Mt., 47 counts, XII, 30-37)<br> <br> Gospel Reading (Matthew 71 ch., XVII, 10-18)<br> <br>10 And his disciples asked . Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. So here are ten ways Old Testament believers experienced the Holy Spirit which in these "last days" of Pentecostal fulfillment ought to be enjoyed by the church. "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31). Centering layers in OpenLayers v4 after layer loading. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? They saw it in different ways and understood it completely different from anything from our frame of reference and they were ascribing, would have been ascribing then even to Jesus something that was not of God, which in itself can be a problem. By using our website, you accept our use of cookies as described in our Privacy Policy. The Victory over Fear On the day of the Pentecost, The Spirit of God came to them, filled their minds and their hearts and their entire being. But it is also due to a much simpler and . It goes on, "Jesus came and He spoke to them saying, 'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. People should see that in us. The goal is that the addition of scriptural verses will assist you in meditating on the Mysteries of the Rosary as you pray. And it brings it down to the end of the chapter. He was just [snaps fingers] gone, He was there. The disciples met in the upper room after the ascension, but ten days elapsed between the ascension and the events described in Acts 2. It seemed to point to something more that might come in the future. And so she was the first to see the empty tomb and have that appearance, and she goes and tells them. And let's look at it beginning in verse 36, this is after His resurrection, "As they said these things," this is the two that He had appeared to on the road to Emmaus, "Jesus himself stood in the midst of them and said to them, 'Peace to you.' And this express bus took Route 66 out of St. Louis all the way to Los Angeles, my first time to get on that fabled highway, Route 66. And it was the high priest and those people who had engineered His death, and they knew the power that they did have. Prior to Pentecost, the Apostles, though often zealous and willing to make sacrifices to follow Jesus, were also slow to understand and often confused. But Jesus immediately said to them: 'Take courage! Because they were seeing Christ risen and they saw Him in a bodily form, but then they were attributing something different to that. That's the famous road to Emmaus experienced from the book of Luke, "and they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either." And Peter thence begins to quote Scripture. Theoretically Correct vs Practical Notation. It's an interesting way that they did. Learn more about Stack Overflow the company, and our products. And allows us to then grow, because the next few verses here of 2 Peter speaks to a process of spiritual empowerment and growth and development. When you read what Peter said about these prophecies from Joel and the Psalmstrust me, folks, Peter's sermon would not have passed doctrinal review by the Jewish doctrinal committee of that day. That is the vision that Jesus has for His Church as articulated by the apostle Paul in Ephesians 4:16 Ephesians 4:16From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, makes increase of the body to the edifying of itself in love.American King James Version, and they had it at this moment. And not for the reality that the 1st century world would have known and experienced, that other dimension. As His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which have been given to us exceedingly great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped corruption that is in the world through lust." As I was sitting there gazing around, nobody came. Micah 3:8 says, "As for me, I am filled with power, with the Spirit of the Lord, and with justice and might, to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin." That's an important trait for a firstfruit, for a firstfruit to have in their life, and in their approach to life. Suddenly, Jesus appeared in the middle of the group. Hadn't He told them that He'd come back to life again? Show them otherwise what had been done, rebuke their unbelief, as it goes along here. . We just get a few snippets from the gospel accounts, at least, of this 40-day period. The second power that they'd run up against was that of the Jewish authorities. Surely we have need today of men and women filled by the Spirit to expose and denounce evils in our society that are hardly blinked at any more: the exploitation of women's bodies and debasement in advertising, the unconscionable destruction of human life through abortion on demand, the maneuvers of our own country to destabilize other governments, the gross waste and gluttony of American life, the cavalier attitude to divorce and remarriage which God hates, and the multi-million dollar promotion of alcohol and cigarettes as anything less than family-destroyers and body-killers. We can accomplish the work of God, and we can then be the firstfruits who follow the Lamb and who know their God and do mighty deeds and mighty exploits. They had a lot of fear. It's God's Spirit that is the only thing that we can have to overcome those fears, because really, it's all the Church of God has ever had. A firstfruit is one who follows Christ. Colossians 2:15 Colossians 2:15 And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a show of them openly, triumphing over them in it.American King James Version, tells us that He disarmed the powers with His death. But on the day when the reservoir poured through the turbines a power was unleashed that spread far beyond the few folk down river and brought possibilities they had only dreamed of. Two things we can summarize to show what was the key to bring about this scene that we see here at the end of chapter 2 in Acts. Jesus was enveloped within a pillar of fire, but was not harmed. A survey of Old Testament spiritual experience is needed to wake us up to our privileges in these last days that were inaugurated at Pentecost. They had been told to be there, to wait in Jerusalem until that day. When God wanted to encourage the people to rebuild the temple after the exile, he said, "Work, for I am with you . These significant events from the life of Jesus are made easier to comprehend and better-illustrated thanks to the passages . 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. Surely for a Christian all study and all creative work must justify itself in terms of love. No, He said wait till, wait in Jerusalem, and so they were there and they continued. Pentecost was a Jewish festival fifty days after the Passover. The Christian aeon is a renewed order, a new creation. But she said, "Go ahead Ruth, you go home too," and Ruth says, "Your God will be my God, wherever you go, I will go." And it is in that, we reach the real nexus, the real critical point of our life before God, where we recognize that, with the Holy Spirit, we are taking on the very nature of God, the divine nature. After the disciples received the Holy Spirit, received Christ in them, they began to operate under the strength and ability of Christ in them. When they heard that He was alive and had been seen by her, they did not believe. An eyewitness account, there was a lack of belief that put them in the situation here that they did not understand and didn't believe that had actually happened. Think about that among our own relationships with each other. rev2023.3.1.43269. . We, again, don't necessarily always pause and think about this, in these hours and days following Christ's resurrection. By clicking Accept all cookies, you agree Stack Exchange can store cookies on your device and disclose information in accordance with our Cookie Policy. It goes on, "When He had spoken these things," in verse 9, "they watched and He was taken up in a cloud, received Him out of their sight. We're no different than them. And that power would be what would begin to banish the fear, the troubling, doubt, that they had, coupled with the Word of God that they were to have. They drank it, they washed in it, it watered their crops and turned their mill-wheels. By clicking Post Your Answer, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy. To be candid, it does feel like a complete change of the subject. First few verses of Acts chapter 1, beginning in verse 3, Luke in his prologue to the account as he writes to this man named Theophilus, about all that had been done by Jesus until the day in which He was taken up through the Holy Spirit and had given commandments to the apostles, whom He had chosen, to whom He also presented himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God., So Luke gives us an explicit reference point that this went on. 60 seconds. Christ did not leave His disciples as orphans. We know in Acts chapter 2, when we turn there and look at the story alluded to in the sermonette here this morning, that they were gathered together. Ninth, the Spirit enabled some OT believers to interpret God's revelation in dreams. Seventh, the saints of old experienced victory over fear by the presence of the Spirit. 38Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them. 39By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. And so two things create this vision and this mission. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues a as the Spirit enabled them. In other words, Peter says, we have entered the last days: the Messiah has come, he has accomplished redemption on the cross, he has risen and ascended to the right hand of God, and the interval before he returns in glory will be marked by an incomparable outpouring of the Holy Spirit on men and women, old and young, slave and free, near and far. Chapter 4 takes as its starting point the gift of speaking in tongues from the narrative of Pentecost in Acts 2:1-13. . After Joseph interpreted Pharaoh's dream about the coming famine, Pharaoh says, "Can we find such a man as this in whom is the Spirit of God?" These accounts of like what we have read in the gospels and others for a 40-day period. Again, the answer is yes. These are the days of Pentecost, the days of the fullness of the Spirit, the days of worldwide mission. Learning and labor which do not lead people in love to God are not prompted by the Spirit of Christ. Acts 2 This then begins to be the anchor and the soil into which they can anchor a life of faith that they were to have and to develop. Fear not" (Haggai 2:5). Back in Mark's account, chapter 16 of Mark, we see that the same thing lingered among the wide group of people there. And speaking about the deep things of the Kingdom of God to prepare them for what they were to take part in, and what they were to be a part of. Jentezen Franklin preached a sermon about scribes. Consider this question, with what we have just read: how could people filled with doubt, even a measure of unbelief, fear, general fear, intense fear, heightened fear, abject fearfear takes many different forms and guises; sometimes we can control our fear, sometimes it overcomes us and we're just shaking in our bootshow could a people dealing with all of these emotions during this 50-day period of time be expected to do what Jesus told them here in verse 8, they would do, when they have problems figuring it all out at that particular moment? The disciples were afraid of the Jewish leaders, and on the evening of that same Sunday they locked themselves in a room. and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold, silver, and bronze, in cutting stones for setting and in carving wood, for work in every craft.'". Four verses later Moses says, "Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit upon them" (v. 29). Doubt, some of them doubt, what did they doubt? Jesus was enveloped within a burning bush, but was not harmed. Everybody who gets up and gives a sermon in a congregation, that sermon before it's ever posted on a website, has been reviewed or at least approved by individuals within the congregation. Do Christians receive the Holy Spirit upon conversion or not (Ephesians 1:13 vs. Acts 8:14-17; 19:1-7)? When the disciples saw the Lord, they became very happy. They came together, in verse 1 of chapter 2, "On the day of Pentecost when it was fully come, they were with one accord in one place. We can deal with them. A period of unity, one accord, fellowship, love for one another, treating people as equals, not in a completely socialistic manner that we understand from our modern context of socialism, or the welfare type of society. "And all who believed were together and they had all things in common. That's what He did. The Church was given favor, we're told, as they demonstrated these fruits and others were added. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. Well, that's a sign that I should go here, take this job, do this or do that. But miracles, well, that just takes a little bit more work, but they were here in the midst of a very large miracle. Again Jesus in John 15 talks about Spirit that he will send it, does this mean they yet had no Spirit upon them? What are some tools or methods I can purchase to trace a water leak? So if I can come back to the question that I asked, what was going through their mind on that morning of Pentecost? And you have to understand that and realize that, that's what they were doing during that period of time as well. He is author of. Now, when we turn over to Acts chapter 1, and we look at, kind of summing up of this as it is. And then even when we see in the days after Jesus' final ascension, a roughly 10-day period, when they came to make a decision to replace Judas, they read Scripture, they applied it properly, God blessed the decision. When Nicodemus was bewildered about Jesus' demand for new birth by the Spirit, Jesus responded (John 3:10), "Are you a teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand this?" People should see God in the firstfruits. Our sins will find us out. But that was a life lesson that I had to learn. And so I made a certain few inquiries, I got on the bus, didn't miss it. [Darris McNeely] On the morning of Pentecost 31 AD, what do you think was going through the minds of the assembled disciples in Jerusalem? So it's something for us to examine in our own way, see how much of that is being demonstrated in our life. 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