Jonesboro Heights Baptist Church

Sanford, North Carolina

Dr. Mark E. Gaskins
Senior Pastor
The Lord’s Day, Pentecost
June 12, 2011
www.jhbc.org © 2011

“I Will Pour Out My Spirit”

Acts 2:1-21

Today is Pentecost Sunday! In the Christian Year, Pentecost is the seventh Sunday following
Easter Sunday, and brings the season of Eastertide to a close. In Eastertide, the focus is on the
resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ. The focus of Pentecost is on how God poured out His
Holy Spirit on the church. So even though we as Baptists have not given Pentecost much
attention until recent decades, it’s really the third greatest day on the Christian calendar,
alongside Christmas and Easter.
Now traditionally, Pentecost was known to the Jews as the “Feast of Weeks.” The Old
Testament Law prescribed three major Jewish festivals that were to be held each year. Pentecost
was usually the best attended of the three. Since it took place in the late spring, it was the best
time of the year to travel, especially by sea.
Pentecost was a joyous celebration of the barley wheat harvest. It recognized that the harvest
was a gift from God. Seven weeks earlier during the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which began
with Passover, a priest had stood before the altar in the temple’s Holy Place with a fistful of
barley wheat, waving it before God as an offering to Him. This sheaf of barley wheat
represented the firstfruits of the harvest, and was offered to God before the harvest began. Then
fifty days later, after ample time for the harvest, came the Feast of Weeks—“Pentecost” (from
the Greek for “fifty”). It was a time to praise God for his gracious provision for his people.
The feasts were always joyous, festive celebrations, all of them, because they celebrated
God’s mighty acts on behalf of his people. Passover, Pentecost, the Feast of Tabernacles, the
Feast of Lights (Hanukkah)—all these festivals were times of deep yearnings and stirred
expectations about the coming of the Messiah, God’s anointed one.
Little did they know that day that this Pentecost would be far different than any they’d ever
experienced before!

Waiting for the Father’s promise . . .

When John the Baptist was preaching in the Judean wilderness near the Jordan River before
Jesus began his public ministry, he declared to those who came to listen to him:

“I baptize you with water. But one who is

more powerful than I will come, the straps
of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie.
He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit
 and fire” (Luke 3:16).1

After Jesus had been crucified and raised from the dead, he spent about 40 days with his
followers, demonstrating the reality of his resurrection and giving them further instructions.
In Acts 1, Luke tells us about Jesus’ last appearance to his disciples before he ascended to the
Father. Luke reminds us that on an earlier occasion “while he was eating with them,” Jesus had
commanded them:

“Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift

my Father promised, which you have heard
me speak about. For John baptized with water,
but in a few days you will be baptized with
the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:4-5).

Jesus had made it clear that the Father would send the Holy Spirit as the fulfillment of his
promise. And now, for ten days, Jesus’ followers (a group of about 120 people at this point) had
been together, getting things in order and spending time—a lot of time—in prayer. Since Judas
Iscariot had abdicated his role as an apostle when he betrayed Jesus, the leaders chose Matthias
by casting lots to become the twelfth apostle. And they kept praying. And they kept waiting.
And then the Day of Pentecost came.

Pouring out the Spirit . . .

That Pentecost seemed ordinary enough as it started out. As usual, there were Jews from all
over the Greco-Roman world there for the feast, as well as some who had moved to Jerusalem to
live permanently.
And then it happened. As the followers of Jesus were all gathered together in one place, they
heard a sound like the blowing of a mighty violent wind filling the house they were in. Then
they saw what looked like tongues made of fire that separated from each other, then came to rest
on each of them. They were all “filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues
(or languages) as the Spirit enabled them” (Acts 2:4).
Wind . . . fire . . . power . . . It’s interesting that in both Hebrew and Greek, one word is used
for wind, breath, and spirit. Fire is often associated in the Old Testament with God’s appearance.
There are all kinds of Old Testament echoes and images in this story.
What Jesus’ followers heard and saw and experienced all showed them that God was up to
something big here! God was doing something new—he was pouring out his Spirit on his
people!
As he did, his people were empowered and enabled by the Spirit to proclaim the gospel to the
multitudes that came together in bewilderment to listen to them speaking. You see, God had
gotten their attention.
The way Luke lists the homelands of those who were there is intended to imply that there
were people from all over the Roman world there that day. Most, if not all of them, probably
knew the Greek language. After all, it was the language of business and commerce, sort of like
English today. Some of them may even have known some Aramaic from attending synagogue.
Those from Palestine certainly did, since it was their mother tongue.

1
Scripture quotations in this sermon are taken from the New International Version 2011.

2
 But Greek wasn’t what the people there that day were hearing.
By the power of the Holy Spirit, those followers of Jesus were preaching the gospel in other
languages, so that everybody there that day was hearing it in their native language and dialect—
the language they spoke in their homes, their heart language. And they were amazed, since they
realized that those speaking were Galileans, who were not known for their linguistic skills.
Skeptics tried to discredit them by accusing them of being drunk. But Peter raised his voice
and addressed them all, saying that they certainly weren’t drunk, since it was only 9:00 A.M.
Then he pointed to what Joel the prophet had said about how God promised to pour out his Spirit
on all people in the last days, so that their sons and daughters and God’s servants (male and
female) would prophesy, and young men would see visions and old men would dream dreams.
God would show wonders in heaven and signs on the earth, and everyone who would call on the
name of the Lord would be saved.
Peter then went on to preach about Jesus, his life, his crucifixion and resurrection, and how
God had made him both Lord and Messiah. He called on the people to repent and put their faith
in Jesus and be baptized, with the promise that they too would receive the Holy Spirit. And that
day, about 3,000 people believed and were baptized!
Peter said that what was happening that day was a fulfillment of the word of the Lord—both
Joel’s prophecy and Jesus’ promise! Honoring his promise through Jesus and Scripture, God
poured out his Spirit on the church at Pentecost. And look what happened when he did! The
church was empowered for mission and multitudes turned to Christ!

Fresh outpourings . . .
The presence and power of the Spirit do make all the difference, you know. The old hymn
Brethren, We Have Met to Worship gets it right when it says:

All is vain unless the Spirit

Of the Holy One comes down.2

The Father’s promise of the Spirit was a promise of his power—not our power, but God’s
power, not for our purposes, but for his purposes through us!
There’s a sense in which, as one of my teachers, Dr. Malcolm Tolbert, told us in a New
Testament class, what happened at Pentecost was “an unrepeatable act of salvation history.” In
other words, it initiated a new phase in how God was working in the world.
At the same time, as another of my teachers, Dr. Charles Talbert, puts it, “In Acts the
outpouring of the Holy Spirit is depicted as repeatable in the life of the church (e.g., 4:31; 8:17;
10:1 – 11:18; 19:1-6).”3
Throughout the history of the church, there have been these times of fresh outpourings of the
Holy Spirit. Martyn Lloyd-Jones served as pastor of Westminster Chapel in London during the
middle third of the twentieth century. In a sermon, “What Is Revival?”4 he said:

So then, what is it that happens? The best way of answering that question is to say that it
is in a sense a repetition of the day of Pentecost. It is something happening to the Church,

2
Words by George Atkins, The Baptist Hymnal (Nashville: Convention Press, 1991), Hymn 379.
3
Charles H. Talbert, Reading Acts: A Literary and Theological Commentary on the Acts of the Apostles (New
York: Crossroad, 1997), 50.
4
http://www.sermonindex.net/modules/articles/index.php?view=article&aid=1651

3
 that inevitably and almost instinctively makes one look back and think again of what
happened on the day of Pentecost as recorded in Acts 2.
The essence of a revival is that the Holy Spirit comes down upon a number of people
together, upon a whole church, upon a number of churches, districts, or perhaps a whole
country. That is what is meant by revival. It is, if you like, a visitation of the Holy Spirit, or
another term that has often been used is this—an outpouring of the Holy Spirit . . . .
A revival is something which, when it happens, leads people to say, as the townspeople
said in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost, “What is this? What is it?” It is something that
comes like a tornado. It is almost like an overflowing tide; it is like a flood. Miraculous
things happen, things that are beyond the explanation and the wit of men.
Finally, look at it as it is described in Acts 2. Here are the apostles meeting together for
prayer in the upper room. They had been doing it for ten days. Suddenly there came a sound
from heaven, as of a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.
That is it. Not always the sound, but always the consciousness of the mighty wind of God.
The Spirit of God descends upon preacher, prayers, praying people, those meeting in
conference.
Do we know anything about that, my friends? Do we believe in God coming in and
doing things that we not only cannot do, but cannot even understand, nor control, nor
explain? Yea, I ask you, do you long to know such things? To see such things happening
again today? Are you praying for such a visitation? For, believe me, when God hears our
prayers and does this thing again, it will be such a phenomenon that not only will the Church
be astounded and amazed, but even those who are outside will be compelled to listen and to
pay attention, in a way that they are not doing at the present time, and in a way that men left
to themselves can never persuade them to do.

My brothers and sisters, is that what you long to see, for God to give us a fresh outpouring of
his Spirit?
He’s been working in our church in wonderful ways. As the old hymn Showers of Blessing5
puts it, “Mercy-drops round us are falling.”
When God pours out his Spirit, he empowers his church for mission and people come to
Christ. Just as he did with Jesus’ followers in Acts, he prepares his people for it by giving us a
burden for prayer for his work in the world, prayer that takes our situation and his promises
seriously.
Do we really want God to pour out his Spirit on us? Do we really want to see him work
among us this way?
Will we pray for it?

MEG

5
Words by Daniel W. Whittle, The Celebration Hymnal: Songs and Hymns for Worship (Word/Intergrity),
Hymn 430.