The Power of Pentecost

Well, good afternoon, everyone, on this very beautiful Sabbath day to all those who are assembled here and all those who are online. Good to hear you or imagine you from here. There are biblical, epic events that have changed history. Events such as the Exodus, the Flood, the miraculous start-up of the Church on the Day of Pentecost, are certainly akin to those types of events that changed history in a spiritual, not only a physical way, but a spiritual way as well.

The epic events of the Flood and of the Exodus had a lot of miraculous things that happened, truly epic stories, the kinds of things, the kinds of stories that make for good movies. They have a script that's built into them. Pentecost is much the same way, and the story is narrated in the first chapters of the book of Acts. I'd like to retell the story of the first Pentecost and of the days and the weeks following, because they contain a lot of information that perhaps we pass over.

And also, there are scriptures within that section in the first chapters of Acts that we pick out. We just pick them out for different applications. But when you see them all in the same package, it really creates a very, very special impact. So I'd like you to turn to Acts 2. I have a number of passages I'll be turning to, but I'd like you to stay in the book of Acts. I'll make references to other passages, other places that are supportive scriptures, but you don't have to turn to them.

You can write them down, but stay in the narrative that we will continue in Acts 2. Acts 2, verse 1, when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they, the 120, 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. Miracle number one. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, and one sat upon each of them. Miracle two, right away, bang out the door. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, which is a great miracle as well.

And began to speak with other tongues, yet another miracle, bang, right off the get-go, right at the get-go. Speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. More background to the story, verse five, and there were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together. People said, what's going on here? What's this big wind? And they were confused because everyone heard them speak in their own language. Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, look, are not all these who speak Galileans?

They don't really know who are these people speaking all these languages. You know, just like right now in Europe, so many people speak so many different languages. It's like saying, aren't these Americans? Don't these speak one language? Aren't these all Galileans? And also later in the book of a few chapters ahead, it talks about how these people were taken, Peter and John in particular, who people knew that they perceived them to be uneducated and untrained men in Acts 4.13.

They marveled, but they realized that they had been with Jesus. These are not men. These are not people. First of all, they were from Galilee, which was kind of out in the back country. It was not from Jerusalem. It was a long distance away. And they didn't attend any theological seminary. They weren't at Dallas Theological Seminary. They weren't at Fuller Theological Seminary. Asbury or Azusa or any other recognized names. They had just been with Jesus. And they were saying the people who were hearing these things in all their languages. And here we have all these people who are gathered together of different languages.

And why were they there? Well, a couple of reasons. One is that they were there for the Holy Days. They were there for the Passover. They were representatives, God-fearers from different parts of the Roman Empire, who came on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Just as Christ and His parents came down from Galilee, from Nazareth, down to Jerusalem annually for the Passover. And here are people who gathered there and lingered on through the weeks of waiting for the Feast of Weeks.

So they were all there. Some of them, though, however, were people who already dwelt there. They were there, as we saw in verse 5, they were dwelling in Jerusalem, perhaps more than just visiting. And it talks about some of the visitors that were even from Rome. Let's take a look at the list. Parthians, Medes, and Elamites.

People from more the European, the area of Eastern Europe. Those dwelling in Mesopotamia. More Iraq in the Middle East. Judea. Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia. These are people from Asia Minor, from where Turkey is right now.

Egypt. That's from Africa. And parts of Libya, that's even further west, adjoining Cyrene. Visitors from Rome. I mean, they had people from all over the known world, in one sense, civilization at that time. Both Jews and Proselytes. Cretans and Arabs. And we hear them speaking in their own tongues, the wonderful works of God. So this wasn't just a gift of tongues.

This was a gift of ears, you know, of understanding. They heard them speaking, and they heard them in their own language. So it wasn't just some type of babble that was coming from the apostles. It was a known communication that was sinking into their ears. They were all amazed and perplexed and said to one another, whatever could this mean? The Roman Empire, at that time, lived or existed in a very unique period of history.

And that was that here you have an empire which had a highway system that was unified. It was like an interstate system. They had a currency that was common to the whole empire. They had one passport that they could travel with from country to country. This hadn't been possible until a European Union over 2,000 years later. Yet it was possible to have God open this door up for the gospel to be spread and for people to come into contact with one another in a way that hadn't been done before and had not been done for many millennium afterwards. Now why were the apostles assembled in the way that they were? There's 120 of them in one house.

Knowing how small houses were in Jerusalem, they were quite crowded in that house. Because in verse 4 of chapter 1 it says, they were assembled together. In Christ he commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait from the promise of the Father, which he said, from me. Christ, of course, had spoken about the promise in his monologue, so to speak, to the disciples just before he was crucified. He talked about the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, the Pericletos that was to come. For John truly baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. That was 10th to be exact because this was on the day that Christ ascended to heaven. It was 40 days after the Passover and it was from the waving of the sheaf and from the start of the counting count down towards Pentecost. And then after the 40 days, there was another 10-day period that led to Pentecost. And so here we are. Well, this was quite an occurrence. A lot of different people are kind of brought together, everybody hearing their apostles speaking in their own language. I mean, this wasn't an app. This was really a miracle from God really at that time that made communication very, very open and smooth. And some said, this can't be. Verse 13 of chapter 2, they're saying, they are full of new wine. They're just drunk.

But Peter standing up, and this is more of another yet another miracle about the intelligence of the apostles and how they wove together the scriptures to preach about the meaning of that day.

Verse 14, but Peter standing up with the 11 raised his voice to them and said, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words.

Amazing how courageous Peter is. Just seven weeks before that, he was asked three times about Christ. He says, I don't know him. And he denied him three times, but now he's openly speaking totally different from the way that he had appeared just two months before. He'd my words to this crowd. For these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. It's only nine o'clock in the morning. But I guess I wouldn't stop some people from drinking. But anyway, he said, this is not the typical time to drink. For this is what was spoken of by the prophet Joel. Now, he quotes quite a few scriptures, and he quotes from Joel. He quotes from the book of Psalms. He quotes from the book of Genesis. He quotes from Deuteronomy.

This was a period in history, in Judea, where there was a renaissance of the knowledge of the scriptures. Not as other times where people didn't even know who they were, what they were, or what even the holy days were to be observed. This was a period where there was a lot of learning, academic learning and scriptural learning. And so he quotes from the Old Testament.

And people to be part of the Sanhedrin had to memorize entire sections of the scriptures in order to be part of the Sanhedrin. They didn't have to have their own personal copy of the Bible because they had it in their head. And so here's what he quotes from Joel 2, 28 through 32.

And it shall come to pass, verse 17, says God, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men will dream dreams, and on my men servants and on my maid servants I will pour out my Spirit in those days. And they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Well, this wasn't all fulfilled just right then at that time, which is an interesting observation about Scripture and prophecy.

Prophecy that's given is often intended to be understood in waves as we rightly divide the Word of God. Some of us fulfilled it one time, some of us fulfilled it another time, but it's all brought in one package. That's what is true here, because first of all, this was not the last, last, last days, but certainly it was for these people a very important time in their lives.

One thing that's common, though, is that the pouring of the Holy Spirit would be done in a very, very open and generous way where the Holy Spirit is available now to all of mankind, as it was to everybody in Jerusalem at that time, as we will see that many people were imbibers of that Spirit.

Men in Israel, verse 22, Peter continues, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs. He said, you've already been aware of some of that, and many of these people had been part of the big gatherings that Christ had when Christ spoke to large masses of 10 to 15,000 people and fed them afterwards, not on just one occasion, but on several occasions. They saw the miracles of many healings of Jesus Christ, of people that He brought back from the dead. So he says, you've already been witnesses, and you've already seen and heard about Jesus Christ. He says, though, verse 23, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.

So he said, he comes out very, very strong, in condemning language for the actions that these people were responsible for as part of a crowd. Some of the same people that it appears that saw the great miracles of Jesus Christ, the healings and other events that took place, were maybe part of the crowd that shouted, crucify Him, crucify Him, crucify Him, just before Jesus Christ was turned over and crucified. And so here, he quotes now from Psalm 16, verse 18, verse 8, I should say, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for He is at my right hand that I may not be shaken.

He brings out a very, very clever play on Scripture. Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest in hope. Then he continues to quote it from this section of Psalms, which David is ascribing to himself, for you will not leave my soul in Hades or hell or the ground, the grave, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption.

He won't allow him to decompose. You have made known to me the ways of life.

You have made me full of joy in your presence. This wasn't David.

He's quoting somebody else. This was Jesus Christ.

Men and brethren, let me speak to you freely. Let me get to the point in verse 29 that the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. In fact, it's still there. It's one of the things that you'll see when you travel and visit Jerusalem. It's right there at the bottom of the valley of Kidron.

Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God has sworn an oath to him, that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on a throne. He says he's not really talking about David. He's talking about his progeny.

He, for seeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ.

David, actually in the book of Psalms, was prophesying the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in the ground in Hades, nor did his flesh she see corruption, which is what we historically know. This Jesus, verse 32, has raised up, of which we are all witnesses. We know it. We saw it firsthand. Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this, which you now see and hear. Because of what has occurred and because of Christ having been resurrected and coming to God the Father, he now shares the power of that with you with the Holy Spirit. He's poured out what you now see, what Joel prophesied, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit.

Verse 34, for David did not ascend into heaven, but he says of himself, and here Peter quotes Psalm 110, verse 1, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. So Christ was never in the grave. David was. Christ ascended into heaven, set the right hand of God the Father, and he's the one who's going to rule the earth and will set down all enemies. Verse 36, one of the most important verses in this whole section, verse 36, therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you have crucified. Actually, it makes that statement a few verses before, too.

This Jesus whom you have crucified put the responsibility upon them personally for killing Christ. Lord in Christ. This is one verse I always quote, read when talking to people about baptism.

Say, why do you want to be baptized? What's going to happen when you are baptized as far as your past? What point, what part did you have in the death of Jesus Christ? Was it they there at that time who killed Christ?

Or did you have a part in it? You have killed Jesus Christ. He didn't say, but they, the Romans, or Annas the high priest, or Caiaphas, or it was the Sadducees. You killed Jesus Christ.

It's very, very important. I try to make that point to illustrate and to emphasize the port, that when we come to repentance and ask God to forgive us our sins because we killed Christ, we were part of that. Yes, it was a group. He killed, he died for all mankind, but if it was just you alone, he would have to die for you to give you eternal life. You have crucified. And the reaction from them, and this is so well illustrated in the painting that we have at the home office of the Pentecost series, or the Holy Day series, shows Peter speaking to the crowd. And when they heard this, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. Oh no! We had a part in the death of Christ. I had a part in the death of Jesus Christ. And said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Man, brethren, what do we do now? What do we do now, after hearing this very powerful message and presentation by the apostle Peter? Peter said to them, I'm glad you asked, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

That's what this day is about. This day is one about the Holy Spirit being given and the process leading to that Holy Spirit in this very powerful message of the apostle Peter.

For the promise is to you of the Holy Spirit and to your children and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. God is making wide open the door to salvation, to repentance, to forgiveness of sin, to all mankind. And that door was wide open that was prophesied by Joel and now available to all.

Okay, this is just the beginning of the epic events of Pentecost.

With many other words, he testified and exhorted them. So the sermon went longer, these are just the high points that he's mentioning here in the book of Acts, saying, be saved from this perverse generation. It's the message of salvation, but not just salvation, just that you're not going to die or perish. It's being saved from this generation, from this perversity of the society that you're around. We're not just saved, salvation, to be given eternal life only, but we're also saved from this woke, godless, immoral generation that we live in. And do we appreciate that?

Then those who gladly, verse 41, received his word were baptized. Really made an impact.

They were cut to the heart. What did we do? We killed Christ.

At that day, about 3,000 souls were added to them. I mean, this is epic. It's huge.

It started from 120 people who were gathered in the house at the beginning of the day, and now it's ballooned to 3,000 people who were baptized. My wife and I are trying to figure out how they did it. Probably any availability, they had to do it in groups, whatever. My wife is always trying to think of the logistics. But anyway, just take Peter's word for it. They baptized 3,000 souls, and they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. So after baptism, they continued the process of teaching, in the breaking of bread, fellowship in the breaking of bread, and in prayers. Then fear came upon every soul, and many, many wonders and signs were done through the apostles.

There was just so much going on here on this very dramatic day of Pentecost.

Again, people were familiar with Christ because of the large open-air meetings up north.

Christ made it down to Jerusalem every Passover in his ministry. He was a known quantity.

Now all who believed, verse 44, were together and had all things in common, and soldered possessions and goods and divided them among all, as everyone had need. So continuing daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they ate their food with gladness and simplicity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily as those who were being saved. People think that this is the basis of communal living, the origin of communism. This was a first-time, singular, unique event at the start of a church where people banded together. How do we go on from here as the apostles are trying to figure out how to move on from here? How do we take care of people that are becoming part of here? How do we take care of some of the visitors who are from out of town or about ready to head out, but maybe we need to keep them here longer? Anyways, the start of a church, it was a very special event.

I'd like to interject into this story about the Holy Spirit and what the Church of God has said about the Holy Spirit. I think it's very important to know that.

I had been part of a doctrinal committee back at the Worldwide Church of God that helped formulate the statement of beliefs. That was in 1992 and 1993 at the very tail end, as when I was put on that committee. And would you believe that we had no formal state like we have now of the fundamentals of belief? We didn't have anything like that. It was like the British Constitution, which was a little bit here, a little bit there, part of the Constitution here. No singular document. We had a lot of literature. We had a lot of things explaining what we believed. We had lots of sermons and things that were available. But we didn't have a codified statement of beliefs. And in 1992-93, we decided that we've got to make a list. And so we had that little thin booklet about the statement of beliefs. That one in 1993 became the basis for our fundamental of beliefs. In the United Church of God, when we spent the summer of 1995, just really only three years later, two, three years later, in formulating our beliefs, which is how we become dogma that is very difficult to modify in any way. Here's what we have written as our first fundamental belief. This is important to understand. The first fundamental belief, and in World Wide Church of God, the first statement of belief, which is exactly the same, God the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit.

We believe in one God, the Father, eternally existent, who is Spirit, a personal being of supreme intelligence, knowledge, love, justice, power, and authority. He, through Jesus Christ, is the creator of the heavens and the earth, and all that is in them. He is the source of life for whom life exists. Human life exists. Two, we believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who is the Word and has eternally existed. We believe that He is the Messiah, the Christ, the divine Son of the living God, conceived of the Holy Spirit, born in the human flesh of the Virgin Mary. We believe that it is by Him that God created all things, that without Him was not anything made that was made. One of the most important verses in that is John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

And the Word became flesh in verse 14 of John 1. If anybody comes to me trying to get around using Arianism and Arianistic teaching about Christ being created being, hey, hey, hey, hey, I've done this to other ministers as well. I'm not going there. Let me read you John 1.1. In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God, and the Word was God. It had no beginning. So you have Jesus Christ, who became flesh, as another personage. We had God the Father, and we had Jesus Christ.

Then, as far as the Holy Spirit is concerned, the statement is quite minimal.

Now, it's explained more fully in the doctrine, in the booklet, the fundamentals of belief, but as far as the statement itself, it's quite short. We believe in the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of God, and of Christ Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the power of God, and the Spirit of life eternal. That's it.

Now, in 1993, when this booklet came out, I took one of my trips to Ukraine and talked to the Sabbatarians very vividly and very openly, and enthusiastically about what we believe, and they talked to us about what they believed, and found out that we were on the same page, particularly about the Holy Spirit. I read them this statement about what the Holy Spirit was, and you know one thing they said, Brother Victor, you could do actually a little bit more with the Holy Spirit, just the way you describe it. The Holy Spirit, in all the things that it does, the powerful things, as being the essence of God Himself, and just all that we have is the result of the Holy Spirit. God is Spirit. John 4, 24.

The Holy Spirit is self-existent life, does not need carbon, oxygen, hydrogen to exist. It is life. It is life. Now, people are asking, is there life out there in the universe? We're looking for exoplanets, finding places that have carbon, that have atmospheres and everything. God doesn't need any of that. There's a whole hidden realm out there that I think that we're fairly aware of.

We talk to that realm every day. We talk to God the Father. We don't expect Him to be, you know, sitting there with oxygen and hydrogen and carbon in a room listening to us.

He self-existed to talk to Him, and He is able to heal. We have contact with angels. I could talk about that. I know that I could recount two times in my life where I feel my life was saved from death because of the intervention of a power that came and yanked me out. Once from out of a car when I was a young boy that I thought I was going to run over. I was seeing the car run over me. Another time was on a YOU trip where I stepped back to take a picture of our group and almost stepped off a cliff, which would have been fatal. I know as I was stepping back, I saw my life going by me, and I felt a hand push me back up. I know that. You probably had had experiences as well of God saving your life. So there is an angelic world out there. There is an unseen realm. The dimensions of God are far more than what we can imagine. You and I are aware of length, width, height, speed, time. Those are the four dimensions that we know. God has many more dimensions.

It's as though we were only in a world of three dimensions where we just had length and width.

And somebody said, well, how high is it? Well, I don't know. I don't get that. I live in a two-dimensional world. Well, that's the same way we are with God. He has many more dimensions, many different ways in which he relates to us, not only in distance, but also in time, and the way he relates to us personally. He does that through his Holy Spirit, which is his essence. Now, one of the problems that really led to some of the disruption in the church was exactly that of the Holy Spirit. Here's why. God is composed of Spirit. God is Spirit.

And so our theologians said, wait, wait a minute. God can only be God if he's composed of Spirit.

That means that that Spirit is greater than God, because if he doesn't have the Spirit, he can't be God. And believe me, that really mounted into a huge snowball that led to where we had the split. But it happened about that time, about 1993, where we took an alternative path that led to huge problems in the church. But that's another discussion altogether. I'm here to talk about the Holy Spirit as we know Him and the Holy Spirit's history. God revealed Himself in all these three forms of God the Father, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit in the first two verses of the Bible. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The word for God here is Eloim.

I'm not going to give you a detailed Hebrew lexicon understanding of that, but nonetheless, it was Eloim, which is a plural, Eloah, which is one being. And Eloim means multiple beings.

This is a word that means God. It appears more as God than anything else, 2700, 2346 times in the Old Testament as God. Eloim and Eloah. It appears as other words as well, but it's so minuscule that really the vast majority, the vast preponderance, is that of God.

It also could mean rulers or judges, divine ones, even a couple references to angels using Eloim.

Then, in verse 2, we read, The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So here we have God in verse 1, multiple. We have more than one, Eloim, plural. And in verse 2, we have the Spirit of God hovering over the face of the waters. God makes it very, very clear from the very beginning where this is all coming from. We have the creation from the Eloim, and then we have the Spirit of God hovering whatever that may fully mean, the maintenance of whatever of the creation of God.

The word for Spirit is the Hebrew word ruach, R-U-A-H.

And it has quite a different genre meaning than that of Eloim, which was very personage-tied, tied to rulers, judges, God Himself. But when we talk about the Spirit of God, it talks about breath. In fact, the word ruach means just breath itself. That's the word. And then when I know in the Ukrainian language, when I hear the word for Spirit, it's just the same word as for breath. You know, you're breathing in and out. Well, this is the Spirit of God. Very, very straightforward word. There's no connectivity with it to a personage. It's also a word that if you take a look at a lexicon of Hebrew words, it also speaks about energy. It talks about being something which gives gifts. It is something which is the seat or organ of mental acts. It is something which is a disposition of that person. And we see the various manifestations of the Holy Spirit of water, of wind, which we had right there from the very first readings this afternoon of the book of Acts, as something which is force, power, energy. You don't have the personage. And interestingly, in talking to the Ukrainians, it's kind of interesting talking to people who are different from you to see what their perceptions are. One thing was nice, that we believe basically the same direction doctrinally. But I said, how do you take the Holy Spirit to be as what it is? They said, that is divinity without a face. It doesn't have a face. God the Father, you know, when we pray to Him, well, we don't know what He looks like. And He manifests Himself to us as He's more than a six-foot man, believe me. But nonetheless, when we pray to Him, we say He's got ears, He's got eyes, He sees things. Jesus Christ came as a human being to the earth, so He have another personage. But the Holy Spirit is not that way. And when the Apostle Paul addresses the churches in almost all of his letters, he says, greetings and blessings to you from God the Father and Jesus Christ. And he does not mention the Holy Spirit. How offensive. Because he's talking about something from God the Father, Jesus Christ. But he talks about the workings of the Spirit very openly in his letters. But that's another subject and something that I really, I really love talking about, but I won't be able to... Whoa!

To be continued here.

Holy Spirit was always known throughout the Old Testament, as David said, Create me clean heart, O God, in Psalm 51.

Renew a steadfast spirit within me, but do not take your Holy Spirit from me and uphold me by your generous spirit. Back to our story, and I have three more chapters to go. I think this will be part two, part three, maybe, in this, because there's so much knowledge, so much information here in these particular chapters. But the very first miracle, the first preaching of the Apostle Peter and John, it was Peter and John that worked together as a team at the very beginning. The first thing they did, the first confrontation at the temple they had, was meeting the lame man, the man who was lame from birth, and they prayed for him, and he was healed.

And what followed, really, when we see the whole ministry, as it started out, the genesis of the New Testament ministry was teaching, it was preaching, and it was healing. In Matthew 4, verse 23, he didn't write this verse down. Jesus' ministry was going and teaching in the synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God, Caruso, the evangelizing, the preaching, the proclaiming the heralding of the kingdom of God. It was also teaching in their synagogue.

This is the word didasco in Greek, which is the word basis for didactic. It was teaching, doctrine, as the apostles did, but also preaching, which is the Greek word caruso, proclamation, the heralding.

And then also the healing of all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

His three-step ministry is brought out in just one verse here, in Matthew 4, and verse 23. He healed all kinds of disease among the people. And his Christ's ministry, one thing that is very, very, very evident about it, he healed all kinds of people. He brought people from the dead. Again, the apostles continue in chapter 3 to do their work. I just know that I won't have time to really get into this. But Peter, as it says several times here, is one who spoke being filled with the Spirit.

Chapter 4, verse 8, Peter filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, again, quoting from Psalm 118, verse 22, using the Old Testament for the basis. I'll conclude with just one more little section here at the end. The apostles were immediately arrested for their teaching.

I'm just going to give you the points of it. They were stopped, not by the Romans. You don't have a single Roman. You don't have a single Roman official or military person brought out in this whole experience that they had in Jerusalem, on the day of Pentecost, and in the days and weeks that followed. Not a one. It was all with the religious leaders of that time. The same characters that crucified Jesus Christ, Annas, John, and Caiaphas, they were there, and they were trying to stop the work that was being done by the apostles. They were thrown into prison. It wasn't a civil prison. It was a prison that the religious people had. They didn't work with the Romans. They didn't like the Romans, and the Romans didn't want to mess with the local matters dealing with scriptures. They had enough trouble kind of holding the lid on governing that people that they didn't want to mess with that particular aspect. But the apostles were thrown into prison a couple of different times right away from the very start of the New Testament church.

But they all gathered together, the apostles in chapter 4, in verse 23, And being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all the chief priests that elders had said to them. So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord. To me, what is so touching about these prayers and about the power that they had of the Holy Spirit is how they relied upon the Holy Spirit to give them boldness, as it did with Peter at first, to perform the miracles that they did, and it was the power that caused the church to grow exponentially. Verse 23, verse 24, And the people plot vain things. The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ.

For truly against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both haired and conscious pilot with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your purpose determined before to be done.

Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to your servants that with all boldness they may speak your word by stretching out your hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done through the name of your holy servant Jesus.

And after this very powerful prayer, and when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they spoke the word of God with boldness.

I have several times talked, even with our ministry, could we maybe ask God to give us a Pentecost moment in our church?

You've got to get it together to pray with that type of boldness for us to be able to have and deliver a message with that type of impact.

Not because of us, not because of our greatness, or because we don't really have any great orators that command that type of respect. We have some great speakers. We have great speakers in the United Church of God.

But we don't have anybody who stands above the crowd to the degree that would incite and motivate people to the degree that we've had in times past.

But here we've got Peter a fisherman who never went to seminary, being able to speak with that type of huge power and motivation to people at the right time, at the right place, in the right conditions, in the way that God has said.

So perhaps as part of our prayers during the Pentecost time, since we're talking about the formation and the start of the church, we can pray that our leaders can speak with boldness to touch the hearts of a nation that is hurting, a nation that is perverse. Like I said, save us from this perverse generation. We need to help the people in this perverse generation to drag them out to see something much greater, because salvation is from perversity, from wokeness, from immorality, from lawlessness that we have in our society.

So this prayer was and I'll just here just a continuing power in the church, verse 12, Acts 5 verse 12.

And through the hands, this is this early ministry, the apostles, through the hands of the apostles, many signs and wonders were done among the people, and they were all in one accord in Solomon's porch.

Verse 14, and believers were increasingly added to the Lord.

Multitudes of both men and women, so that they brought out the sick. Here, once again, we have a healing ministry. Sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at least a shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them.

And the multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, people with mental problems, and they were all healed. They were all healed.

One of the showstopper scriptures that we use, actually, we use it in a way to justify civil disobedience in our own way, is Acts chapter 5 and verse 29. And this is when the little militia around the religious leaders arrested the apostles and told to shut up and not do what they're doing. It wasn't the Romans. It wasn't the Romans. It was the Sadducees, who actually, one reason that they were so galled by the ministry that was in progress was that they didn't believe in the resurrection. That's one of the things about it. I don't understand. They didn't believe in the resurrection. And here they see all this talk about the resurrection, and that is what really troubled them. But the apostles continued to preach, even though they were threatened and told not to preach. And they use this passage as, like I say, one of our showstopper scriptures. Verse 29, we ought to obey God rather than men. And the direct application was to not listen to what the religious leaders said. But, of course, it can extend to the government if it tells us to do something that is contrary to the law of God. But its original intent, in the way that it was used, is here. So I'll just conclude here with Gamaliel, one of the more level-headed of the religious leaders. He was a Pharisee, not a Sadducee. In verse 33 of Acts 5, when they heard this, they were furious and plotted to kill them. And this is about the incident that just occurred. Then one in the council stood up, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law held in respect by all the people, and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while. Because they were sitting here hammering away at the apostles. He says, let's set these guys outside here. Let me talk to you, fellas. And he said to the men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men. For some time, Thudias stood up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about 400, joined him. He was killed, he was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. There are people that were startup groups that came to nothing. After the man, Judas of Galilee, stood up in the days of the census and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing.

But it is of God. You cannot overthrow it, lest you be found to fight against God.

That's the kind of support they had. That's the message that's given to us.

That's the encouragement that we have. We have stories of boldness. We have stories of miracles. We have stories of the Holy Spirit being poured out. We have history from the Old Testament. We understand what the Holy Spirit is. We can be very thankful for that. So before we come to Pentecost, read chapters 1 through 5 and beyond about the fledgling church that started off with a big bang explosion of people that grew 30 times over just on the first day and 5,000 people by who knows a week or two afterwards. It was an amazing experience, amazing phenomenon that took place.

Okay, maybe sometime we'll have part two.