and he goes to the local synagogue in Elim, and what does he do? Well, he starts talking to them about, I was just in Jerusalem. I went there for the pilgrimage of the Passover. I stayed for the Pentecost and the festival of the weeks. And the most amazing thing happened. God's spirit descended upon Jerusalem, and I learned about the Messiah, whom our Father David told us all about. And the Gospel message is infiltrating that place. Not by a person who is a. I will call this an appointed official, but by just a disciple, someone who believes. Proof to me that what's always been true has always been true, that the greatest evangelists are believers who are excited about what they believe in. And so if this Jehoshaphat of the Elamite is a precursor to Paul the Apostle or Timothy the Evangelist, or you and me, then Pentecost was making a difference in places we never saw it go. And God's Gospel is penetrating and infiltrating kingdoms we know nothing about. And part of the reason why maybe the church grew like it did in the first century is because of Jehoshaphat's the Elamite, not just Paul the Apostle or Timothy the Evangelist. From every nation, right? And they left, and they took with them the message they learned. I'm excited about that and what that could mean. And I wish we could go and interview here on the podcast, like Jehoshaphat the Elamite. Tell us what it was like that day. Tell us what you did the next day, and what was the next week like. And four years later, when the Apostle Bartholomew finally showed up in the town of Elam and he came to your house, was he surprised that the kingdom of God was there, or did he expect to see this? You know, like, I would love to ask.
• 12:56
  Speaker C: It would be a great interview.
• 12:57
  Speaker B: It would be awesome. Probably be a whole lot more interesting than listening to something I have to say.
• 13:02
  Speaker C: It's a reminder to us today that a preacher stands up in front of us and preaches. He has an influence on what we're hearing. But when we go out the doors as members, we. We also have an influence on what others are hearing. And we need to use that influence the way it should be used. Like they were doing back in these days.
• 13:19
  Speaker B: Absolutely. I wish there were. I wish the Book of Acts took detours and showed us what was going on in those people's lives, because we get some, you know, we learn about Priscilla and Aquila, we learn about Timothy, and we get some introductions to, like, Silas and Titus and John, Mark, and, like, we get this introduction to them, but we don't get all these stories. We just follow Peter's for a while
• 13:44
  Speaker A: and then Paul's for the bulk of it.
• 13:45
  Speaker B: I would love to know the other stories as the story begins. Let's do this. Let's actually read a couple of the verses there from chapter two, because I want to talk about the miracle itself of Pentecost, because of all the things I'm in awe of. It's what they were able to participate in. And that's not just the stuff we relate to, but that's the stuff that is the Spirit's work, starting there in Acts, chapter two.
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  Speaker A: I'm going to be reading out of
• 14:12
  Speaker B: the English Standard Version.
• 14:14
  Speaker A: It says in verse one, when the day of Pentecost arrived, that they were all gathered in one place. Now that all there is 120 disciples of Jesus who had remained faithful through his death, his burial, his resurrection, and his 40 years or not 40 years, 40 days of appearing. Now, we know very little, Andy, about what Jesus did on these 40 days after his resurrection. We know that he appeared to disciples on the road to Emmaus. We know that he appeared in an upper room with the apostles and disciples at least twice. We know that he ascended back to heaven there from outside of Jerusalem. And about a week has passed. About a week, you know, and the day of Pentecost arrives a Sunday morning when life is changing for everyone. Right. And so this group of people who are together is, I would use this term, the best of us, the ones who remained faithful through indescribable moments, reassured by Jesus resurrection. Probably some of them were eyewitnesses, we know, to Jesus death, you know, doubting Thomas, a man who literally felt the wounds of Jesus, is amongst this group. And so they're experienced disciples. They're, I'm certain of this, unsure of what's happening next, like, what do we do now? But in no way, shape or form am I even doubtful that they were prepared for this. I just. I just wish we got once again a little glimpse behind the curtain of what do these days look like as they're waiting, you know, are they.
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  Speaker C: We're talking about all. Can you imagine the. All they've been in this whole time? I mean, and the awe of this particular day. But this whole experience, do you think
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  Speaker B: it had worn off at all? I'm curious because how. How do we get. When we're waiting for something anxiously, we get anxious.
• 16:36
  Speaker C: But you think about when Jesus went to pray and they couldn't even stay awake.
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  Speaker A: Yeah.
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  Speaker C: For just a short amount of time. So could they have gotten.
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  Speaker B: There had to be one of them that were like, is this going to happen anytime soon? There had to be one of them was like, I'm going to go fishing. Like, just life, right.
• 16:54
  Speaker C: Come find me when something happens.
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  Speaker B: Come find me when something happens. Without casting any doubt on their faith, they're just people. And we know that Jesus said wait. And I love that they wait. They do this right now along the way, they do select Matthias to be the 12 of the apostles, replace Judas, who was lost. So there's something happening here. Preparation. I'm a big believer in preparation. As a coach, as a preacher, as a parent, I don't like being caught off guard. I'd like to know who we're playing. I'd like to know what we're doing. I'd like to know what I'm preaching on before I step in the pulpit. Now, other people might Be comfortable with chaos or with uncertainty. I'm not one of them. I want to know to the best of my ability what is going to happen. I'm certain that in that time of waiting, I would have grown tired of twiddling my thumbs, of gathering to eat in the same place with the same people at the same time. I just would have. And I am impressed that there's no mention of that here. Now, it could be between chapter one, verse 26, and chapter two, verse one. That in those days, waiting, some of them were anxious, some of them were nervous, some of them were hopeful. Some of them said, let's get on with it. But because it's not there, we're left to kind of keep these people in a superhero status, like they're just better than me. But scripture doesn't want us to treat them as better than us. Scripture wants us to treat them as they're us. And if we were to trade places with them, how eager would we have been waiting, how excited would we be? How resolute would our faith be? And Jesus said, something's coming. I'm gonna wait till I see that. I choose to focus on that instead of the normalcy of the anxiousness. I choose to think about the hope of the promise.
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  Speaker A: And for me and for you, in
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  Speaker B: our life, that's relevant because the hope
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  Speaker A: we have is the promise of a
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  Speaker B: world to come, not the world we live in.
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  Speaker A: And so I grow anxious through awkward days, through phone calls you don't want to make doctors appointments you don't want to take, things that you have no control of.
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  Speaker B: And the 80 years of my life
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  Speaker A: isn't really significantly more than the days they were waiting in the grand scheme of things. And so if I can be as they were, people who are patient for God's will to unfold so that the promise of something great happens. Then I mirror them, you know, and one day, God can do something great through me. Not this. There's no tongue of fire going to fall upon me or you today here in this studio. But. But the work God does can have
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  Speaker B: the same kind of impact this does.
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  Speaker A: So when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together, this group of our spiritual forefathers. It says there in verse two, suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.
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  Speaker B: It filled the entire house where they
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  Speaker A: were sitting and divided tongues as a fire appeared to them and rested.
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  Speaker B: Notice this.
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  Speaker A: On each one of them, not just
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  Speaker B: the 12 apostles, on each one of them.
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  Speaker A: And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And began to speak in other tongues as Spirit gave them utterance. There's something about that description that I
• 20:44
  Speaker B: have always
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  Speaker A: struggled to rationalize completely. Because the only one that stands up and speaks is Peter.
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  Speaker B: But I don't believe he was the
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  Speaker A: only one speaking that day. I believe that because there are 15 different places mentioned. At least 15 different languages were being spoken. But my guess would be is at least 15 different people. And then when you start to consider the fact that in the crowd that came to hear them there would have not just been men, but also women. I just am curious, of the 120 disciples in that upper room, were the
• 21:22
  Speaker B: women going and teaching the other Jewish women?
• 21:24
  Speaker A: That makes sense to me. Were Peter and the other apostles standing up and addressing publicly what was happening? Yeah, that makes sense to me too. And there's so much to unpack that we can't because details are sparse. But there are details we get for certain. Number one, that there was a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and that is the Holy Spirit descending in some way. It should be pretty cool for us to think about it for a minute. How wind and fire are a pattern that mark God's presence throughout scripture. Exodus chapter 3. The burning bush at Horeb, the bush was on fire. God's presence, right. Sinai, Exodus 19. Think about God descending there upon the mountain with this fire. And it's like the mountain was burning. You've got the Tabernacle in Exodus 40, Solomon's Temple, the dedication of it in 1st Kings 8, 2nd Chronicles 7. You have these moments where God's presence shows up and wind and fire and his presence are all a big part of it. The word there for wind is a fascinating word and I love it. I'm going to use a source here for a minute. James Montgomery Boice wrote a commentary on the Book of Acts that is worth taking the time to read through and study, if you would. And he makes a point here that I think is worth pointing. In the major ancient languages, we're talking Hebrew and Greek and even Latin. The Old New Testaments were written in Hebrew and Greek. Latin came along later. The word for spirit was also the word used for wind and breath. The Hebrew word is the word ruach. The Greek word is the word pneuma, and the Latin word is spiritus. And not one of those can be said without an audible breath sound. Ruach, pneuma, spiritas. I find that to be poignant and in no way, shape or form impressive. Like, I just. I just love it. It is a slight. Remember and remembrance from God and how we speak, that what we say matters. And the wind that descended, notice it says there's a sound like a wind. And that sound fills the entire house. And as it fills the house, divided tongues of fire appeared upon them. Now, I'm going to be real honest with you, Andy. I have no idea what the tongues of fire looked like.
• 24:12
  Speaker C: I wanted to know. You're not going to tell us?
• 24:15
  Speaker A: I'm not going to tell you. I'm going to tell you. This is one of those times where I don't have an answer. But I do know this. It says it rested on the people, not the building. Right. So the glory of God that was seen on the mountain, in the tabernacle, in the temple, is no longer in a place. It's on a person. You know, the New Testament has some echoes of that. First Corinthians 3 and 6. Paul talks about believers are like God's temple, temple of the Holy Spirit, in fact. And you think about how we carry that with us everywhere we go. And I think this is worth pointing out that this. This sounds, and I'm going to use this word, almost terrifying. Like something that would scare you, startle you, panic you. Not all that different than the moments when, like an angel appears throughout the Old Testament. It says a lot of times they were afraid, they recoiled, but there's no
• 25:18
  Speaker B: harm that comes upon them. It's the presence of God. It's blessing. It's the opposite of that. You know, Moses in Exodus 3, when he got close to God, was told, take your shoes off. Where you are is holy ground. Well, this upper room is holy ground, not because of where it's located, but because of who is located there and when God is present. Holy ground is real, and God was very present there. And I find that to be the thing I'm in awe of the most, is that Pentecost is a point in time that's fixed, where God descended with a gift, and he brought it to the feet of his disciples. Not his son, not his prophet, his disciples, people just like you and me, who had remained faithful through, through a lot and were eagerly awaiting what God had for them next. Now, we're not going to have this miraculous, overwhelming presence of the Spirit fall upon us, but we have in our hands an overwhelming truth in God's word. And we hold it and it goes everywhere we go if we so choose to take it. And it carries the same, I'm going to use this term, the same power of that ruach. And it carries with it the same might of that tongue of fire. And it divides between soul and spirit. That's what Hebrews 4 tells us. It has everything we need, be pleasing to God. That's what 2 Timothy tells us. And it is God's word breathed out to us. And so you could say every time you read the Bible, God is breathing on you his truth in the similar vein to how in that moment he breathed upon them his power. And so I'm in awe of how connected to this we are, Andy, without it being something we've actually gone through.
• 27:36
  Speaker C: It's. It's a great, It's a great thing. When we were studying for this, my mind went back to Genesis 2, 7, when God breathed life into us. And then here for me is when God was breathing life into the church.
• 27:51
  Speaker B: Absolutely 100%. You just, you couldn't be more specifically correct than anything. And I love that you said that because we need to see, the church is a living, breathing organism, just like we are. And it, it can be hurt, it can be loved, it can relocate it, you know, like it is a living, breathing thing and it's made up of people just like me. Our physical birth represents something that becomes spiritual, right? Now you tie this into their rebirth at the end of the chapter with their baptism and you have life fulfilling promise that was given thousands of years before, you know, thousands of years. There's another hint. Ezekiel 37, the Valley of dry bones. There's a wonderful line there, verse 14. God is speaking. He says. Well, he says to Ezekiel, I will put my spirit within you and you shall live. I will place you in your own land. You shall know that I am the Lord. I have spoken and I will do it, declares the Lord. This is that vision Ezekiel saw of all those dry bones. And this is obviously a reference to
• 29:05
  Speaker A: Israel, to something bigger.
• 29:07
  Speaker B: This is a prophecy that I think a lot of people see, points to the coming of the kingdom. Not just a spirit that's physical. That's what we get at Genesis 2 now, a spirit that's. Well, I don't know if this is redundant, but I will say it's spiritual. You know, it's a real sharp connection to Jeremiah 31, which we're going to
• 29:28
  Speaker A: get to later, I promise.
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  Speaker B: And so I'm amazed by the wonder
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  Speaker A: of what God did.
• 29:38
  Speaker B: Now let's see what the product of that was. Starting in verse five. We've looked at this just a little bit. Dwelling in Jerusalem, there were Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven.
• 29:51
  Speaker A: Now you'll remember this is important.
• 29:52
  Speaker B: Because those 15 places, the Parthians and the Medes and the Elamites, our God Jehoshaphat from Elam, they were there for this festival. And it says in verse six, at the sound of the Spirit descending, that the multitude came together. And they were bewildered.
• 30:14
  Speaker A: Each one was hearing them.
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  Speaker B: Who's the them?
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  Speaker A: I would say the 120 that were
• 30:19
  Speaker B: gathered, they heard them speak in his own language. It doesn't clarify how many different languages
• 30:25
  Speaker A: were being spoken, who it was being spoken by, and where it was being spoken. Like was this little groups were these big people up on stages.
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  Speaker B: It doesn't tell us the details that
• 30:36
  Speaker A: I think we want to see, but
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  Speaker B: it does tell us the response. 7.
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  Speaker A: All of these devout Jewish people were amazed and astonished. And they said of the 120, are
• 30:49
  Speaker B: not all of these who are speaking Galileans?
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  Speaker A: How is it that we hear each one of us in our own language?
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  Speaker B: It says in verse 12, they were
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  Speaker A: amazed, perplexed, and they said to one
• 31:02
  Speaker B: another, what does this mean? We don't understand?
• 31:07
  Speaker A: That's when they accused him of being drunk.
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  Speaker B: And Peter said, no, no, no, no,
• 31:10
  Speaker A: no, we're not drunk. You're seeing prophecy fulfilled, particularly Joel, chapter two fulfilled. So I want to take just a detour, because speaking in tongues, Andy, is something that, you know, comes up in the religious discussion nowadays, and I'm not going to encourage you to do this,
• 31:30
  Speaker B: but if you so chose to, you
• 31:32
  Speaker A: could pause the podcast right now and
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  Speaker B: you could go visit YouTube and you
• 31:34
  Speaker A: could probably find a video of someone professing to speak in tongues, and it would sound like gibberish.
• 31:42
  Speaker C: That was the word I was thinking, I love.
• 31:44
  Speaker B: That's a good southern Kentucky and north
• 31:47
  Speaker A: central Tennessee word, if you'll notice here. Clarity is what comes of the tongue speaking, not confusion. There's no mention anywhere of someone to interpret the tongues as if it's a heavenly language that we couldn't figure out. In fact, the opposite of that is said. The people from all of those languages said, we understand what you're saying. You're speaking in our language. And I think the emphasis there is not yours. You're Galilean, right? You would speak Aramaic, but you're speaking Elamite. You're speaking Mesopotamia. You're speaking a different language, right? And so in the tongue of the visitors in Jerusalem, who had this common heritage of being children of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, who had sought the Messiah, who had killed the Messiah, but now have a chance to believe in his resurrection and his ascension to heaven, the mighty Works of God declare and they understand.
• 32:47
  Speaker B: This is truth.
• 32:48
  Speaker A: This is complete truth. And the listeners, even though they knew these guys shouldn't be do this, heard what they could not deny, and their wonder is appeared, right? They're amazed. This is the Holy Wonder podcast. We talk about things that amaze you. They're amazed at the work of God in their life because they're seeing something that no generation before had seen and no generation since will participate in. God's spirit descended the age of this church. Miracle time begins. And it doesn't begin with confusion and it doesn't begin with a manifestation of something people want. It is the epitome of what people need. The message made clear in their own language.
• 33:37
  Speaker C: God provided them to be able to hear what they needed to hear, to understand the message, no matter what language that needed to be. As he always does, he provided what was needed.
• 33:48
  Speaker B: And, you know, now we are capable because of, you know, intellectual ability to translate the Bible into it. To my knowledge, just about every spoken or written language in the world. The last time I remember checking, I think there were a couple of languages that were so obscure that the Bible had not been translated into it. But I don't know that number as of yet. And I hope certainly that we've moved past that. But I know the last time I dug into it, that was true. But there's very few places I can go in the world where I cannot find a Bible in the language of the people who live there, which that in and of itself is not a miracle today, but there and then is something I stand in awe of right now. That the church, and it's in its infancy, starts with clarity, complete clarity. God bringing something simple to this world. Jesus Christ is my son who died on the cross for you. Repent and be baptized, for the forgiveness of your sins and response that is appropriate to it. Because they understood what they were doing. They weren't just coerced, they weren't just overwhelmed. They intellectually saw what they could not understand and believed in the one who could do it. It's amazing, and it's hard for me not to wish. Of all the points in scripture that I could go back and visit, to be a fly on the wall of Jerusalem that day and to see what looks like maybe chaotic is actually the opposite of that. It's just sheer enthusiasm for the clarity God's providing. I will do this. We need to take a break in just a few moments. But before we do that, I want to point out something. This feels a bit like an Echo of the Babel story from Genesis 11, if you're familiar at all. The ancient world gathered together after the flood and built a city. And they tried in that city to build a tower that would rival something God could do, you know, could approach the heavens. And God struck them with languages that meant they couldn't communicate with one another. And from Babel to Pentecost, there was a communication breakdown across our society. And you get to Pentecost and notice that it doesn't restore one language, doesn't bring us all back to one language. But what it does do, what it does do is it brings God's message to every language. What had maybe been hidden previously, you know, is not anymore through this mighty act of God, through his spirit's overwhelming power, through these tongues of fire and this clarity, not this confusion. So I look at Pentecost and I see two major things that come out that I stand in awe of today. And this is why I picked this number one. God overwhelmed the people of Jerusalem not with a manifestation of his power, but with a manifestation of his knowledge. He brought to them a message they could not deny. Now, how did he bring it through this powerful act? Yeah, but by the end of Acts 2, the mighty act of God is not what has changed them. It's the mighty message of God. I'm in awe of that. We get caught in our world far too often, Andy. Believing how the message is delivered matters more than the message that's delivered. And churches and online social media influencers will pour and pour and pour into the production to draw in the attention to where. What really should draw the attention is the message.
• 38:05
  Speaker C: Our hearts need to be focused on the message. And the hearts of those with Babel were not where they needed to be.
• 38:11
  Speaker B: That's right.
• 38:11
  Speaker C: Hearts on the day of Pentecost were.
• 38:14
  Speaker B: That's right. You know, the mightiest work of God is not what was done physically, it's what was done beneath the surface.
• 38:23
  Speaker A: Right.
• 38:24
  Speaker B: The hearts that were changed. Second, I'm amazed that something that today represents billions of people started with a group of 120 in one place. You know, we're as a church here where I preach, we're bigger than 120, but not significantly bigger. You know, church is about 200, 200 to 225ish people, depending on the Sunday. When you're gathering with that 120 people, Andy, the world was changed forever because at the right time, with God's power and God's message, they delivered what was necessary. So it's a Little cliche to say it, but I'm going to say it. If that 120 people could do that, what can our 120 people do here?
• 39:17
  Speaker C: Change our part of the world and hopefully even further out.
• 39:19
  Speaker B: Change our part of the world. That's right. Start with your Jerusalem. Start with the language you can speak, the people who are brought into your life understand it, and then collectively pull your talents and you might just change the world today. Today alone, billions of people in America. No, not America. Billions of people in the world profess a level of faith in what was taught that day. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. Now, we can differ on what that looks like in our daily lives now, thousands of years later, but we still have the same belief that was taught that day.
• 39:59
  Speaker A: Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
• 40:00
  Speaker B: And it started because of those 120 people. And it's not the finishing act of the church. It's not the whole act of the church, it's not everything. They need to be pleasing to God, but it is that first thing they
• 40:15
  Speaker A: need to be pleasing to God.
• 40:17
  Speaker B: And I'm amazed and in awe of that today that God delivered what changed
• 40:25
  Speaker A: hearts through the lives of 120 people.
• 40:29
  Speaker B: And today I find that to be pretty wondrous.
• 40:32
  Speaker A: I'm in all of that.
• 40:33
  Speaker B: And we could spend hours talking about just the setting of it. But we're going to take a short break. Then we're going to talk about some of the actual words of the sermon
• 40:43
  Speaker A: and how the two temples that were present that day, the one that they stood in the shadow of and the one that was being written on their heart, speak to today what we should be. Also. My name is Neil.
• 40:57
  Speaker B: I'm with Andy.
• 40:58
  Speaker A: We're thankful that you're listening.
• 41:00
  Speaker B: Let's take a short break.
• 41:17
  Speaker A: Sam.
• 41:42
  Speaker C: Foreign.
• 41:49
  Speaker B: Welcome back everyone. It's time for us to finish our study today through Acts chapter two and the wonder of the events at Pentecost. We set the stage in our earlier session, kind of making sure that the details that feel pertinent were presented by spent a lot of time talking about what actually happened and everything that surrounds the sermon. So let's talk about the sermon that changed the course of the world. This group of people gathered there had knowledge of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of people like David and Solomon, the prophets, Joel, the Psalms, the collection of those 150 different responses to what God has done. So Peter, through inspiration, through some will and motivation of the spirit, delivers this sermon. I always have a couple questions, Andy, that I don't know that we'll ever have the answer to when Peter spoke. Do you think everyone heard it in their language? Or is it possible that as Peter spoke, there were interpreters throughout the crowd, like we would do today? And I'll give you a little example for how that works. At least it worked for me and maybe for you at home listening. You might not know what I quite mean by that. A couple years ago, I traveled to the Philippines and was able to visit with our brothers and sisters over there in the wake of the Hurricane Yolanda. That came through. Through. And so when I went to the different churches traveling with the native Filipino preachers, they would often ask me to deliver a message and a sermon. And I was honored to do it and was happy to do it.
• 43:42
  Speaker A: But most of the people in the
• 43:43
  Speaker B: congregation did not speak English, and I
• 43:46
  Speaker A: did not speak the certain Filipino language
• 43:50
  Speaker B: of that region where I was at. There were different languages in different regions where we traveled. So I would preach and probably say three or four sentences, and then an interpreter would take what I said from English and speak it to them in their native tongue. So the sermon took a while. It didn't go, you know, as fast. I obviously tried to use words that were easily translated. I wasn't using a lot of, you know, folksy colloquialisms from, you know, Bowling Green, Kentucky. You know, we're not going to talk about Moms and Pops and all those things. I'm not certain of the actual mechanics of how this sermon was delivered to all of these people, Andy. If they're hearing the language from different
• 44:47
  Speaker A: people, then my guess would be Peter
• 44:50
  Speaker B: spoke it and then it was repeated the same way. We would have, like, an interpreter today. But I'm not. I'm not convinced that it had to be that way, that there could have been with the other apostles, little sections, you know, and the same message that Peter was delivering, John was delivering in this corner to the Parthians, and Thomas was delivering in that corner to the Mesopotamians. And, I don't know, Simon the Zealot was in this other corner talking to the Cretans. We just don't know.
• 45:29
  Speaker A: But we know that Peter delivered these
• 45:33
  Speaker B: words as he stood with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them. That would be the crowd. And so I'm fascinated. Is there any kind of a mental picture you have of what this looked like?
• 45:51
  Speaker C: So I've always assumed and thought that Peter spoke in his language and they heard it in their language with no interpreter. But it's possible in Verse number four, it says, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And then in verse 6, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered because each was hearing them speak in his own language. So were they. Were the 12 speaking in 12 different languages. Is that possible, or. I've always assumed that Peter spoke and they heard it through God's intervention in their own language, with no interpreter that
• 46:43
  Speaker B: would still harmonize with speaking in tongues is clarity, not confusion.
• 46:48
  Speaker C: Yes.
• 46:49
  Speaker B: It doesn't. It doesn't really. We're stuck with. The mechanics are unknown.
• 46:56
  Speaker C: And they were speaking that way for a purpose, not for a show, not for attention. It was to deliver a message.
• 47:04
  Speaker B: That's right. There's a. There's a part of me that wants to believe that this ability to speak in tongues traveled with the apostles as they traveled across the Mediterranean, that it was a gift that stayed. And so anytime they went to a new place and there was a new language, if they didn't understand it, what could they do? They could speak English.
• 47:25
  Speaker C: I mean, that's what I've always thought that. I mean, it makes their mission much simpler.
• 47:32
  Speaker A: It does.
• 47:32
  Speaker B: It does. It seems that way. And I would caution all of us to just be okay if the mechanics of how miracles were delivered don't match up with our 2026 version of how we would deliver them efficiently. You know, if I could speak in tongues today, then I certainly think putting a message on social media perhaps would be the most valuable use of my time, because it travels where?
• 47:59
  Speaker C: Everywhere.
• 48:00
  Speaker B: Everywhere. But there are people that don't have access to social media that I would want to be in their presence to be able to speak if it were Mandarin or if it were Vietnamese or it were Swahili. I would want to be able to walk into that building, that room, that house, that field, and speak Swahili. I'll use this term. I'm a little disappointed. There are not verses that explain the mechanics so that we can have this kind of complete understanding of it. But I'm left with. I don't need to know that to have faith in that. And if faith is believing in something I don't see with my own eyes, Right. Having hope in something that I don't quite hold onto yet, then I don't have to know the mechanics of a miracle to believe miracles happened. I don't have to know how a paralyzed body was repaired. I don't have to know how a body that died and a soul that Certainly seems separated from it, was reunited. I don't have to know that. I just believe that that happened. And my faith in that is what allows me to see the clarity of the speaking in tongues without complete understanding of what language they heard. How did they hear it, who did they hear it from? Were all of them able to speak, or was it just Peter speaking? And like you said, they all heard it in their language.
• 49:34
  Speaker A: It dawns on me as we read
• 49:37
  Speaker B: this again that it never says the
• 49:39
  Speaker A: apostles were the only ones speaking. It just says, addressing the crowd, Peter
• 49:44
  Speaker B: stood up and spoke.
• 49:45
  Speaker A: And so I'm certain that amongst that crowd are unnamed evangelists who were teaching people God's Word. And they might not have been the leader of the conversation or the discussion that day, but they echo those sentiments post Pentecost in other places. So they attribute to not just the
• 50:08
  Speaker B: 3,000 being baptized that day, but the
• 50:11
  Speaker A: thousands that were baptized in the days and the weeks and the months and the years that followed. And so the. The beauty of this, which we'll kind of double down on from what we
• 50:23
  Speaker B: said earlier, is that the believers present become the church as it now exists upon witnessing the miracle, hearing the message and believing in it. And the vehicle of the gospel is not the sound and the wind or the tongues of fire. The vehicle is the people upon whom the tongue fell, the fire fell, upon who the spirit rushed through like, or rushed into, or surrounded. And so, as the church is in its infancy, taking its. Its first steps, notice that it starts with something very simple. And here's really what I wanted you to see. The quotation from the prophet Joel. The first thing Peter says is, to the men of Judea, all who dwell in Jerusalem, listen. These men, these people, he says, are not drunk. It's the third hour of the day. It's 9am in the morning. They have not partaken in any alcohol. On a feast day, there would be an element of fasting until religious duties were taken care of. So you could picture maybe their meal of the day might not be in the morning, might be in the evening. He says it's early in the morning. He says what you're seeing. And then he quotes from Joel 2:28:32, that in the last days God will
• 51:58
  Speaker A: pour out his spirit on all flesh.
• 52:01
  Speaker B: Your sons, your daughters will prophesy. Now that's a message to Israel.
• 52:06
  Speaker A: Your sons and daughters will prophesy. Your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams. Even my male servants and female servants. I will pour out my spirit, and they shall Prophesy. I think that speaks to more than just the apostles were receiving this, right?
• 52:22
  Speaker B: Servants.
• 52:23
  Speaker A: Not people in positions of power, but servants. Right. I will show you Verse 19, key
• 52:30
  Speaker B: to why I thought this was worth talking about.
• 52:32
  Speaker A: I will show wonders. Wonders that connects to that Old Testament use of what's a wonder. Something God does that's unexplainable to us, but attributable to him. I will show wonders in the heavens, signs on the earth below. Blood and fire and smoke. Sun shall be turned to darkness, moon to blood. Before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. To set the stage like that, right in these last days, I'm doing something different. The message doesn't come through like it always came through. You know, a booming voice, a prophet of zeal and power and might. It comes through who? Through everyday, ordinary, through my sons and daughters and servants of Israel. And that's who we are, you know, we are metaphorical sons and daughters of Israel, but we are. And as Abraham is not just the physical father of the children of Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, he's also the spiritual father of, well, all of us, you know, the children of the church. He's still our spiritual father. And there's this wonderful, wonderful thing that he sets apart. And he says, everything God did was pointing to this Jesus dying on the cross. Jesus being the savior of the world. And you hearing that message today. Then he gets into it. Verse 22. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs. Back to the key God did through him in your midst. As you know, you saw them, you observed them, right? This Jesus was delivered up according to the definite plan, the foreknowledge of God. And you, he points the finger. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless man. God has raised him up. He loosed or is loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. And then he quotes from the Psalm, Psalm 16 in perhect, where David talks about how the soul will not be abandoned to Hades of the Holy One. That's not David. David's not the Holy One. That would be the Messiah. He goes on to say later that David was talking about the Lord when he said, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. And then he says, I think is simple and undeniably true across all eternity. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ Jesus, whom you crucified. It's not a very long sermon. In fact, if you were timing me on Sunday and I preached a sermon with the same number of words, you'd think you hadn't gotten your money worth. You'd be like, that's not the Neil I know. A Neil who has a lot to say about all the things God has done. This is not a long sermon. It kind of reminds me a little bit of the shortness of Jonah's sermon in Nineveh. I think Jonah's sermon in Nineveh is like eight words. And all of Nineveh repents. Even the cows. All right, even the cows. They throw the dust and they show the dust and the sackcloth on the cows as a sign of, we're all sorry. We all messed up. Our entire world did.
• 56:09
  Speaker B: So the sermon itself, in my printed single column Bible, only takes up a page and a half. It's not a lot of verses. There's not a lot of actual preaching. There's quotation and connection to what God has already said and God has done. And there's just this emphatic reality of Jesus is the one these prophets were pointing to. Jesus is the one who David called Lord. Jesus is the one whom you killed. That is an emphatic statement. That is what the kingdom of God is built upon. Jesus Christ is the Savior. And using these uneducated Galileans who were now recipients of God's power in this great manifestation of wind and fire and might and what looks like confusion to the casual observer, that is actually clarity to the one that's paying attention. I'm in awe of like, it fills me with holy wonder where I want to tell all the world, look at how right God did this. It's just. It's not full of pomp, it's not full of circumstance. It's not full of respect for people and position and power and place. It doesn't care who, where, when. It's just clear up front and obvious. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. And this plan was always God's plan. He says a couple things that are worth pointing out. Jesus was delivered according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. None of this was happenstance. Yet God raised him up. And in verse 32, which we didn't read, we are all witnesses of that. We see his resurrection and the verdict. This guy Whom you killed, whom God raised up, is both Lord and Christ. And there's something about that.
• 58:22
  Speaker A: He's Messiah who saves us, He's Lord who rules over us.
• 58:29
  Speaker B: Now that kind of goes back to like Psalm 2 language. In Psalm 2, when the question is asked, why do the nations rage?
• 58:38
  Speaker A: Why do they fight against God and his anointed? You remember God appoints that anointed as not just heir, but son. And he gives them essentially the same titles here of Lord in Christ, you
• 58:51
  Speaker B: are mine to do my will.
• 58:54
  Speaker A: And my will is you rule right here. Messiah, Christ, Savior, you're mine, you're the one I deliver, but you're also Lord. And that distinction feels very valuable to me because they're not just followers, they're servants. So I'm not just going with you, I'm going behind you. Where you went is where I'm going to go, right? And that really feels heavy, coated. To like take up your cross and follow me. If you want to be first, you be last. I did not come to be served, but to serve those things that feel like the real deep, like real meaningful things of Jesus. You know, you love God first, you love others second, you love yourself last. They're evident in him being both our Savior and then also our Lord. He does for us what we can't and then he asks us to do for others what they can't. I love how that is the verdict. And then look at their response. It says they were cut to the heart.
• 59:55
  Speaker B: And they said to Peter and notice here and to the rest of the apostles, they're not just saying it to Peter, who seems to be the one addressing them, but to all of these men that are gathered there, what must we do? And I love that they use the term brothers. What should we do? They feel a kins like some kind of a kinsmanship with these people who they earlier identified is you're different than us, you're Galileans. But now we're not Galileans anymore. What are we? Well, we're brothers. That's, that's where that heritage connects. The thing that brought them to Jerusalem was their belief in Yahweh. The thing that will send them out of Jerusalem with a new purpose is their belief in Yahweh's Savior, the Son of God who died for us. There's some things here that are amazing. 3,000 were baptized that day and the Lord continued to add to that number daily. Now my guess is, is that number that gets added is from the over swelling crowd of people who weren't there that morning. People who weren't there as eyewitnesses to that sermon, but were obviously eyewitnesses to the change in these people's life. It reminds me of something here. How often in Scripture do we see when a message is preached? There's a strong response to it. You and I were talking about just a few chapters later, in fact.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker C: Yeah, just a few chapters later in Acts 6 and 7, talking about Stephen, that crowd was also cut to the heart, but their reaction was 180 degrees different. They did not want to hear what was being said. They didn't want to repent. It was no forgiveness sought. They wanted revenge and they wanted death.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker B: Absolutely. You know, you see this a lot in the Book of Acts. You know, in chapter eight, the Ethiopian eunuch. Right. See, here's water. What keeps you from being baptized? The conversion of Saul. Right. Ananias comes. Brother Saul, the Lord has sent me to you. Instead of eating, after multiple days of fasting, what does he do? He goes and is immersed and then he recovers. You go through the book of Acts and these conversion stories, they have one common attached action to them. Very few people are unfazed by them. There are a couple, you know, you've got yet the unfortunate scene at the end, Paul, you almost persuade me to become a Christian, you know, come back and talk to me about this another day. Yet most of the people, when confronted with the gospel, take a side. Yeah, almost everyone. I love what you said are cut in a way, either broken or angered. And I'm pretty certain that if we really did an evaluation of our world today, I think you'd find the same thing.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker C: That's what I was going to say. We get cut when we hear a sermon or we are here for a lesson and how do we react? Do we repent or do we walk out the door and pretend everything's good?
• 1:03:17
  Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I'm with you 100%. And as the one who has to deliver those messages most of the time, I feel I'm going to say this. I know everyone's responding, but it's really hard to know what the response is. At least in the moment, you know, you'll get. I think the number you'd say is that I probably preach 150 ish sermons a year now. I'm kind of including Bible classes in that, so just averages out to about three a week. Sometimes it'll be four, sometimes there'll be one, but we'll just say 150 lessons a week a year. Now out of those 150 lessons, I guess would be 25 of them get a very notable response. Someone comes to me that evening, the next day, something you said, something we read, something we studied, something I'd never seen before. Makes me want to do something different, makes me want to be better. Now, I don't believe for one moment that the other hundred and twenty five are not doing that, but I do believe sometimes we're afraid to be cut to the heart to acknowledge that. Oh, I really needed to hear that
• 1:04:39
  Speaker C: preacher to be vulnerable enough to admit it.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And when you add the uncomfortableness of
• 1:04:48
  Speaker A: being vulnerable publicly, you know, you get
• 1:04:52
  Speaker B: a whole nother level. I personally can tell you that off
• 1:04:58
  Speaker A: the course of the last six months, there have been about 10 or 15 people who've reached out to me privately after sermons and after messages and been like, that really helped because this, this, this, and this, I would never forsake
• 1:05:16
  Speaker B: of the confidence they have in me
• 1:05:18
  Speaker A: ever reveal what that is. But sometimes it's been, I should do better. Sometimes it's been, thank you for reminding me. But most of the time, most of the time it's, I needed that. I had lost sight of that. And there is a. There's an element of regret attached to shame attached to, I'm going to do better in motivation, you know, and that. That to me is what I would just like to see from every sermon. And you guys listen at home. This is obviously not a sermon, but we would like to think that when you study alongside of us, when you think about Pentecost, especially these moments, that you revere them maybe just a little bit more than you did yesterday. We're really not teaching things that many of you are completely unfamiliar with. And if this is the first time you're learning about this, hey, reach out to us, contact us. We're going to point you in the direction of 25 other things to study and to learn and to know about so that you can dig deeper what
• 1:06:23
  Speaker B: I'm trying to do. And I think the purpose of this podcast, Andy, is to show how these things that have gotten ordinary to us are anything but. There's nothing ordinary about what happened in
• 1:06:36
  Speaker C: Acts Chapter two, not at all.
• 1:06:37
  Speaker B: And if something like that happened today, it would make the front page of every social media website. It would make the front page of any type of printed publication. It would lead the news 3,000 converts change from one way of thinking to another. An entire town is swept up in what they would probably use as hysteria in today's. But they're caught up in this. And it would be the conversation we have at the coffee shop this morning. And it would be the text messages, hey, did you see this? This is a life changing moment for the history of our world. And I don't want it to become just, oh, yeah, we know about Pentecost. I want it to be something we really deeply respect. Because the things that were said, the things that were done, the works of God, the vehicles of the people he used, all of them are extraordinary. And I am in awe of how God took all of those things in one morning at one place to do something that changed the world forever. If that can be done there, then we can in some way emulate that Sunday morning here, or Sunday morning wherever you are. Because the structure of what changed the
• 1:08:08
  Speaker A: world is no different.
• 1:08:10
  Speaker B: The miracle didn't change the world. The speaking in tongues didn't change the world. God's message changed the world. And we can preach the same sermon with the same principles at the same length and same time, and we can still expect the same response. And we might not find it, but it is possible.
• 1:08:30
  Speaker C: And that audience was not qualified. They didn't have to meet a certain condition to come in. They were there. And I think sometimes we feel like we're not good enough or we've got to get better or whatever the case may be. And these people were just there and they heard it and they acted upon it. And we need to do the same thing today. None of us are qualified for the gift we've been given, but we receive it because of God's grace. The same with these people.
• 1:09:01
  Speaker B: Absolutely. And I would point this out, that they faced the same danger Jesus faced. The leaders of the Sanhedrin who put Jesus to the cross were still the leaders of Jerusalem 50 days later. And now this crowd is professing faith in the man they killed. If they killed that man, they could kill you also. You know, they. They were unmoved by that. I love that Peter in particular, who had run from the trial of Jesus when he was accused of being one of his disciples, now stands up publicly and says, all of you should be his disciples. Like, that's also a cut heart. That's also a change. And that's really the epitome of who we are today. People who were once alienated from God, who are now reunited with him. So the sermon brings about something that's pretty fascinating to me. There's one little last observation I think is worth noting, because this is happening in Jerusalem. There's this living embodiment almost a. Almost like a real life metaphor happening there in what we would essentially say is the shadow of the temple. Solomon had built the temple back in the Old Testament. Babylon destroyed it. It was rebuilt under the direction of Ezra and Nehemiah and Jerubbabel and Jeshua, the high priest. And then Herod enlarged it. They're in the presence of that place that represents where God dwells. Yet look what happens. God leaves that building and falls upon who?
• 1:10:48
  Speaker C: Each individual.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker B: Each individual. That's right.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker A: Okay. And that feels like this wonderful fulfillment of Jeremiah 31, verse 33. The Lord says, I'll put my law within them. I'll write it on their hearts. It's not going to be on a stone tablet. It's not going to be at one location, at one longitude and one latitude. It's going to go wherever my people go. And so the new temple is literally the embodiment of the people indwelt by the Spirit. Where God's fire once rested on a mountain and a tent and a building, now God's fire literally rests on each person, and they. They take it with them. Jeremiah's promise is being fulfilled. That passage from Ezekiel we read earlier, I will put my spirit within you. Like all that's being echoed and taking a very visible form in the fire that rested on the believers and then spread the message that those converts heard. It's just this.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker B: I.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker A: It's this living, breathing, just moment where God says, you think you understand things. Let me take a moment to put you in a place where you see that I'm five steps ahead. You know, had this happened on the Sea of Galilee, it's still truthful. Had this happened in Rome, it's still truthful, but it's happening there. And it's.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker B: It's a moment where God's foresight and wisdom, for those of us who now can look back and see the whole picture, it can resonate with us in a way it might not have resonated with them that day. They're just in Jerusalem just living the life of a faithful Jewish person. But now we sit back and we're like, well, the faithful person is no longer defined by being Jewish or by being a physical descendant of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It's the one who does the will of God. And then that's heavily coded to New Testament ideology. Like, there is neither Jew nor gentile. There is neither male nor female, free or slave. But what. We are all one. You know, there's one hope and there's one faith. And there's one Lord and there's one people. And Jesus even kind of hinted at this when he said, go into all of the world. Not just this world, just Judea and just Samaria and just Galilee, but go into all the world. And the Apostles, at least history tells us, did that. You can go to places all across the known world from that time today and find evidence that the apostles visited there. You can go to India and visit what they believe is the. The birthplace or not the birthplace, but the death place and the burial grounds of Thomas the Apostle. You know, that is showing something that to me is amazing. It's the fruit of what God had done. Hearts are changed, power is seen. And then in chapter two, verses 42 to 47, we start to see that the real product of this event extends beyond just what happened that day. They Verse 42, these are the believers, right? That started this day at 120 and
• 1:14:10
  Speaker A: now is in the thousands.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker B: They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker A: to fellowship, to breaking of bread and
• 1:14:16
  Speaker B: prayers, and hey connected to our. Our whole theme. And awe or fear came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. All who believed were together, had all
• 1:14:31
  Speaker A: things in common, sold their possessions, their
• 1:14:34
  Speaker B: belongings, distributed proceeds to all as they had need. Verse 46 it says, and day by day attending the temple together in the presence of this building that represented what God had done. They were literally what God wants everyone to be. They broke bread in their homes, they
• 1:14:49
  Speaker A: received their food with glad and generous hearts.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker B: They praised God, they had favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who are being saved.
• 1:14:59
  Speaker A: The old temple in that one place
• 1:15:03
  Speaker B: is a testament to what God had done. The new temple that goes everywhere is a testament to what God is doing. And that temple is the body and soul of those who are his.
• 1:15:18
  Speaker A: Now the apostle Paul would call our
• 1:15:20
  Speaker B: bodies a temple of the Holy Spirit. That every everywhere we go, God goes with us.
• 1:15:27
  Speaker A: That's this just fulfillment of all this prophecy that had been just foretold. The Jeremiah 31 passage, the Joel passage, the Psalm 16, the Holy One, Psalm 110, the Exalted Lord at God's right hand. The promise to David that Peter grounds in the Messiah's reign. Ezekiel, a new heart and a new spirit. The house of Israel being restored. Isaiah, how God's spirit will be pouring out on descendants. How God's children will be witnesses to the end of the world. A light to the nations. Because Pentecost is not a random event. It's the arrival of a Long promised hope. And today, that's the awe I'm most in awe, or that's the moment I'm most in awe of.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker B: God keeps his promises, often in ways we don't expect. His law, which was once written on stone tablets passed down from father to son, is now written on hearts passed down from every individual to everyone. They run across how a small, ordinary group empowered by God's Spirit, carried the gospel of Christ's death and resurrection to a world that needed it and was. Was watching, and how the right response to that message is still today. The repentance and immersion that we saw that day and that the gospel reaches people in their own language, in their own place, and it still changes who we once were into what we are now. I am in awe of Acts 2 and the events at Pentecost. It's just almost unbelievable that everything we are today can trace its source back to everything that happened that day. And right now there are billions of people in this world who profess some faith in Jesus Christ as the son of God. Some we don't all have the same and we don't all follow that in our life, but there's some profession of faith that Jesus Christ is the son of God. And that's the day when that was made first.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker C: 120 people started it.
• 1:17:40
  Speaker B: 120 people. So we often talk about what our world needs, right? Well, it needs 120 people like that. It needs 3,000 souls with. With open hearts and ears that are equally willing to listen. It needs trust in God's timing and God's prophecy. It needs people to stand up and say what's hard and what doesn't want to be heard but needs to be said. And at the end of the day, I think what it needs more than anything is us to live on God's time and in awe of what God does when it's time for us to be his vehicle in this world. I'm certain that at some point and sometime, Andy, someone's going to listen to something we teach on here. I don't know what it's going to be about. I don't know when it is. It's probably going to be at least 50 episodes in, though, before we get to real profound, deep things. And they're going to say, I never knew God said that.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker C: That's the hope and prayer it is.
• 1:18:41
  Speaker A: Because, you know, I have moments where
• 1:18:43
  Speaker B: someone has taught me.
• 1:18:45
  Speaker A: I'm sure you have moments where someone has taught you.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker B: And you said, I knew who God was.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker A: But now I see Now I see who he is. And much like a reflection of our beloved friend Job from last week, we can have everything figured out and then God speaks and we realize we really didn't. And the people at Pentecost, the devout Israelites, had everything figured out until God showed up and that message was heard. And then they went all across the world sharing the message that we, we have today. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is our Lord and our Savior and the Messiah that saves us from ourselves. And he is the one that God promised and our sin put him on the cross. Yet God is patient and he waits and gives time for us to hear that message, to respond to it faithfully. So today I hope everyone listening at home is as cut to the heart as I am by the story and as they were then. And it motivates me and it motivates them, and it motivates you and anyone who ever interacts with this to make the same response they did. What must I do? I'm going to go do it.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker B: I'm really glad we got to do this. What are you thinking? As we kind of bring this all to close, what have we missed? What do you think we've really hit on the right way? Anything that we need to wrap up crossing some T's and dotting some I's.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker C: The story just reminds me of going to conferences when I was in an industry a few years back. And you would, we'd go for three or four days and have great notes and meet great people and get really good ideas and you would get home and you wouldn't implement anything. And these people didn't do that. They kept that enthusiasm. They spread the gospel throughout the world and they had the hearts to want to do that. We still can have those hearts today if we choose to. And we need to take those hearts and use our opportunities better than we do currently.
• 1:21:04
  Speaker B: Absolutely. I long to be like our random made up Jehoshaphat the Elamite, right? And wherever I go, I take the message of Jesus with me. So for me, that's the soccer field, that's the classroom. That's when I'm with the preschoolers here,
• 1:21:29
  Speaker A: leading them in chapel at Fountainhead, or
• 1:21:31
  Speaker B: I'm with the old ornery adults in
• 1:21:34
  Speaker A: the Bible class on Wednesday night, of which I'm one. Yes, you are one of them. It's me. When I'm standing in line at the local grocery store or wherever, I want
• 1:21:48
  Speaker B: to be like those people. And if by some random coincidence there was a Jehoshaphat, the Elamite. I hope one day we get to meet him in paradise and there gets to be a conversation, which I'm still not certain there will be. But if there gets to be one, he says, hey, I was there at Pentecost, and that was special. But what was more special is what came with me when I left Jerusalem, the message of God that changed the world of Elam. And you see this crowd of people over here? They were the ones who I taught the message to, and they believed. And now we share eternity together. That will be the most wondrous thing that comes from this, is eternity spent with those 3,000 and everyone who came from those 3,000. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen today. To join us on this the Holy Wonder podcast. If you have any questions or you'd
• 1:22:48
  Speaker A: like to study more, Visit our website, www.holywonderhub.com. follow us on Apple Music, Spotify, even YouTube. Any place where podcasts are caught, look for us.
• 1:23:04
  Speaker B: Once again, my name is Neil Mathis,
• 1:23:06
  Speaker A: here with my co host, Andy Yan.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker B: Thank you for listening.
• 1:23:09
  Speaker A: Have a great day. Sam.