Acts 2:1-6 The Spirit Came Last week, I preached on the topic What Jesus Left. This week, I want to look at the topic When the Spirit Came. These two chapters go together. The first details Jesus leaving. The second the Holy Ghost coming. The one created a gap, a loneliness, an emptiness. The second creates a new relationship with God, a filling, an empowering. This was not an accident on Gods part. These two chapters being end to end are Gods way of telling us that no Christian will ever lack for the presence of God ever again! should want to read of the Lords ascension without also wanting to read if the Holy Spirits coming. Lets divide this up into two parts. First, lets notice what the disciples where doing when the Spirit came then lets notice what they did after He came. I. Before the Spirit came A. Before the Spirit came, there was praise. 1. \\#1\\ Pentecost was a day of praise and thanksgiving for the Jews. a. Pentecost has come to be recognized for several events by the Jews, but the book of Deuteronomy 26 makes it clear that it was to be the day of thanksgiving for the harvests in Israel. b. Among the several other names this holy day is called the Feasts of Firstfruits. 2. To understand this holy day, we need to back up two other holy days, Passover and the Week of Unleavened Bread. a. Passover and the Week of Unleavened Bread were back to back Holy days. (1) Passover began on the 14th day of Nissan and the Week of Unleavened Bread began on the 15th day of Nissan. (2) All Jewish men had to be in Jerusalem for the Week of Unleavened Bread \\#Deut 16:16, Ex 23:15\\. (3) Since Passover was always the day before and both the Passover and first day of Unleavened Bread were holy days on which you could not travel \\#Lev 23:4-8\\, the men also had to be in Jerusalem for the Passover. (4) By the way, it was the first day of Unleavened Bread that moved the Jews to finish Jesus crucifixion in haste in \\#John 19:31\\ not the normal Sabbath Day. (a) Any day that was a holy day where no work could be done was referred to as a Sabbath Day, like the first day of Unleavened Bread. (b) If you will read John 19:31 carefully, the text tells us that it was Sabbath Day BECAUSE it was a HIGH DAY. (c) High Day means a Great Day. b. From the Old Testament we know Passover as the day the Passover lamb was slain and the blood applied to the door posts for Gods death angel went through Egypt that night, killing the firstborn of every family who had not applied the blood of the Passover lamb to their door. c. From the New Testament, I believe Passover was the day on which Jesus, our Passover Lamb was slain. d. DO NOT SHARE THIS THOUGHT. IT IS UNNEEDED OVERALL. However, Passover was also the beginning of the grain harvests for Israel. (1) The first grain to be harvested was barley and the barley ripened around the Passover. (2) The Jews were bring the firstfruits of their barley as an offering to God the day after the Passover. https:\/\/ahbjewishcenter.org\/harvest.htm e. From the first day of Unleavened Bread, the Jews were to count 7 weeks of 49 days, then bring in their Firstfruits offering. (1) The New Testament calls this holy day Pentecost, the Greek word meaning FIFTY, referring to 50 days after Passover. (2) In the Old Testament, it is often referred to as the Feast of Firstfruits. 3. It was on this day in Acts 2, Pentecost or the first day of the Feast of Firstfruits was day that the Holy Ghost came. a. This was a big and festival holy week for Israel. (1) The people had been anxiously counting down the days since Passover. (2) As the fruits began to ripen, the Jewish farmers would look across their fields to find the first rip stalks which they would bind with a cord to mark them. (c) As the 49th day approached, they would cut those stalks and place them in a special basket woven with gold and silver. The baskets would be loaded into a cart that was pulled by an ox with garlands of flowers. Then the family would head to Jerusalem, joining with others families as they went. Each city or village they passed through would greet them with music and soon they became a parade. (d) When the families arrived, they would present their offering to the priests as a thank you to God for the harvest, then they would celebrate their blessings together in a nation-wide celebration for a week. https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shavuot http:\/\/www.templeinstitute.org\/shavuot.htm b. Everyone, including the disciples, would be offering their gifts to God and thanking God for the bounty He had provided to them. c. And then, it happened. Acts 2:2 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. 3 And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. d. In the midst of that kind of praise, God the Holy Ghost blew in! 4. How important was praise to the Holy Ghosts coming? Psalm 22:3 But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. Ps 50:23 Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me: Psalm 150:6 Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD. a. Praise is the prelude to every true worship service. b. Praise is mans way of inviting God to join him. c. Before the Spirit came, people were praising the Lord. B. Before the Spirit came, there was prayer. 1. Events had been moving pretty fast for the disciples when the Spirit came. a. Just 50 days prior, Jesus had been crucified (Passover). b. Jesus arose three days later or, from the disciples perspective, 47 days ago. c. \\#Acts 1:3\\ tells us that Jesus stayed with the disciples after His resurrection for 40 days. d. So, from the disciples perspective, 7 days has past since Jesus ascended. 2. What had the disciples been doing those 7 days? a. Jesus had told them to "wait for the promise of the Father the Holy Ghost" \\#Acts 1:4-5\\. b. It appears that they decided to do their waiting together as much as possible. Acts 1:13 And when they were come in, they went up into an upper room. c. I am sure that they could not stay together every minute during those 7 days, but the Scripture does say they were together A LOT and it tells us what they were doing A LOT. Acts 1:14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication, Acts 2:1 they were all with one accord in one place. d. They were praying! e. Before the Spirit came, there was PRAYER. C. I do not know that praise and prayer brought the Holy Ghost. 1. Jesus told the disciples that the Holy Ghost was going to come and He might would have come had they been playing games. 2. But praise is our way of getting Gods attention and prayer is our way of inviting God to come. 3. It would not hurt us at all to devout time, energy, and effort to praise and prayer. II. When the Spirit came A. When the Spirit came, a Person came. 1. The terms Holy "Ghost" and Holy "Spirit" may give to some the notion that the Holy Ghost is an IT and not a HIM. a. Not so. b. The Holy Spirit is a Person just like the Father and the Son are Persons. c. Remember the Father IS a Spirit and the Son WAS a Spirit before He put on flesh. 2. The Holy Spirits form is different from Jesus because His role is different than Jesus. a. The Father was in the heavens above us. b. The Son was on the earth beside us. c. But the Spirit abides inside of us. d. God has moved from being above and about us to being within us, and nothing like this has happened before. (1) I know the Holy Ghost came UPON people in the Old Testament, but that was always temporary. (2) It was for a purpose and then the Spirit left. (3) But now the Person of the Holy Ghost is inside of every believer for all eternity. 3. The thing about the Holy Ghost being a Person and abiding within us is that when we have Him, we have a new personality. a. You can see that in the lives of the disciples. (1) The confused became the courageous. (2) The fearful became the fearless. (3) The cant became the can. b. \\#6-11\\ The biggest display of this Persons presence was the gift of tongues that day. (1) In THIS text, the gift of tongues was not on the disciples as much as it was on the people. (2) The lost people suddenly had the ability to hear the message being preached in their own language. (3) Because of the many scatterings of the Jews, they had already been dispersed across much of the world. (4) On this holy day, they had returned to Jerusalem as the Law had demanded. (5) Most of them spoke Hebrew. They had kept their native language. (6) But they had been born elsewhere and spoke another language as their primary tongue. (7) Yet the Holy Spirit worked so that no matter what was their native tongue (at least 14 are mentioned), they could hear the disciples in that language. c. So many people want to argue about what the gift of tongues is and is not, that they miss the point. d. The point is that we can do impossible feats for Christ because of the Person of the Holy Ghost who abides within us. 4. We really need to note something else about this Person. a. His power was not to aid the disciples but to bring glory to God by winning lost souls to Jesus. b. I am no expert on the Holy Ghost or Gods power, but I do not believe God will give either for any other purposes than those. 5. So when the Person came a. Courage came. The disciples may have needed comfort and clarity, but what they got was courage to tell others about Jesus. b. Capabilities came. This men probably spoke two or maybe even three languages, but they did not speak fourteen. c. Commission became valid. Jesus had commanded the disciples and us to go tell the world about Him, but He also said wait until the Holy Ghost came. The wait was over. Now it was time to tell the world about Jesus and it has been that time ever since. B. When the Spirit came, preaching came. 1. Preaching was something that was new and it came with the Holy Ghost. a. There had been teaching before, but teaching is not preaching. b. Someone says, "Whats the difference?" (1) Preaching has the anointing of the Holy Ghost on it. (2) Many "preachers" have never preached. (a) They have only taught. (b) Maybe they taught truth and maybe it was good, but it was not preaching. (3) Preachers fall back into the teacher category when the cease to rely on the anointing of the Holy Ghost. 2. You can read Peters sermon. a. \\#14-36\\ b. There is nothing all that powerful in the words Peter used. c. You may not discern an outline. d. You may not see any alliteration. e. But when Peter finished preaching, the Holy Ghost had done a work and 3,000 souls will be saved and baptized. 3. Paul will talk about how foolish it is for a man to stand up and preach the Word of God to sinners \\#1Cor 1;18-21\\. a. And it does seem foolish, yet it is also the POWER of God that brings salvation. b. In these times, people use protests, demonstrations, riots, sit-ins; they lie and bribe witnesses; they threaten, insult, and bully. c. But the people of God will just proclaim the truth with the anointing of God on it and they will accomplish all that God wants to accomplish. In closing, I will say that when the Sprit came, power came. Power to change a life. Power to change a community. Power to change a city, state, and nation. This is not conjecture. It has been proven so by 2,000 years of verifiable history. We need the Spirit to come again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Acts 2:1-6 The Spirit Came Last week, I preached on the topic What Jesus Left. This week, I want to look at the topic When the Spirit Came. These two chapters go together. The first details Jesus leaving. The second the Holy Ghost coming. The one created a gap, a loneliness, an emptiness. The second … Continue reading “Acts 2:1-6 – The Spirit Came – Bible study”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1527","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1527"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1527\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1527"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1527"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1527"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}