How to increase the number of CPUs in my computer? And this dramatic miracle took place, of wind, and fire, and language, and hearing, and people took notice. Yes, Peter did preach under the anointing, but the empowerment of the Spirit also brought a unity and a focus of purpose they had not known before. And every breath you take ought to be a prayer of thanks that you live and move and have your being in the Spirit of God. They were going up against a lot, just as we go up against our world today, and ourselves, and what Satan might throw at us. He enjoys hunting, travel and reading and spending time with his grandchildren. At the end of John, you remember, John says, there were so many other things that He did in his life and no doubt probably part of that 40-day period that it would take volumes to teach it, and to record it during this period. Egypt's President Nasser announced the plan for construction in 1953. The Jewish authorities of their day had a very thorough doctrinal review process and Peter's would not have passed, which is why they ran smack in trouble with the Jewish leadership from this point forward because they were applying new meaning to old Scriptures that no Jew had ever heard before. And they did, and thousands were added to the Church that day. Every minister's dream, to give one sermon and thousands of people get baptized and join the Church in one day, every minister's fantasy. I never have believed in knowledge for its own sake or art for art's sake. The second obvious change in the lives of the disciples was in their spiritual strength. In Job 33:4 Elihu speaks for all faithful Jews when he says, "The Spirit of God has made me and the breath of the Almighty gives me life." People should see God in the firstfruits. Again, nothing like this had been a part of their frame of reference before. And they're seeing that, and it's the final time. Their disbelief would extend not only to the idea that the dead could come back to life, as He did, but then they doubted the truth of these witnesses. ", A church begins to develop. The disciples were afraid of the Jewish leaders, and on the evening of that same Sunday they locked themselves in a room. I must put my hand where the spear went into his side. Trials hit us that will shake our faith, test our faith. And this small group of people who had signed on to what they thought was a remarkable, gifted rabbi, and followed Him around and soon learned that they had fallen into something quite different than anything they could have ever imagined, as they witnessed miracles of loaves and fishes, and people being brought back to life, and dramatic healings. And that is of people led by the Holy Spirit, knit together, everyone providing that which they can toward a community of faith, power, and love, sharing, looking out after one another and caring for one another. And He opened their understanding that they might comprehend the Scriptures.". They thought that the body had been ferretted away by the disciples, someone had stolen it. If we can make that decision and live with that reality that there is a God who lives, and before Him we stand every single day of our life and every major decision, every small decision of character, and the decisions that we make in the privacy of our own mind, and in our own actions that not everyone knows about, not even our mate, all are in accordance with righteousness and a desire for righteousness. We get on to verse 40, the wrap-up: "With many other words, he testified and exhorted them saying, Be saved from this perverse generation, that those who were, who gladly received his word were baptized; about 3,000 souls were added to them. Surely we have need today of men and women filled by the Spirit to expose and denounce evils in our society that are hardly blinked at any more: the exploitation of women's bodies and debasement in advertising, the unconscionable destruction of human life through abortion on demand, the maneuvers of our own country to destabilize other governments, the gross waste and gluttony of American life, the cavalier attitude to divorce and remarriage which God hates, and the multi-million dollar promotion of alcohol and cigarettes as anything less than family-destroyers and body-killers. So when I pose myself a question like, "How did believers experience the Holy Spirit before Pentecost?" Please take the Tour, see below, where you will find that in order to practice biblical hermeneutics we need a text upon which to practice the technique. Surely for a Christian the only reason to study or be artistic is for God's sake. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. In one sense, all craftsmanship and artistic ability is a gift of God, just like our breath is. There are two groups of humans: those in the flesh (born of the flesh) and those in the Spirit (born again of the Spirit). But it was a very intense period of time of Jesus appearing to them both in Galilee and Jerusalem, teaching them from the Scriptures, appearing to them in larger groups, perhaps even, more smaller groups, and in some of the ways they're talking like He did to Peter, on the Sea of Galilee, having meals with them. "And fear came upon every soul," and this was a different type of fear. LISTEN NOW. Jesus showed Himself for 40 days after the resurrection (Acts 1:3). Whoever believes in Jesus has everlasting life. It wasn't there and so a lot had happened in that 50-day period that brought them to that morning of Pentecost. Then Peter preached a sermon and said, "This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel, 'And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams'" (Acts 2:1617). A halo was seen glowing brightly above Jesus' head. Friday. But on the day when the reservoir poured through the turbines a power was unleashed that spread far beyond the few folk down river and brought possibilities they had only dreamed of. It wasn't a common manifestation of the Spirit, but it was real then and it is today. And when they saw Him they worshiped him. The disciples said to him, "Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will recover." Now Jesus had spoken of his death, but they thought that he meant taking rest in sleep. If you go back to Matthew chapter 28, chapter 28 and verse 16, let's just read a few of the accounts of that period following the resurrection, that the Gospel accounts tell us and there's more there. During the long period of construction the Nile River wasn't completely stopped. The disciples had seen Jesus reach out across ethnic and religious divides birth in His parables and in real life. He also is a residentfaculty member at the Ambassador Bible Center teaching Acts, Fundamentals of Belief and World News and Prophecy. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top, Not the answer you're looking for? Prior to Pentecost, the Apostles, though often zealous and willing to make sacrifices to follow Jesus, were also slow to understand and often confused. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And it brings it down to the end of the chapter. Though the emperor, a man named Tiberius, had been holed up on an island called Capri or Capri for a number of years in absentia, the empire was running quite well on its own. Just think, if Jews returning from God's judgment in Babylonian exile can take heart that God's Spirit will protect them, how much more fearless should we be who have the overwhelming assurance of God's love and power in Jesus' death and resurrection! As I got up this morning, prepared to come over here, go through the day, same things that will be in my mind tomorrow, and next Thursday, and a month from today. That's how we live the Word, that's how we drink in the Word, and it changes our life and it banishes the fear, gives us confidence in who we are and what we are to do. We give ourselves to that devotion, to that devoted study and the process of taking on the nature of God. It is the ideal to which every subsequent church period has wished to be able to emulate, including ours today. And yet, they had not been able to completely separate the fact that now what they were part of was the real, the real thing, because Christ had died. And then there came a time, in verse 4, where they were assembled together with Him and He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but to wait for the promise of the Father, which He said, "You have heard from Me, for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.". And yet Peter does, and he gives a bold sermon. In other words, Peter says, we have entered the last days: the Messiah has come, he has accomplished redemption on the cross, he has risen and ascended to the right hand of God, and the interval before he returns in glory will be marked by an incomparable outpouring of the Holy Spirit on men and women, old and young, slave and free, near and far. But they saw Him for a period of time, and that's how I like to imagine it. That's the famous road to Emmaus experienced from the book of Luke, "and they went and told it to the rest, but they did not believe them either." When I was 15 years old, I got on a bus from my little hometown of Cape Girardeau, Missouri. . They had not been a part of anything like that before. In verse 14, it says, "Then later He appeared to the eleven as they sat at the table and He rebuked them, rebuked their unbelief and hardness of heart because they did not believe those who had seen Him after He had risen." This was a healthy fear of respect and awe and wonder at now what had happened. So Jesus had to rebuke them. The bonds of trust among the disciples were beginning to be frayed. These significant events from the life of Jesus are made easier to comprehend and better-illustrated thanks to the passages . The dam was completed in 1970 and in 1971 there was a grand dedication ceremony and the 12 turbines with their ten billion kilowatt-hour capacity were unleashed with enough power to light every city in Egypt. And then this dramatic miracle takes place, festive occasion. How do we handle them? No longer did they flee like sheep without a shepherd. etc.'. Christ did not leave His disciples as orphans. He greeted his disciples and said to Thomas, Put your finger here and look at my hands! Yet until the spirit was poured out at Pentecost, the disciples were a homogenous bunch. It did not become true after Jesus said that. And as we've seen, even when they were confronted with the miracle of Christ's resurrection, and they recognized that they still had to deal with the hostility of the world around them, in a kind of a two-pronged government called the Roman Empire and the Jewish society, plus their own human nature, and themselves. Then Jesus told them plainly, "Lazarus has died .John 4:11-14 Come on. About 10 days earlier, Christ had finally ascended for the final time and they were left alone. A firstfruit is one who follows Christ. They sold their possessions, they divided among them, they shared among those who had need. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:24). And the people of God in this period are to be a people born of the Spirit, baptized in the Spirit, filled with the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit to bear witness to "the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ." Summary of Ideas of the Sunday readings. That is what caused people to see something in those disciples and to want to be a part of it. And you will be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and to the end of the earth." Prior to Pentecost, the Apostles and disciples gathered in fear, behind locked doors. 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what were the disciples afraid of before pentecost