Acts 2.2 Emblems of the Holy Spirit

Acts chapter 2, we look at the first thirteen verses, a passage very familiar to the majority of us here. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.

And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. There were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven.

Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed and marvelled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born, Parthians and Medes and Elamites, the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea and Cappadocia, in Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, in Egypt and in the parts of Libya around Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and Proselytites, Cretes and Arabians. We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.

And they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Others mocking said, These men are full of new wine. Now we turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 3, and the last two verses of that chapter. The Apostle has been talking about the remarkable experience that Moses had on Sinai when he was brought into the presence of God, and how his countenance, his face changed, there was a glow upon it as he came down the mountain.

The Apostle adds this comment, having made this point. Now the Lord is that Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all with open face, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

Amen. I did mean to mention earlier that the offering next Friday, on Good Friday, will be for the work at St. Barnabas' home here in Worthing. Many of you know of this remarkable home which looks after the needs of men and women in terminal stages of sickness, and in the church here we are very much indebted to the staff of St. Barnabas for the loving ministry that they've exercised towards a number of our members who are now in glory.

And we feel that it will be very appropriate to show our thanks to St. Barnabas' home by taking an offering specifically for the advance of their work. And, well, that opportunity presents itself on Friday. I thought that you would be glad to have that information.

Now will you have your Bibles open, please, at the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And may I remind you and explain to visiting friends that we are in the midst of a series of studies on the opening chapters in this fifth book of the New Testament. And for a while we shall be continuing to look into the teaching that we find in this remarkable second chapter.

Last week I suggested to you that in the thirty-third verse there is a sort of précis text which summarizes and evaluates all that is described in the opening passage, the first thirteen verses. And in a very general fashion we were examining the contents of the first part of this chapter from this thirty-third verse. And I put up one or two observations for you to consider.

Let me remind you of them quite briefly. We made the observation that what happened on the day of Pentecost was a fulfillment of prophecy. It was something to be expected because the Old Testament seers had some insight into this event as it was revealed to them by the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament era.

It was also anticipated in the ministry of the Lord Jesus, who on several occasions prepared his disciples for this particular event. And then we examined together the very descriptive verb used for the giving of the Holy Spirit in the thirty-third verse. The Holy Spirit was shed forth, and the idea is of pouring out, of an inundation of the power of the manifestation of God, the third person of the Trinity.

And then I suggested to you that you could make an equation from this chapter which suggests this, that the gift of the Spirit equals the promise of the Father. Because on several occasions in Scripture you come across this terminology, and I say that these terms are synonymous. They equal one another.

And then a closing observation which I made, and I think was extremely important, was this, that when the Holy Spirit comes in all his baptizing power, the effects of that are observable. They're observable to people who perhaps themselves are not involved in this experience, but nonetheless they are attracted to those who have been so moved upon by the power of the Holy Ghost. And that this observation is a legitimate one to make, I think is shown quite clearly in this second chapter.

Why did the Jewish pilgrims rush to the scene where the Holy Spirit had fallen upon a hundred and twenty or thereabouts followers of the Lord Jesus? Well, they did so because they had heard something. They had seen something. And this is what Peter says in the thirty-third verse of this chapter.

You saw and you heard. What happened was observable, observable to the spectator, observable to the person on the outside. And this thought is sustained throughout the Acts of the Apostles.

It is apparent to the onlooker that something radical has happened in the experience of these men. Take Peter as he is in front of the Sanhedrin and as he declares his faith in Jesus Christ. These notable men, these civic dignitaries who have positions on the Sanhedrin, they're absolutely flabbergasted, they're amazed that this fisherman, this man from the northern part of Palestine should speak with such determination, with such authority, with such eloquence.

This is not usual from the ranks of a fisherman. Something has happened, something observable. What has happened? Well, he has known in a remarkable fashion the fullness of God in his heart.

You get another illustration of this in the experience of Stephen. You remember how Stephen also has to give some account as to his belief in the Lord Jesus, and as he addresses the civic dignitaries at Jerusalem, there's a marked change in his face. His face becomes like that as of an angel, and those who look on recognize that this is a man who has been peculiarly possessed by the power of the Holy Spirit, by the power of God.

It's inexplicable to them. But they do appreciate that something remarkable has happened. You remember again later on in the Acts of the Apostles how a magician wants to buy the ability to impart the power of the Holy Spirit.

He too has observed that something happens when God moves in in great power into the heart of a man as he works on the personality of the individual. And so this wretched magician endeavours to buy the ability, and you remember how he is disciplined, how he is criticized for having such a carnal attitude towards the things of God. Well, I say all this to underline the point that I didn't really have time to develop last week, that when God in all his power, in all his fullness moves into the life of an individual, then it is observable.

It is observable on the part of the outsider. They realize that something has happened which has dramatically revolutionized the one concerned. It's not a question of someone coming along and saying, this has happened to me.

Rather, to use a colloquial expression, the boot is on the other foot. Someone comes along and says, what exactly is this that we see within your life? Well, I say these were just general observations that I was making as I'm approaching the whole phenomenal teaching within this passage, and particularly all that is recorded and spoken of within the first 13 verses. So now, so to speak, let me close up on the scene of the 120 in the upper room awaiting the descent of the Holy Spirit.

Let us discuss together the phenomena that attended this mighty baptism which the 120 were to receive at the hands of Almighty God. For it was a remarkable occasion. There is none who can gainsay that.

There is none who can dispute the fact. Here were these men and these women completing a 10-day vigil of prayer, and the consummation of that prayer meeting was this mighty filling of God's Spirit, the Holy Ghost moving in upon these people. And there were certain phenomena that accompanied the descent of the Holy Spirit.

There was the wind, and the fire, and the tongues. So let's look at this phenomena, these phenomena, for a moment and see what lessons we can glean. First of all, the wind in which the Spirit is depicted as coming upon the disciples, the language in the second verse is dramatic, is it not, very, very descriptive.

And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Notice this was not just some wind that had blown up in Jerusalem itself, some gusty breeze which was forcing its way down the narrow cobbled streets of the city. The wind was not outside but inside.

It was not earthly, it was from heaven. A rushing mighty wind from heaven came, a veritable tornado which filled the whole house where the one hundred and twenty were. A remarkable experience.

I wonder what the reaction of the disciples of these early followers of the Lord Jesus must have been. Here they were, completing their prayer meeting, expecting that something remarkable would happen but not quite knowing the method that God would employ to empower them to inaugurate the ministry of the church. Because bear in mind that this is precisely what was happening at the day of Pentecost.

The church was being born, the church era was being inaugurated, was being commenced by a dramatic act of God. As the Holy Spirit had moved upon the life of the Lord Jesus Christ at his baptism in Jordan, and as there had been the symbolic filling of the Spirit as the dove descended upon the Lord Jesus Christ, so the era of the church is inaugurated by this phenomena. And one of the phenomena, I say, was the wind that filled the whole place.

A veritable tornado, a spiritual hurricane. But why the wind? What's the symbolism there? What are we to gather from the fact that the wind filled the house? Well, is not a wind a sign of force? And this was forceful, rushing, mighty wind. That's what we're told in description of what happened.

A wind, I say, is a very forceful thing. On the natural level, a man is vulnerable to the wind, is he not? You think through what happened at Darwin in northern Australia, wasn't it about Christmas time when the whole of one city was devastated by the wind? Again, I'm speaking on the natural level. Well, here is God's Holy Spirit inaugurating the church era and coming in the form of a mighty rushing wind, a wind that stands for force.

And it was force that the disciples needed. Forcefulness that would transform the cringing Peter who's stricken with fear when he hears a servant girl suggest that he had been associating with Jesus. Peter needs force injecting into his life.

Thomas, who has doubted the Lord Jesus on several occasions, needs those doubts completely annihilating by the power of the Holy Spirit resting upon him. He needs force. And so the forcefulness of the Holy Spirit creates a forceful community.

The church of Jesus Christ in embryo on the day of Pentecost receiving force, which will cause them to take the message of the evangel throughout Palestine and ultimately to the furthermost parts of the then known world. The wind, I say, speaks of force. You ask the housewife as to the benefits of knowing how to use the natural wind for her own advantage on washing day.

Does she not put the line out so that the wind will blow her clothes and dry them? Does not the skillful sailor set the sails of his yacht so that the wind can come along and propel his yacht across the waters? And were not the disciples in those ten days of united intercession before the throne of grace setting their sails, so to speak, so that when that rushing mighty wind came they would have the force that would take them across the seas of life, propelling them, giving them an ability to declare the unsearchable riches of Christ throughout the then known world. The Spirit came as a wind, speaking of his forcefulness. But then the Spirit came as a wind because the wind imparts life.

Pardon the technical reasoning just for a moment, but it's necessary for you to understand the significance of the symbolism. The words spirit and breath in the Hebrew are exactly the same. The words spirit and breath are the same.

Why do I make that observation? Well, for this reason, way back in the beginnings of the Bible, we read this of God, that God creates man in his own image, and he breathes into man the breath of lives, and man becomes a living soul. God breathes and life results. You get the same sort of teaching in the prophecy of Ezekiel.

You remember how the prophet is carried away by the Spirit into the valley of death, the valley of dry bones. And he receives certain instructions at the hand of God. These decaying remnants of what was once a mighty army are to be revitalized.

They are to know a resurrection. How does the resurrection come about? Well, Ezekiel receives this instruction. Prophesy unto the wind, prophesy, son of man, and say to the wind, thus saith the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain that they may live.

And the next verse tells us, so I prophesied, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet. The breath came, the wind came, and they lived. The Spirit comes as a wind because it is the Spirit who imparts life, and life was needed at Pentecost.

A church will be born, not something that is a dead, lifeless body, but a living organism, part of the body of Christ on earth. That body needs power, that body needs life. And so God the Holy Spirit moves in upon these 120, and a church is born, a living force, a life force in our world today.

So the wind of the Spirit suggests, I say, force and life. But let's move on because another phenomena that occurred on the day of Pentecost was the fire that appeared. Look at the third verse, and there appeared unto them, the disciples, the 120, cloven tongs like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them.

Now why fire? What does the symbolism here represent? Well, my answer is twofold. It represents the presence of God and the purity of God. In the Old Testament, references abound that shows that fire stands for God's presence.

God is a God of fire. Our God is a consuming fire. When God manifests himself to Moses, for instance, in the backwoods of Midian, when Moses was looking after his father-in-law's sheep, it was through the fire.

Here is a bush that suddenly starts to burn. This acacia bush that ignites suddenly, nothing remarkable in that. It happens, so I'm told, on many occasions out in the Far East as the sun beams down its hot rays upon the countryside, but there's something remarkable about this bush.

It burns and yet it's not consumed. Here is a theophany, an appearance of God. God by fire reveals himself to Moses and calls him and commissions him and empowers him in a ministry that will take him to Egypt and eventually back to the promised land.

God revealing himself through fire and later on in the same locality, Moses will have a similar experience, only this time the children of Israel will be with him. Moses is up on the top of Sinai receiving the law of God. How does God manifest himself on Sinai? Why are the Hebrews afraid as they are in the mountain, in the valley down by the mountain itself? Because God has taken possession of Sinai and it's become a holy mount and from that mount belches the fire of God's glory.

Fire, I say, throughout the Old Testament symbolizes God. Take another vision of Ezekiel, I've not time to develop the thought. Ezekiel chapter one, that remarkable, extraordinary, almost inexplicable vision that he has of God and his glory.

And you read of the fire again and again and again. Speaking of God's presence. Now what does the church need? What does the church of Jesus Christ need on this earth? It needs the presence of God with her.

Unless she has the presence of God, she is not a church. She cannot be a living organism. She cannot represent God to men and women.

So God comes in fire on the day of Pentecost, the fire indicating his presence that throughout the church age he will be with the disciples of Jesus. But fire, I say also, indicates the purity of God. Remember the Old Testament prophecy of the ministry of the Messiah.

He shall come as a refiner's fire. Malachi three, go on further into that chapter and you'll read of the ministry of the Messiah in terms of one who purifies, who purifies silver. And the ministry of the Holy Spirit is a continuation on earth of the ministry of the Son of God as he was speaking to the disciples during his three years of public ministry.

What does the Holy Spirit do within the life of a man? It purifies. You watch a craftsman as he's dealing with silver, puts it in the hottest part of the flame and the silver becomes molten and all its impurities come to the surface and the impurities are skimmed away. And again and again the craftsman will work upon his silver until he's finished with a perfect ornament or ring or whatever it is he's making, so perfect that he can see the reflection of his own face in it.

And I read, and that was the reason why we took together two verses from 2 Corinthians, what was it, chapter three or chapter four earlier on, I read that when the Spirit of God works upon a man, when the impurities are got out of his system, within that man you can see a veritable reflection of Jesus Christ for we're changed from glory into glory, Christ being perfectly formed within our hearts. This is the objective of the ministry of the Spirit in your life and in my life. Do we not call him the Holy Spirit and does not the adjective pronounce upon the work that he is achieving? I know there are those, and I cannot follow their theology, who make a distinction between the work of the Spirit in empowering a man and the work of the Spirit in purifying a man.

To me both these works coalesce. The man who is empowered by the Spirit is the man who is purified by the Spirit. And if there needs to be a return to any particular note concerning the adoption of the Spirit in these days, it is a note of holiness.

For the man who is Spirit-possessed, possessed by the Spirit of God, is essentially a holy man, one who is being purified day by day by the refining fires of God's Spirit, if you'll allow the expression, being polished up so that Jesus can be reflected in the life of the recipient. So here was another of the phenomena of the day of Pentecost, the fire, the clove and tongs of fire that came into the room and separated and divided so that they rested upon the heads of each of the 120 or more disciples. But then the third phenomena, the third phenomenon was tongs and look at the fourth verse and you read of this, they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongs as the Spirit gave them utterance.

We're not here speaking of tongs of fire, we're speaking of tongs of languages, of an ability to speak, to use the organs of the mouth. And let me say this, that when you approach the fourth verse, as indeed is the case with the first three verses, you're on holy ground. And what is more, in these days, in 1975, you're on controversial ground.

Remember you're reading God's Word and when the subject arouses controversy and strife, it's well to ask God for a double dose of humility and perhaps to pray the prayer that is attributed to Oliver Cromwell when he was speaking of one of his colleagues and he said, I beseech you in the bowels of Christ, consider that you might be wrong. Those of us who have our own presuppositions, who hold unflinching opinions, would do well to remember Cromwell's comment. Well, this is not an occasion, alas, in the pulpit this morning to deal in any depth with this business, this controversial business of speaking in tongs, but there are certain observations that I must make from my passage.

And I'm not balking at the thought of bringing an address or a series of addresses on speaking in tongs to you, but this morning does not give me the opportunity to develop the theme. But one or two observations perforce I must make and they are these, that the tongs that were manifested on the day of Pentecost were given by God the Holy Spirit so that the recipients could worship God. There is one interpretation of this passage of scripture which you can dispense with immediately.

It was an old-fashioned one, a convenient one, an unbiblical one, and an unhelpful one. And that is that the tongs were given so that the disciples could go throughout the world and preach to men and women in their native language. The disciples had not had to learn that language in the normal way in which you and I learn a language.

Well, there is no justification for that proposition from this scripture at all. No, these men were given an ability to praise God, to praise God in recognizable earthly languages, recognizable on the part of the pilgrims who'd come to Jerusalem, who did not live in Palestine, but were Jewish pilgrims there because it was the day of Pentecost. They come from all over the world and they said as they listened to what the disciples were doing, that in the twelfth verse, in the eleventh verse rather, we do hear them speak in our own tongues, in our own languages, the wonderful works of God.

These men were not preaching, they were praising. They were praising God in languages that they had not learned. This was an extraordinary thing, a phenomenal thing.

We have no justification for saying that this, in its precise fashion, was repeated in the rest of the Acts of the Apostles, but it is important to realize that these men were given an ability to speak in known earthly languages, and that ability was so that they could praise God and other people recognized what they were about. But then there's another observation that I would deduce from this, and it is that this ability to speak in other languages on the day of Pentecost underscored the promise of the Savior to give power to the disciples. You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you.

And one of the things that follows from the day of Pentecost as you analyze the disciples is that they had a power, an amazing power, a power with words. And I'm not just speaking now of glossolalia, to give the technical term to speaking in tongues. In their natural vernacular, they had a power.

They were able to speak with a boldness that they had not known before. The Spirit comes upon Stephen and he speaks boldly. The Spirit comes upon Peter and he speaks boldly.

They have an eloquence that is not naturally theirs, and one that they did not retain all the time. But God, in a remarkable fashion, within His sovereignty, came upon these men and quickened their mental abilities and gave them a ministry whereby they spoke authoritatively and made an impact upon the people who were gathered together to hear them, receiving power. Not just power in the realm of vocabulary, but also power in the realm of occasionally within the sovereignty of God, healing men and women who were sick, showing that they had a greater power than those who were controlled by demon forces and using that power to release men and women from the grip of Satan.

All this and many more things result because of the day of Pentecost. And all this really needs developing and I must come back and spend a great deal more time upon this theme. But the principle I'm enunciating is this, that on the day of Pentecost, these men, in being able to speak in other tongues on this occasion, had underscored in their lives the promise of the Saviour who said that He would give them power, power to proclaim His word throughout the world.

And one could follow up, therefore, and make another, and this will have to be my final observation under this heading, that this ability to speak in tongues underlined their evangelistic commission. You say, what do you mean by that? Well, again, listen to the promise of the Saviour as recorded in Acts 1. What is it? Verse 8. Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Now isn't it remarkable? That on the day of Pentecost, the first crowd that is attracted to the phenomenal events that occur are representative of the world's population.

They come from all over the place, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Libya, Cyrene, Rome, from all over. And they hear, through a God-given ability on the part of the disciples, men praising God for all His goodness towards them. Is not therefore, on the day of Pentecost, underlined in the understanding of the disciples and all who read this book sensitively on occasions following Pentecost, that the Church has a divine commission to evangelize, to take the word of the Lord to men and women throughout the globe.

To realize that the Gospel is not just for the Jew, it is also for the Gentile, and the God who moved in on Pentecost, granting power to His Church, to the early disciples, is the God who still grants power and amazing abilities, even in the 20th century. We read in Scripture of our Lord Jesus Christ that when He ascended up into heaven, He gave gifts unto men. It used to be the practice of a Roman general, after he'd done a particularly brilliant stint of service on the frontiers of the empire, to come back to Rome.

And there the streets would be thronged with crowds who would be singing the praises of their noble hero, and the general eventually would go to the center of Rome itself and receive the accolade of the emperor. And as he was moving towards the emperor, do you know what the general would do? He'd take some of the monies, some of the booty that he had acquired in his military conquests, and he'd throw them out so that the people who were standing by would benefit by his conquests. Now listen, here is King Jesus ascending into heaven, going back to the Father.

Here are men and women commissioned to take the word of the evangel throughout the known world. What does the Lord do? He gives gifts unto men. He goes into heaven to receive the accolade of the celestial host, but as He does so, He throws down the gifts, the gift of His blessed Holy Spirit, a gift for the 120 on the day of Pentecost, aye, my friend, but a gift for you and for me and for the whole of His church down history in the present time and well into the future until that moment when our Lord Jesus Christ returns to establish His kingdom.

Fire, wind, pongs, the phenomena of the coming of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost indicating that God is with His people. May we know God with us here in the tabernacle in great power in these days. Amen.

Our Father, we ask of You continually that we shall have a spirit of humility to be able to learn from Your Word, to open our hearts more and more to the fullness of Your Spirit, to know His power, His enabling, His purifying influence, so that we shall be made more and more like unto the image of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we thank You for our time of study and worship in Your presence during this last hour or so. For those who remain, be with us as we come around the table of our Lord.

And for those who have to go at this point, may they know the blessing of the Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit now and always. Amen.