Pentecost: God Provides The Direction

You know, Pentecost, we mentioned yesterday, really has its genesis during the days of Unleavened Bread. And it begins really with the wave sheep offering as God commanded Israel, you know, count 50, anticipate count 50 toward the day of Pentecost. And so when we look at Acts and we're very familiar with the events of Pentecost that day, a very dramatic day where God sent his Holy Spirit to people and began in earnest the New Testament Church, sometimes we don't go back and look at the things that preceded it because they are important in the development and the arrival of the day of Pentecost as well.

So I want to start in Acts 1 today and look and see and review what Christ did as he prepared and worked with his people as they came toward the day of Pentecost. They had no idea exactly what was going to happen. They had no idea how God would give them this Holy Spirit. They probably didn't even fully understand what the Spirit is, but they just believed that what God said he would give them, he would. Now Jesus Christ, you will recall, was resurrected on the Sabbath, but on the wave sheaf offering day, 50 days before the face of Pentecost, he ascended into heaven.

He was accepted as the first of firstfruits. And then as you read in Luke 24, he appeared to the Apostles that day. And as it tells us in Acts 1, he worked with them for 40 days before he ascended into heaven. So let's read through the first several verses here of Acts 1 and see what Jesus Christ did and how he worked with his Apostles at that time.

Verse 1 of Acts 1 says, "'The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach.'" When Christ teaches, it's important for us to look at what he did, how he did it, the things that he said, the things he began to do and teach until the day in which he was taken up after he, through the Holy Spirit, had given commandments to the Apostles, whom he had chosen. So he worked with them, he taught them, he prepared them for what they were going to do, even though they didn't know exactly what they were going to do, but he prepared them for that.

You know, I often say God is preparing us for what he wants us to do. He has something in mind for every single one of us. We have to be the ones who yield to him. We have to be the ones who look at that and allow him to develop us into who he wants us to do. So these Apostles, these disciples that were there, they were in one accord.

They stayed together. They were there with Christ through this entire period. So it says that through the Spirit he gave them commandments. He taught them what they were going to do. And in verse 3, "...to whom he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God." Well, he was teaching them. Now the promise of the Messiah had come. He was the Savior. Now he was teaching them of the kingdom of God. You'll remember, as we'll see here in a moment, they didn't understand that the kingdom of God was going to come at a later time.

They still thought once Christ appeared, the kingdom would be restored to Israel at that time. "...and being assembled together with them..." The importance of being assembled together? I can't underscore that. "...being assembled together with them, he commended them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, you have heard from me." Well, you remember that before he was crucified, he said that, "...it's good that I go.

God will send you another Comforter, the Holy Spirit, that'll lead you into understanding, lead you into truth, comfort you..." All the benefits of the Holy Spirit, they didn't really understand that, but they believed and they would learn that when God says something, believe, you will understand it. So Christ says, you know, stay here. Don't scatter. Don't run away. Stay together. Stay together, and you will receive the promise of God.

And in verse 5, he says, "...for John truly baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." Didn't give him the exact day. You just wait. It'll happen. You count. There's always that element of time with God. Wait for him. Don't take matters into your own hands. How many times in the Old Testament do we see the Kings took matters into their own hands? They just didn't wait. God knows exactly what needs to be done, and we need to wait for him.

He will show the direction. He will provide it what it is that we need to do. When we seek him and then we wait for him, and don't try to force his will, but let his will be done. Therefore, verse 6, when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? They still thought that. Well, okay, you came.

Now will you restore the kingdom? And he said, it's not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in his own authority. Just like it's not for us to know the day that Jesus Christ is going to return. Maybe not even the year that he's going to return, not the year that the Great Tribulation and all these things that are prophesied in the Bible.

But we have to be aware, we have to pay attention, we can see it coming, we have to be there together with God, trusting in him, believing in him, even if it looks like it's too far off in our minds. God knows the time. There's that element of waiting. He knows exactly what to do. Waiting, anticipating, keep our eyes on what's going to happen because God promised it. It may not happen in the time we want, but he promised it and it will happen. So he said it's not for you to know the times or seasons. Verse 8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem, all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

God will give you what you need when the time comes. He knows exactly what he wants you to do. And when that time comes, the Spirit will be there to provide the power you need, the direction you need, the focus that you need. And he told him there in verse 8, here's what your mission is in the world that you will be living in. You will be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

You will speak of me. You will speak of Jesus Christ as Savior. You will show the people that the Messiah has come into the world. And he came with a gospel of repentance and a gospel of the kingdom of God. You will learn that the kingdom isn't going to be restored. Right then, at that time, it'll be at another time when Jesus Christ returns, and then he will establish his kingdom. But your mission, apostles, disciples, at this time is you go out and you spread the word about Jesus Christ.

You have seen me. You have seen my life. You have seen me die. You know that I've been resurrected from the dead. You know who I am. God has given you that knowledge. You go out and do the work that God has called you to do in this time, and he will give you the power to do it.

But just wait. So in verse 9, after Christ spoke these things, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel.

What a sight that must have been to see the man who you've walked with, who you knew for three and a half years, walked with him as a flesh and blood human being, and then to see him be ascend into heaven. So God sent those messengers there to tell them what they were seeing, give them the vision of what was going to come, something they hadn't seen before. And these men in white apparel said, men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?

This same Jesus, who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw him go into heaven. He'll return again. In the same manner that you saw him go, he will return. That had to be indelibly etched in the minds of the disciples and the Apostles there that day. That's a vision that they hadn't had before, as God revealed to them before the day of Pentecost.

But as they were about to embark and come to the day of Pentecost, as it turns out some 10 days later after Jesus Christ returned, and on that day of Pentecost their lives would change forever. Their mission had already changed. Jesus Christ said, this is what you're going to do to me for me. You're going to be witnesses. That's different than what they did before. They'd been prepared. They'd been trained. Christ worked with them, gave them the information they need. Now he would give them the power that they need.

So if we go over to chapter 2, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, and you look at that word, you know, the words that are translated there fully come. You know, sometimes we just think, oh, the sun had come up, the day is fully here. But the Pentecost, remember, had been a day that they counted toward. From the wave sheaf offering day, God, in the very name of this feast day that we're in, said, count 50.

And we talked on the Bible study a week or so ago. What counting does, what it does as we count 50, what did God want us to build in as we anticipated the day of Pentecost, the time element of all of our lives that are there as part of our lives, the calling that God has given us, the way our lives change as we go through life, as God prepares us and gives us different callings along in our lives as well. When the day of Pentecost had fully come, count 50 was complete. It had one translation and the actual Greek word there, when it was fulfilled.

Here we have the day of Pentecost, who the ancient Israelites, you know, observed in the way that it says back in Leviticus 23, but now here was the fulfillment of what they had been observing all those years. So when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were doing exactly what God wanted them to do. They were all with one accord in one place.

One accord in one place. One accord appears in the book of Acts more than any other book in the Bible. God wants his people to be one of cord in one place, cannot underscore the importance of being together, assembling together, the holy convocations, what God does when he works with us together. He also works with us individually, but he is preparing a body, a body that you can only learn and be prepared if you're part of it. So they were all with one accord in one place, and then you know the dramatic effects. Here it is. As the day of Pentecost comes, the Holy Spirit, everything changes.

Every one of the 120 who were in that room that day, their lives would never be the same again. Same God, same Jesus Christ, same belief in him, but their lives changed when the Holy Spirit came. Suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind. It filled the whole house where they were sitting. Got everyone's attention. Even on the people on the outside, all those Jews had been gathered who had come to observe the Feast of Weeks in Jerusalem from all the places that we read down here later in chapter 2, they were all there.

It caught their attention too. What is this noise? What is this noise? And it drew them all to that place. God knew how to get the attention. He created the vehicle by which his word that very day that the disciples were going to be doing the thing that God had called them to do. So we have this rushing mighty wind. Everyone's attention has been gotten. God said, God was very visible, not visible, made them fully aware.

Came the sound of a rushing mighty wind. Verse 3, there appeared to them divided tongues as of fire. Zeal. Right? Think of the things that fire does. It ignites us. It gets us going.

And here they have these tongues of fire. And one sat upon each of them. Not just a few of them. Not just the so called what they might have thought were the leaders, but every single one in that room that day received the Holy Spirit. Every single one received the power of God. They needed the power of God just like we need that Holy Spirit to do what God wants us to do. We can't accomplish his will. We can't become who he wants. We can't even overcome our own selves without the Spirit of God. Every single one of them received it. In verse 4, they were all, all, not just a few, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.

They began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. They all had this gift. All of a sudden they were able to speak and people could hear them. They could say the message to the the Parthians and the people from Mesopotamia and Phrygia and Egypt and all these other these other places that had languages, but when they came out of that house and the rushing mighty wind, when all those people were gathered and God had created the atmosphere and created the environment, that the message could go out, all the people came out, and they could be heard.

You know, God tells us it's the same message, the same truth, no matter where we are in the world. Whether you're in Africa, whether you're in Asia, whether you're in South America, North America, I probably forgotten the continent in there, it's the same message, the same truth, the same everyone hears the same thing. There is one God, one message, one truth, one gospel of repentance, one gospel of the kingdom of God, and God's Church is united in the message that it gives to the people, no matter what language it is going out today, it has to be united.

And here in Jerusalem, we see that one message, the same message, hearing heard by everyone there, regardless of their languages. God gave them that gift, and the message that they were given that day, loud and clear, loud and clear. As the people gathered there together in Jerusalem that day, on the Day of Pentecost, it says they were all amazed.

Well, who wouldn't be? Listen to what they're saying. Listen to the message they're given. You know, they're not one of them in that room even knew when they went to services that morning that the Holy Spirit was going to come upon them. Not one of them knew what that meant. Not one of them knew that there was going to be a rushing mighty wind and divided tongues of fire sitting on them. Not one of them knew they were going to go out and preach or talk to the world around them.

None of them had been prepared for that. God gave them everything they needed. They were all yielded to God. They had all learned in their walk with Christ, yield to Him. Trust Him. He will provide what we need when we need it in the manner that we need it. And all those people there, and I know that Paul and Peter and the people that we read about in the New Testament, God gave them the words.

God gave them the direction. God gave them the message they were going, and He created the times when the message would go forward in the way that He wanted it to go forward. Same God, same message, but on that day of Pentecost there was a new direction for the people of God. There was a message that was going to go out, same God, same Jesus Christ, a message that was going to go out in power. And so the people that heard it, they were amazed. We never have heard anything like this before. Jesus Christ, resurrected from the dead, all these prophecies fulfilled about Him.

He's the Messiah. You know, Jesus Christ didn't run around doing that Himself, but His disciples were fulfilling exactly the commission that He gave them to do. You will be witnesses. You will be witnesses to Me. And they began that that very day when God gave them the power. God gave them the utterance. God gave them the words. God gave them the direction. God opened the door so that people could hear, and the message could go out in power. So that day they were amazed. Who are these people? What's going on here is what they would ask. You see that down later on. You know, down in verse 12, again, they were all amazed.

The message of God is amazing. The message of God is attractive, if I can use it in the right sense of the word. They needed that message of God there at the time of Acts 2 and 31 AD. Think how much more today this world needs the message of God. We live in a world that is just absolutely a mess. You can't even count, again, we could sit here all day and count the mess that the world has made of itself. Global leaders, national leaders, it just gets worse and worse and worse as people think they have the ideas and think that the direction comes from them, and we have a world that is absolutely incapable of correcting itself, incapable of sustaining itself.

The world needs a message of hope because, frankly, if I was in the world and didn't know God's truth, I would think it's all hopeless. What would even be the purpose of going on? The world needs the message of God, and He will provide, He will provide in His time that direction and that opportunity for the gospel to go out in force because the world needs to hear about Jesus Christ.

The world needs to hear about the gospel of the kingdom of God. The world needs to understand Jesus Christ will return. He will correct everything, put the world on the right course. The peace, the harmony, the happiness, the joy, the unity, the oneness, the unity between earth, creation, earth, man, and God will be restored, but it'll only be God who does it. It'll only be through Jesus Christ who does it, and it will be through His Church that He prepares and He gives the opportunity to do in the time that He wants it done, and when He gives the power that He wants it done.

Just as He did here in Acts 1 or Acts 2, just as we see Him do through the book of Acts as things changed, all the people that were there that day, they would never be the same again. Their lives changed. Just like your and my lives changed when God opened our minds. Our lives changed when we received the Holy Spirit. Our lives changed when we realized the power was not within us to overcome sin.

The power was not within us to understand the complete submission to God, to understand the living by every word of God that God wants us to do. That the Apostles come to understand they weren't perfect people, just like we're not perfect people, but they had the goal of becoming blameless, spiritually mature. They got a vision of what God was doing, and they believed and they held on to that vision.

Paul, as he was called to it, he tells us, I was beaten, I was stoned, people hated me, people wanted to throw me out of their existence, never had a home that he laid in, that he was able to go home every night. He did it because he believed God, and the things of this world were not as important to him as doing what God's will is. He knew it. He lived it. He was a pilgrim on this earth because in his eyes, in Peter's eyes, in our eyes, in Jesus Christ's eyes, the future is not in the world around us.

The future is in the kingdom that Jesus Christ will bring through the millennium and then the ultimate kingdom of God. So we have the Day of Pentecost, not planned by Peter, not planned by any of the apostles of God. It was, yeah, the apostles, it was God's plan in his time, in his time, in his way.

And the message that went out, when you read Peter's words that day, again, he didn't spend hours and decades preparing that sermon, a very powerful sermon he gave on that Day of Pentecost. Every word was given by God. God opened minds. Some understood. Some didn't understand. Some thought, hey, they were drunk. You know, God didn't open their minds. Other people did, and that day, 3,000 people were added to the church. They were doing it God's way.

It was his time. He opened minds. He adds to the church in his time, and he gives the power to do what he wants us to do. Well, the apostles that were gathered there that day, they were amazed, too, as they saw what God had done, and he given them power to draw attention to the truth in other ways as well. As you read through the book of Acts, they were performing miracles. Lame-heeled, sick-heeled, the Pharisees and the Jews at that time who were in defiance against God's will, didn't want to listen to it, wanted to just hold on to the things they were, and always had been.

They didn't want to hear it, but they, too, were amazed by the apostles. It was like, what? What degree do you have? Who gave these people the ability to speak so boldly? Where do they learn anything? Well, you learn with God, degrees of the world mean absolutely nothing. It's the Spirit of God that means everything. It's the humility and the yieldenness to God that we all must have if He's going to work whatever His will for each of us is. The Day of Pentecost shows us that.

The Day of Pentecost and the receipt of His Holy Spirit tells us that. And as you see the book of Acts in develop and things go on, you see people saying things that the people of that world that day would be like, what? I mean, here's Stephen later on saying, God doesn't dwell anymore in temples made by hands.

If you just didn't want to hear that, before that, God did dwell in the temple that was there. But now, same God, same truth, new understanding. Now the Holy Spirit was there.

No longer the way it was. Now God dwells in people through the Holy Spirit. He's building a spiritual temple in us. No longer dwells in temples made by hands. Jews didn't want to hear that. No, no, no, no, no.

Same truth, same God. Knowledge opened up. Direction changed. They hated what Stephen said. They stoned him. You go on and the apostles, as they went through their lives, there were other things they were going to learn. Same God, same truth, same mission that had been there from the foundation of the world, but not the same old, same old. These were people who were redeemed from the world. Remember that? Redeemed from the world. They were there. God had called them out.

They had become a special people designed to do His purpose, that group of people.

And they had grown up with, here's the people of God, and here's all the rest of the world who are apart from God. We're the good people. They're not the good people. And they had that built into them, and that's the way it was, as we talked about yesterday. Two lines of people, two ways of life.

The way of Cain versus the way of God. That had been there. God had allowed that to happen. We still have those differences today. A line of people that obey God and follow Him and the rest of the world. But their definition of who God's people would be would change, as God led them into the understanding that Jesus Christ didn't just die for Jews or the people of Israel, but He died for all of mankind. That was His purpose from the beginning. He didn't create any man to fail.

Says if God wasn't willing, that anyone should perish, but that all would come to repentance. That's what His will is. To our own chagrin, people won't follow that, won't believe that. They won't yield to God. They steal their hearts against God, harden their hearts against God, and don't even know what they're doing. But they live in a life of rebellion and defiance, just as Satan has always lived in defiance of God and simply will not allow Him to permeate their lives. Well, if we go to Acts 11, this church that Jesus Christ began, the church of the firstborn, as it calls it in Hebrews 12, verse 10, He, 22, His body, of which Jesus Christ is the head, as the head, He knows exactly where His church is going. He knows exactly what He wants it to do. He knows exactly the path to the kingdom. May not be the path we think it is, just like the Israelites thought, why aren't we taking this nice, short route over here to the Promised Land? No. He took them on twists and turns for a while to get them there. But He knows the way. He'll teach us the way. He'll show us the way. In Acts 11, you know, as Peter, you know, had a vision, and it was, here, go visit this man Cornelius. Go visit this gentile, if you will. The same gentiles that we first see a word in the Bible way back in Genesis 10, as we discussed yesterday, a gentile. The Jews didn't like the gentiles at all. Want nothing to do with them. In fact, we almost consider it a sin to sit down with the gentile, but God opens Peter's mind, you know, as he goes through that the process in Acts 10, don't call any man common or unclean. God will open it, and as Peter learns a valuable lesson as he's there with Cornelius, God is calling gentiles? That had to be something he had to contemplate for a while. Not a new doctrine. Not a new thing. Same God. Same mission.

Same path to the kingdom that God had always designed, but he had to be the one to let them see. So we go through Acts 10, but let's look down in Acts 11, because as Peter learned his lesson and sees the door that God has opened and what his, their mission is, he has to come back to the Jews who have an immediate reaction when they hear that Peter has sat down with Jews. We see that in Acts 11 and verse 1. It says, the apostles and the brethren who were in Judea heard that the gentiles had received the word of God. What? That's not, that can't be, they thought. And when Peter came up to Jerusalem, those are the circumcision, those are the Jews, contended with him, saying, you went into uncircumcised men and ate with them? What are you thinking, Peter? And he has to explain to them. From the beginning, I was in the city of Joppa praying. I was in a trance. The sheet descended three times. I told God, no, I don't eat unclean animals. I never will eat unclean meats. It's what God had designed. But I finally realized when God opened my mind, I don't call any man common or unclean. And so he went in verse 12. He went to the house of Cornelius. Verse 12. And the Spirit urged him. I don't like the word told, right? God puts thoughts into our minds. The Holy Spirit leads us. It'll guide us. It'll direct us. It doesn't speak to us like a person, but it speaks to us through our minds and hearts. It gives us the direction that we will go. The Holy Spirit, I'll use the word they have there, told me to go with them, doubting nothing. If God says go, go. Do what he says to do. He has a purpose in mind. Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me, and we entered the man's house. And he told us how we had seen an angel standing in his house who said to him, send to Joppa, go and get Peter, and he will come and he will talk to you. Verse 15, Peter says, as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them as upon us at the beginning. Exactly the same way. They were all of a sudden talking in these languages. And then I remembered the word of the Lord because the Spirit will give us remembrance. If we pause and think and think, no, that can't be. Oh, wait. God did show me that. That is something that I heard years ago or a month ago or something that God puts in our minds. And sometimes there's a question there or a thought there. And we wonder, why did that thought come into my mind? Weeks later, we understand what it means. I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, John indeed baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. If therefore God gave them the same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God? It was God's will. It may not have been my will. It may not have been my will. May didn't see that one coming, but it was God's will.

Well, the people who were listening to him, they became silent.

You're right, Peter. God opened their minds. They got it. When they heard these things, they became silent and they glorified God, saying, then God has granted to the Gentiles repentance to life. He has done that. They're going to be part of our fellowship as well, part of the called-out ones, part of this own special people that God was calling, putting together in his church. Keep your finger there in Acts. Let's go to 1 Peter and read those words.

Though we're very familiar with, but it's always good to turn back and see what God was was doing and how he did it. You, he says in verse 9 of 1 Peter 2, you are a chosen generation.

You are a royal priesthood. You are a holy nation. Now, we've looked at that word holy, understanding the people of God, sanctified, set apart for his purpose, whatever that purpose is, for each of us individually, as well as collectively, that you, his own special people, why? That you may proclaim the praises of him who calls you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Here's what you do. God showed me the light. I understand what God's will is.

I see how the world can be healed. It won't be by this man, that man, this think tank.

Only God. I understand that the way to happiness and peace is not through listening to the so-called wise of the world who become what it tells us they become as they apart from God in Romans 1. It's only through God. Proclaim that you may proclaim the praises of him who calls you out of darkness into his marvelous light. How do we do that? Well, we do that every day by the example that we set in the world. When people have a question of us, we answer. We believe God. The words of the Bible are the Word of God. They're true. We live by them. We live by every word. You want peace, harmony, unity, joy? You want God's blessing upon you? Live by every word of God.

Peter says, just a few verses forward here. I guess it's in second, Peter. Be ready to give an answer when people ask you, how do you deal with the events in the world today? How come you can just stay calm with everything that's going on? Well, we believe God. We know what's going on.

We know why. We know that there is the Spirit in the world that is not of God, that will lead people further and further because that Spirit of Satan, its only mission is to destroy people, to destroy the world, to see if Satan in his deceptive and foolishness thinks that he can beat God to destroying the world before God can ever provide the salvation that he says he will. That he may proclaim his marvelous light through the way we live our lives, through the way we do it 24 hours a day, seven days a week, through the commitment that we give to him, through the yieldiness that we give to him, through the asking to him, as we sang into him here just a few minutes ago, search me. Tell me, show me, if there's any wicked way in my heart. Show me if my motives are the wrong place. Show me if there's something I'm doing. Am I not yielding my heart to you? What do I need to remove from my heart that is completely yielded to you? God will do it when he sees that we really want it. He won't reply, he won't respond to just lip service. He says that over and over in the Bible, but when he sees our heart really desires what he wants, he answers. So Peter, who went through all this process, he says, you know what? We, you and me, the people of that time, back at the time Peter wrote this, we were once not a people. In fact, I wouldn't even sit down with a Gentile. But now God has formed this people, this group of people, this body that he has placed us all in. We were once not a people, but now we are the people of God. We are now a people who hadn't obtained mercy, but now we have obtained mercy. Now we are people who are looking toward the kingdom of God, no longer, no longer committed to this world, coming out of the world, as Jesus Christ said, by the power of his Holy Spirit in the direction that he sends us. And realizing we're sojourners and pilgrims here in a temporary existence until Christ returns, that's the people that we would be looking. That's the country, the nation to which we are looking. So God, as the New Testament began, began to call the Gentiles. So no longer do you have just Jews, or Israel as the people of God in the Old Testament, but now you have anyone that God calls from every background, ethnicity, language, tribe.

If he calls and they respond, they become part of his family. And the apostles would talk about things like your heirs with Jesus Christ, these things that people would hear like, what do you mean, heirs of everything? What do you mean, children of God? What do you mean about these things that you're talking about, Church of God? But God would open their minds to understand that, just like he's opened our minds to understand that. Same God, same purpose, same mission from the beginning of the foundation of the world, but in his time he opened the doors. In his time, he provided the direction. And in his time, he provided what the people needed in order to take that gospel out today. That's all common knowledge to us. We understand what it says in Romans, but when Paul first wrote that, it's like, what do you mean by that? Children of God, heirs, together with Jesus Christ? That seems incredible. That's amazing. And it is amazing what God has called us to. It should never be common. It should never be something we just take for granted and just have it roll off our lips and tongues without ever a second thought about it. It should always be.

What? Look what God has done with us. It's amazing. If we go back to Ephesians, and we will get back to Acts 11 here in a minute, we go to Ephesians. We see, you know what Jesus Christ, you know, did. As we had the world separated by Jews and Gentiles, God was forming a new people. Now there was His own special people, comprised of Jews, Gentiles, and then they became the people of God, and then there's the rest of the world that will have their opportunity of salvation at the time that God determines. In Ephesians 2, let us begin in verse 11. Verse 11, Ephesians 2, remember, he writes to a church in Ephesus comprised of Gentiles, Remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision, the Jews still see you as Gentiles, that you're called by that name, by the Jews who think they are the only people of God, with that covenant made by hands, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world. Now that's the world we live today. They have no hope. They're without God. They kind of have just eliminated God from all their thought process, and so there is no hope without God. And the Gentiles were in that state. But now in Christ Jesus, verse 13, you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, for He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, Jews and Gentiles, people from all backgrounds, He has made them one, one body, His called out people, His church, through which He is working. He has made both one and has broken down that middle wall of separation, having abolished in the flesh the enmity. That is the law of commandments, the death, so as to create in Himself one new man, thus making peace. And that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity, the ultimate God, the ultimate goal. Peace on earth, unity, joy, harmony between God, man, and the creation.

All began way back in the beginning with God's plan as we progressed to the Old Testament.

In Acts 2, it took a giant step forward with the receipt, or the God's giving the Holy Spirit to His people and the direction that He provided as that message would go out. And now He's created a new people comprised of two who are now made one, but we still have the people of God and the way of God versus the rest of the world. God will take care of that in His own time, as we will talk about in the fall Holy Days. Let's go back to Acts 11.

Even as Peter, even as Peter, you know, and the Jews that were gathered with him today, that day, recognized that God had given them, granted repentance to the Gentiles. It says in verse 19 that there were some that went out, but they, at the end of verse 19, preached the word to no one, but the Jews only. They kept doing what they wanted to do. It was kind of their habit. It was kind of like, this is the way it's always been done. Let's just continue in the way it's always been done. God doesn't do things always the way it's been done. You see God providing direction, changing things, getting His will done in the way that He wants it done. But in verse 20, we see, well, okay, you're preaching the word only to the Jews, but some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they came to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord. Oh, look, there's Gentiles listening to this. There's a group in Antioch that are hearing the message of God, not by the plans that we put together, not by what we determined we would do, not by what we determined we would do, but God had it happen. And so Barnabas was sent there. He saw what was going on. He sent for Paul, Saul of Tarsus, to come and work with him. And then we see we see the dissemination of the gospel throughout all of Asia to the Gentiles.

Quite a thing that God was working. Quite a work that He was working.

None of the apostles that were gathered that day knew the plan.

God knew the plan. God provided the direction.

We know what the commission of the church is that God gave us.

Proclaim the marvelous—proclaim His marvelous light.

Preach the gospel in all the world as a witness to all nations.

Prepare a people. Get them ready for the return of Jesus Christ. They're the firstfruits. They're the ones who God is going to use. They're the ones—every joint, everyone that He gives a spirit to who has a part in the work of God— need to be together and they need to be letting God develop them into who they want to be, because everyone has a part, just like the people in Acts 2 all had a part. They all received the spirit. They all spoke in languages. They all had that divided tongue of fire alight on them. And they all went out and they spoke to people and they knew the message and they proclaimed the message as God would have them do it.

Yield it to God, letting Him provide the direction, seeking His will, knowing His will will be done.

Whether we do it or not, He will find the people that does it. And in His time, because God always has time in mind and He knows what needs to happen when, as the return of Jesus Christ comes nearer and nearer, He will do it with us.

He will provide what we need. He will provide the direction.

You know, Jesus Christ was the first of the first fruits. We talked about the wave sheaf offering and how it all began with that and that Jesus Christ worked.

Jesus, um, okay, um, Jesus Christ worked with them for 40 days. Then they went out and preached the gospel. They did what God wanted them to do.

God will do the same thing with us. He provides the commission. He'll provide the power. He'll provide the direction. He'll provide the resources among those. And He will give us all the spirit to do what we want. Revelation 14. We mentioned Revelation 7 yesterday. A group of 144,000 mentioned in that last book of the Bible of the 12,000 from each of the 12 tribes of Israel except for Dan, Dan, two from the tribe of Joseph. But in Revelation 14, he mentions these first fruits. We bring the first fruits to God. This is the Feast of First Fruits. We'll go back in a minute and look at Leviticus 23. But in Revelation 14, it tells us what you and I are here for, what He has called us to. Revelation 14, verse 1, says, I looked, John, in vision, I looked and hold a lamb standing on Mount Zion. You know who that lamb is? It's Jesus Christ, standing on Mount Zion. And with Him, 144,000, having His Father's name written on their foreheads, He has placed His name on them. He called them out. They yielded to Him. They were committed to living by every word of God. They allowed God and asked Him any sense of resistance, any sense of rebellion, any sense of defiance, any sense of, I will determine what your law says, rather than what you say the word is. Any sense of that? Gone, right? His Father's name written on their foreheads. They are the image of God as Jesus Christ is the image of God. They have become like Him through their lives. They desired purification. They sought purification. And through the word of God, and through assembling with each other, through hearing the word of God, they became that way. Verse 2, And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, like the voice of loud thunder, and I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps. They sang, as it were, a new song before the frown. Not the same old, same old song they always did. This is something new God taught them. He always teaches us something new, all part of His plan, same God, same yesterday, today, and forever, same message, same word of God that led the people who had it of the Old Testament, people in apostles times, our days today, the word of God, living, viable, provides the direction. They sang, as it were, a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures and the elders, and no one could learn that song except the 144,000 who were redeemed, redeemed from the earth. That's you and me. That's you and me. If we meet, if we meet what God's expectations are, if we let Him lead us, these are the ones who were not defiled with women. All those old religious beliefs, all those things that run around in the world of people who claim they know Jesus Christ, claim to know what His will is, and we realize, no, they don't. Any of those vestiges that we might have brought in with us, gone.

Live by the Word of God. Worship Him in the way that He says. Put them away, just as He told the people of the Old Testament, get rid of the high places, get rid of the sacred altars, put them all out. Find God and worship Him only in the way He said. These are the ones who are not defiled with women, for they are virgins. They have become pure exactly what God has called us to become. These are the ones who follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed, called out, given life, given a purpose from among men, being first fruits to God and to the Lamb. The first ones called. Part of the first resurrection that it says later on in Revelation 20. Doesn't mean everyone else is excluded. Doesn't mean everyone else is excluded. They have their time to be called just like God for some reason called us in this time to do His will. In their mouth was found no deceit.

They lived the truth. They spoke the truth. They became the truth. It was in their hearts, and they became agape as God is agape. They did the truth in love. They spoke the truth in love. It was in their hearts. It became them. It defined them. There was a difference between them and the world around them. In their mouth was found no deceit. They are without fault before the throne of God. Isn't that an amazing thing to say? That's what God has in mind for you and me.

He'll get us there if we allow that Holy Spirit that first came upon the Church of God on this day of Pentecost. If we appreciate the power and don't just take it for granted, but actually use it, thank God for it, understand what it can do, and then listen to what God says and not just fall back into the same old, same old that we've always done, but do and let God grow us in the way that He wants us to become. Okay, let's go back to Leviticus 23 here in the minutes I have remaining because, again, it's the same word of God that we've talked about here for you and me today, that we live it. We're part of it. God has called us. He has made us part of His work. If we want to be His work, we have to yield our hearts to Him, not just our lip service. In Leviticus 23, in verse 9, we see that the beginning of the day of Pentecost was in the wave sheaf offering.

I'm not going to read through those first few verses. You remember the wave sheaf offering?

They would wave. They would take the first of the first fruits on that day after the Sabbath in the during the days of Unleavened Bread. They would wave the sheaf before God to be accepted. Then the harvest could begin. We know we've talked about many times that it was Jesus Christ. He ascended to heaven.

At the time that wave sheaf offering, He was accepted by God as the first of the first fruits. Now the harvest would begin. Now the New Testament church would begin, and God would be calling people. So if we drop down to verse 15, it began then, God showed the progression, You shall count for yourself from the day after that Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths shall be completed.

Count it. Too often we forget, and I forget, count. There is something to the element of time that God wants us to remember. There is the element of time in our lives. Judgment is now on the house of God. For the rest of the world, it's another time, but you and I have the time God has allotted to us to become who He wants us to become.

Don't forget that. Number the days. Count the days. Ask God to direct paths and order your steps. Count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven Sabbaths shall be completed. Count 50 days. Count 50 in Greek, Pentecost. Count 50 days to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and you will offer a new grain offering to the Lord.

Here we are. If you go back and look at the day of the wave sheaf offering, the Sabbath that occurred during the days of the bread, we're here right where God wants us to be on this day. Anyone else who tells you differently, they are wrong, have them prove it to the Bible. We are here where God wants us to be on this day. So bring a new grain offering. You know, this is a continuation from this. Verse 17, bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two tenths of an ephah. They will be made of fine flour, baked with leaven.

Okay, these are loaves that aren't unleavened like Jesus Christ lived an unleavened life. These are people who were baked, who were tried in the fire, who were refined and made perfect through the suffering and through the trials and tests and the road to eternal life that God has us on. They were baked. They were two loaves of leaven. Now we've talked about the two ways of life that are in the world that have been there from the beginning.

The way of Cain, the way of God. The way of Cain, the sons of God, as it says in Genesis 4 and 5. We've seen it become the Jews and the Gentiles, Israel and everyone else. Now in this day we have, you know, the people of God that, you know, now have been comprised of Jews and Gentiles, people of all nations and tongues. Two loaves. Whatever those two loaves are, we have some firstfruits who lived in the Old Testament.

We have some firstfruits from the New Testament. We read about the firstfruits from the Old Testament who yielded themselves to God in ways that you and I haven't been asked to yield ourselves and sacrifice ourselves in the way that they have. They'll be there. They're part of the firstfruits. So whatever these two loaves are, Jews and Gentiles, Old Testament, New Testament, whatever it is, you know, two peoples that God is making into one. One people. Always the goal. Unity of the faith, unity of the spirit, one body, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, everything it says there in Ephesians 4.

Offer these, baked with leaven, tried, true. They are the firstfruits to the Lord. They are the firstfruits that we just read about in Revelation 14. Talks about all these animal sacrifices then. That was all done away with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as we learn in Hebrews. He was the ultimate sacrifice.

There was in verse 19, there's a peace offering that happens on Pentecost.

Peace. Jesus Christ is the king of peace. There's no peace in the world today.

Paul talks about the peace that we have, the peace that surpasses all understanding.

The priests shall wave them with the bread of the firstfruits as a wave offering before the Lord with the two lambs. Those firstfruits, they're holy to God and proclaim on the same day it's a holy convocation to you. Exactly where we are today, exactly where we should be. Here in morning services, here as we have the opportunity to fellowship together, here as we congregate later today on this holy convocation that's all part of one time when we're together, we'll be looking forward to the webcast from Jacksonville for our afternoon services here as we continue together as one body and here in this central Florida area. And as we go through this day of Pentecost and as we remember what God has done, keep in mind that it is His will.

It is His direction. Our lives will ever change. They will ever be different and God will do in His time what He wants us to do. He will always give us the power to do it. The day of Pentecost, a key part in God's plan and a key part in our journey from now until the return of Jesus Christ.