Bible Guys Classics: Acts 2

Well, if people who know different languages impress you, there is nothing more impressive than this next story. So here's Chris and I'm Jeff, and we are the Daily Bobb guys. Okay, so today we are doing something fun, I think. Okay, So here's what I've done about fun. Well, you have no idea what I'm about to do, no idea? Okay, here it is. I've pulled up a list on my phone that has the top ten most common fears, and I want you to try to name off the top of your head as many as you think are on this top ten list, on this one on the top ten. These are the top ten of the world. Public speaking. Oh, hang on, I guess I should have studied these first, I guess. Yes, public speaking is up there. Yes, spiders. Spiders is actually number one. Sneaks snakes is number three, public speaking was number two. By the way, Okay, oh, signailed one, two and three. Yes, what more do you need from me, dude? Well, come on heights, Yes that's number four. Speed speed yeah nay. Drowning Nope, no, like water. There's no water thing in there. No, not not well, yes, but not in the top ten. Okay, do you want me just to listen to the rest. I gave you the top four. Okay, I feel like that should count it for. Some crowded spaces or small spaces, believe it or not. It says the fear of thunder and lightning. Wow, and then the fear the top ten. Yes, who's writing this? I don't know. It's called I don't want I don't I don't want to. I don't want to even give the website. But it's just it's it is a website because I. Don't want to, you know, because everything on the internet is true. Yes, fear of germs. And by the way, this one here, there's a note that it has risen fear. Of germs moving up. It's it has moved up into the top ten. Okay, well you think about that right, yeah. So and then the fear of being alone? Oh okay, isn't that terrible? Yeah, so here's my next question for you real quick. Yeah, thanks for investing us all. Yeah, it's not depressing now. Everybody's waking up. They're just getting them the morning they listen to the podcast, going oh good, this is gonna help me today. Oh, that reminds me. I'm terrified of germs. Well, you know what about people who listen at. Night for the go to bed, Go to bed fighters? All right, okay, so here's so here's a question. I've never listened to this again. Of the fears that we mentioned, which one are you most afraid of? Oh? Man, I just need to pick one. I guess I think the one. So I'm not afraid of heights, But the one that I'd become most cautious about is the higher I go. So I just crossed the bridge, a hanging bridge in Nepal. Yeah, it's a mile long, one of those like Indiana Jones hanging ridges. Oh yeah, and it shook like that. Yeah, and I'm up about I don't know, two hundred feet and uh. Aster of fact, we had a seven hundred foot elevation game to get up and go across this bridge. We were going to this giant idol of Shiva, and it was that that turns my stomach right, So I like it. So I like scary things. Yeah me too, So I like it. But I found myself hanging on a little tighter thing. So probably heights. Out of all those that we mentioned, heights is the one that causes me to pause the moment. Have you ever jumped out of a plane. No, I haven't. I wanted to my son. Our plan always was when he turned eighteen, We're gonna mp out of a plane. And then the church has a key man policy on me, and it specifically says I can't jump out of planes or I avoid the policy. Oh, she can't do anything like that, so. I couldn't do it. Yeah, yeah, I wanted to. Pretty soon, I hope that key man policy goes away and then I can do it. Well, nobody cares about me enough, so I jumped out of a plane, so I'm not important enough to have a policy. Yeah. Yeah, Well it's all the church people are just hoping someday Jeff cashes out so that they can, you know, get several million dollars and pay off the building. There you go, there's going to be a day when I'm worth more dead than alive to the elders the here Itage Church. That that's gonna happen, but not today, hopefully not today. So anyways, Hey, that's that was a cool one, man. Yeahs ten reasons why things that people are afraid of. So one of the best things you can do is face your fears. Yes, honestly, and just pushed through it. Face your fears. I see what you did there, You turned it. Yeah, that's right, because most of the time our fears are are somewhat unreasonable. There there's a little bit of danger, but the probability of this actually being the thing that gets you is very, very small. So learning to face them, I think, is one of the best things you can do. And the second best thing you can do is google Bob Newhart Stop It. Yeah. Bob Newhart is a counselor. He plays a counselor in this bit. Yeah yeah, and it's and it's called stop It. And that's all I'm going to say. And it is one of the funniest counseling bits I have ever seen him entire life. If you ever decide you want to come and counsel with either me or Chris, you should watch that video clip first and just realize that's essentially what you're gonna get from it, right, stop it? So Okay, So we are continuing in this series on the Book of Acts, and I love the Book of Acts, and it just revs up. It takes a little while and then it starts revving up and going faster and faster with the spread of the Gospel. So Jesus has resurrected, and we read that in the end of Book of Matthew he gives them the great commission go make disciples. He tells them, I'm going to fill you with the Holy Spirit, and then you're going to go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the world. And then they pray because they're not sure what's suposed to happen. Next they go in the upper room. Every problems of her problem they're praying. And then now this is the result of this a few days later. So all these first three days we've read are just a few days apart. Right, So here we go. We're gonna read the first like sixteen verses, and then we're going to jump to the end of the chapter. Because Peter preaches a long message. He's long winded, like you are, Chris. So on the day of Pentecost, all the believers were meeting together in one place. Suddenly there was a sound from heaven like the roaring of a mighty windstorm, and it filled the house where they were sitting. Then what looked like flames or tongues of fire appeared and settled on each of them, and everyone present was filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking in other languages as the Holy Spirit gave them this ability. At that time, there were devout Jews from every nation living in Jerusalem. When they heard the loud noise, everyone came running, and they were bewildered to hear their own languages being spoken by the believers. They were completely amazed. How can this be, they exclaimed, These people are all from Galilee, and yet we hear them speaking in our own native languages. Here we are Parthians, Medes, Elamites, people from Mesopotamia, Judea, Capaducia, Pontius, the province of Asia, Phrygia, Pamphilia, Egypt, and the areas of Libya around Syene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts to Judaism, Cretans and Arabs, and we all hear these people speaking in our own languages about the wonderful things God has done. And they stood there amazed and perplexed. What can this mean? They asked each other, But others in the crowd ridiculed them, saying they're just drunk, that's all. Then Peter stepped forward with the eleven other apostles and shouted to the crowd, listen carefully, all of you, fellow Jews and residence of Jerusalem. Make no mistake about this. These people are not drunk, as some of you are, assuming nine o'clock in the morning is much too early for that. Know what you see was predicted long ago by the prophet Joel. Then he preaches this whole message about how God had promised the Holy Spirit would come. Then he talked about Jesus dying and resurrecting, and then it comes down to in verse thirty six. So let everyone in Israel know for certain that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, to be both Lord and Messiah. Peter's words pierced their hearts, and they said to him and to the other apostles, brothers, what should we do? And Peter replied, each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and then you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away, all who've been called by the Lord our God. Then Peter continued to preach for a long time, strongly urging all his listeners save yourselves from this crooked generation. And those who believed what Peter said were baptized and added to the church that day, about three thousand in all. And then here's the descriptor of their very first church, which I love. I want to be just like this as a church. All the believers devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to fellowship, and to sharing and meals, including the Lord's Supper, and to prayer. A deep sense of awe came over all of them, and the apostles performed many miraculous signs and wonders, and all the believers met together in one place and shared everything they had. They sold their property and possessions and shared the money with those in need. They worshiped together at the temple. Each day they met in homes for the Lord's Supper, shared their meals with great joy and generosity, all the while praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people. And each day the Lord added to their fellowship those who were being saved. Wow, yeah, definitely, Well that's the goal. Well, it's it's definitely the mentality, the sentiment, right, the attitude I'm not sure about selling everything I have and then throwing it all into the middle. Well, it's because you're not a good Christian you love things rather than. So all the multi millionaires so have they throw in the middle. It's not a command, no, I know, it's just that they loved each other so much that they were willing. To Yeah, I know, yeah, so yeah, but but yeah. They're a little bit of a legalist, and so when you read the Bible, you tend to read every word as a command to you rather than no. And this is what happens. When the spirit really impacts me by the way he's making my spirit comes on you, then you probably will. But okay, anybody who knows me knows I'm the opposite of a legalist for certain. But yeah, I love the fact that people loved each other so much that they took care of each other. And so the sentiment behind that is is that if somebody is in the church and they're hurting, that we should be able to be so close and so tight knit and and you know, be a part of their lives in such a way to where we help them. Right, and there are always people in a church who's hurting. Yeah, right, so it would be I think the point here is that they were sacrificial right right there. They were willing to sacrifice for their brothers and sisters in Christ. That was it. And by the way, it's three thousand of them at that point, right right. It was just this overwhelming thing. The other part of it was immediately when you converted to this because Christianity was just a sacked. It was a for most people, they thought it as a cult, and so they lost their homes a lot of times, they'd lose their jobs, they'd lose a lot of their their their ability to make money, income, and so there's this kind of a crisis that's happening right there. And you know, those who had resources were willing to sacrifice the resources for those who were losing resources because of the kingdom. Yeah. Yeah, So let's go back to the very beginning where it says the tongues of fire came down, So obviously there is experience was unlike ours today. They had this quite literal and physical experience of visually seeing flames come down and set upon each person, and they experience this very unique introduction in their lives by hearing other languages. So imagine if I'm speaking a language and then people have five different languages walking in. All five of those people here hear me in their own native tongue. That is what it's describing. And it is just an unbelievable miracle, is what it is. And so it's just like God to you know, introduce the Holy Spirit with this unbelievable, unexplainable, miraculous experience where where those who are you know, in act chapter two are not going to doubt it anymore, right like, because after all, you know, we receive the Holy Spirit and it may take us a little time to realize, Wow, this is beyond coincidence. You know, this is this is God working in my life. I sense, I experience, I feel the power of God in me. It made up. But they needed convinced because they didn't have any history of the Holy Spirit, right right, So God introduces the Holy Spirit to this group of people and to us with this unbelievable, miraculous, you know, out of this world kind of experience. Well, it's no secret I love the Life application study Bible. If you don't have one, get one. You can get them on an Amazon for like thirty dollars or thirty five dollars in hardback, and I just love it. I have several of them. But the notes here, there's two notes for verses three and four. It says this was a fulfillment talking about the fire, the earthquake, all that kind of stuff. This was a fulfillment of John the Baptist words about the Holy spirits baptizing with fire, and of the prophet Joel's words about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. So this moment was a fulfillment of prophecy. Right. It wasn't a declaration that this is the way it has to happen all the time. This is what was prophesied was going to happen the first time, right, Right, And then it says why tongues of fire. Fire symbolizes God's purifying presence, which burns away the undesirable elements of our lives and sets our hearts aflame to ignite the lives of others. Right. And then at Pentecost, God confirmed the validity or Holy Spirit's ministry by sending fire, just like he sent fire for Elijah, just on Mount Carmel, just like he sent fire with Moses, with the Ten commandments, all these kinds of things. And then the next note says, God made his presence known to this group of believers in a spectacular way, roaring wind, fire, and his Holy Spirit. Would you like God to reveal himself to you in such recognizable ways. He may do so, but be wary of forcing your expectations on God. And then it talks about Elijah also needed a message from God in One Kings chapter nineteen. First came to great wind, then an earthquake, and finally a fire. But in that instance, God's message came in a gentle whisper. So God may use dramatic methods to work in your life, or he may speak in gentle whispers. Wait patiently and always listen. So God's not bound by a circumstance, or we can't require him to do a thing or another thing. God most of the time speaks in gentle whispers. Sometimes he does something dramatic, but most of the time it's that gentle whisper. Yeah, so he says and psalms, be still and know that I'm got That's great. So that's really what the what is the what happened, and it's and it was prophesied. The why did God choose to do something like this? I find it very interesting the notes in chapter two, verses nine through eleven in my study Bible as well, and it says, why were all these places mentioned? You know, all the different lands, right, there's a list of many lands from which the Jews had come to the festival in Jerusalem. These Jews were not from Palestine because their ancestors had been dispersed to other parts of the world to the captivities and persecutions, and very likely some Jews, some of the Jews who responded to Peter's message returned to their homelands with God's good news of salvation. And here's sort of the point. It says, thus God prepared the way for the the spread of the good news. And as you read the Book of Acts, you will see how that way was often prepared for Paul and other messengers by people who had become believers at Pentecost. So think about this, So the world, you know, Jesus came at the perfect time. Jesus came at the time you know. In fact, the Book of Glatian says when such a time had come right. It said when the perfect when the perfect time had come. You know, I forget the King James phrase that I'm thinking of, but anyway, but that's what it means. It means when the perfect time had come, Jesus came into the world. God sent his son. So for all the times you know in past history, you know in future history, God chose for Jesus to come down. And the world was perfectly prepared for the Gospel to spread. Number one, we know that Romans had developed a system where they conquered the world, and even the roads that led and united the different cities. It was perfectly a positioned for the Gospel to have spread easily. Not only that that was a fairly new technology. Yes, those well built roads, Yes, was kind of a new thing. Yeah. And then also Greek. Everybody spoke the Greek. There was one language. It was the business language, which means that everybody could talk with everybody of a different language because they all knew Greek. Well, here's sort of what this passage is saying. It's saying those who were present at the festival heard everything in their native language, and they would have gone home. And it was for the purpose of spreading the Gospel and spreading the news of this Christian movement that God is starting. So think about what better way to kickstart, you know, the spreading of the news than to have this great experience. And by the way, it's in everybody's language, which says everybody understands. It's so brilliant. God is so strategic. Sometimes we miss out on how God is playing. We're in life, we're playing checkers. You know what God should do? He should do this, he should do that. And God's always playing like multi level chests, right right, like from Star Trek. Yeah, multi level Chess. I am so pleased that you just throughout that reference. Yeah, it warms my heart that you talked to Trachy. Yeah, a little bit wife is too. That's great. But so in this it was incredibly strategic that Jesus died at Passover, probably because of the prophecies of it, but it also really highlights for those Jews that were looking for the answer. Jesus is the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, so that was important. Forty days later is the Pentecost, the Feast of Pentecost, and that's another kind of big festival. So it wasn't uncommon in those days that people would make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Jews that were dispersed all around the world make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem and stay from Passover to Pentecost right during that time. So all of the word about Jesus dying in this resurrection, the rumors are spreading, all this stuff is happening, and then the Holy Spirit comes only forty days later. You gotta imagine if it take you a month and a half or two months to get there. You know, they're not flying on planes, so they're riding in boats and riding on donkeys and walking, so take a couple months to get there. You'd stay a month or two and then take another month to go home. So these people are from all around the world, and God chose then on that day to be able to spread the gospel through the whole almost the entire Roman Empire at the time, all on this one day, because they're all the step up and preach the gospel. So this is the first time that the idea of tongues is introduced in the Bible. And this version of tongues is very clearly the supernatural ability to communicate the Gospel in known languages, even though it's said here these people are just Galileans. They thought of Galileans as being the most uneducated people in Israel. Right, They just the blue collar work right. Right, Well, they're thinking of it as the hillbilities of Israel. Right. That's kind of the how they treated them. It's how they treated Peter. It's how they later on are going to treat Peter and John later as you guys are unlearned men from Galilee. What in the world? And here they are again, they're amazed. These guys aren't educated. They didn't go out and learn all these languages, but they're speaking. And so it's interesting they while almost everybody could have done business in Greek, that wasn't their heart language. Their heart language was Parthian or Mead or Elamite or right that. So God made sure that with this gospel, the Gospel was not presented on a business level. It was presented in a heart language kind of way. And that's why he decided to have them all be able to speak this way. So that's really powerful. And then after Peter gets up and preaches, it just rocks their world. He says, you need to repent of your sins, turn to Christ, be baptized, and they do three thousand people. It goes from one hundred and twenty to three thousand, just like that. And then you see this incredible picture of the local church where they're sharing what they have. They're praying together, they're sharing meals together, they're worshiping together, they're sharing the Gospel together. And I love in verse forty seven says all while praising God and enjoying the good will of all the people. I want to ask our listeners today, how hard do you work for the good will of the people in your life as opposed to typing in all caps on social media or whatever. Right? And then each day the Lord added to their fellowship. Those were being saved, so they weren't trying to figure out how to grow their church. They were just being the church and God did the growing. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, By the way, I have to I can't zoom past this. Growing up in the bar business, my family owned a bar. This is the verse where it tells us, if you're wondering when is too early to get drunk? Nine am is definitely too early, because he says he's number one, they're not drunk, and number number two it's also nine in the morning. That's right, So I can't I got to mention that that's right, can't. Well, back then too, their their their wine wasn't as powerful as ours. Right, So so natural fermentation doesn't go to the level of alcohol that that we currently do, or we enhance our fermentation process. The drink a lot of So buddy, you'd have to be drinking a lot to be drunk down black. It's like those you know whatever. So you know, somebody just took notes, Oh, I shouldn't be drunk at nine in the morning. Great, well not at all. Well, I'll tell you what. In the end, we see that the churches, you know, it's moving forward. The gospel is being spread. People are being added to the church every day, and more importantly, the church is being the church. Just like you said. They weren't trying to you know, here's our massive goal. No, they were just being the church with each other. And you know what, here's a message that's compelling to people. Yes, And one of the reasons why the church grows is because it's attractive. So the church is supposed to be attractive. It's supposed to be irresistible. And when the church is functioning on all cylinders, When it's operating on all cylinders, it's supposed to be the closest thing to Heaven this side of eternity. And the church is run by imperfect people. We have bad church experiences, but there are so many times where the church functions in a sweet spot. And there's so many times where when you get a dose of the good. You know, it's like eating chicken. My professor used to tell us you spit out the bones, right, you eat the chicken. And he used to say, but oh that chicken right. He used to see it all the time. Eli harre you. He's passed now, so's it. But I know we're coming up on the at the end of our session here, so any last sentence. Yeah, I just want to remind people sign up at the Bible Guys dot com and we'll send you a link every day for the thing. Make sure that if you're wanting to watch on YouTube, that you go to the Daily Bible Guys on YouTube and subscribe all those things and help us, help us get the word out. Let everybody else know share, share these things with your friends and family, on your social media and through email, and what we think we can help a lot of people and learn more about what the Bible has to say. Yeah, and if you ever want to email us directly, it's just info at the Bible guys dot com. That's right, So we'll see you tomorrow on the Bible Guys