The Spirit of Pentecost

This is Pentecost. This is a very important Holy Day in the plan of God. Sometimes, you know, as we get to Pentecost after the rush of the Spring Holy Days, and particularly when it might fall as it does this year on a major secular holiday for us, it's all too easy with all the other things that go on in our lives to kind of maybe mis-emphasizing the meaning of this day and focusing upon it ourselves. We need to all be very careful that we do and recognize the importance of the day and not let it get lost in the shuffle of a holiday weekend and other things that go on in our lives. This day is very important to the Church. This is the day that the Church began. In Acts 2, in 31 A.D., the beginning of the Church took place, and the work of God's Spirit moving through individuals and bringing them together and the giving of the Holy Spirit. The first fruits of the Church era began on this day as we read about it in the book of Acts. The Church was the first to experience the Holy Spirit available as an indwelling presence to those who were called. God's Spirit had been sparsely given out in the ages before this day. What we read of in Acts 2 is we can look at certain individuals and see how God's Spirit moved upon them and with them in various ways, David and other individuals in the Old Testament. But this was the first day that the Spirit was beginning to indwell in individuals as they repented and had that available to them, the gift of the Holy Spirit. So there was a dramatic change for those called, chosen, and faithful. The beginning of Jerusalem on this day, the message, a very strong message, a prophetic message even, of salvation and repentance began to go out from Jerusalem. Pentecost is a story of the beginning of a spiritual body which Christ is using to build his family, a spiritual family that is ultimately going to have an impact upon the entire plan of God. It was on this day that the Apostle Peter stood up and spoke with words that helped people to understand the full meaning of what they were seeing. I'd like to focus for a few minutes this morning on that message, at least part of that message, and help us to understand what God is doing, the family that he is bringing together, and what he is building that all began on this day of Pentecost. Let's turn to the second chapter of Acts. Acts the second chapter. I'm not going to go through the entire message, sermon, but you should be familiar that this was the time that they had awaited for. Verse 1 tells us that the day of Pentecost was fully come and they were all together with one accord, they were all with one accord in one place. And they were in the buildings around the temple there when there came this sudden rushing of wind and physical phenomena and a rushing.

So, like three years ago, when we had the tornadoes that came through here on Pentecost, it was rather dramatic and very fitting, I suppose. Tornadoes are always dramatic, no matter what day they fall on, and big windstorms like that, but at least to go out and recognize that on the day of Pentecost. I sometimes think that there's more than coincidence to the things that happen on or around the holy days, as various phenomena take place, especially weather happenings.

But there was a rushing of wind and people began to hear everyone. They heard everyone speak in their own language, and there was a great deal of amazement as people heard each in their own language and began to understand people from various parts of the Roman Empire who were gathered there on this great pilgrimage festival of the day of Pentecost and there in the Jerusalem Temple. And those that were watching the members of the church, some of them thought that they were drunk, and they began to mock and said they're full of new wine, they've just had too much and it's all gone to their head. And what is a strange group of people doing their own thing and what are they doing? Well, Peter stood up, the leader, and he raised his voice and he spoke quite loudly and he said, Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words, for these are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. And the first scripture he turns to in his sermon is back to a prophet, one of the minor prophets who had gone to the people of Judah. And he begins to lift out of the context of the very short book of Joel a prophecy to explain something that was happening hundreds of years later, a whole different event, unconnected completely with the nation of Judah at the time, because as we understand, and perhaps Peter was beginning to grasp at least the veil was coming apart in his mind, he was beginning to realize that this was something that was going far beyond the Jews and the nation of Israel. But he lifts this quote out of the book of Joel and it's a prophecy. Think about that. The first sermon in the church at its beginning centered on a prophet. And what that prophet had to say to Judah back hundreds of years before this event, Peter began to apply it to what was happening on this day. But when you really understand what is said here in this quote from the book of Joel, it didn't fully happen even in Peter's day. It was not fully completed then and it is not fully completed now, the message of this prophet. Now, Peter probably thought that it was being completely fulfilled in his day. I have no question in my mind that he did. When he quoted this, he was explaining the speaking in tongues, the phenomenon of fire and the manifestation of a miraculous event here. And he, God's Spirit, led him back to that verse. He pulled it into the context of that day in the temple in 31 A.D. and he probably thought it was all being fulfilled right there. Let's read what he said. He said, "'It shall come to pass in the last days,' says God, that I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh.'" As Peter looked out on this crowd and the interest that was even beginning to be generated from the other Jews, he may have very well thought that this was going to be poured out on all flesh. But was it?

Did all flesh, meaning all mankind, all nations, receive the Holy Spirit?

And then he goes on and he says, "'Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on my men servants and on my maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days and they shall prophesy.'" You can expand this to the part of the meaning that comes with this word of inspired teaching, not just trying to predict the future, but really when you fully understand prophecy and the meaning of the word to prophesy as it is in the original language here, it's not just about portelling the future and predicting something, like a prophet in that sense, but it also has to do with stirring people to righteousness through inspired teaching, through directing them to God, to directing them to His Word, certainly to His law and the standards of righteousness.

It has to do with that and motivating people. This was a message that was motivating people to change, to repentance. Ultimately, it comes down to that call for repentance in verse 38, but it's also a message about salvation. And Jesus Christ is right at the center of it and the way to eternal life. But He says, they shall prophesy, and I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke.

You have to wonder if, because of what He was seeing literally in front of His eyes, if that's what led Him to this particular section, to explain what was taking place, that this was now being fulfilled. And He mentions, the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood. Just a few weeks earlier, on the day Jesus died, the sun had darkened at midday, and other phenomenon had taken place. The graves had opened and people came out of those graves, and the veil of the temple was cut in two, that great building, and everyone knew what was taking place.

They had seen signs and wonders. It goes on signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. He said at the latter part of verse 20, and the coming, that this would take place before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. Now, they believed that Christ was going to reappear. They had seen Him go up in the earlier part of chapter 1, we've told the occasion, when they watched Him ascend finally from the Mount of Olives, and they heard this voice say that you will see Him come in like manner.

These people, Peter and all, and the other disciples, fully expected to see the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And they felt they were living in that manifested time. And it shall come to pass, that whoever calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved. And that ends the quote from Joel, the prophet Joel. And he moves into talking about, directly, the work of Jesus of Nazareth, and what that meant, and what had taken place.

He pulls in some Psalms, and we know the chapter ends with a direct appeal to repentance, and thousands of people are added to the church that day. Every minister's big dream is to preach the one sermon that would get people motivated and changed, and hundreds or thousands of people to convert and to repent.

And, you know, we dream on. We dream our dreams as well. You dream your dreams. But this is what happened as this took place with this message, quoting from the book of the minor prophets. And Peter's words are focused directly upon the day of the Lord, in that sense. Now, we'll come back to this, but I want us to look and think just for a minute about the day of Pentecost, and the event on what was taking place here. The church was the first to experience this life-changing event that was taking place.

These individuals who had waited faithfully, their faith had been weakened, it had been shaken, but it had begun to come back, to coalesce, through the appearances of Jesus during this intervening period of time. And they heeded his word to be there on the day of Pentecost, when it was fully come.

All those things had to come together for them to experience what was taking place and to see that. Sometimes, you know, it takes us overcoming our doubt and just essentially listening and obeying what God says. One message to the church of Philadelphia back in chapter 3 of Revelation, because where it speaks to that church, and the message there says, because you have kept my word. I will keep you, it says, from a time of trial and trouble. But because you've kept my word, it's a hallmark of the Church of God, specifically that one congregation and that people, that they would keep the word of God.

You have to keep and obey God to fully experience understanding and the meaning. And sometimes, just to be there at the right time to not miss a life-changing event. These people had done that. I had an English teacher one time who used to, as a method of getting us to be in class, be at school and not play hooky and leave. She gave us a kind of a five-minute lecture one day. And I still remember it. She says, you never know.

When that day in school or in that class, you're going to hear something that's going to change your life and make all the difference in your life. She said, you want to be in regular attendance, except when you can't be there for, you know, obvious reasons. But she was encouraging us into a principle. That's why I've always remembered down through the years that, you know, there are times when we might be tempted and we would want to just skip out.

But success is sometimes 90%, they say, of just showing up and being there and making that a part of the discipline of life. And these people had to show up and to be there on Pentecost to experience this one-time event. It didn't happen the same way the next year or five years later or ten years later in the church.

The things that we might experience, the things that we might hear, the people we would talk with, the benefit that we might get is something that we have to look for and experience and showing up and doing what is expected, if you will, even doing our duty is so much of that and such an important part. Why was Pentecost the day on which the Church of God began?

Well, God does have a way of doing significant things in His plan in connection with the Holy Days. These days do mark the significant ideas that God is rolling and bringing to pass in His plan of salvation. Pentecost is the first early harvest festival of the season.

That's when it falls during that time in Palestine and throughout the temperate climates of the world today. The Church is the first fruits of God's spiritual harvest, and those who are called now ahead of all the others and the rest of mankind, which will come in the larger harvest of the Fall, those who are the first fruits are the elect of God and the Israel of God. And this all is wrapped up on the meaning of this day when it's all connected with the physical symbols of Pentecost and the period in which it fell.

There was a tradition among the Jews, and it can be demonstrated from the Scriptures that Pentecost was the time when the law was given to Israel at Mount Sinai. When God thundered the Ten Commandments. And though Israel did not have that law internalized and they struggled with that, it was foretold that through the Holy Spirit the law would eventually be written on our hearts in Jeremiah 31, verses 33.

At the very heart of the new covenant, God says, would be the time when He would write His law upon our hearts and on our minds by His Spirit. And so the connection from what had taken place at Mount Sinai with the Israelites and the giving of the law makes an obvious connection here with the giving of the Holy Spirit on this day, the very energizing factor of life and our experience and our faith.

And so the Jews have a legend that is not part of Scripture, but they have a part of their tradition that when Moses spoke the law at Mount Sinai, he did it in the 70 languages which were extent in the world at that time because they tied us into the idea and the belief that the law belongs to the entire world, not just to the Israelite. That this was God's universal will for mankind as expressed in the Ten Commandments. And there is a connection in that sense.

I mean, God did say in Exodus 12 and verse 49 that there would be one law for all. For all, not only the Israelites, but for all people. And so in Pentecost, in Jerusalem, here on this day in 31 A.D., people were gathered from so many nations that are mentioned here. And the message was the miracle of hearing.

It was heard in that way. And when he quoted from Joel here, everyone heard and understood what was being said. One of the marks of this episode in Acts is that the church was together with one accord. There was a unanimity of spirit. There was a unity there. There was, if you will, a community, a family. It was a small group of people at this particular time. But this is a hallmark that moves through the church from this period of time and is a hallmark of the work that they did and allow them to accomplish so many of the things that they did.

As they gathered together, as they enjoyed one another's company, as they learned the teaching of the church, the apostles' teaching, and as they then took that out and spread it by every opportunity that they had available, they did some wonderful things. God brought together these people into a community that showed a remarkable degree of unity. And ever since I've been keeping the Day of Pentecost since a young boy in this church, I have heard so many times sermons and preached it myself and heard it through the years.

This particular period of the church modeled for us to learn from and to try to understand and in a sense, longingly look backwards to them and wish for that ourselves. Understanding that it is a key to the church being able to accomplish its work today, having this one accord, this unity. We know that that's accomplished in many ways by the Holy Spirit that God gives to us. But how was this created? How was this event created? How was this unity created? Well, they obeyed.

They showed up when they were supposed to. They were of the same mind. They were of the same belief. This event is an interesting contrast to an event that took place earlier in the Bible. If we go back to the Tower of Babel in chapter 11 of the book of Genesis, we see that there is a different event that takes place there where there is a scattering of people. We all know the story of the Tower of Babel back in Genesis where man had reached a point of cohesion that it seems that probably that progress was accelerating and hold your place here in Acts 2 and just flip back quickly to Genesis 11.

In chapter 11, this event that Babel describes people having come together after the flood. There was one language and one speech in verse 1 of Genesis 11. And they journeyed east and they came together in the land of Shinar and they began to build with bricks that they had baked and they began to come together. And they said in verse 4, Let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top is in the heavens.

Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth. The very materials that they used to build were bricks that were baked because that was basically the materials available at that time and still is in that part of the world.

If indeed it is in the area of the Tigris Euphrates River where this took place and even to the site of what eventually became Babylon, the connection makes sense and is likely to be that same spot. But they had this desire and with the elements that God gives us here in the story to understand, we can draw from some deductions. But they said, Let us make a name for ourselves lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.

Their desire was to reach as high as they could and to accomplish. They had dreams. They had a vision. Keep in mind what was the quote from the book of Joel? Your young men will dream dreams and your women will see visions. These people here had a dream and a vision that they were going to accomplish. It involved politics and religion, the two prime elements of civilization and of culture. They were of one language and one speech, which means that they could accomplish a great deal working together just to be able to understand one another. And so they desired to reach to the heavens.

And they desired to do it without God. He was not consulted. He was not part of the equation here. God was not in their preamble to their mission statement that they were doing, that they were beginning to build. And that's why He came down to see what was taking place in the language that is used here. He saw here that they are of one language. They're one. And this is what they begin to do. Now, nothing that they propose to do will be withheld from them.

So let us go down and confuse their language that they may not understand one another's speech. So God scattered them abroad from there over the face of the earth, and they ceased building the city. Therefore, its name is called Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of the earth.

By God confounding the languages, there was a distinct disturbance here that left the people confused and disoriented. I'm sure there was a great deal of turmoil, frustration, and anger that took place when they couldn't understand one another. Just note, if you've ever been to a foreign country and you can't understand the language, and you can't communicate the frustration that you get when you can't do that, I've been there, done that myself, as well as many of you.

And, you know, we don't always anymore, we don't have to go to a foreign country to do that. We just walk in certain neighborhoods of Indianapolis, and you will find a different language being spoken, and you will find yours being a minority, or English, that is. That's just the way things are, but it can lend to fear, to anger, and to confusion. And this no doubt is what took place here. The people could not communicate, and so mankind developed from that particular point. But man was trying to build a family without God, contrary to his plan.

God's intent was that society be built according to his will and his purpose. But this was being done in a way that was not according to God's will, and mankind has been fragmented ever since. This whole system that began here at Babel goes through the Scriptures as a system that really is the antithesis of God's plan, and God's purpose, and God's way. We begin to immediately see in Genesis 12 where God began to work through one person, Abraham and his family, begin to work with them, and the plan of God begins to work in the unifying feature of one person, one family, and the people of Israel that grew from that physically and then back spiritually.

Which ultimately, as you trace through the Scriptures, brings us back to Acts 2, because when we come back to Acts 2, we see God bringing together a spiritual nation, the firstfruits. And we see another miracle. In this case, people communicate with one another. At Babel, they lost the ability to communicate, and it led to the problems. The system of Babylon that developed out of Babel is an attempt to devise and plan a culture and a system and a way that is different from God's.

It tends to oppression. It tends to corruption. It tends to domination. It's the same spirit that Christ spoke of when he was teaching his disciples about service, and he said, Look, don't be like the Gentiles who lord it over one another. And he was summarizing the entire human approach that grew out of this experience at Babel that was, again, even to the very heart of intent, completely opposed to the way God says to work.

God says, You be different. He says, You serve one another. You opt for the way that leads to giving, to serving, to helping, to sharing. Summed up in that great word, love, which is the first mentioned as the first of the fruits of the Holy Spirit.

And so he summarized that, Jesus did in his own teachings, but he was summarizing what had grown from this system of Babylon that began here with a confusion of the language. So again, we come back to Acts 2 in Pentecost, 31 AD, where God brings together a spiritual nation, the first fruits. And through the Holy Spirit, as God promised, people began to live with God's Spirit in their hearts, in the hearts of the elect.

And all of that began at Pentecost with the seed of the Gospel in the church. And at long last, there began at that point a reversal of the Tower of Babel, where language was confused and where people were scattered. Now God began to bring people together in a spiritual sense, at least within his church. He wasn't dealing with all of Judea, all of the Roman world at that time, or any subsequent culture, but he was dealing with his church.

And he was working with them in a spiritual way to begin this process of bringing people together to accomplish a mission and a purpose. And it's a vital lesson for the church today. Here are these people in Acts 2. We can take your little ribbon marker or whatever you put in there and go back to Acts 2. Here we see people hearing, the miracle of hearing and communication.

And think about all of the wonderful things that happen when we begin to communicate. When a husband communicates with his wife and lets her know when he'll be home, that he loves her, that he cherishes her, that he appreciates all of the things that she does, and vice versa. The woman appreciates the work going out of the house every day to make a living, the work that the two do together to build a family.

When those things are communicated, they develop harmony, they develop peace, they develop the bonds of love, and the work of the family can begin to get done. When communication, people understand how great is it when someone really sits down and listens to you, and listens to what you have to say. When your boss will give you the time, some face time in his office, and listen to your complaint, listen to your suggestion, listen to your suggested improvement for the business, for the shop floor, for the office.

And you know that they give you that time, and you feel that indeed they have listened. There has been some communication. It may not always be taken right then or in total. It may take part of what you suggest. But use it if a person feels that you have been given some worth, shown your worth.

There has been a validation. When we communicate, when we listen to one another, and when we seek to understand one another, the wheels begin to get lubricated, and action takes place, and we begin to get things done. That's because we are talking, and we begin to understand. When we look at how we work within the church, how Spirit-led people of God get along, work together, accomplish the overall overriding mission given to them, we understand that it is because of the Holy Spirit that brings that understanding.

Here in Acts 2 were people from different nations, different cultures. But through the experiences of the spread of Judaism, they had, in many ways, some of these people had been converted to Judaism. That's why they were there at the Temple. It wasn't there, in every case, to keep Pentecost, through the church, but because of their connection as either a convert Jew or being a Jew from these other regions. They came in, and there were these different cultural varieties that were beginning to be mixed.

But then they began to hear and to listen through this miracle. And action began to take place. But it comes down to this. We must use, just as they did, the gift of the Holy Spirit to listen to one another and seek to understand one another.

That's at the heart and the core. If we are to form the basis for a family of God, for a people of God, for a church of God, and to become instruments in His hand, I think that for a person to be listened to and then to be understood fulfills one of the most basic human needs. You can study psychology and the basic needs of food and shelter and sex that are certainly right there and very high on the hierarchy of human needs. But when it comes to the feeding of the emotions, the soul, the heart of a person, we all want to be listened to and I think we all want to be understood.

There is a basic fundamental need in every one of us to know that whether it's our mate, our best friend, our employer, our neighbor, our pastor, whoever it is that we are pouring out to our counselor, whatever, that they at least understand us. It doesn't mean we always agree on every point of things, but at least someone has taken the time to understand where we are on an issue, where we are in life, where we're going, and it goes a long way toward bringing people together in whatever environment it is.

But to listen and to understand, that forms the basis of a team, of a family, of a church, of an operation, and people working together toward the same end in the case of the church, to ultimately be instruments in God's hands. Our challenge in the church has always been, just as it was for these people here on this day of Pentecost, to declare the works of God to a world that is spiritually challenged.

Jesus had said to his disciples in John 13, verse 35, By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another.

Then he said in the same sermon that night on Passover, He said, Assuredly I say to you that he who believes in me, the works I do he will do, and greater works than these he will do, because I go to my Father. That comes down to a promise to us, just as it was to the disciples at this time. Our practice in teaching over the years has been to emulate the practice, the teaching, and the tradition of the first century church that we read about here in the book of Acts. We continue to do that. It is the one inspired record of the church that Christ founded that we go back to and we look at. It is the only authorized biography of the church that really counts.

I was just teaching this week at the 8th Ambassador Bible Center, a class on church history, and had a chance to sit down with 15 pastors that have been going through this training program that the Minister of Services has developed and talked with them about the Revelation chapters 2 and 3 and the message to the churches and church eras and our teaching and understanding of that over the years, years past and years present, and really what we should focus on and emphasize in that area.

One of the things I brought out to them is that, look, when we go beyond the book of Acts and the experience that we have recorded here, we are into secular history and we always have to be careful how we interpret what we read and what information is available to us at any given age or period of the church because we have to realize that those things were written by people who, in many cases, were not sympathetic to the truth of God, to the church of God.

And so we have to be careful the deductions that we take from them. And we are always on safe ground if we stick with what the Bible tells us because it is the one authorized biography of the church period that we have here in the first century in these early decades of the church. And then Christ gives us some information in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation and chapter 12 of Revelation that's very important as well.

But when it comes to our faith and our practice and what we turn to in the church to set so much of our precedent tradition teaching, we go to the book of Acts. We don't pick up a history book from the Middle Ages or what some church historian wrote about a group of people compiled from various fragments of history to determine what we do today, we go back to the book of Acts.

We go to the whole Bible for that matter, but if we want to really look at what these people were doing, we go to the book of Acts and gain our teaching. We see that they were keeping the Sabbath and the Holy Days and preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. And that's where we anchor ourselves and everything else is sifted and sorted and worked through from that perspective because this is Scripture. This is inspired of God.

And there's a great deal of information there just for us to focus on together with what we have from the book of Revelation, which perhaps in some cases is deeper than we've ever really fully given ourselves the opportunity to go into to see what it is that Christ tells the church. We are a 21st century church modeled on the 1st century church of God.

And our teachings come from the Bible. Our teachings don't come from the 4th century period of Christianity as it was then that was already beginning to alter the truth of God and hide the knowledge of salvation. Our teaching doesn't come from that period. I was teaching the class on the 4th century in that very critical period where the Trinity became entrenched. And the church, as it became ultimately the Catholic church, became ascendant and wedded to the power of the Roman Empire in the late 4th century, around 380-381.

And they began to enforce an orthodoxy that was Trinitarian, which began to hide the whole face of God, if you will. When they adopted that teaching, as it was at that time in the church, and I'm not just saying the God's church, but the church that you read about in history, which was completely different than the book of Acts, what's important to realize is that mankind, through the religion that had developed in the form of Christianity that had usurped the true Christianity, was hiding from people the way to salvation.

What entered in, what began with that period of time, and really the locking in of the Trinitarian explanation of God, 3 and 1, was served to hide God and Jesus Christ from mankind in that phase and keep man from achieving the salvation of becoming a part of the family of God.

What was substituted were rituals, a priesthood, a worship of Mary, a hierarchical, Gentile-driven church that was not the model of the book of Acts. And men and traditions and sacraments of the Mass, and all eventually began to come in, and a man became the substitute for Jesus on earth, and then the church then became the substitute for the Kingdom of God on earth and set up this entire blockage between God and the creation, the human creation, that really should open up the knowledge of salvation.

Salvation, at least the form of salvation offered, was anything but the truth of God. Because, as I said, when Peter preached this message on Pentecost, he was preaching a message of salvation and repentance. And he was showing this is the way to salvation. It is through Jesus Christ. He was the Messiah. You crucified him, but the good news is you can repent and you can have your sins forgiven, which many of them did.

But it was a very strong, compelling message that showed people how to be saved. And it gave them hope. In the first century world, it was a time under the iron grip of the Roman Empire. If you ever look at the mineral of iron, the substance of iron, and Rome is depicted in Daniel as that system of iron there in the image of Daniel.

They looked at Rome had the world in an iron grip, and it had robbed people of hope. And the church that attached itself to that Roman system drained even further hope and true hope and knowledge of life, eternal, and salvation from mankind.

And it is the same system that is with us today in various forms and permutations. We don't even go back to the 16th century, brethren, and the time of the Protestant Reformation to get our teachings and our beliefs, even when those great events took place and ruptured the great church at that time. We go back to the book of Acts. We don't go back to any period, intervening period, from the first century to our day to get our practice, teaching, and belief within the church.

You make a stop along the way, and in those others, and you will wind up with false teaching and false doctrine within the walk of faith. And those teachings do not give, ultimately, the hope of eternal life and show people the way to effective repentance and change in life that will lead to salvation. It doesn't happen. But our message does. And this is what Peter was standing up and what he was saying to the people on the day of Pentecost. And he was in the midst of this miraculous event where people's lives were, in a sense, kind of opening up as they began to understand one another.

And the Spirit was beginning to move amongst them. They repented. They became a part of the church. They became a part of a culture and a system that was being built that was far different from that of Babylon in the past. The difference between the spirit of Babylon and the spirit of Pentecost is all the difference in the world. Babylon is a spirit of arrogance and pride without God. The spirit of the church, the Holy Spirit of God, the spirit that was manifested on Pentecost is a spirit of patience, of long suffering, of joy, of love, of kindness, and of peace. The elements that draw people together.

It is a spirit that is an agent of change when we really submit ourselves to it. And it is always a shame when we see that that doesn't always work well enough at various times and places within the church today to really draw us together. But it is the goal worth striving for. Worth striving for. And that's why we keep coming back to the day of Pentecost and back to the church, back to God, learning more, hopefully learning through our experiences, drawing together to be effective instruments in God's hand.

As I was once again preparing and giving these classes, which really is a privilege every year to do that, sometimes when you go over the same material year after year, you have to get yourself kind of psyched up and pumped. And I try to add different elements to it, come at it from different perspectives. One of the things that I always am struck at when I go back and review some of the material that I've researched and try to add to it in the early days of the church and from the histories that we have is how people got off the track of the mission of the church, even the church of God.

And whenever that happened, it no longer was able to accomplish its purpose. But when the church was focused on preaching the gospel of the kingdom, preaching this message that began here through this first sermon of Peter's, then a lot of the other problems that are going to be of our own humanity, they tend to get dealt with in a better way. They're not highlighted, they're not focused, and they don't tend to drive us. When the church is outward-focused, mission-generated, there are fewer problems.

Historically, and even from our own experience, that's the case. But when we forget to go outward, which is where they were going on the day of Pentecost, Peter was beginning to realize that the message goes out to the world. And as the church does that, it moves forward and growth develops. But when we turn inward and look only upon our own systems, upon ourselves, and our own humanity, the church loses its historical focus and its problems get magnified and leads to more strife among people and splits within its groupings because it loses its focus upon preaching the gospel and sharing that faith, sharing that knowledge with others. This is where Peter was. This is what he was grasping for when he reached back into the Book of Joel to pull this quote here on the day of Pentecost and to begin to point people forward. And he felt that he and the others were living these last days. He later began to see that that wasn't the case, as the others did as time went on. But he began to see that it was really God's Spirit that was being poured out. And they began to move outward. And their world, he understood the critical nature of his world in the first century. And in many ways, we see the same elements magnified and changed in some ways because of our modern world. But we still see the same thing taking place today. And the need for the church to focus on a message that gets out and helps people to understand salvation and repentance is still a challenge for us to do.

I've been drawn to this statement here of Peter's and this lifting of the book of... this quote from the book of Joel as I've been thinking in recent weeks about a lot of things that are going on in our world and trying to really place it all and put it all together from what we are told, especially in the book of Revelation. As I tried to focus on that, at least in some of my own personal study in recent weeks, and to think about that. Because there are a lot of things taking place in today's world. There are a lot of things going on around us. We are at a time and it is so easy to see that the events that presage certain key happenings at the time of the end are, again, right at the verge of being triggered with just one event, with one misstep by a world leader, by a nation. Large or small? Very often the big things that are done that change things are done by smaller nations. It was an insignificant man in an insignificant part of the Austrian Empire in 1914 in June, who killed the Archduke Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian Empire, and ignited the events that within a few weeks led to World War I.

It was a very small conspiracy and it was in a remote part of Serbia that most of us still don't even know too much about. But it engulfed the world, ultimately. Nobody paid any attention to it. Life went on for a few weeks and then things generated and all of a sudden there was a world war. The nations of Europe were at war. Our world is very precariously perched right now.

Each year we come back to our cycle of the Holy Days and I think we need to focus at least this year, as I've done, and I'm just sharing with you some thoughts as to exactly where we are and just take heed. It seems at times that the other shoe is about to drop in certain areas. We pay $3.60 for a gallon of gasoline right now and we talk about, and are hearing, that it might go up to $4.

And really the big question is, can we even buy it at $4? As long as we can, you and I will buy it. We may try to be a little bit more economical in some of the trips we make, but we'll be glad we can still even buy it if it gets to $4. I'm glad we can still buy it at $3.60 a gallon. But it's like that continues to creep up. And all of the things that surround that in terms of the economy and where that oil comes from in the Middle East, it should direct us over there and help us realize, hey, there are things taking place in other parts of the world beyond our own world that we should pay attention to and we should be motivated about because we do have a correct understanding of Bible prophecy in this large overall framework. We don't understand it. We don't know every detail of when Christ is going to return and various things, but we have a correct understanding of the basics that we should focus on and that should motivate us to ask certain questions about ourselves. How many more Pentecosts will we have? How many more Feast of Tabernacles will we be able to keep, even in the tradition that we are accustomed to, to go where we like to go, for the most part, and have the ability to do that before times would change, economics change, events that would affect our nation?

There's a lot of things that are taking place that we read about, and we understand to one degree or the other, there are a lot of things taking place that we never read about. I read something the other day that was intriguing. It was talking about a phenomenon in Egypt, upper Egypt, where in recent times, in recent months, possibly upwards of a million Egyptians have somehow converted to Christianity. They've seen visions of a Christ that is different from the Christ mentioned in the Quran, and they have gone seeking out Christians in their own midst to try to understand.

Some of the reports that have filtered out indicate that perhaps upwards of a million are, in a sense, converting to some type of Christianity. I'm not saying they're converting to the truth, but they're seeing visions of Jesus. It's not something you read about and see on the news, but it is something that's taking place in a remote part of Egypt.

You read about something like that, and you read as we should, from time to time, the book of Revelation. Or we even read right here where Peter says that people will have visions and dream dreams. Peter didn't fully understand the application to his own time and day, because this still has meaning for us today, as we look for the last days, at a time that is going to push us further to the period when God will pour out his Spirit upon all flesh. That hasn't happened yet to this time. But wonders in heaven, signs in the earth beneath, what lies ahead of us to be seen, to cause the world to marvel?

There are people in parts of Europe who still travel to Lourdes, to places in Spain and southern France, where visions have been spotted over the decades and centuries of the Virgin Mary. In Mexico, they crawl on their knees to see the vision of the Virgin of Guadalupe.

Millions of people adore and worship that. And they look for visions, and they get excited about those things. There's going to be a time in the future when those will trigger bigger events that will lead to what we read about in Revelation 13, of a powerful religious figure who transforms and transfixes the world because of the miracles that he performs in the name of God.

And so, these things are building. They are half. They are working. And how many more years until we see the fulfillment of those? I don't know. I do know that we should look here on the day of Pentecost and look at a sermon that was given by Peter and try to gain some meaning for our lives right here and right now. And it's not necessarily that you and I should go looking to have some type of fantastic dream or vision. But, you know, we can apply this in the way that we know from the Scripture. And maybe it is a time for our sons and our daughters to focus on the inspired teaching of the Word of God, for our young to see visions of the Kingdom of God, of a life lived today according to the principles of the Kingdom.

And maybe those of us that are older, men and women, maybe we should focus on dreaming dreams and looking at our life and what we've accomplished and dreaming about what we might yet accomplish with the help of God's Spirit in our own life, within His work, with what tools and abilities and opportunities are in front of each one of us. There's a positive, proactive way to apply what Peter talked about here as he quoted from Joel, just within our own lives that would make them far richer and make our church far better if we apply them and look at them in a positive way. We can do that. And we should do that. Because we are living in those days that are the last days. We're closer than Peter was. And when we look at what Peter said when he kind of figured it all out a few decades from this point, turn back over to 2 Peter 2.

The full development of what Peter understood and was probably hinting at comes from his later writings.

2 Peter is really a book that he wrote to basically say, hey, look, I'm going to die and I want to be sure I've got certain things in place for you in the church to understand. And he says, don't think that God's promises are slack. These things are going to happen. And he said there will be scoffers in the last days that say, you know, where is the promise of His coming in verse 4 of chapter 3.

But then in verse 10 he says, the day of the Lord will come.

Again, you go back to Acts chapter 2, and he talked about the day of the Lord and the pouring out of events on the last days. And then here decades later he writes, the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise.

So it's going to come, but it'll come by surprise. But it is sure. And he talks about heavenly signs and wonders here in this passage here, much like he talked about, as he quoted Joel on the day of Pentecost. But the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up. Therefore, since all these things will be dissolved, what manner of persons ought you to be in holy conduct and godliness? Looking for and hastening the coming of the day of God, because of which the heavens will be dissolved, being on fire and the elements will melt with fervent heat. Nevertheless, we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. And then he encourages us to be diligent, be without spot and without blameless, and to move forward, looking to God as the hope of our salvation.

The message of Pentecost is very strong and clear, to be motivated, to be drawn together by the Spirit of God, to do the work of God. Let's focus on that and the remainder of our time together today and the messages that we will yet hear this afternoon, the fellowship that we will have. And let's ask God to give us the strength of His Spirit, the power of His Spirit, to walk together in the fruits of His Spirit from this day of Pentecost forward.