Today and tomorrow we will be looking at Acts 2:1-12. We’ve been following Jesus through the Month of April as He journeyed to the cross and then after the resurrection. As the book of Acts opens with some final words to His disciples, we see Jesus ascend back into heaven. Before He left them He commissions them with a mission...a mission to be His witnesses to the ends of the earth. Can you imagine hearing a commission like that?? It is an impossible mission. But thankfully He also told them they were first to go into the city and wait there until they were “clothed with power from on high.” (Luke 24:49)
Read through Acts 2:1-12. In your journals, write down all that you observe about this scene. It’s an exciting scene so pay close attention to all the details! What day is it? Who is there? Where are they? What happens? What are the results of what takes place?
What we are seeing is the disciples being “clothed with power from on high.” Picture this with me. They are all in one place and suddenly from heaven comes a “sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire room where they were sitting.” Can you imagine being there? How loud does a mighty rushing wind sound make? Loud enough that it appears to have drawn a crowd!!!
Nothing recorded in Scripture is insignificant which is why we pay so careful attention to all the details we observe as we study! Throughout the Old Testament wind is used as imagery to represent the Spirit of God. (Remember in John 3 when Jesus speaks with Nicodemus about being born again? He says, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”)
Let’s look an example from the Old Testament. Look up Ezekiel 37:9-14 and read through these verses. We have a picture in this passage of the Spirit of God breathing the breath of life into hopeless dry, dead bones. Look specifically at verse 14 - “And I will put my Spirit WITHIN you”. Circle that word “within” in your Bibles. Throughout the Old Testament the presence of the Lord was WITH His people. But here in Ezekiel the LORD is promising a day when His Spirit wouldn’t just be WITH His people but would INDWELL His people! Now flip back in your Bible to Acts chapter 2 and into the room with these disciples. The rushing sound of the wind coming from heaven and filling this room is the fulfillment of Ezekiel and the promise of Jesus that He would send His Spirit who would clothe them in power to accomplish the impossible mission He had commissioned them to do. As surely as the Spirit filled this room so does the Spirit fill His people! And in filling His people He has brought them to life and empowers them as an army of living people to fulfill the mission of Jesus of making disciples of every nation!
Tomorrow we will spend some time looking at the flames of fire...but for today, let’s give thanks to God for the gift of the Holy Spirit who brings the presence of God to live within us and to empower us to accomplish what God has called each one of us to do!!
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