02-15-2026 - WHEN THE DAY OF PENTECOST HAD FULLY COME - Acts 2

MESSAGE BY PASTOR ROB INRIG

FROM BETHANY BAPTIST IN RICHMOND, BC.

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I invite you to pray together: O Father of mercies and God of all comfort, our only help in time of need: We humbly beseech thee to behold, visit, and relieve thy sick servants for whom our prayers are desired. Look upon them with the eyes of thy mercy ( Vicky O, Nancy R, Tere G, Liz N, Stevie A, Socrates D, Sara's mom H, Margarita G,   Rosy Ch, Patricia L. Lina J.  Magda- Laci M.  Gloria F, Miguel A H. Silvia H, Brianda M, Alejandro M, Natalia M, Oscarin N. Laci N. Maria Elena C, Miguel C, Richard H. )   Comfort them with a sense of thy goodness; preserve them from the temptations of the enemy; and give them patience under his affliction. In thy good time, restore them to health, and enable them to lead the residue of their life in thy fear, and to thy glory; and grant that finally they may dwell with thee in life everlasting; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

You can add names from family and friends who need prayer

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When the Day of Pentecost had 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 the whole house where they were sitting.  Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.  :1-4

Let’s set the scene - Jesus having spectacularly left His followers, they now gathered, waiting as they’ve been told to do for a power Jesus had promised would come.  It is Shavuot, the Festival of Firstfruits - 1 of 3 festivals all Jewish males were required to observe at the Temple in Jerusalem. This festival is on the 50^th day after Passover, praising God for the first sign of the coming harvest and also celebrating God’s giving of the Torah to Moses at Mount Sinai.

This historian Josephus tells us that Jerusalem, with a normal population of 150,000, now numbers well over a million.  So that’s the scene in which events unfold.

But at the center of events is not a mass of people but 120 who are also the first sign of a time to come, when their numbers will far exceed those crowding Jerusalem. The first thing we are told about this group is that They were all with one accord 2:1, that expression seen earlier in Acts 1:14 and one that will be seen on many occasions to come, the next related to the healing of a lame beggar, Acts 4:23,24, an event that will continue to add numbers to the 120.

These followers of Jesus united as one.  No longer are they mother to Jesus, brother to James, friend to John, teacher to Peter - those understandings falling away to far greater understanding that Who they have seen, Who they have walked with, Who they have shared food with - is Almighty God, Creator of Everything, Saviour of all who come to Him, Lord of All. This understanding unites them in ways nothing else could. They came together to pray.  United as they praised. United as they waited on the promise of the Spirit to come. Distinct in who they are but united in purpose to obey what He had told them to do.

And in that place of unity of those seeking the Lord and His will, God pours out His Spirit upon them. There in the surroundings of multitudes swirling around them, numbers so small, a cluster of upper room Christians, 120 followers, men and women seeking the Lord.  And as they did, God invaded where they were.

In thinking on this, we dare not miss that God has said the same to us that as we live surrounded by so many and so much, God’s promise, Where 2 or 3 are gathered in My name, there am I in the midst, God’s Spirit dwelling in us Mtt 18:20, 1 Cor 3:16.  Perhaps not powerful in numbers but immensely powerful in the power, by God’s Spirit, we possess.

Powerful in the 2’s and 3’s, God uses to do His miracles.  2’s and 3’s who pray.  2’s and 3’s who step out in God’s power.  As January began, we spent some time focusing on prayer - prayer for those we love, praying for the needs we have, praying for those with whom we connect, praying for this church so we will see many coming to Jesus.  Praying boldly, asking the Spirit to do what we can’t.  In light of this, would you consider believing yourself to be part of the 2’s and 3’s who come 15 - 20 minutes early and rather than greeting one another in the foyer, save those connections for after and instead come into the sanctuary to pray.  Praying for God to work.  Praying for those who need healing and forgiveness and for those who feel so alone.  Not just praying one Sunday but beginning what will become part of our practice as 2’s and 3’s, God will enlarge as His praying people to bring about what we have not seen.

Asking God to fulfil in this place, in our lives what He said in Jeremiah, Deuteronomy and Proverbs You will seek Me and find Me when you search for Me with all your heart ... I love those who love Me; and those who diligently seek Me will find Me  Jer 29:13, Deut 4:29, Prov 8:17.  These finding Him not on a ‘wonder what we may find’ quest but desperately needing life giving water.

People who will experience God present, the same God who made Himself known leading by pillars of fire and cloud, speaking from a burning bush, revealing Himself in signs and wonders, A God of thunder and lightning and a thick cloud on the mountain and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people trembled .... because the Lord descended on it in fire Ex 19:16-20.  Yet this God of power drawing us close, The Word became flesh and dwelled among us, and we have seen His glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth Jn 1:14.

This God whom we see here, as the wind of the Spirit blowing, bringing life.  When the wind of the Spirit blows, a church is transformed by the new.  When the wind of the Spirit blows, the unimportant and wrongly prioritized are driven from us.  When the wind of the Spirit blows, Jesus is enthroned as Lord and King.

But when we forget to Whom we come and by that forget who it is we really are, then we change our praise to expectation, our tendency to want to direct what that wind should do, what that wind should give. We equate being filled with the Spirit or being baptized with the Spirit with some gift He wants to give rather than His Spirit giving us revelation of who Jesus is and believing that taking hold of the power His Spirit has placed within us.

God wants us to believe and listen that when the wind of that Spirit blows, He will direct as He did with King David,  When you hear the sound of marching in the tops of the mulberry trees, then you shall advance quickly. For then the LORD will go out before you to strike the camp of the Philistines 2 Sam 5:24.

When the wind of that Spirit blows, and we come up against the uncrossable as Moses did with an enemy come hard up against them, God send a strong east wind so they would know deliverance. God wants us to know He is with us now in what we face - in the challenges, - ln the heartaches, in the uncertainties; we are given His power now to deal with what comes against.  It was with that same power that God moved at Pentecost.

And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together, and were confused, because everyone heard them speak in his own language.   :5,6.

The first evidence of what God was doing at Pentecost was God’s heavenly sound as a mighty wind.  His Spirit is present to indwell them. Sometimes, like we are told with Elijah, God speaks in a still small voice, not this time. This tells us 1^st, this sound was significant.  It might have taken place in an upper room, but the sound wasn’t confined there.  We’re told that when this sound occurred, the multitude came together.  2^nd, this sound signalled attraction - this sound, not explosions from which people ran, but the extraordinary, signalling the direction where they should go.   3^rdly, it was situated - that is, God taking the gathered to the exact location He wanted them to go. Normally, this was not a place others would go.  Why would they?  As we will see, who they came to was a group of Galileans. Judeans tended to view them as uneducated and of questionable ancestry. Nathaniel’s assessment, Can anything good come out of Nazareth?  Jn 1:46..

Could it be that, sitting here, the sound you have been listening to is no different than what the multitude thought? - You are just a Galilean, no one special, no one gifted. Their voice listened to instead of God’s, that placed in you is His mighty power. His powers for you to take up & believe.

Then there is the second piece of evidence of what was seen - tongues of fire dispensed upon each one.

The miracle of the sound - significant and mighty, but tongues of fire, astounding. These tongues of fire - reminders, especially on Shavout, of God’s fiery encounter on Mt Sinai, of God’s presence and power, a power poured out upon all those who are gathered in the upper room.  These 120, filled with the Spirit, empowering them to speak in other tongues - languages not their own, in order for them to spread the good news about Jesus, the resurrected Son of God.  Let’s be honest, 120 cannot impact a multitude, their voices drowned out by all the others around.  But when God is in the 120, no multitude can stop it.

This is the birth of the church, you and I, who are to make known the great news of the Kingdom.  These known languages, which some believe are different than what we’re told in 1 Cor 14 glossalia, are given to the church, within the church.  These need interpretation, and if someone in your midst is unlearned (ie not a believer) & they hear you speaking in tongues, they will think you crazy.  In Cor 14, Paul says whoever speaks in an unknown tongue doesn’t speak to man but to God - in the spirit he speaks mysteries.  God directed, not man directed.

Then they were all amazed and marvelled, saying to one another, “Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each in our language in which we were born? Parthians, Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs - we hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God.” So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, Whatever could this mean? :7-12.

In his determined to be accurate style, Luke names the languages spoken beginning east of Jerusalem: Parthians, Medes, Elamites and Mesopotamia. Then he moves north, including Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia - all Roman provinces of Asia Minor. Then south to Egypt and parts of Libya in northern Africa. Then west, Rome and Cretans, then south once more, Arabians. From all these parts, men said, We hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. These in Jerusalem because 1500 years before God commanded that all Jewish males were to go on pilgrimage to Jerusalem for 1 of 3 annual feasts, this one the Feast of Weeks Ex 23, 34.

This means that these gathered were faced with the unsettling.  What they’d seen was undeniably miraculous.  Seeing tongues of fire, then hearing their language and the multitude of dialects among them was something no human reasoning could explain. Luke describes their reaction with 2 words used for astonishment - amazed and bewildered. In Greek, ‘amazed’ means to push out of their senses and ‘bewildered’ means to be hit hard, stunned,d telling us they were staggered by what they saw and heard.

But the incomprehensible?  Even with everything seen and heard, there were many who weren’t willing to see any of it as miraculous.  Instead, their conclusion? Others mockingly said, They are full of new wine. :13.  Forget the sound, forget the tongues of fire, forget the native languages just heard; their conclusion about what was just witnessed was that these were the incoherent ramblings of the drunk.  How do you go there when they couldn’t deny that the words spoken, not in Hebrew, which they almost certainly held in common, but in native languages, these Galileans would have no capacity to know?

Which is a strong reminder that it is God’s Spirit alone that opens hearts.  Our arguments for the truth of who Jesus is may be strong, our experiences of what He’s done in our life may be compelling, but it is our bold prayer for the Spirit to do what we cannot - change the will, not just convince the mind. Because it is our will that must bow for us to accept Jesus as Saviour and Lord.  It’s why some here may still be standing on the outside regarding who you will allow God to be in your life - your battle with your will, not your mind. 

And any talk about their sin and a Risen Christ was not something they were willing to entertain. They were so attached to their biases that if it didn’t fit with what they were determined to believe and how they wanted to live, then not even the miraculous would change their hearts.  But isn’t this exactly how many reacted to Jesus, even though they saw the miracles done?

In response to the accusations of intoxication, Peter steps into the identity Jthat esus said of him that he would be the rock on which God would build his church.  Peter, to whom Jesus said, Satan wants to sift you like wheat.  To disable you, to disqualify you, to sideline you, but Jesus’ assurance, I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers. Lk 22:31,32.

But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, (you supposedly in the center of where you think God should be found) let this be known to you, and heed my words.  For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.  But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:  :14-16

Peter’s response to these accusers, Your interpretations are wrong because your focus is wrong - you see what you choose to see while ignoring what the message heard in your own language told you?  Your interpretations are wrong because you are hanging on to biases that are wrong.  You study the Scriptures while choosing not to believe what you study.  You quote what you read but ignore where it points:

And it shall come to pass in the last days, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants I will pour out My Spirit in those days; and they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath: blood and fire and vapour of smoke.  The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord.  And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’   :17-21.

Peter stood and connected what the Old Testament prophets had said to the events they had just witnessed, that the Jesus Messiah had come, He’d been killed, buried, and by God’s power had been resurrected as Lord and Saviour.  And what they had just witnessed was the time God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh who believed in Him, Jews and Gentiles alike. Not only all people everywhere, but all kinds of people -- young men, young women, male and female. "Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions."  Joel does not mention tongues. Instead^, he refers to another gift of the Spirit, the gift of prophecy, to tell forth the Word of God. This will be manifested by young men and old, even servants and obscure people. They shall be equipped by the Spirit to tell forth the Word of God with power. That will be the mark of the age, he says. The emphasis is not on gifts, but on the Spirit who gives the gifts.  The Holy Spirit convicts, equips, and empowers us for one purpose so that Jesus is glorified.

This isn’t something that we are to wait for; it is something that we are to fully live for.  That we, young and old, have been called to be Spirit-filled, Spirit-enabled followers of Jesus.  To fill this place with the young who are excited about Jesus, excited to worship Jesus for who He is.  To lead out, unashamed to praise Him and unashamed to live our lives to please Him regardless of what everyone around is doing.  To be culture shapers in this church as we gather and culture shapers as we go out into the world where He has placed us.

The Bible often uses the Greek word pleroo to describe the filling of the Holy Spirit. The word is a nautical term referring to the filling of a ship’s sails that results in the vessel being carried along. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we are being controlled by the Holy Spirit. He is carrying us to His intended destination.

Young person being a Holy Spirit empowered person isn’t something that in some distant future God may use.  He wants to do that now.  Despite all the pictures commonly depicting Jesus and His disciples or many of the prophets, they were not old men and women who were winding out their days.  They were the young, filled with passion, people on a mission.  Just a Galilean, no one special, no great gift?  But God’s truth, you have been chosen by God who has given you this new kind of life Col 3:12 TLB .

THIS IS THE MESSAGE: Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know - Him, being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.  :22-24  Peter states, You know it, you saw it, you refused it. 

THIS IS OUR POWER:   Spirit-filled people declaring Jesus Messiah - attested by miracles, wonders and signs.  The very works that I am doing testify that the Father has sent me.  Believe Me that I am in the Father, and the Father is in Me; but if not, believe because of the works themselves Jn 5:33,36; Jn 14:11

For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first and also for the Greek  Rom 1:16.

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