Just wait a moment. It should go green when it's live, should it, Robin? It should go green when it's live. Ah, it's gone now. The reading is taken from Acts chapter 2 verses 1 to 13. 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. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. And when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were all amazed. and marveled, 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, and the dwellers of Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, and Pontius, and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, in Egypt, in parts of Libya, about Cyrene and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. And we're all amazed and we're in doubt, saying one to another, what meaneth this? Others mocking said, these men are full of new wine. Amen. We continue our look at Acts 2, a bit of an introduction last week. I mentioned the connection with the Feast of Pentecost. Obviously, this was in the purposes of God that it should be on this occasion following Passover. And then the other thing I suggested was that Jewish folk at least, connected with the giving of the law in Sinai. Although that's not found actually in our scriptures, it was a tradition which may or may not have been the case. But you can see perhaps that the giving of the law in the Old Testament and the giving of the Spirit are the complete contrast between the old administration and the new administration by the Spirit. Anyway, we need now to move on and look at it in a bit more detail. As I read this again, I thought about it, I thought, this is a million miles away from our experience. Mind you, I assume. And it's very difficult to try and think of what it was like back in those days. Because I'm assuming that none of us have been in times of what you might call revival or mass renewal or whatever you want to call it. For most of us, it's been a quiet, orderly Christian experience thus far. And to try and think about what happened here is very difficult. I guess the nearest we could see this, not from our own experience perhaps, but reading about times after this, of times of revival, for example, in various parts of the world, including the United Kingdom. It's very difficult, and that's one of the problems. We can read the words and we can say, well, this means this, this means this, but actually to have experienced or to know experience is so far removed. But I think, nevertheless, there are some principles, there are some things that we can apply from what the text, what the scripture says, that will be helpful, challenging, comforting to us. So, the obvious, and when the day of Pentecost was fully come, and the purposes of God, the time had arrived. God is never late and God is never early. God is always on time. I won't ask you if you're known for your timekeeping, all right? Because you might ask me the same, all right? You know some people, but they're slow. Some people, they're always there early. Bev's father loved him. He'd go to work an hour before he was due to. That was his nature. And Bev was the same. She gets up at 6 o'clock, even when she didn't have to go to work, because she'd go up at 6 o'clock. People like to be early. Some people, minute before. And some people are always late. Well, God is never too early, too late. Always precisely on time. And thank God for that. And it's always his timing. It's not our timing. Do you remember Martha and Mary said, if only you'd been here earlier. In blunt language, if you'd got on with it when you first heard, you know, he'd be alive. If only you'd come a bit earlier. If only you'd rushed. But the Lord knew his purposes and his ministry, and he knew his timing. And often that's a phrase, isn't it, through the Gospels, my hour is not just yet. He had a timing. There was a timing. So God has his timing, and the timing had come, fully come. The day of Pentecost was there. And they were all with one accord in one place. Question, why were they there in one place with one accord? Answer, because they were obedient to the command of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the first reason. He had told them to tarry in Jerusalem. That was back at the end of Luke's Gospel. We look at that. We can just remind ourselves of it, right? Tarry in Jerusalem until you deal with the power from on high. He said, you wait. You must wait. And so they're waiting in obedience. We're not the best of people at being obedient. We're not the best of people at being patient, doing what God says we should do when we should do it. But they were. They were there waiting for the promise. Presumably, you have to believe that they were waiting with expectation. They didn't know exactly what was going to happen but something was going to happen and because the Lord said it would happen, it was going to surely be dynamic and it was to do with a power, anointing from above, from high, from God. God was going to do something for them, to them. And we don't know if they were excited about that or if they were just curious. We'd like to think they were excited. We'd like to think there was a heightened sense of expectancy as the days go by after the Lord had left. It was probably about 10 days. And they're all there. And remarkably, here is what would be the early church, the infant church, one accord in one place. Wouldn't that be wonderful if that was true every single time we met? Not just us, but fellowships of God's people, that we were all one. Now, the one place is not too difficult. We're in one place. Small place, big place, one place. It's a little bit before it is the problem, one accord, one mind, one purpose. And that's sadly, that's a problem. Now we're not talking at the moment about being one with other believers. In a sense, that's what God has done. Every true believer is one in Christ. Whether we agree with your brothers on what they do, what they say and so forth, in a sense is immaterial as in as much as we are nevertheless one. One body, we know that. Remember Robin dealing with that in Ephesians 4. The sad thing is that in the one place, often the one group that meet, normally are obviously there under one particular banner, whatever it may be, not always one. And when Paul writes to the Philippians, you know there's a problem because some of the folk there are not at one. There's differences. And he urges them to be of one mind. I know we've had a number of seminars that recently. Let look not on every man his own things, but every man things of others. Let his mind be new, and so on. Fulfilling my joy. Be like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord and one mind. Now, I'm not telling anything new to you. You know these verses as much as I do, if not better. You know the verse, it's the practice of it is the problem. And the practice is a problem because of you. And because of me. That's the problem. I'm the problem. Now, often, if there was disagreement, I'd say, well, it's never my problem. It's always you're the problem. But I don't think that's always true. You're not always the problem. I'm not always the problem. We are the problem. And so right at the beginning, this little early church begins as one. And when you think of it, these disciples, the ones that we know of from the Gospels, when they were with the Lord, they were never one. Now the Lord's gone. You think they're going to fall apart. They're going to be scrabbled before the Lord went. When he was with them, who's going to sit at the left, who's going to sit at the right, who's the best, who's the most useful, and all the rest of it. He's gone. It's going to get worse. There's going to be fractions. You know what happens when a particular leader, political or whatever the organization, and the leader keeps them together. And when he goes, moves on or dies, whatever, it collapses because all this infighting. Alas, it will happen in the book of Acts. There will be differences of opinion and practice and so on. But they start off with one accord in one place and we need to get back there. We need to be more at one with another in the purposes of God. Well, that's fairly straightforward stuff. The next thing is the problem. When I say the problem, I can read you and say, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as a mighty rushing wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting. What does that mean? I don't know. But it was noisy. It was demonstrative. And somebody has pointed out that there are two things here, the two senses involved. There's the hearing and there's the seeing. They heard the sound, and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as fire, and it sat upon each of them. And there's the seeing of these tongues of fire, whatever they were. Someone has rightly said that Luke always filled in the narrative. For example, some of the gospel writers talk about the Holy Spirit descending. It's Luke who says the Holy Spirit said, as a dove. He fills in the narrative. Now, is that because he's a doctor by nature, by profession, and he's a bit more detailed, perhaps, or he sees things, or is he just that little bit more, how do you say, picturesque? That's not quite the word they want, but you know what I mean. He likes to expand things. You get a bigger, fuller description from Luke. And so is Luke, the sound and the scene. And whatever we make of those two verses, the next one perhaps is easier to understand at one level. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost. Each one was filled with the Holy Spirit. One of the problems we have with any teaching on the Holy Spirit is that we make, it seems to me, a fundamental mistake in not starting with the fact that He is a person, He is God. If you don't start there, you'll end up with all kinds of strange things. Now, we would say that from the Old Testament, New Testament, that the Holy Spirit is likened unto oil, the oil of anointing, if you like, or likened unto wine. We're not drunk with wine when it is in excess, but we're filled with the Spirit. And that's okay for illustration. but only as far as it goes. Because if you're not careful, you'll start to diminish the Holy Spirit to some kind of power and forget He's a person. So this whole business of being filled with the Spirit. You say, well, that's, you know, with oil, you've got a jar, and it's filled with oil, and the wine, filled with wine. Go carefully with that. Because you can half fill a jar and half fill a wineskin, but you can't be half full of the Holy Spirit, because he's a person. He's either full or not. You can't have degrees of being filled. You're either filled or you're not. I was speaking about one of our old members, Stanmore. I went to visit her and her husband. I said, give me a cup of tea. And this cup of tea was absolutely full to the brim. I was afraid to pick it up, because in no way am I not going to tip this, bring it from there to there. As carefully, and I'm not careful, as carefully as I go, I'm going to do that. So I said, oh, Betty, I said, this cup is full. Oh, she said, do you want some more milk in it? I said, no, Betty. I don't want any more milk in it. I know what you're saying. Now, you can have a bottle, a vessel, filled, half-filled, but the Holy Spirit is a person. And strictly speaking, theologically speaking, scripturally speaking, you cannot be less filled, more filled. And what you can do, you can be more yielded or less yielded to the person and power of the Holy Spirit. You see the difference there? And that's where some people think of the analogy Paul has in Ephesians 5. Don't be drunk with wine where it's in excess. Don't be under the influence of alcohol, but be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. Willingly. Be willingly under the power and influence of God, the Holy Spirit. There's a quote, one of my favorite quotes regarding Dale Moody. And it was said that there were some folk in the city where he was. They were thinking about having a big campaign. And they said, who should we have to speak at this campaign? Who would be the leader? And somebody said, oh, D.L. Moody, of course. And one dear brother said, D.L. Moody, D.L. Moody. I've had enough of him, as it were. He's leading everything. He's speaking everywhere. And he made this comment. He said, has he got a monopoly of the Holy Spirit? And another dear brother said, no, D.L. Moody has not got a monopoly of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit has got a monopoly of D.L. Moody. Now, so I don't want to prolong this aspect, but we need to be aware of this filled and filling and this. And we've had it said several times that most preachers have said, and again, quoting Robert, it's in the present continuum tense, go on being filled with the spirit. And again, if the liquid, you keep topping up, don't you? But again, be careful when you're being topped up by the Holy Spirit. It isn't quite correct. What you need to do is to be continuing submitting to the Holy Spirit. And the two aspects of our treatment, if you like, of the Holy Spirit is not to grieve the Holy Spirit and not to quench the Holy Spirit. He is a person. He's God the Holy Spirit. And all you could say of God the Father in wisdom, omnipotence, love, mercy, all the characteristics, the attributes of God are there present in the Holy Spirit. He is called the third person of the Trinity, as the Son is called the second person of the Trinity, as the Father is called the first person of the Trinity, but not in any sense of inferiority. It's the language of the theologians who try and help us to get this in our little mind, because our little minds are so small, to think of God, equal, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, but there's an order that seems to be there in the scripture, the Father, and then the Son, and the Spirit. But it's not because they're lesser persons. The Son is no lesser person than the Father. And the Spirit is no lesser person than the Son. There's an equality, eternal equality. So we need to be a little bit careful, the words, the phrases that we use, the descriptions of the Horesh. But he is a person. And they are filled with this person. Jesus had said, tarieh in Jerusalem, and he'd be endured with power from on high. I've already quoted the verses from John. It's right back to the beginning of the Gospels. John said, I baptize with water. There comes one after me. He will baptize with the Holy Ghost, with the Holy Spirit, and with fire. And here is a fulfillment, literally so, of that promise. filled with the Holy Ghost. And all that follows from the rest of Acts comes from this experience of being filled with the Spirit. All these signs, miracles, preaching, teaching, suffering. Now that's a thought, isn't it? Because Acts is not just full of great wonders and great preaching and great miracles. Acts is full of sufferings. Acts, there is martyrdom in Acts. Some will lose their lives for the Gospel. Others will suffer great hardship for the Gospel. Are those times of suffering any less a work of the Spirit? Who enables these men to suffer, and women? Who enables them to stand and preach? Who enables them to do what they do? It's God, the Holy Spirit. Throughout Acts, it's all the work of the Spirit. Ah, says somebody, I'd love to know a work of the spirit in my heart and my life. I'd love to know his blessing. Great. But what about the blessing of suffering? Oh, well, I'm not so keen on that. That's not a blessing. It was in Acts. God blessed his church. through persecution. That's a strange thing to say. But it happened. Therefore, God must have been behind it, as God often is. And when there are great times of persecution, often before or afterwards, there comes great blessing. People see these Christians, and they say, do you know, these men and women, they are suffering for this Jesus Christ. Why are they doing that? Why don't they just deny him? They've got a choice to deny Christ and say Jesus is Lord or be eaten alive by these lions or slaughtered by the gladiators. Why are they still saying Jesus is Lord? Why are they singing praises to Him as they've been torn apart? What is it? What have they got that enables them to go through this? They've got a love for the Lord Jesus and they're indwelt by the Holy Spirit. And they're all filled with the Holy Ghost. We long for days when we are, as a fellowship, as a community, as a land, filled with the Holy Spirit, under his total dominance. And alas, we're so far removed from that, when I speak personally. I'll throw this out, and we'll stop in a moment, because this is another huge topic. And they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, the big thing about the coming of the Spirit, according to the Lord Jesus, was that there would be witnesses to him, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, Adam's part of the earth. And that begins here and now on the day of Pentecost. And the Holy Spirit decided that at that time, at that at that place on that occasion, he would give this gift to the disciples of the ability to speak languages which they'd never heard or known. And in fact, the people who heard it said, these are Galileans. In other words, they've got their own language, their own dialect, but they're not speaking to us in Galilean. They're speaking to us in our own language. There may be a hint as well that these Galileans, they're not very well educated, they're a bit of a rough lot, and they wouldn't have learnt them anyway. There's a hint there, because the Galileans were looked down upon by the locals. But at this occasion, as the Holy Spirit decided that he would give these disciples the ability to speak a language that was pertaining to those that heard. So it wasn't something that was the same for all and they heard. It was the ability to speak to them in their own language. And they began to speak with other tongues as in other languages. Because it says, and when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded beyond. Every man heard them speak in his own language. They were amazed. They marveled. They said one to another, behold, are not all these which speak on limbs? Why would that happen and why were there so many people there? And we have a list of these places, people and where they were from. Well, obviously, there was the big feast. It was a big feast and there were three feasts, as you know, where Jewish people were expected to come to Jerusalem to worship that. And there could have been, some say, hundreds of thousands of folk who came from all over the known world. to Jerusalem at the time. And we've got the description of the people who were there. And I'm told that you could divide them geographically from the north, from the south, from the west, from the east. The people from all around the known world came for this Feast of Pentecost, the first fruits, the offering of the first fruits. And they heard in their own language what the disciples had to say. No, it doesn't happen again in the same way. We could discuss that perhaps at another time. But certainly this is what happened then. And we need to say, what did they have to say? What did these men, these disciples, say? Was it nonsense? Was it babble? Was it about them? Was it where they're saying, listen to us. We are wonderful men. Listen to us. We are wonderful people. Listen to us. Let us tell about our experience. No, we have it in one little phrase, which is a great phrase. We do hear them speak in our own tongues the wonderful works of God. The wonderful works of God. Now, if you go through the Psalms, as we are going through with Gary, we are hearing what the Psalmist says about the works of God. The wonderful works of God. I was reflecting a little on this. There's so many programs, and I love the programs, and that's natural history about animals and their behavior and so on. And they're wonderful programs. It's always spoilt when the presenter or the commentator says, and of course, all this evolved. I said, what on earth? There was a lovely little picture, I'm rambling a bit, but I'll get back to it. There's a lovely little picture of foxes in the Arctic. You all know about Arctic foxes, because in the summer they're brown, and in the winter they're white. They're amazing. Now, who tells that little fox, Listen, bud, you've been brown and you've belted in with the surroundings now for the summer, but come winter, it's going to be all white. You need to have a new coat. Go down to Marks and Sparks, all right, and swap over your brown coat and get a nice new one, white, and then you'll be better. It changes. Now, they would say, oh, well, there's something in it, and... God designed that little fox. So you'd have a brown coat in the summer and a white coat in the winter. Now, I'm sure he, I'm quite happy to think he adapted, right? But even that was in the design of God Almighty. But they don't see it. They don't want to see it. But it seems to me, and there's so many other things, there's so many other things, right? And every time, whether it's a huge thing or a little thing, the hand of God, And particularly because, obviously, because of Bev's illness, a little learning about parts of the body, how they act and how they react. And you look after this one, but you've got to be careful you don't neglect that one. Because if you look at all this, it's amazing. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, says the psalmist. So amazing is our own body. So amazing is creation. I'm sure, as they were speaking, they were hearing wonderful works of God, which, as Jewish people, would appeal to them. They wanted to hear about the works of God, which would then lead them on to the works of Christ. No one is converted by hearing about the works of creation, as wonderful it is, and it may lead them on. They might say, how great is this God? How wonderful is God? Yes, He is. He's great in creation. But our last creation is a fallen creation. Why is that? Well, because of sin. Sin has entered this creation. What has God done about it? Well, He sent His Son to be the Savior, and so on. We'll stop there for tonight. But this is amazing. I know I'm keeping on with this. But this little chapter is so amazing because of this chapter. I've said this two weeks ago, I think. Because of this chapter, you and I are here tonight. If this hadn't happened, and happened the way it did, we wouldn't be saved. In the purpose of God, God sent His Spirit upon these. They preached and went out and out and out. Eventually they came to Britain. Eventually we heard the Gospel handed down, down, down, down, down. And here we are tonight because of what happened at this time. Let's pray. Father, we love the story of Acts. We love that the Lord Jesus Christ purchased a church with His own blood. and then sent his spirit upon those early disciples that they might proclaim him. He might be witnesses to him, to an unbelieving world, to a religious world at the beginning, then an unbelieving world, to a pagan world, to Jews and to Gentiles. And eventually that gospel reached such as we. Hallelujah. Bless us, we pray as we think on these things, help us in a moment when we come to pray. Oh Lord, we greatly need a new anointing, new filling, whatever phrase, words we use, we need to know more of the power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts, in our lives, in our praying, in our preaching, in our application of the Gospel. O Lord, forgive us for our coldness and slothfulness. Forgive us that we are not as we ought to be. But O Lord, revive thy work in the midst of the years, we pray, for Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen, amen, amen. So we'll sing our last hymn. 302. Come, Holy Spirit, like a dove descending, rest thou upon us while we meet to pray. Show us the Saviour, His great love revealing. Lead us to Him, the life, the truth, the way. 302.