Pentecost: Power to Speak the Gospel
Acts 2:1-13
 

What 4 things were foundational to the witness of the early church?
Christ’s Mandate; Christ’s Ascension; Christ’s Apostles; Christ’s Spirit.


What was Pentecost in the Older Covenant? (Lev 23:15-21;Deut 16:9-12) The giving of the Law at Mt Sinai


What were the signs of the Spirit’s coming?
Wind, sound of wind (John 3:8: Ezek 37:9-10)
Fire (Ex 2:2; 13:21; 24:17; 40:38; Matt 3:11)
Presence of God (Burning bush, pillar of fire, fire over the tent of meeting,
Utterance: Special ability to speak
Numbers 11:26-29; 1 Samuel 10:6-12) 
Upon whom did the Spirit descend?
Are the tongues in a known language?
What were the disciples speaking?


Baptism of the Spirit and Filled with the Spirit
Not received at confirmation, Catholics
Not a second blessing experience, Wesleyans.
Not known by the speaking in tongues, Pentecostals
It is a once for all gift to the church.
 
Filled with the Spirit can happen again.
We are to seek for it, pray for it. (Acts 4:8,31; 13:9,52; Eph.5:18)


Who were the people there?
From every nation under heaven
How is Pentecost a Reversal of Babel?
 
What was the immediate reaction to Pentecost?
             
What 4 things were foundational to the witness of the current church? (Do we have them?)



THE SOURCE AND COURSE OF TEMPTATION

We must never say, “God is tempting me.” God’s nature makes that a moral impossibility. The source of our sin is our “own evil desire” (James 1:14). Temptations would not be tempting if it were not for our own evil desires. We must never say, “The Devil made me do it” or “My friends made me do it” or “Circumstances made me do it” or “God made me do it.” We are responsible

Once the hook is in, there is a dreaded three-generational course: evil desire – sin – death (James 1:15). But the cycle can be broken through solidarity with, and submission to, the second Adam, the Lord Jesus Christ. “For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:19). Jesus is the source of victory over sin and temptation! And Jesus is the course of a life which triumphs over temptation: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20).

This is the glory of the gospel. It breaks the power of sin and halts its inevitable train. If you are in the grip of temptation, take the eternally healthy step of admitting that you are to blame and no one else. Then, having confessed your responsibility fully to God, thank him for forgiveness and appropriate to yourself the life-giving solidarity you have in Christ. – R. Kent Hughes