Acts Chapter 2:1-11

At the Passover, Jesus was crucified according to God's plan.

Now, the beautiful part of that plan is, guess what? There was people from all over the world that were there for the crucifixion according to God's plan. It wasn't man's plan to crucify Jesus at Passover. As a matter of fact, you may remember the verse when the Jewish leader said, let's not do it during the feast, the people will cause an uproar, cause a riot.

They were worried about having a riot. So, you know, let's wait until the feast is over. So who actually set the timeline for the crucifixion? Jesus himself. Jesus was in control the whole time. You may remember in the upper room, Jesus turned to Judas and he said, and they were talking about the betrayal, and then he said, that that you do us, do us quickly.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. David is the senior pastor of the bridge in Kernersville, North Carolina. You know, a lot of people wonder, should you ask questions about what you hear in church? And when you're studying out the scriptures, who set the timeline for the crucifixion? Bob, it's interesting to see in scripture that Jesus repeatedly said, we must be going to Jerusalem. And he ushered those around him along to get there even quicker. Bob, it's intriguing and it's quite striking how much of a hand God had in what happened to Jesus on that cross.

You're exactly right, DA. And now we're excited as David McGee continues in part two of his teaching, the Holy Spirit. Acts chapter two, verse one. It says, 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 set upon each of them. Verse four says, And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, the issue of tongues, and it's interesting, is one of the most divisive issues in evangelical Christianity. There is a group that says tongues are bad, they're demonic, they are no longer a gift of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, the Holy Spirit doesn't give gifts anymore.

The whole ministry has changed. Then there's the other side that says you're not saved unless you speak with these other tongues. Now, from this verse, we can see a couple of things. Number one, the gift of tongues was from God. More specifically, it was from the Holy Spirit.

If you want to argue with that verse, man, go to the Lord and argue with him about it, but that is what the verse says. Now, part of what we need to figure out is how that relates to the church today. We'll probably cover some of that today. We'll probably cover more of it towards the end of the chapter when Peter comes back to talking more about the Holy Spirit.

But I want you to know something else. This gift that they had at this time, it was not used in a showy way. It was not used in some wacky circus type of atmosphere, although it was obviously a supernatural gift. Now, we see that, that God did this, the Holy Spirit filled them, and that they spoke in this tongue. And we'll talk more about the first-generation church. A lot of people say, well, the gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer for today.

We're going to get into that. But I want you to remember this. We are commanded to be filled with the Spirit.

We're commanded. Ephesians 5, verse 18 says, and do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit. Now, we've been talking about this for several weeks, and we covered another verse where Jesus said, how much more will the Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask for Him? And anytime you want to be filled with the Spirit, you can ask the Lord to fill you with the Spirit. Now, here's the thing. It's a constant thing, okay?

Because you know what? When it comes in terms of the Holy Spirit, instead of deep theological terms, let me put it like this. You leak, okay? So you get filled with the Holy Spirit, and then you leak. And then so you got to get refilled with the Holy Spirit. So I believe there is an event subsequent or after salvation where you are filled with the Spirit.

And I also believe that the believer needs to constantly be asking the Lord to fill you with the Holy Spirit. Verse 5, and there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven. Do you know why people from everywhere were in Jerusalem? God is very wise.

Here's the thing. We talked about the feast, and three of those feasts were what biblically is termed solemn feasts. In other words, three out of seven feasts, the males were required from all over the world to go to Jerusalem for that feast. So that's why at the day of Pentecost, which was one of those three, you have the day of Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks, where people were required to be in Jerusalem. You had unleavened bread, which Passover kicks off the unleavened bread week, and then so they would be there for that time. And then the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles, they would also be required to come to Jerusalem. Now, Passover and unleavened bread. Now, I mentioned that at the Passover, Jesus was crucified, according to God's plan.

Now, the beautiful part of that plan is, guess what? There was people from all over the world that were there for the crucifixion, according to God's plan. It wasn't man's plan to crucify Jesus at Passover. As a matter of fact, you may remember the verse when the Jewish leaders said, let's not do it during the feast. The people will cause an uproar, cause a riot.

They were worried about having a riot. So let's wait until the feast is over. So who actually set the timeline for the crucifixion? Jesus himself. Jesus was in control the whole time. You may remember, in the upper room, Jesus turned to Judas and he said, and they were talking about the betrayal, and then he said, that that you doest, doest quickly. And at that, Judas went out, went to the high priest, and set up the ultimate betrayal of Jesus.

Now, a couple more things about this Pentecost. It's called Feast of Weeks. It's called Feast of Weeks for an important reason. From the day of first fruits, it was seven sevens the day after the seven sevens.

Now, what I mean by that, seven's an important biblical number. It was seven weeks, or 49 days, seven times seven. And then it was the day after that, which was the 50th day. So 50 days after the day of first fruit was the day of Pentecost. And so that put it on Sunday. Now, it's interesting because one of the things that happened at the Feast of Weeks was, instead of just unleavened bread, like was used in every other feast, there were two loaves.

There was a unleavened loaf, and there was a leavened loaf. Now, leavened pitcher of sin also can be used as, us as Gentiles that did not know God, that were separated by our sin, not even looking for God, combined into the church. And that's what you see begin to happen at the Feast of Pentecost.

Now, it's gonna be a few chapters before it goes out into the world. So now, 50 days later, everybody is back in Jerusalem, and the Lord picks that time for this occurrence to happen. What does that suggest to you? And what possible personal relevance could it have for you today? Well, the life lesson here, God's timing is always perfect.

The disciples probably would have said, well, give me the Holy Spirit so we can get on with doing this business. And the Lord said, no way. Why? Because he had his perfect timing.

Why? Because 15 nations were about to hear what is to be the first gospel teaching after the resurrection of Jesus. And from this place, they will fan out to all over the world. God's timing is perfect. Now, when I say his timing is perfect, what do I mean by that?

Well, let me tell you what I don't mean. I don't mean that God's timing is gonna fit in with your timing. See, because a lot of times, we pray according to our timetable, don't we? Lord, give me patience now. That's your timetable. Lord, give me this other job now. Give me this now.

Give me this new house now. Come on, God, what are you doing? God is much more interested in changing you than your circumstances and your situations. And God will change you, then he'll change your circumstances and situations according to his perfect timing. So, Lord, when you can rest in this, that God knows what he's doing. When you get in a moment where you feel out of rest or you've been out of shape, then chances are you're not trusting in God's timetable.

And I know it's difficult. I tend towards the same thing. But you can trust the Lord. And we often think, well, he's not moving fast enough in our life. Or maybe we think he's moving too fast in our life. Or we look at somebody else and we think, well, God, you're not changing them quick enough.

And we look at others and go, what, God, are you changing them so quick? God is on his own timetable. Now, the Feast of Weeks, Pentecost, was always on the first day of the week, always on a Sunday, always, because it came after the day of the first fruit, which was the Shabbat, the Sabbath, which was the Saturday, is when the Shabbat is. Well, why is that important, Pastor Dave? We have the resurrection and you have the Feast of Weeks occurring on the first day of the week, which was Sunday. That's important because if you watch Discovery Channel or the Learning Channel or the History Channel, a lot of these people say it was under Constantine that the church began to worship on Sunday. It's not true. It's not so. Do you understand that the Discovery Channel, History Channel, Learning Channel, all those are not infallible? Do we understand that? I mean, I have watched things that were blatantly misrepresented on those channels.

That's why we keep soft pillows around me, near me, so I can... We used to keep hard things. That was like three televisions ago. But no, I'm kidding.

I'm joking. But when they misrepresent things, I'm like, that's not right. And I saw this misrepresented just last week that we all started worshiping the sun god under Constantine. No, we didn't. The first day of the week was starting right here and going back to the resurrection. We need to understand that.

Let me balance that out. There was the emphasis of the Jewish Sabbath and the Jewish feast under Constantine. Part of the reason that very few people in here knew how to name all seven feasts, you can go back to the time of Constantine when he very intentionally began to separate Jewishness from Christianity and continued. We'll be right back with more from David McGee on Cross the Bridge. Right now, here's a word from associate pastor D. A.

Brown. We want to take just a couple minutes to pray for some cities in our listening audience, specifically Williston, North Dakota, and Hamler, Perrysburg, and Toledo, Ohio, and Clinton, Elk City, and Carnegie, Oklahoma. Lord, we thank you for everyone who lives in these cities. We pray that you would draw them to Jesus even right now. Lord, I pray that you would fill them with the faith that they need to say yes to what you're wanting to do in their life. Lord, we pray for the leaders in these cities that you would give them wisdom and discernment.

Help them to put their trust in you. Help them to turn to your Bible for answers. And God, we pray that the churches will be full of people wanting to get to know you, to be taught, and to use their gifts to be a blessing to people in their community. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen.

Thank you, brother. And now, let's get back to David McGee as he continues teaching verse by verse. Verse six. And when the sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language. So they were speaking what to the person who was speaking. To them, it was an unknown tongue. That's the miracle. And then these people heard them speaking in their own language, a language that they didn't know.

I came across two examples yesterday, and I've heard over the years just lots of examples of this occurring. These people did not know all the language represented, but they were speaking in these languages, how that's the supernatural part of it. And understand, again, what we want to do is look at the Bible and see what the Bible has to say about these things, because the Bible speaks to these issues and wants to teach us about these things, so we have to be teachable. 2 Timothy 3, 16, and 17 says, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

So here in this book, we have a complete treatise or document, if you will, on the Holy Spirit and our interaction with the Holy Spirit, and we can trust that. The life lesson here, we have to look to the Bible alone for our doctrine and beliefs about God. We have to look to the Bible alone. They use sola scriptura in the Reformation, meaning we need to get our beliefs and our doctrine from the Bible, not from the church.

At that time, they were separating from the Catholic church because man had started saying, yeah, this and yeah, that, and so they were getting back to the Bible, sola scriptura. Not what people say, not what the guy on television says, but what the book says. Not even what I say, unless it's backed up by Scripture. One of the reasons we have so many cross-references is when I present something to you, I want to show you this in the Bible. I don't want you to just, I'll say, hey, it's in there somewhere.

It says something about, Lord, help them, help themselves. I'm not sure where, it's in there. And you know what, if you ever get a question about what we teach or what we believe in, you just call the office, email us. It's not like, we can't tell you that. That's secret. You got to be like a deacon or an elder before we actually tell you that. It's a hidden thing.

No, no. I love questions. Staff loves questions. Leadership loves questions.

Why? Because it's an opportunity to teach somebody. It's an opportunity for people to sit down and be open. They open their hearts, open their eyes to the Scriptures. So, you know, as we answer your questions, guess what? We're going to be bringing up Bible passages. We're going to be talking about the Bible. Why?

Because that's what we're supposed to be doing. There's a phrase called be a Berean. You may have heard that and thought, what is that? Acts 17 says this, then the brethren immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. When they arrived, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica in that they received the Word with all readiness and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. They searched the Bible. They heard these things and said, well, that sounds interesting. Let me go dig in the Bible and see if it pans out.

That's the way we should be. Because you know what? I've heard stuff on television. I heard stuff on Christian television.

People say that. I go, that's not right. And so in coming back to the Bible digging, I go, that's not right.

Be a Berean. Now, there's diversity in this body. And I think that's a good thing. There's diversity somewhat in beliefs about the Holy Spirit. I appreciate that. I think we can all fellowship with one another and not all believe exactly the same thing.

I think too often we try to find things that we can fight about. Now, God has called me and equipped me to be the teacher. So I'm going to do that to my best ability as we go through these things. But I'm reminded of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians 2. He says, for I'm determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

I think Paul got tired of arguing and said, you know what? We can agree on Jesus. That's the important thing. That's the main focus.

And that's the focus here. We find ourselves again in a passage of Scripture that's somewhat controversial and sadly enough even divisive. But we want to be in the Word and to understand. Verse 7, then they were all amazed and marveled saying to one another, look, are not all these who speak Galileans, and Galileans primarily spoke Hebrew and Aramaic, very few new Greek. Verse 8, and how is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born? Now, this tells us that what they were speaking in was a known language to some of the listeners. But it was not a known language to the person that was speaking it. And we're going to, again, we'll get more into this and known and unknown and whatnot.

But let's continue on. Verse 9, Parthians and Medes and Alamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus, 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. The Lord gathered these Jewish people who had been dispersed, some of them probably going back to the Assyrian and Babylonian captivities, never came back to Jerusalem. And often you'll hear the word diaspora, which means dispersed, the dispersing of the Jews usually. They were dispersed all over the world.

But for this feast, they came back to Jerusalem. Why was that important to God? Strategic planning. Strategic planning. God is a strategic planner.

He has wisdom. 15 nations represented. They're in Jerusalem seeing what was going on, getting ready to hear the gospel, big revival about to break out and guess who's going to take it to the world? These people. They didn't have the internet. They didn't have CNN. They didn't have these things to get the word out. What was interesting is also at this timing, they had some of the best roads that had ever existed and still to this day are better than some around here, to be honest. I mean, you go over there and some of those Roman roads, you can still see him.

Some of them are even still used. Why did God do that? Let me remind you, the day of Pentecost, Feast of Weeks, was a harvest feast. Two harvest feasts, the Feast of First Fruits and the Feast of Weeks. Both were harvest feasts. The harvest is always of spiritual significance, always of spiritual significance in the Bible.

It's true here. There's always the beginning of the harvest. You remember John 4 says, Do you not say there are still four months and in comes the harvest? Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest. And he who weeps receives wages and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.

For in this, the saying is true, one soul one sows and another reaps. So Jesus there is using the harvest as a spiritual analogy. The same is going on here that this harvest is coming in and we're seeing the birth of the church literally unfolding before our eyes.

Proverbs chapter 10 verse 5 says, He who gathers in the summer is a wise son, but he who sleeps in harvest is a son who causes shame. Why is that of significance to us today? Because the day of Pentecost, the birthday, if you will, of the church kicked off the harvest that the church has been in for the next 2,000 years. We are still in those days of harvest where people are coming into the Lord. The life lesson here, the Lord is interested in the harvest. The Lord is interested in the harvest. He didn't just happenstance tie all these things together so that we would see these pictures. It was very carefully orchestrated and implemented that we might see that.

Why? God is interested in the harvest. Well let me ask you a question. We say we follow God. We say we follow Jesus Christ.

How interested are you in the harvest? How burdened are you for those that don't yet know? Because that's one of the litmus tests, if you will, to see if you're following Jesus. See if you don't care if people get saved or not, you may claim to be a follower of Jesus, but I have to question that. Because Jesus cared very much about people coming into the kingdom.

If you're following the Lord, you should be concerned about the harvest. Another special significance, there's prophetic significance in these feasts that I spoke of. Feast of weeks kicked off the birthday of the church.

What's the next feast? Well if you jotted them down, you know it's Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, the Feast of Trumpets. Trumpets. Trumpets. Trumpets sound familiar. Where have we heard about trumpets in the Bible? Well, the trumpet is going to blow, and all the people that belong to Jesus will be gathered from all over the earth. Matthew 24 31 tells us, and it says, and he will send forth his angels with the sound of a mighty trumpet blast, and they will gather together his chosen ones from the farthest ends of the earth in heaven. The Feast of Trumpets is coming up, but right now we have a season of harvest.

You tell me, should we be interested? Should we be concerned that at some point that door closes and those who have come in will go in and those who have not will be left out? Just like in the days of Noah, on the day that he shut that door and the rains began, there was people that beat on the door saying, let us in, it was too late. That day is coming. I want to do everything I can to reach out in this time of harvest to see people come into the kingdom.

So many of you have this same heart, it's harvest time. You can receive Jesus this morning. You can ask Jesus to forgive you of your sins, and guess what? Jesus will forgive you of your sins. I can't tell you that's always going to be true.

Why? Because at some point, either of old age or accident or whatever, your life ends. Or maybe that trumpet blows, and time as you know it changes. Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short simple prayer simply telling God you're sorry and asking Him to help you to live for Him. Now God wants you to pray this prayer so much that He died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask Him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned.

And I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus' name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. So congratulations, friend.

You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you pray that prayer with David for the first time, we'd love to hear from you. You can visit crossthebridge.com to receive our First Steps package with helpful resources to help you begin your walk with Christ.

Or you can write to Cross the Bridge at P.O. Box 12515, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, 27117, and share how God is working in your life. You know, the Bible tells us that the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord. But it does cost for us to come and bring that message to you and to others in your neighborhood through radio, through the internet, and through the mobile technologies that God has gifted us to be able to use. So if you'd like to support this ministry, please go to crossthebridge.com, click on the donate button, and ask God how much he would have you give either on a one-time basis or a continuing basis each month to help ensure that the teaching of God's Word continues to go out through Cross the Bridge. Thank you so much. Well, DA, before we go, what are some ways that we can bless our listeners? Each day you can wake up with encouragement from Pastor David through the Word of God with his email devotional, life lessons to consider, a daily reading plan, and a thought to meditate on throughout your day from the heart of David McGee. Those are terrific, and it's easy and it's free. So folks, sign up today at crossthebridge.com. Thanks again for listening, and join us next time as David McGee continues teaching verse by verse in the book of Acts.