Word of God tonight to Acts 2. Acts 2, the history of Pentecost. Text for the sermon is v. 11. We'll read the first 21 verses of the chapter. This is the Word of God. 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 a rushing, mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a 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 of every nation under heaven, And when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because that 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 dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and in Cappadocia, and Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, and Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes. Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues, the wonderful works of God. And they were all amazed and were in doubt, saying one to other, what meaneth this? Others mocking said, these men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them, Ye men of Galilee, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words. For these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, 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. And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned unto darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." And then Peter continues the sermon that he preaches, but we'll stop reading at that point. As I said, the text for the sermon tonight is v. 11 of Acts 2, particularly the end of it in which we read, we do hear them speak in our tongues The wonderful works of God. Beloved in the Lord Jesus Christ, today is Pentecost Sunday. Ten days ago on a Thursday evening, we came together for Ascension Day. That was 40 days after Resurrection Sunday, so that this Sunday is 50 days after the Lord Jesus Christ arose from the dead. Pentecost. Penta. Fifty. On this day, the Lord Jesus Christ, from His ascended position at God's right hand in heaven, poured out His Spirit upon the church. The history of which is what we just read in Acts 2. Tonight is also a confession of faith of these two young men in our congregation. Two young men who have been led to this point in their life when after confessing their faith and their knowledge of the truth to the consistory, which was received with joy and gladness, now publicly before the church and before the world, confessed their faith in the truth as it is taught here, their desire to walk a godly life all the days of their lives, and their willingness to submit to church government. They confessed personally in this confession, their love for the Lord Jesus Christ and their knowledge of Him as their Lord and their Savior. It is fitting that on an evening such as this, Pentecost Sunday, that we have confession of faith. It is appropriate because the power of the confession that we just heard this evening from these two men is the power of the Holy Spirit who has been poured out upon the church in the New Testament, and who has been poured into the very hearts of each of God's elect. So very fittingly, we consider tonight an aspect of the history of Pentecost in connection with the confessions of faith of Will and Brett. We do that by looking at this text in Acts 2, verse 11. in which those upon whom the Spirit was poured spoke of the wonderful works of God." That's the theme of the sermon tonight, speaking the wonderful works of God. Three points of the sermon are, in the first place, the power of doing that. In the second place, the content of what they spoke, the wonderful works of God. And in the third place, we briefly consider that activity itself of speaking those wonderful works. The power, the content, and the speaking. of the wonderful works of God. Acts 2, as I noted a moment ago, sets forth the history of Pentecost. Pentecost is one of the outstanding events in the life of Jesus Christ that He accomplished for the salvation of His people, the church. On Pentecost, Jesus Christ poured out His Spirit upon the church. And the history in Acts 2 sets forth the signs that associated that outstanding, extraordinary work of Jesus in the history of Pentecost. Those signs are well known to us. There was in the first place the sign of the sound as of a mighty rushing wind. That's verse 2 in Acts 2. There was no wind, just the sound of a mighty rushing wind. A fitting sign of the poured out Spirit of Jesus Christ because the Spirit literally is breath or wind. A fitting sign also because though you cannot see wind, yet very powerfully. The effects of that wind are seen. So also with the Holy Spirit. We cannot see Him, but we do see His effects, as we saw it tonight in the confession that these young men made. The second sign of the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost was the cloven tongues as a fire. Again, no fire. but just the appearance of fire divided upon each of the 120 that were present in that room together on that Pentecost Sunday. Once again, a fitting sign of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is like fire because the Holy Spirit purifies. One of His great works is sanctification. Holiness worked in the lives of God's people. And then the third sign, which is the one that we focus on tonight, was that these 120 upon whom the Spirit was poured spoke in many different tongues. We focus on that sign tonight because that's the context of what we read in verse 11. that they spoke of the wonderful works of God. When we think about this third sign of Pentecost, normally our emphasis is on the fact that they spoke in many different languages. And that's rightfully so because that's an amazing aspect of this third sign of Pentecost and the pouring out of the Spirit. These 120 spoke The actual languages of the people. They did so intelligibly on account of the Holy Spirit that was poured out into their hearts. That's an amazing sign. The only explanation of which is the poured out Spirit. There were Jews from all over the world at that time in Jerusalem when the Spirit was poured out. That was on account of the Feast of Pentecost. They were there in order to celebrate the Feast of Pentecost. And the amazing nature of this sign is that when these 120 would go up to each of these men that were present from a different area and who natively spoke a different language, they were able to speak to them in their native tongue. And they were able to do so eloquently without any training prior to the day of Pentecost. What a fitting sign. That's a fitting sign because, as I said a moment ago, the only explanation for that is a divine work of God. These signs were meant to demonstrate powerfully that Christ had done something. Christ had done what He promised to do to His disciples while He was on this earth with them. Go to Jerusalem and wait for the Spirit whom I will pour out. And what demonstrates that more fittingly than these miracles really? One of which was the speaking in many different languages. It's also a fitting sign because It demonstrates what the Spirit would continue to do in the history of the New Testament church. The Spirit of Jesus Christ is a Catholic Spirit. He would go not only now among the Jews, but He would go throughout the world, over all nations, tribes, and tongues to gather unto Himself His people for whom Jesus laid down His life. What we consider tonight is an aspect of that third sign. It was the power of the Holy Spirit that led these 120 to speak in the languages of all of these people who were present. But it was also the power of the Holy Spirit that led them to speak what they did. And it's at this point that we see a distinction between two elements in the text. On the one hand, there is the sign of Pentecost itself. The speaking in tongues. The cloven tongues as of fire. The sound as of mighty rushing wind. Those were the signs of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost many years ago. Those are no longer the demonstration that the Spirit is present. that we hear the sound of wind from the fans, but don't feel any wind. The demonstration of the Spirit is not that upon each of us is a cloven tongue like fire, and I'm not walking around speaking in many different languages without any training. Those are done. Those were unique to the day of Pentecost. But in our text, there is something that demonstrates what is a lasting effect of the Holy Spirit as He's poured out upon the church and in the hearts of God's people. Not the speaking in different languages, but this remains. This will forever remain. This will forever be the demonstration of the Spirit in your heart and in mine. And that is this, that we speak And not just that we speak, but that we speak of the wonderful works of God. The power of speaking the wonderful works of God is the power of the Holy Spirit poured out and into the hearts of God's elect. Beloved, that is what we witnessed this evening in the confessions of faith, of will, and breath. We heard one word tonight. The answer to three questions in the affirmative, yes. But in that yes, they spoke from their hearts by the power of the Spirit of the wonderful works of God. No man, no woman speaks of the wonderful works of God apart from the power of the Holy Spirit who is in them. The text says, moving now to the content of what they spoke, that it was the wonderful works of God. What you talk about reveals a lot about who you are, what your interests are, and what's important to you. If you are to just follow somebody for a day, not engaging in a conversation with them, but just follow them and listen to them in their life that they live on an everyday basis, and just listen. What they talk about reveals what is important to them. And in this respect, we see how God makes each of us different. Each of us comes from different backgrounds. Each of us has different interests. Each of us enjoys talking about different things. Maybe the case that your background and interests, because you grew up in the country or on the farm, is things related to farming. So you enjoy talking about the ins and outs of tractors and combines and all of the rest. I can tell you that you're not going to hear a discussion about the differences between John Deere tractors and other makers of tractors in my house. It's not something that I grew up with nor am in and of itself interested in. I'm interested in talking about it with you because you may be, and to ask questions, and to learn, but that's not necessarily something that is a topic of conversation in my home. But there may be things that I enjoy talking about that you may not. We all have our different interests. All things that are important to us and that we enjoy speaking about. But there's something that we all talk about in the exact same sense of the word. And that's the point of the text. And that's what it means to be a Christian. Yes, we have all sorts of different inferences. We have all sorts of different lives that we live. But these two young men, though their interests may be very different, spoke tonight the same thing. And we together as Christians in this church All our life long, speak the same thing. And we as Christians, with other Christians throughout the rest of the world in very different cultures and contexts, speak the exact same thing. And what we do is speak of the wonderful works of God. That's a beautiful expression, isn't it? It's one of those expressions that even in the English is somewhat poetic. The wonderful works of God. It's the great works of God. The majestic works of God. The magnificent works of God. What those works of God are that they spoke of is not identified specifically. And there's something that we can learn from that. It doesn't state exactly what the content is. It doesn't state explicitly what the works themselves are that they are speaking of. But there's something that we may learn from that, and that is that these are God's works that they're talking about. And if they are God's works that they are talking about, that in and of themselves makes them wonderful. simply because of the fact that it is the work of God that they are talking about. At certain times in our lives, we need to be awoken out of the stupor that we can have with respect to the way that we think about God. At times in our lives, we can have a very mundane attitude towards God and God's works. At certain times in our lives, we need to be jolted out of that so that we recognize the awesomeness of God and His works. So that we say with respect to any work, if God did it, by virtue of the fact that God did it. It's wonderful. It's majestic. It's splendid. It's absolutely amazing. So that in a certain sense, it could be said that these men were talking about anything that God has done. Because everything that God has done, no matter what it is, can be characterized as wonderful. That's the attitude, beloved, that we need to have about God's works. If God did it because of who God is, whether we're talking about creation or providence, or as we'll get to, salvation, that in and of itself is a wonderful work of God. But we can be more specific with respect to what it is that they were speaking about. What they were talking about in light of the context are the wonderful works of God in salvation. The context is Pentecost. The context is the Holy Spirit as He was poured out upon the church, the evidence of which are these signs of which we spoke a moment ago. They're talking about what is going on here. And in that work of Christ in pouring out the Spirit, You have the whole work of God in salvation through the Lord Jesus Christ from sin and from death. There is no Pentecost pouring out of the Holy Spirit if not Christ having arisen and ascended into heaven. There is no Christ arisen from the dead unless there is a Christ who died on that cross. There is no Calvary where the full satisfaction of God's justice was made if there was not the incarnation, Christ becoming a man. There is no incarnation unless there is first the eternal counsel of God to save and elect people in the Lord Jesus Christ. In all of that together, the full work of Jesus, from His coming, to His death, to His resurrection, to His ascension, and now the culmination of that with the pouring out of the Spirit, speaks to the salvation of the church. So that the works of God that they were speaking of were the outstanding works. God in heaven through the Lord Jesus Christ, saving His elect bride, which by the grace of God they were members of. Everything about that work of God, beloved, is wonderful. It's great. It's majestic. It is so because it's God's work. And as I said shortly ago, all of God's works are characterized as wonderful. It's wonderful because of the objects of whom He saves. Here we are, creatures, sinners, worthy of damnation, the enemies of God by nature, but God saves us in Jesus Christ. That's wonderful. It's wonderful because in the end, it serves the outstanding purpose of glorifying God. Every aspect of salvation leads us to say, praise be to God from whom all blessings flow. That makes it wonderful. It's wonderful because it is eternal. It is a salvation that we have now. It is a salvation that we will have forever. And I could go on and on and on. Every aspect. Every aspect of God's work in Jesus Christ to save us is wonderful. We need to say one more thing about what it was that they said. They spoke on that Pentecost of the wonderful works of God. of those wonderful works in a personal way. They did not just speak of the wonderful works of God generally. One can do that. But they spoke of the wonderful works of God personally. And that is on account of who it was that was poured out upon the church on Pentecost. On Pentecost, it was the Holy Spirit that was poured out. as that Spirit was given to the Lord Jesus Christ. So that it was the Spirit of Jesus Christ that was poured out upon the church on Pentecost. And it is the Spirit of Jesus Christ that is worked in the hearts of God's elect people. It is the Spirit of Jesus Christ poured out on the church to do this great work apply the blessings of salvation earned by Jesus Christ in His lifelong suffering and death to the church for whom He died. That Spirit goes forth from Christ to save the children for whom He laid down His life, so that the Spirit, when He has worked in the church and in the hearts and lives of God's people, is the Spirit that comes into their hearts to give unto them salvation in such a way that they know it, in such a way that they have truly life with God. The Spirit, when He is poured out in the hearts of God's people, will lead to a confession. Not just a general confession about what God does in the world, but a personal confession of what God does for me. These men, from the way in which they spoke of God's wonderful works, made it clear, certainly by the way in which they spoke, that they were speaking about what God had done for them. And certainly in this confession tonight, that's what was done. Not just God is great, But God is great to me. Not just God saves in Jesus Christ, but God saves by the blood of Jesus Christ, me. Not just Jesus is Lord, but Jesus is my Lord. And in conclusion, what we see is the fact that they spoke. They spoke these wonderful works of God. That's been taken for granted throughout the sermon thus far. Obviously, these wonderful works were the things that came out of their lips, but now we make that explicit in conclusion to the sermon tonight. That's significant. They couldn't keep it within themselves. It was in them in such a way that it had to come out. And it makes me think of the Old Testament word for prophet, which is connected to this because of what Peter says that the young men shall prophesy. It connects. prophesying with what these men did. Prophesying simply means to speak God's Word. But in the Old Testament, the word for a prophet meant literally to bubble forth, to bubble over. And that was the nature of what was in a prophet in the Old Testament. That God's Word was in them in such a way that it could do nothing other than bubble forth out of them. and to those with whom they were present. In the New Testament church, we are prophets. We hold that office in the office of all believer as prophets. We speak. These young men spoke tonight. And the nature of what they spoke is such that it bubbles forth out of them. For in the child of God, who understands Christ's work for us personally, we can do nothing but speak the wonderful works of God. And so the word to us tonight is, speak by the power of that Spirit of the wonderful works of God. Confess these wonderful works. Not just in the isolated instance of a confession of faith, or in a consistory room before elders and a pastor. Speak these wonderful works in everything that we do. Speak them in our everyday lives with our families. Speak about them with our spouses. Speak about them with our children. Speak about them in our everyday lives so that those with whom we have a relationship know that these things can do nothing but come out of us because of what they mean to us as Christians. Speak of the wonderful works of God. That God our Father in heaven has delivered us from the greatest misery of sin and death and granted unto us the greatest good. And He has done that through the One who is the fulfillment of the Old Testament Scriptures. Jesus Christ crucified, risen, and ascended into heaven. And don't just speak them, but speak them in such a way that it becomes evident that those who hear know that it is arising from the depths of your hearts. The text doesn't state explicitly the manner in which they spoke of these wonderful works. But we can imply that the way that they spoke about them was with joy and with gladness. It wasn't, hey, I have something to talk to you about. I want to talk to you about these wonderful works of God. It wasn't like that. Let me talk to you about something. Something that means everything to me. that we have a God and He performs these wonderful works of salvation in Jesus Christ. That's the difference. That the way in which we talk about God demonstrates that this is everything to us as Christians. That we would want to do nothing other than speak of what God has done for us in the Lord Jesus Christ. Brett and Will, tonight you have spoken of the wonderful works of God. Continue in all your life to speak those same wonderful works. And may we do that too, as a congregation, empowered by the Spirit of Jesus Christ who dwells within us. Amen. Father in Heaven, bless us as a congregation and as we go forward in this week to come. Help us to live out of the power of Thy Word as we heard it proclaimed tonight. So that we are a people who speak and who love to speak. of Thy wonderful works by the power of Thy Spirit who is in us. We thank Thee for Thy work, Thy work of salvation in Jesus Christ. And we pray, Heavenly Father, that Thou will continue to be with us in all that we do in this week to come. Go with us for Jesus' sake. Amen.