A Closer Look at Pentecost

Good afternoon, everyone! Hope you're doing well on the Sabbath, and looking forward to the rest of this Pentecost weekend. Just take one more moment to get everything set up here.

There we go.

All right. So I look forward to spending a little time today talking about the Pentecost Holy Day. I think we'll hear plenty about it tomorrow as well. Hopefully I won't be stepping on too many scriptures and topics. There are probably two or three worried people in the audience at this point. I guess that's the advantage of speaking first, right? What I want to do is spend a little time today talking especially about the symbols and the events of Pentecost, the first Pentecost in the New Testament, and do it in light of looking at what was going on at that time. I think often when we look at things happening in the Bible, there's two different things that can happen. Number one, we read accounts that we've read over and over and over again, and some of the details in those accounts just kind of leave us because we've read over those passages so many times and we sort of just read a verse at a time, oh yeah, I remember they were there at Pentecost and the Holy Spirit came, there was wind and there was fire and people got baptized and things moved forward from there. So I'd like to spend a little time looking more closely at those things. I think sometimes also when we do consider some of those details, we don't always think about the context and what was happening at that point in time, which has a lot more meaning because the things that happened, the events happen in a certain context, in a certain culture and in a certain time period. And understanding more about what the symbols meant, what was going on in that time period, can help us to understand more about the events and what it means for our lives. As we start going into this, I'll also make sure I'm not plagiarizing and I want to give credit to Scott Ashley, who I first heard give a sermon on parts of this topic a few years ago on Pentecost and Scott was kind enough to share his notes with me a few years ago and I've used quite a number of those notes to put together some of the material here today. Let's start by reading the account of Pentecost that we see in Acts 2 and we'll go forward from there. Acts 2 and we'll read verses 1 through 13. We'll skip over the actual sermon that was given on that day and skip down to verse 41. So 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. And there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire and one sat on 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. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. When this sound occurred, the multitude came together and they were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, look, are not all these who speak Galileans. We had people from a lot of different languages, but they recognized that the Apostles, the disciples at that time were from Galilee, not from their countries. And how is it then that we hear each in our own language in which we were born?

Parthians and 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.

And so they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, whatever could this mean? And others mocking said, they're just full of new wine, they're just drunk up here. And then after that, of course, we know Peter gave up and gave his rousing and stirring sermon, calling people to repentance and baptism. And in verse 41, those who gladly received his word were baptized, and that day about three thousand souls were added to them. I think to most of us this sounds like a pretty normal account because we've read over it quite a few times. But let's look at it through a new set of eyes and just ask the question that we hear out of three-year-olds all the time, which is why? I mean, when we stand back, doesn't this seem a little strange? If the Holy Spirit is going to come, why bother with the wind? What's the meaning of that? Why fire? Why all of these different languages?

There's been lots of controversy over the years in Christianity in general about this idea of speaking in tongues. Why? Why bother with these things? And why did so many people find out what happened in some obscure house in Jerusalem, that by the end of the day there were 3,000 people baptized? And after all that, what in the world does it mean for us?

So let's spend a little time going through these ideas. First of all, just as an overall backdrop, let's back up one chapter and we'll go to Acts 1 and remind ourselves of what happened before that time of Pentecost.

Acts 1, Luke here who wrote the book of Acts, as well as the Gospel of Luke, is talking with the disciples shortly before his ascension to heaven. And in verse 4 of Acts 1, being assembled with them, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, which he said, you've heard from me. For John truly baptized with water, but you're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and it's going to happen not too many days from now. Therefore, when they'd come together, they asked him saying, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

So they didn't really understand exactly what he was talking about. They knew his kingdom was coming and they thought it would be coming very soon in their lifetimes, but he said to them, it's not for you to know the times or the seasons that the Father has put in his own authority. However, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come to you and you'll be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. So Jesus Christ, before he ascended into heaven, said to the disciples, wait here.

Something big is going to happen. He told them here in this verse what it's going to be, the Holy Spirit that's going to come in power. Wasn't going to make any promises to them about the kingdom and the timing of his second coming, but said, stay here and wait because the Holy Spirit is going to come. So we look at the timeline and we look at it in the context of the Holy Days. Mr. Thomas gave a great sermon a month or so back.

He was talking about the continuity of the spring Holy Days, right? He talked about the events that happened in the Old Testament as part of the Days of Unleavened Bread and how those lead to a series of events that happen even between Days of Unleavened Bread and point towards Pentecost. And as we think through that timeline for a moment, we remember a number of the things that happened, right? Jesus Christ died on Passover. At the time the lambs were traditionally slain in the temple, he died and gave his life for us.

He was buried in the tomb then just before the first Holy Day of the Days of Unleavened Bread, all again tracking with these Holy Days, raised around the end of the weekly Sabbath. And then, as we heard more in that earlier sermon, on the day the wave sheaf offering was offered, he was accepted by God as that wave sheaf offering. And 40 days later, he ascended into heaven.

And then he told the disciples to wait there. So if you put yourself in the mind of the disciples and you look back at all of these things that had happened, timed with the different Holy Days, and we think of the words that Jesus Christ gave in terms of waiting in Jerusalem and waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit, I think it's fair to say that they expected that something significant was likely to happen on that Pentecost. I'm willing to bet that they didn't consider that to be just a regular Pentecost that was coming up, but they were probably, every day as they got together, speculating about what was going to happen next, how the Holy Spirit was going to come, what that even really meant, because they'd heard him talk about it.

Let's talk just for a moment about Pentecost in the time of the disciples to understand a little bit more about it. Now, you've probably heard the term, pilgrim feasts before. We'll often turn at the time of the Holy Days to Deuteronomy 1616. What does it say there? It says, three times in a year you shall appear before the Lord. And then that talks about the fact you should not appear empty-handed. What this referred to was three festivals where people from all around the known world, observant Jews, would come up to Jerusalem. At that time, because they lived in a circle that was pretty accessible to Jerusalem, they would physically come to Jerusalem.

And those were referred to as a result as pilgrimage feasts, because as pilgrims they came from their place to Jerusalem. So during the days of Unleavened Bread, for those seven days, eight days, I guess, they would come up, or seven days, and they would come to Jerusalem. Pentecost was a separate pilgrim feast where they would come. And then in the fall Holy Days, leading into the Feast of Tabernacles, they would come up to Jerusalem. And depending on the accounts that you read, Jerusalem at that point in time had somewhere between a hundred thousand and two hundred thousand inhabitants.

So it wasn't a monstrous city. And when these pilgrim feasts came up, again, it depends on the accounts that you read, Josephus would say as many as two million people from around the known area there would come maybe as far as from a thousand miles away and descend on Jerusalem for the feast. Other accounts would say it's not possible that that many people came. Maybe it was half a million, maybe eight hundred thousand. But the point of it is that Jerusalem certainly swelled to several times its normal size during this time period. Now some of you have probably read in the news about the Republican National Convention that's coming next summer, I guess it is, to Cleveland.

I think they're expecting about 50,000 people in total between delegates and press and everybody covering it. And I can tell you from things that we see in the business community, there's all kinds of preparation going on right now. There are hotels being built, there's planning being done, there's turnover on the planning commission because people aren't getting their jobs done fast enough.

All of this planning for 50,000 people to come to Cleveland, which in terms of size and the whole metro area is what, a million and a half, couple million people probably? A drop in the bucket when you think about it. And here, on a pilgrimage feast, like on the day of Pentecost, certainly Jerusalem would swell to several times its regular daily population.

So imagine the logistics of that, imagine what it was like with all these people descending on the city and camping all over the place. And as we read in Acts earlier, as it named off all of those different countries, the Bible account alone would tell you that there were 15 different languages represented among those people coming, as they were talking about hearing the disciples, the Galileans, speaking in all of these different native languages that they spoke.

I put this map on here just because it's interesting. This is from actually the mid-1500s, one of many different maps that portrays Jerusalem as the center of the world. This is one of those famous maps. Jerusalem is that small circle. I guess I have this that I can use.

Jerusalem is a small circle here in the center, and this is meant to represent Asia, Europe, and Africa. At this point in time, the Americas was not really very well known. I believe it's kind of sitting down there in the corner as America. A little bit insignificant at the point in time back in the 1500s. But the idea was Jerusalem as the center of the world. That's where people were coming to from all of these different locations at that point in time to keep Pentecost. Let's read that account again.

In Acts 2, verses 5 and 6, talks there that there were dwelling in Jerusalem at that time devoured men from every nation under heaven. So it might seem odd to us sometimes when we look at that, but it was actually very normal for them at that point in time because it was Pentecost, it was a pilgrim feast, and people from all the known parts of the world where Jews lived came into Jerusalem to keep the feast. That's why they were there from every nation that they could name.

And the multitude was confused because everyone heard them speak in their own languages.

And again, about 15 different languages just mentioned in this account in Acts that would have been represented there. Let's go to one other item and think briefly about it, and that's Pentecost and Jewish tradition. Very timely that Joe gave the sermon at about the Ten Commandments because according to Jewish tradition, Mount Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments at Mount Sinai happened on the day of Pentecost. Now we don't know with absolute certainty because the Bible doesn't tell us if that's the case, but what we do know is by looking at extra biblical sources like the Apocrypha, writings from the community at Qumran, and Qumran is a place where something called the Dead Sea Scrolls were found. These were scrolls that were written by people who studied the law of God and faithfully reproduced the Old Testament. Entire books of the Old Testament have been found there, helping to further prove the truth of the Bible and the fact that the Bible has been faithfully passed down from generation to generation. These communities believed and taught from as far back as 500 BC that Pentecost was the time when the law was given back in the Old Testament. So whether it's true or not, certainly the people at that time period would have believed that. Probably as a result of that, Exodus 19 and 20 were part of the traditional readings that would have taken place at the temple during that time period. And something else we won't turn there, but something else that I just find interesting in comparing accounts and numbers, if you remember, after the Ten Commandments were given on the tablets of stone to Moses, what happened? Moses came down from the mountain and Aaron had gotten all kinds of grief from the children of Israel, right? Because Moses had been up there for a long time. They were wondering if he was ever coming back.

There was smoke and fire and weird things happening up on this mountain. They said, build us a golden calf, right? And they melted down all their jewelry, all the gold that they'd taken out of Egypt, and they built a golden calf as an idol to bow down to. So when Moses came down, he broke the tablets of stone. But something we might not remember so much is he called the Levites, and he said, strap your swords on and go among the people who are committing idolatry and kill them. And on that day, 3,000 people, the actual account in the Old Testament, says about 3,000 people were killed that day. Now, when we fast-forward, we look at the account of Acts in the New Testament. What is it that happened? We read Acts 2 verse 41. How many people were baptized on the day of Pentecost in the New Testament? If you read the account again, it says about 3,000. I don't want to overread significance into these numbers, but I find it very interesting. The parallel, let's put there, on these two days, a day when the law of God was given written in stone, and the day of Pentecost in the New Testament when the law of God was written on human hearts through the Holy Spirit. Very interesting parallel. Jeremiah 31, 33 is a prophecy in the Old Testament that foretells this time when God's law will be written in people's hearts. So let's shift forward now and look a little bit at three different elements of that first day of Pentecost in the New Testament. The location, and then we'll look at a couple of the symbols of the events that happened there. I think the lessons of Pentecost take on even greater meaning if we understand where those events took place. What indications can we find in the Bible to explain that? Now, I'll be up front with you right away and tell you this is some speculation that I'm going to go into. This is not the official doctrine of the church, but it's something based on the research that I've read that I believe is the most likely thing that is to have happened as far as the location of Pentecost. So I just want to make clear that where we stand in terms of what I'm giving you today. So this is from what I've looked at, the notes, like I said, that I've taken from the other message that I've heard in terms of where the location of Pentecost likely was. Let's go back to the account and what we read in Acts. Acts 2 verses 1 and 2. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all in one accord in one place. So we know they were in a single location, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the house where they were sitting. And then again we see that as the end result of that event, the preaching that followed it, there were 3,000 people that were baptized. So we think about the size of the location that we would need. If we rewind again to Acts 1 and were to look in verse 15, I think we remember in Acts 1 that after Judas had betrayed Jesus Christ, of course, he went and he took his own life, and they had to select someone else to fill in as the 12th disciple, and they'd choose Matthias.

And when they did that, it said that there were 120, I think it says specifically 120, but at least over 100 followers of Jesus Christ in that account in Acts 1, verse 15. So I think it's logical to believe based on that account that there were at least a hundred people gathered there at that first Pentecost. You would assume that it's the same body of people coming together. Houses at that time weren't very big and certainly couldn't accommodate numbers like that. In fact, if you think of it even in today's terms, when houses are comparatively quite large, how many of us have a house that will accommodate 100 to 120 people in any level of comfort? Probably not very many, if any of us. Even an excavated mansion that was found in Jerusalem dating back to that general time period would not be big enough to accommodate that. And back then, you couldn't really go to the Elks Lodge and rent a hall at the Elks Lodge at that time. It just wasn't the way things were done. It was an outdoor society.

People generally lived in small houses. They might have larger courtyards for things like wedding feasts and so forth. They might go out and put up large tents and use those types of things, but they didn't have large structures to meet in. There were also 3,000-plus people who were listening to the apostles in the People's Sermon. Because, again, if we read the account in Acts 2, the sermon is given and the people say, what should we do as they were cut to the heart and convicted by the words that Peter spoke? And at that point in time, then, 3,000 of them were baptized. In order for the word of mouth to go out, I would guess that just about all of those 3,000 people, in my mind, were either there immediately listening to it or were very close by in order to hear what was happening. You won't find a place for 3,000 people to congregate, either. Of course, 100 would have been hard enough. So where could this gathering of 3,000 people take place? Let's look at the first indicator scripturally in terms of thinking about where did the disciples go? Where did they spend their time after Jesus Christ left?

We read the accounts in Acts 1 that said they were supposed to stay put there in Jerusalem.

But let's look at what their habits were in the days coming up before Pentecost.

Luke 24, verses 52 and 53 says here that the disciples worshiped him and they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and they were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God.

So here it says that their habit was to go always to the temple.

Next, let's look at Acts 3 and verse 1. Here it says that Peter and John went up together to the temple at the hour of prayer, which is the ninth hour. And then let's look forward to Acts 5 and verse 12. Through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were done among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch. Now where's Solomon's porch? I'll show you some pictures in a moment, but Solomon's porch is part of the colonnaded area on the Temple Mount, which surrounds the actual temple building. So we see account after account after account that's talking about the actions that the disciples took after the time that Jesus Christ left and before the day of Pentecost that always speaks of them being at the temple. Acts 5, 41 and 42, this is after Peter and John, I believe it was, were disciplined for performing miracles and healing the man again who was at the temple. So they departed from the presence of the council, and they rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name, because they'd received a beating from the council. And daily in the temple and in every house they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ. So one thing we can see clearly is they had a habit based on multiple scriptures of being in the temple, probably daily, on a very, very regular basis. Now let's connect these things, realizing first of all that Luke was the one who wrote the gospel of Acts. So if you think of it as a set of books on your bookshelf, it'd be kind of a two-volume set, right? You'd have Luke, and then you'd have the the sequel, right, of what happened after Jesus Christ ascended to heaven. So common author of those two books. And so when Luke wrote in Acts 2 verse 1 that they were all in one accord in one place based on all of these things that we've seen in these scriptures, where would we at least guess that place likely to be? Especially based on the size of a location that you would need at that time. Let's look next at what house means, because granted when we look here in the passage and look in Acts 2 verse 2, it talks about the sound from heaven, the rushing, mighty wind, and we talks about it filling the house where they were sitting. Okay? So if we look at the Greek, which is what Acts would have been written in, the word for house there is the word oikon, and it can mean an inhabited house or home. It could mean any building of any kind. It can mean a palace. It can mean a dwelling place. And it is used and can refer to the house of God, a tabernacle or temple. Also in Hebrew, the word house is often used quite interchangeably. Now why is that? We're used to a language that's perhaps a little more precise in English, at least when we use formal written type of English, but some of the ancient languages, Hebrew certainly and Greek to some extent as well, were less precise languages, languages that had less words in them. And so a single word could have multiple meanings that would depend a lot on the context in which you used it. And alternately in different places, this Greek word, oikon, might be translated in all of these different ways that you see here.

And in looking at it, sometimes it's even translated as people, as referring to a whole group of people. But the basic meaning is a building or a structure. So it can easily, it doesn't need to refer specifically to a home, a single family dwelling where somebody lives.

House, this word oikon, is used to refer specifically to the temple in a number of places in the Bible. Acts 7 verse 47. This is a passage I find really interesting for other reasons. It's the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr after the death of Jesus Christ.

And when he was going through, he goes basically through the whole history of Israel. And then he talks about the fact when Solomon came on the scene, Solomon built God a house. And he uses this word oikon, and he's clearly speaking about the temple because he then talks about the sacrifices that were given them. In Matthew 21 verse 13, we have a situation where Jesus Christ is talking. And he talks to them, I believe this is after the tables of the money changers were turned over. It is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer, but you've made it a den of thieves. So Jesus Christ is going through in this case, and that is accounted in Matthew in Greek. The word house there is clearly referring to the temple after he's turning over the tables of the money changers. And the Jews, in their language, also often refer to the temple simply as the house of the Lord. It was considered his dwelling place, the place where he lived, so not at all unusual or unlikely to refer to it in Greek or in Hebrew as a house.

Let's look then at the temple as a focus of the Holy Day.

We see here that the divided tongues of fire sat on each of them, and the people were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in these other tongues or languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. Why would that happen? Why would you produce a miracle through the Holy Spirit of speaking other languages? Well, let's ask the question, where do God-fearing Jews who are daily in the temple go on one of the holiest days of the year? We know that if the Holy Spirit we know that people came from all around the known world to Jerusalem, the focal point in Jerusalem was the temple. On these pilgrim feasts, that's exactly where they would go.

And Josephus, the historian who was Hebrew and then wrote a lot of the history of that time, would talk in great detail about the numbers of animals that would be slaughtered and given as offerings during that time period. As everyone who had come to Jerusalem would usually band together in companies of 10 or 20, and they would have an animal, and it would be offered on their behalf. So all of these people, the main attraction, the center of where they were going on these days was to the temple. That was the central attraction. That was the reason to come to Jerusalem. The events of the day would center around the tabernacle and on the sacrifices being offered there, because that's where it was done on the altar right there in front of the temple. So why would people who traveled to Jerusalem from afar be at any other location on the day of Pentecost, at the times when these services and these sacrifices were taking place, why would they be anywhere else but in the temple? And if they were in the temple, it would help to explain why it might be useful for people to speak miraculously in different languages, so these folks from different parts of the world could understand what was being said by Peter.

So here we see in Acts 2, we'll read 12 and 13 in verse 15, again talking about the miracle in this case where they were speaking in tongues, and some were mocking and saying they're full of new wine. And then let's look in verse 14, because this gives us another very interesting clue.

These people are not drunk, as you suppose, somebody says in the crowd, because it's only the third hour of the day. Now what's the third hour of the day? These hours are measured based on the watches, and this would be 9 a.m., okay? So this would be 9 in the morning. This was a time when the morning sacrifice was being given in the temple. Again, you have to ask, coincidence or not, if it's 9 a.m., the time of the morning sacrifice, where would people be gathered on one of the three holiest times of the year after they've come from all over the world to Jerusalem? Hard to believe they'd be gathered anywhere but in the temple at the time of the sacrifice. Christ was called Christ was crucified also at this time, 9 o'clock in the morning, third hour, and died near 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the ninth hour, the time when the afternoon sacrifices were offered.

So twice a day at the temple, these times were the times for sacrifice, followed by prayer. So the morning sacrifice was at 9 o'clock, and based on these discussions about what was happening, the observers, this was exactly when this account of Pentecost was taking place. So again, I would ask, where would God-fearing people who are continually at that temple every day and daily there as their habit be at the time of the morning sacrifice on one of the holiest days of the year?

Let's look briefly at the temple itself, because I think this helps us to understand a little bit more about the account. Now, the temple is massive, and it's really hard to imagine in some ways the scale of this place, but these are some pictures that I took at the temple model in Jerusalem. There's a Jewish National Museum right in Jerusalem, and there's a scale model of what Jerusalem looked like at the time of the disciples in the time of Jesus Christ. And so this is the temple commonly referred to as Herod's Temple. So you can see the size of it looming above the city, and this other picture gives even more of an interesting perspective of the size of this building on the Temple Mount. And really, from anywhere within the city, you could see it.

And from far away you could see it because of its sheer, massive size. Now, you see every now and then on the news people praying at the Wailing Wall. The Wailing Wall would be this very small area right here, because ground level these days is just about here. Everything else is shaved off and was destroyed when the Romans came and destroyed the temple after the time of Jesus Christ.

So what we see now of the wall of the temple, where the Jews go to pray, is just this very tiny area right here. And then the surface of the Temple Mount is still roughly the same size that it was back in that period of time. Now, what I want to point out here as well is to look at the size of these courtyards and these porticoes all around the temple. You don't see them as well in these areas based on the angle of the picture, but you can see how much space there would have been there for people to meet. And it was very common, especially on these busy days, for there to be people in all of those different porticoes. Now, it's commonly in all the accounts that I can see the dimensions given for the Temple Mount is 35 acres. And in comparison, what people would say is you could put 30 football fields on the top of that Temple Mount. So just trying to get an idea of how big this place is, it is massive and can accommodate, depending again on the accounts that you read, certainly half a million people on the Temple Mount and perhaps more if you crowded them in in the ways that you might see in some of the observances and festivals that happen. For example, if you've seen pictures of the hajj when people come to Mecca every year on the pilgrimage to Mecca, wedged in really shoulder to shoulder, you could probably fit a million people on the Temple Mount if people crowded to that degree. But certainly half a million without a lot of difficulties.

So a massive place and lots of areas where people could meet. Now, in the account that we read a short time ago, I talked about Solomon's porch. I've seen a few different things written, but most likely Solomon's porch was right in this area. There was a colonnaded area similar to that, but it would have been on this side of the wall right here. And so when it was referring to them being there, that was the area within the Temple Mount where they were when it said they congregated on Solomon's porch. And here you also get a bit of a perspective in terms of what a normal house looked like in the environs of Jerusalem at that time. And even though it's a little bit hard to see maybe, in terms of scale, you can see what a difference there is. And to fit 100 people, much less 3,000 people in one place, would have been extremely difficult. Here's a closer look at the largest area that was built up in the Temple. And these were, again, different porticos. This was all divided down into different areas. You read sometimes in the Bible. You hear about the court of the Gentiles. You hear of other places within the Temple. And that's referring to some of these different locations within here where different people would come and congregate. So it's not at all unusual on a holy day that they didn't necessarily have a church service the way that we're used to it, where everyone would be quiet and the priest would stand up and you would speak for 30 or 40 minutes. The offerings would be going on. You'd have different groups of people in these different places around the Temple. And they might be talking. They might be listening to one person.

They might be sitting as a group, disputing the law as it talks about in the Bible. And that's also borne out when we read in things like Paul's writing when he gives instructions for church, right, where he says things like, just one person should speak at a time. Sounds kind of absurd to us, right? You know, why would we tell people in church only one person should speak at a time?

Because we're used to the fact that somebody gives up and gives a sermonette, somebody gets up and gives a sermon. But in what they were used to in the way that they would worship at that point in time, it was apparently not unusual that there might be several people trying to talk at once.

And Paul simply said, look, one at a time. So we have some order in our services when we get together. So not at all unusual to have people then in groups congregated there on a day like that.

Lastly, what about the logistics of baptizing 3,000 people? So for those of you who remember back to high school algebra, it's kind of like a story problem, right? So you have 3,000 people, and you have 12 apostles, and you have to baptize them all, and it takes a minute to baptize each one. How many hours would it take? Okay, so if you if you figure it all out, at a minute apiece, you're talking about 50 hours of baptizing. So we make the math easy, and we just say 10 disciples, you're talking about five hours per disciple of baptizing. Okay, that's a lot of work to do. Now, think about doing that in a city that's dry. There's no lake in that city. There's no river that flows through that city where you can just bring them down to the banks of the river. Where in the world are you going to baptize 3,000 people in that day? Five hours times at least 10, maybe 12 disciples baptizing them? Perhaps they had some other helpers. Well, anyone who went into the temple at that time would have to take a ritual bath. And this ritual, this bath, was called a mikvah. Plurals mikvot. I'm sorry, mikvot. Plurals mikvah. And there have been literally hundreds of mikvah found all around the temple. Because again, you've got thousands, tens of thousands of people on a holy day coming up to the temple to worship. They're going to go, and they're going to take their ritual bath before they go up on the temple. And so there were accommodations right there, right around the temple, surrounding it, to take care of those people. And these are man-made pools about the size of a jacuzzi where you could go in and do your ritual washing. And more than likely, those are the locations then that could have been and would have been used to do the baptizing. This is a diagram or drawing of what that would have looked like. And the one thing I can guarantee you is I did not draw this. It would look very different if I drew it. You wouldn't notice, know what it was if I drew it. And you see two sides here because you would go in unclean, and you would come out on the clean side so that you didn't defile yourself by coming in on the side where unclean people had come in. That's just a piece of trivia. The point here is you had a bath.

Hundreds of these surrounding the temple right there and theoretically would be available to baptize people in. So in summary, in this, in terms of location of Pentecost, houses weren't large.

We've seen in the scriptures that were written that the disciples were always in the temple. They were there daily. And there were Jews that were speaking 15 or more languages that would have been there at the time of the sacrifice listening. And we had baths immediately available to baptize.

So viewing the events of Pentecost, I believe, as happening at the temple provides a completely different perspective on the events of that day. Think about the public nature of these miracles.

I mean, to me, it just brings chills down my spine as I think of the time of the morning sacrifice.

And think what it must have been like there in the temple to hear the rushing mighty wind. Can you imagine that? Tens or hundreds of thousands of people there and the flames of fire that came?

I find it difficult to believe that this was done in private. You know, when you think about Jesus Christ, everyone in that part of the world knew who he was. You think about his crucifixion and the incredible miracles that happened at the time that he died. The earthquakes, the darkness, people raised from the dead. Why would the coming of the Holy Spirit not be accompanied by something similar to that? Imagine what that would have been like in the temple. And the usefulness, one of the things I always puzzled about was the speaking in tongues. You know, why would you have people speak in tongues? But if you've got a crowd of literally thousands of people right near proximity, you can't understand what Peter has to say. The miracle of speaking in tongues in 15 different languages at that point in time where those people are saying, hey, I hear him in my native language, would have been incredibly powerful. And even if they spoke some Hebrew from a cultural background, from a religious background, I can tell you from operating in a bilingual environment when we lived overseas, even though I grew up speaking German as a second language, it is not the same dealing, even in a second language that you know fluently. You understand at a different level in your native language. And so all of these things, to me, make a lot more sense when you view them in the context of happening at the temple. Now let's go on, let's talk about the two miracles that happened as the Holy Spirit was given and think about in this context of location. Again, Acts 2, verses 1 and 2, verse 2, there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. So imagine this. The Greek word here used for wind was not the common word for wind, but rather it comes from a root, panoi, which means I breathe. And this is a word that again can have multiple meanings. It can usually mean either spirit or it can mean breath.

Like we have pneumatic machinery, right? It's air-powered machinery that uses compressed air in order to produce power. We still call it pneumatic machinery because that refers to air.

And in Hebrew, the word ruach is a very similar word that again, in the Hebrew language, can mean either spirit or breath. And let's look at some parallels there, because the connection between wind and the breath or spirit of God is one that's seen frequently in the Bible, and I think culturally would have been well understood at that point in time. Genesis 1, verse 1, the creation account. God created the heavens and the earth. In verse 2, the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. The word that's used there for spirit of God is ruach, the same word that can also be used for breath. The fact that this breath of God is what gives life, what gave form to the earth. When man in Genesis 2, verse 7, was formed out of the dust of the ground, what is it that God did? He breathed into man the breath of life so that man could become a living being.

So in this case, that air, that wind, was breathed into him from God. We see the same thing happening in the New Testament using the Greek word, and here we see Jesus with the disciples. He showed him his hands and his side after he'd been raised, and the disciples were glad when they saw him.

And he said to them, peace to you, as the Father has sent me, I send you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them. Now, that sounds a little weird. I know the kids, when they were little and they were getting mad at each other, one of them would walk up to the other and breathe on them.

They didn't really like that very much. But in this case, he breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit. You can see symbolically how it's the same thing as God breathing on his creation and giving it life in the Old Testament, in this case, breathing and imparting the Holy Spirit and saying he was going to give them the Holy Spirit. There are many other passages along these lines that we're not going to turn to, but I'll refer briefly to them. Ezekiel 37, the Valley of Dry Bones. We read this often at the time of the last day, at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles, when we think of the resurrection. And there, God's Spirit, or breath, this Hebrew word ruach, is given to the dry bones to give them life. 2 Peter 1, 21, talks about the prophets saying holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit, or literally, as they were moved by the breath of God. And then 2 Timothy 3, 16, one of the scriptures I think we know pretty well, all gospel is given by inspiration of God. It's worthy for doctrine, for proof, for instruction in righteousness. A lot of commentators that you read will explain the fact that what this is saying is, when you look at it literally, is that all scripture is God breathed. And again, it uses that same root for the word numa in saying God breathed this word to mankind to impart it to man. So imagine the reaction in the temple then as this breath, this wind comes that people would understand as a power that could be associated with God.

At the time of the morning sacrifice, hearing this sound of mighty rushing wind and looking all around them wondering what in the world was going to happen. And the disciples probably very excited as they knew and expected that on that day of Pentecost something powerful was going to happen as they waited for that promise of the Holy Spirit. Just as God breathed life into the creation and into mankind, Pentecost was the breathing of a spiritual life into man through God's Spirit.

Let's look at lastly the symbolism of fire. I'll move a little more quickly through this section we've spoken about this before. Mark Graham gave a great sermon about this going back. I've spoken on it before. Fire as a symbolism of God's presence. And here there appeared divided tongues of fire sitting on the head of each one of the people. Consistently in the Bible, God manifests himself to mankind through fire. It's a way that shows his presence. We've looked at these before. Let's just rehearse it briefly. First of all, Mount Sinai. Right? There was a cloud and fire on top of the mountain when Moses went up there to receive the Ten Commandments. We see that written in Exodus 19, verse 18. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire.

Yet smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace and the whole mountain quaked greatly. There was no question that God's power and that God's presence was there. Where else was he with fire? I love this picture. This is to me just that I don't know if you can make it out well from back there.

But it shows the old tabernacle that would have been there in the wilderness. Basically, a bunch of animal skins set up in a perimeter and then the building itself. More like a tent, really, than any kind of a permanent structure. And what does it tell us about that old testament tabernacle?

Exodus 40, verses 34 and 38. The cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. For the cloud of the Lord was above the tabernacle by day and fire was over it by night in the site of all of the house of Israel throughout all of their journeys.

So they could look, they could see that fire as it hovered over the tabernacle, and they knew that God was there. And during the day they could see the cloud. Of course, we know as the cloud lifted and moved, they would move to follow it. Solomon's Temple. As we talked about in an earlier sermon, the same thing happened when Solomon's Temple was built. That fire disappeared at the time that the children of Israel crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land. And it wasn't seen again for generations. But when Solomon built the Temple of God in Jerusalem and he gave the dedication prayer, what is it that happened? Second Chronicles 7, verse 1. When Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven, consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the temple. And accounts that you would read would say that for hundreds of years, this fire, this glory of God, stood above the altar in that temple, Solomon's Temple, until that temple was finally destroyed. So what is it that happened on the day of Pentecost?

Again, to me, this is something that just gives me goosebumps as I think about it. Because the fire came again, but it did something incredibly different. And I think if you picture this happening within the temple and the symbolism of what that means, when people thought back culturally in their history as a nation to where God came at the time of Solomon's prayer and brought fire down on the altar, and this time fire came down at the time of the morning sacrifice, and it didn't sit on the altar. It sat on the heads of these people that were gathered.

What an incredible symbol of what God was doing. And what God is saying here is that He's changing His address. He's found a new place to live. And again, if you want to read something this evening, turn later in Acts—I think it was Acts 5 or 7, I think it was—I apologize for not remembering the account of the stoning of Stephen and what he talks about. He talks about the fact that it's shown that God no longer dwells in temples made of hands. And that's what God was showing through this miracle. The fire came down, and it sat on individual heads of people. It's not working through the temple anymore. He's not going to sit there above a building, but He's going to come into individual human beings and work with power in the lives of individual human beings. And that's just incredible to me. And no matter who we are sitting in this room, where people have been in the church for many years, been baptized, have had God's Holy Spirit, and are exercising, He's living within us. For people who are interested in God and studying and focusing on bringing our ways to Him, He's working with us with that same Holy Spirit and drawing us to Him. And to me, most importantly, having grown up in the church with my first memories of church being staring up at the ceiling, looking at the lights as they kind of grow blurry and I fall asleep, for the children who are here with us, the precious children, God wants to work with each and every one of you through this powerful Holy Spirit. And please do not ever forget that. Reach out to Him, ask Him for it, turn to Him, pray to Him because He will hear you. God has changed His address. The temple was the house of God, but now God dwells directly in all of us. So let's talk briefly in closing about caring for the temple, because that temple now is us. It's us individually as people, where God is living, and it's us collectively as a church, as a congregation, as we come together and as we meet with Him, with His Spirit there and presence with us. We'll talk very briefly just about the two elements of maintaining the building and being a visible sign of God's presence. And no, this first point is not a plug for Mark's Capura's building maintenance committee, although maybe it should be.

Maintaining the building, what do we mean by that? Let's turn to Romans 12 verses 4 through 6. And we're not going to dig deep into this, but just again as food for thought, because I'd encourage everyone on this Pentecost weekend, this long weekend, to give some thought to this. And what does it mean in each and every one of our lives? Romans 12 verses 4 through 6. As we have many members in one body but don't have the same function, so we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that He's given to us, let us use them. That's what I want to focus on. God says that He's given gifts, and we have to use them. How do we maintain the building? How do we maintain the body of Jesus Christ, lift each other up, help each other forward? It's by using the unique gifts and abilities that God by His Spirit has given us. And the one thing I can promise everyone is God has given you a gift. If He hasn't, He's a liar, and none of this even matters, because He says it clearly here and in other sections of Scripture. Every one of us who has a Spirit of God has unique abilities that were given to us by that Spirit, and we must use them. So the question to ask yourself is, do you know what those abilities are, and how are you using them? They can be all kinds of different abilities. I'm struck often by how the smallest things that people do, down to the words that they say or patting someone on the back, can make such a huge difference in people's lives.

We shouldn't think less of a gift that we have, because it's the gift to say the right word to a person at the right point in time, or to sit quietly next to them when they need someone next to them.

Every one of these things is a gift, and we need to understand them. And we shouldn't look at our station in life, or our physical abilities, or anything else as some indicator either. I can tell you, a lady in one of the church areas we used to live in in days gone by, somebody my wife still speaks with regularly, she lost her sight something like 30 years ago. I've never met somebody with better discernment of people and situations than that lady, someone that we still call on to this day when we have things that we're struggling with and things that we need help with. In the most unusual places, things that you would not expect from outward appearance, God gives gifts, and we need to use them. Secondly, we need to be a visible sign of God's presence. So we think back to the time of the temple. You saw what a magnificent building that was. You can just imagine, you know, kids walking down the street with their parents in Jerusalem, as you're looking up at a building of that size, right? And you can kind of imagine a kid, you know, tugging on the dad's coat and saying, what's that building, dad? What is that? And you can hear the dad or the mom saying, that is where God lives. Okay? We're now the building of God. We're his temple. We as individuals and we as people. And as we're walking in our daily lives, can people tug on their dad's leg and have their dad say, you know what? Him over there, her over there. God lives in them. I can see it. I can feel it. That's what it says here. We're talking about salt of the earth and being a light, that there's a discernible presence when we're there, when we're in the workplace that we're in, when we're in our neighborhood, when we're working with people in whatever it is that we do in life.

Do they understand that because we are there, God's presence is there? Do they feel something different? And that doesn't mean preaching to them necessarily. In fact, many times it doesn't. It just means living different. It means being different. In verse 16, letting that light shine before men that they can see our good works and in the end glorify our Father in heaven. So what does that mean? We need to be doing things that are discernibly different from this world as we're living the priorities of God and letting His Spirit live in us. And we need to do it in such a way that appropriately, as it comes up through our relationships and through our conversations, they know that we believe in God and we act and live the way that we do because of our faith in God.

And they will connect those two things and they will see that example, that visible example, of God's presence in their midst. So as we wrap up today, I want to just leave you with a quick summary of the points that we talked about. God showed publicly, I believe, at the first New Pentecost, that He changed His dwelling. Clearly, through that miracle of fire, and I believe where that took place, was showing in a very demonstrable way that He was no longer living this temple built of hands, as Stephen says in his account and acts, but they live within each and every one of us. We have to be His temple, both individually and as a group, and as we go forward now, I encourage everyone to look at their own lives and think about it and consider, how are we caring for His temple? Both internally, caring for the body of Christ, maintaining that temple, and encouraging one another, and being a visible sign in this world of God's presence.