***The following is an unedited auto-generated transcript and may contain serious errors and speakers other than Dallas Willard. It is included here to assist your study. Please check the original audio for an authentic record of the event.
Dallas: Acts, the second chapter, we’ll be reading the first 13 verses. 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 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 they were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now 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 here we every man in our tongue, wherein we were born? In Spartakians, in Medes, in Elamites, in dwellers of Mesopotamia, in Judah, in Cappadocia, in Pontius and Asia, in Pergamum, in Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in parts of Libya, about Cyrene, in 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 where in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this? Father’s mocking said, These men are full of new wine.
To look into your word, and we pray that this evening your Holy Spirit will sweep over us, that you will touch every one of us here, right now. May there not be a one who thinks this is not for me. But may everyone here be receptive to that measure of your Spirit which you would give to us where we are. Help us not to be frightened by the silly excesses of some people, and driven into a terrible dryness and powerlessness, where in our heart of hearts we wonder, Where is our God? O Lord, you must do it. No man is able, but you are able. And we ask for your presence in every life this evening. On behalf of thy kingdom we pray it. Amen.
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, like a rushing mighty wind. Who were these who were with one accord in one place? I’m going to repeat just briefly some of the things I said last time, because it cannot be said too often that these were people who had been especially prepared. They had been handpicked. They had been brought through a course of experience. You must understand that when God got ready to pour out His Spirit in a special way upon a group of people, He did not just choose anyone. And I say to you as I said last time, what we see of the church after the day of Pentecost did not happen because of what happened on the day of Pentecost. If you think that, you will never understand how God works in human life. God prepares them step by step. He leads us along where you are and where I am. He comes to us and He says, follow me. And as I step out and follow Him and as I say, oh, I want to be like Him and I want to do what He teaches and as my heart yearns after His Word and as the person of Christ catches my mind and my heart and enraptures me, gradually I change. I am rewired inside. I am modified so that when the time comes for the house to be, as it were, hooked up to the electrical pole and the switch thrown, the house is not going to burn down. The switches will work. The plugs are right. It is ready to go. You must always regard as a fallacy those who would say, let us come together and get the baptism of the Holy Ghost. It doesn’t work that way. It works only for a prepared people, those who are ready, those who have gone through the process. Only they can be trusted with this. Only they can be helped with it. You know, there are many parts of the New Testament that we don’t know what to make of because it doesn’t suit our experience today and it isn’t so much that we don’t want to make sense of it, it just doesn’t make sense. For example, John says there is a sin unto death. Not every sin is a sin unto death, but there is a sin unto death. Paul says on several occasions that he has delivered certain people over to Satan for the destruction of their body that the soul might be saved in the day of judgment. Now you see, when you look at those kinds of verses, you realize that you’re dealing with a different kind of corporate entity, one which does not fit the standard mode of operation in the churches which you may find on the street corner. Now you are people who have been called out of many situations and you’ve formed a group and the question is what kind of group you want to be. Are you prepared to receive or are you willing to be prepared to receive the kind of thing which we see in the New Testament? That’s really the question which stands before you. And when we read this passage, when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were with all with one accord in one place. We must read that as meaning something much deeper than they just happen to be at the same place at the same time. They were with one accord. These people had been welded together with iron and steel through disappointment, through one experience after another, through the heart crushing failures that they had put their hopes in when they came to follow Christ. And you know that’s not unlike you and me. A person can get saved on the basis of many, many reasons. There are many reasons why a person might say, yes, I want to trust Christ. I want to give myself to God. There are many reasons. A little child can have perfectly good reasons and not know anything about the Trinity or the atonement or the doctrine of the scriptures or baptisms or any of these things. They simply feel their need and they throw themselves in the mercy of God. But dear friends, that’s only the beginning. We are to go on. We are called to something much greater than that. And through the process of experience, we are called to grow together with those others whom God has placed in our lives in many ways. I realize that this may offend some, but the truth is, you see, you have to be very careful about choosing a church. You have to be very careful because you’re not the only one involved in this. In a real way, your church are the people of God whom God has placed in your life. And it’s out of that that our churches should grow, you see.
Now, these people were with all with one accord in one place. And now I want to give you another illustration of how gently Jesus led these people along. Look back at verse 11 of chapter 1. Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven, the same Jesus which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like manner as you’ve seen him go unto heaven? They saw Jesus go up. They saw him go into heaven. Now watch verse 2 of chapter 2. And suddenly there came a sound from where? Heaven. Right where Jesus had gone. And they thought of him as being right there.
And now he is sending forth, there is a sound coming from the same place where he was. This is something which he is sending forth. Look at verse 33 of chapter 2. Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received to the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this which ye now see and hear. You see, the connection is made step by step. He prepares them. He leads them along. After his death, he appears and he disappears. He communicates with them by his Spirit, through the Spirit. He gives them commandments. He teaches about the kingdom of God. All the while knowing how badly they misunderstood him. You recall that as they walked out the last day to the mount of ascension, they were still asking if he was going to give them a political kingdom. That’s the only way they could think of it. And in his great patience, of course, he didn’t try to correct them because he knew that there were many things which could only be taught to them by the Holy Spirit.
And he had said earlier that it is necessary that I go away because if I go not away, the Spirit cannot come. You see, if Jesus Christ had stayed here in bodily form, even if the Spirit had come, they wouldn’t have paid much attention to him. It was necessary that he go away. But as he goes away, he goes away in a graduated sequence of steps. Death, absence, resurrection, return, but disappearance, communication. Now he goes out and takes them by the hand, as it were, and says, now I’m going right up here and I’m going to watch you. I’ll be right there and I’m going to send something forth to you.
And now when this comes forth, he does not leave it on a simply spiritual level. He combines sound and sight with direction. Read the verse again. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, like a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all of the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them the physical manifestation of the Spirit. If you will forgive me, it’s a lot like these television commercials, where the name of the product is repeated 15 times in 30 seconds. The idea is, here dummy, this is the point, okay? Now excuse me, but that’s about where we stand spiritually. And Jesus is not about to leave us in doubt as to what is happening. And consequently, he uses the physical manifestation, the location, the direction, in order that they might know exactly what was happening.
I don’t know what you think about this, but suppose you were sitting in a room with a group of people and all of a sudden there was a big wind and a bunch of tongues. You probably get up and jump and run out the door, out the window, call the fire department, tongues of fire, all right? You see, one of our problems is when we read the scriptures, we do not use our imagination to fill it in, so the reality of what is happening will grip us. I mean, these are real events, they’re enough to scare you to death. And probably some of these people would have run if they’d had anywhere to run. But they were in the last available corner.
They were taken over by something. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost, began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. They that were dwelling in Jerusalem, devout Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven.
This occurred at a time of a feast. And consequently, there were people there from all over the face of the known earth who were Jews and who were in town, they thought to celebrate the feast. But now you see, God does not do things haphazardly, and he had this plan. They were there to hear what was being said. And as they listened, they were confounded, as the sixth verse says, the crowd came together. Now, you have to understand that that city was not like Van Nuys or Rosita or Chatsworth, where if something were to happen in one house, no one might know about it for the next three months. This happened in buildings which were close together. And when a noise hit, everyone heard. And when this big racket started, and you had all these people carrying on, and the sound of the rushing mighty wind, the word spread and the group came together to see what was happening. And they were amazed. And they were amazed for a very good reason, because that every man heard them speak in his own language. Every man heard them speak in his own language. They were all amazed and marveled and said, are not these Galileans? And yet we hear every man in our own tongue speaking the wonderful works of God. All right.
Now, that is what sets the scene. But prepared people receive a new work of God, which had been promised in the Old Testament for many centuries, and the promise which Jesus renewed, that God was going to do something completely different. He was going to pour out a spirit upon a people. There were going to be fountains opened on high, and there’s going to be a going forth through a select group of the power of God for the blessing of the entire earth. That was a promise of the Father. Jesus referred to that promise back in the first chapter, reminding them of how this was to come to pass, tying it in with his teachings, now it happens.
Let’s talk a moment about tongues. In our time, there has been a resurgence of the sort of phenomena which is loosely characterized as the charismatic movement. And that phenomenon is identified with the coming of tongues, of unknown tongues. It has caused a lot of grief, a lot of heartache. I want to try to say to you some things this evening that I hope will help you, and that above all will keep you from being turned aside from your heritage as a child of God in the kingdom of God to know and exercise the spirit of God through the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Think for a moment of the function of tongues in this context. Here you have a group of people who so far as those around them were concerned were a group of followers of an outlaw who had been condemned to death, crucified. You must understand that from the viewpoint of those who were around, this was not exactly a nice group. It was a group of followers of a condemned outlaw, a man who had been hanged. And for them, the idea that God would be in that group was so overwhelmingly inconceivable that there’s no way that they could have been brought to understand that. Whenever the manifestation of the spirit came upon this group, they heard an astounding thing, people speaking in their own language the praises of God.
Now I want to short circuit it all and just say simply this, that the function of the gift of tongues in the book of Acts is to show that God is present where an onlooking group thought he couldn’t possibly be present. I don’t wish to speak just of the gift of tongues because that is by no means all that happened. But the manifestation to the spirit to speak generally are given for that purpose. They are a sign to them which believe not. That’s their function. They are to get the attention of those who believe that God couldn’t possibly be over here and to make them sit up and say, there must be more to this than I thought, to grab them if you wish in an unmistakable fashion. And that’s what happened in this passage.
Let me give you some other passages to compare with it. In Acts 8, 14, we find a passage in which the Samaritans had received the message of Christ. Now you have to understand that a Samaritan is a half-breed. In the Gospel of John, in one fit of anger, the authorities say to Jesus, didn’t we say that you are a Samaritan and you’ve got a devil? That is you’re a demon-possessed half-breed. That’s what Jesus was called. Now after the persecution fell upon the church in the book of Acts, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. And Philip the deacon went up to Samaria and he preached and the power of God was manifest, verse 5 of chapter 8. And people began to turn to Christ, verse 6, and the people with one accord gave heed into those things which Philip spake. Look now at verse 14. The apostles, which were Jerusalem, heard that Samaria had received the word of God. The half-breeds were getting converted. They sent forth Peter and John. Peter and John had been to Samaria before. Jesus had been to Samaria. There was a woman of Samaria. In the fourth chapter of John, it’s a beautiful story, Jesus met her and through her met a whole city. And that city said, after they talked with him, they said, now we believe not because of what you said but because of what we’ve heard from him ourselves. And there was a preparation there. Jesus would go through Samaria, must needs go through Samaria. You recall the scripture says, Jews who were sufficiently holy wouldn’t go through Samaria to get to Jerusalem for the feast. They would cross the Jordan River and go through down the other side just so they wouldn’t have to go and rub shoulders with those half-breeds. But Jesus must needs go through Samaria.
Now then Jesus says, after you’ve received power, you will be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. That didn’t take, just didn’t take. You mean we’re really gonna go witness to the Samaritans? Salvation is of the Jews. So Peter and John are sent by the Church of Jerusalem to check out the work that is happening in Samaria. Now watch what happens. Verse 15, who when they were come down, prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost. For it was not yet fallen upon them, only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then laid their hands on them and they received the Holy Ghost. Now we don’t have the details of what happened here, but we know that some obvious things happened because Simon says in the 18th verse, Simon Magnus, he saw that through the laying on of the apostles’ hands, the Holy Ghost was given. And he offered money to have that power given to him. The visible manifestation of the Spirit in the lives of these Samaritans assured the church that half-breeds could be saved. This time it is not the on-looking Jews who are disbelievers, it is the Jewish Christians. Let me carry you one step further. When you look at the 10th chapter of Acts, you find the story of Cornelius. You shall be witness unto Jerusalem, in Judea, in Samaria, and in the uttermost parts of the earth. You have the Jews, you have the half-breeds, you have the Gentiles, and that’s it. Now Cornelius is a Gentile. This is the uttermost parts of the earth, right? Going out, this is the uttermost parts of the earth. In the 10th chapter, we find in verse 44 and 47 through 47, while Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word, and they of the circumcision which believed were astonished. They of the circumcision, Jews, which believed, Jewish Christians, were astonished. Why were they astonished? The same reason that the people who heard on the day of Pentecost were astonished at what they heard, because here we see God coming into a place where those who are looking on did not believe he possibly could come. They were astonished. As many as came with Peter, why? Because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost, for they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. And then answered Peter, can anyone forbid water that these should not be baptized which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we?
Now the 11th chapter is a very interesting chapter because this is Peter’s explanation of why he did these outlandish things. And the substance of his defense when he gets back to Jerusalem before the brothers and sisters at Jerusalem is, folks, I didn’t do it. I was just talking. And while I was talking, it hit them. Now what can I do about that? And it’s very important, you see, while Peter yet spake, he didn’t give three verses of a hymn for an invitation. He didn’t lay on hands. He was just talking, and it hit him. And boy, was he ever glad because if he’d had to do it, that would have put him in great suspicion. But you see, the Lord is gracious to us. He had a hard enough time getting Peter up there in the first place, you know. He had to have Peter have a vision, and he had to repeat it three times, three times. Peter was hungry, and he wanted to eat. And there was a blanket let down from heaven that had all these filthy things and like pigs and snakes and… The Lord said, arise, Peter, and eat. Not so, Lord, not so. I’ve never eaten anything that’s unclean. Three times. Remember what I said about the commercial, okay? It’s very important. You want to always remember this, by the way, when we talk about the leading of the Lord. Always remember you don’t need to tread in gross uncertainties. The Lord is merciful. If you don’t know, ask that it be made plain. Believe that God is able to make it plain. And I’ll tell you, if it’s something important to the Lord, he’ll make it plain. If it’s one of those situations where he wants you to choose and trust him, then go ahead. He’ll not make it plain. That’s an indication to you that you should go ahead and trust God to go with you. You should go like Abraham who went out not knowing whether he went. God didn’t say go to Haran. He didn’t say go to Egypt. He just said, get out, get up, go. And sometimes leadership is like that. And when it is that way, always remember what that means is God is asking you to step out in faith in him without a vision of where you’re going. But if God wants you to go someplace definite, don’t ever be afraid to say, Lord, make it plain. Write it on the wall. He’ll do it. There’s so much superstition and hokum in the church about the will of God and knowing the will of God. It’s very important for us to say these things. God does not want to keep you in a sort of fearful thought, I’m about to miss the will of God. Listen, if God has a will for you that is definite, all you’ve got to do is say make it plain and he’ll write it in the sky. And if he doesn’t do that, then what you are to believe is that he wants you to go ahead and do what you know to be right and trust him to go with you.
Now in these cases, in the book of Acts, we’re in a very special time in the history of the church and God is accomplishing something definite. And consequently, he doesn’t leave it in the hands of people to fumble around on. He gives the vision and he gives it three times and by the time he gets it three times, Peter says, all right, if you want me to eat pigs, I’ll eat pigs. And then it turned out the vision wasn’t about pigs at all, it was about someone who was coming to the door to get him to go and minister the gospel to a Gentile. But it was very important that when he did it, God show that it was God who was in it. Now that’s the function of tongues. The scripture does not leave us in doubt about this. In 1 Corinthians, in the 14th chapter and the 22nd verse, we find clear language, wherefore tongues are for a sign not to them that believe, but to them that believe not. But prophesying serveth not for them that believe not, but for them which believe.
Tongues are for a sign. Why is that? Tongues are for communication, you see, and communication has all sorts of problems. And what was used and called tongues in the New Testament was a form of communication which was strong enough to break down the barriers and get the message across that God is here. That’s its only function. Recognized in the book of Acts, that’s its only function. In 1 Corinthians, there is another function of self-edification which is recognized. And you’ll find that later on in the 14th chapter here. I don’t want to go into it right now, but I want to mention that it is there.
I will return to some other points in this chapter in a moment. But I want to stress again, this is the function in the book of Acts. One of the things you will notice in the book of Acts, in the presence of unknown tongues, people are moved into the kingdom of God. And the kingdom of God is expanded and bound together. Tongues are not divisive in the book of Acts. They are unifying. They serve to build, not to divide. Another thing to notice in the book of Acts is that tongues are not… They do not come upon people because they try to have them. No one exhorts another to say, get up now, let’s speak in tongues. That is not in the book of Acts. It is something which comes upon people at the direction of God to accomplish his purposes. And when that doorway is opened, then the real work begins. Let me just read another verse or two from 1 Corinthians 14. If therefore the whole church be come together in one place, and all speak in tongues, and there come in those that are unlearned or unbelievers, they will say, you’re all crazy. And I’ll tell you, if that’s all that’s going on, you are! If that’s all that’s going on. But if all prophesy, now prophecy is not to exclude the use of tongues in this passage. If you don’t understand that, you’ll be forced into a bind which you find interestingly in J.B. Phillips’ translation. Phillips, in the effort to understand this passage, just goes back and honestly says, well, verse 22, I can’t make any sense out of it, it must be a mistake. You’ll notice a footnote in his translation if you have it, very interesting. He says, must be a mistake because the way it has to read is tongues are for a sign to them that believe not. Not to them that believe. And see, he doesn’t understand this passage. Now the idea is this, tongues open a door, then prophecy takes over. If there is a need for a sign to prove something, let it happen. But then for goodness sakes, get on with the business. And the business is mainly prophecy. If all prophesy and there come in one that believeth not or one unlearned, by the prophecy he is convinced of all, he’s judged of all, and the secrets of his heart are made manifest and so falling down on his face, he will worship God and report that God is in you of a truth. See, the function of prophecy as is spelled out in this very same chapter and the third verse, he that prophesyeth speaketh unto men to edification and exhortation and comfort. That’s the New Testament prophet. He reveals the heart. He says, here is the way it is with you. And the person who’s sitting there listening to him says, he knows me. He sees through my heart. He understands what’s going on in my mind and here I thought it was all a secret and I stand revealed before all, I can’t hide. Now that’s the function of the prophet, you see. And that combination of indications that God is present in a group, an insight and truth spoken with the sharpness of a sword dividing and clarifying so that people have no place to hide the effect of that kind of ministry is what Paul is talking about in this passage.
Now watch how it works in the book of Acts. The sign had been given, the first verses of the book of Acts, of the second chapter of the book of Acts, give the sign. And the effect of it is precisely what Paul said, won’t they say you’re mad? Look at verse 13, others mocking said, these men are drunk. They’ve been drinking new wine and new wine is wild stuff, see. These people are loaded. Now that’s just like saying they’re crazy, they’re out of their mind, they’re not, right?
Now then, Peter stands up with the 11, verse 14. Peter did not stand up alone, he stood up with the 11. There are no one-man churches in the New Testament. The ministry of the church is manifold, Peter stood up with the 11.
Now we don’t know exactly how to visualize that, but they were there and you can bet they were doing some talking as they went along, but Peter is the one who led the way and using the key which Christ had given to him, he opened the kingdom under the Jews. Just like later, he would open the kingdom under the Gentiles in the house of Cornelius. The keys of the kingdom were given to Peter specifically, he had a job to do. And you will see as we go through the book of Acts, that job is done pretty soon and Peter just sort of becomes a thorn in Paul’s side because then Paul has to go and do the rest of the work. But Peter had a job to do, he had the door to open and now he does it and he does it with prophecy. Peter doesn’t stand up and talk in an unknown tongue, he explains to them what this is that they’re looking at. Peter standing up with the 11 lifted up his voice and said unto them, you men of Judea and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known unto you. You shall be witnesses unto me, verse 8 of chapter 1 says, in Jerusalem and in all Judea. You men of Judah and all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearten to my words. Why did he speak to them? Why didn’t he speak to those folks from Parthia, Media, Mesopotamia, et cetera, et cetera? Well, I suggest to you because he was speaking in Aramaic or the language of those people. He was using that tongue and he addressed them because he was speaking in that language. He was not using an unknown tongue. He was using a tongue he was at home with and he was speaking to people in Judea and Jerusalem who understood that language. So he speaks to them. These are not drunken. This is that which is spoken of by the prophet Joel. And he gives here a passage out of the prophet Joel which I will not read in full. It has caused some people trouble because so obviously what the prophet Joel spoke of did not happen fully on the day of Pentecost. He says this is that and then he goes on to talk about things which were not happening. But the primary reference is to the pouring out of the Spirit of God upon these people. I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy. This is that. This is that. And it will be a day in which all of the niceties will be laid aside so that under the message as the prophecy comes forth, verse 21, whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. There will be a great opening of the kingdom of God. Jesus himself said in the 11th chapter of Matthew that from the time of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and violent men take it by force. You may have wondered what that means. He’s referring simply to the fact that from the time of John the Baptist, the kingdom of heaven is open in a special way. You do not have to be Jewish or Jew-like or go the Jewish route to enter the kingdom of heaven. There is now a new way open, a new and living way open. And whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now then, I want to show you how exactly what Paul said in the 14th chapter of Corinthians about people falling down and saying of a truth God is among you and the secrets of their heart being revealed, I want to show you how that comes to pass in this passage. And I want to say, as I show you, that the major function of the coming of the Spirit of God in the book of Acts is to convict people of sin and bring them in by conversion into the kingdom of heaven.
Now we have to say that what we are looking at here in the book of Acts is not a crusade. It is not a series of protracted meetings as we hillbillies used to call it, right? Anyone here remember protracted meetings? Used to have protracted meetings, a series of protracted meetings, that means they got stretched. You didn’t just go one day, you protracted them, you stretched them out, right? This is not what we often call a revival. And unless we have a different conceptualization of what is happening than as a crusade or a revival or a protracted meeting or whatever you want to call it, we can’t understand what’s happening here because what is happening here is a spiritual awakening. God comes on the scene and takes the people and through them he speaks a word and he crushes the hearts of the hearers. Rather than read this passage which runs from verse 22 to verse 36, I want to simply tell you what happened. I hope you’ve read it this week and I hope you’ve had a good time reading the book of Acts this week, but I want to just tell you what happens.
You see, all of these people knew about Jesus Christ. They understood where he was from, they knew what he did. Now what Peter does is he goes back to the Old Testament and he shows them through a process of identification of scriptures that the person whom they have killed is in fact their Messiah, the one they had been looking for. He proves this to them from the scripture, but you must never believe that it was merely a matter of bringing forth a bunch of scriptures and reasoning with them because it wasn’t. And you can bring forth scripture and reason with people until you are blue in the face. It was in the presence of these scriptures that the living word of God broke forth upon these people. And when Peter was done, they said, we have killed our king, we killed him.
Look in verse 37, after Peter says, let all of the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart. They were stabbed in their heart, stabbed. Sometimes you will read in the newspaper a story of a father who gets in his automobile and backs out of his driveway and backs over his little child. It’s difficult for a person in such circumstances to keep their sanity. The realization of truth kills people. People die because of the realization of truth. That’s exactly what happened in the fifth chapter of Acts where Ananias and Sapphira died on the spot. They were killed by the realization of truth.
These people were torn in their heart. This is the intended effect of the filling of the Holy Spirit on the world. The effect on the church is unity. The effect on the church is power. The effect on the world is conviction of sin. Let me just share with you what Jesus said about this matter, if I can find it. John 16 verse 8, and when he has come, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they believe not on me, of righteousness because I go to my Father, of judgment, of the job of the Holy Spirit. It is to reprove the world of sin in such a way that the heart is stabbed open and broken and people can no longer stand up in their stiff neckness and assert their independence and their righteousness because they see what they’ve done and who they are. This is the missing note in evangelical preaching today. We’re preaching medicine to people who don’t believe they’re sick. We’re offering bandages to those who are not wounded. The primary work of the ministry of the gospel so far as the world is concerned is conviction of sin, and it comes when those who are in the church are filled with the Spirit of Christ.
We combine then, you see, and I return to the point I’m making now, the functions of tongues and prophecy. Whatever the signs that may be needed to get the attention of the world, the fundamental work of the Holy Spirit is done in the ministry of prophecy. Prophecy as it is explained in the New Testament, exhortation, calling people out, edification, building them up, comfort, strengthening them, and that is accomplished through the living Word of Christ.
One of the things you will have noticed if you read the book of Acts this week possibly is how the Word of God is treated as if it were something which were loose in the atmosphere. The Word of God is exploding. It’s something that Christ turned loose. Now that’s what is always characteristic of a spiritual awakening. A spiritual awakening is accomplished by the powerful Word of God as it goes forth into a landscape. When you don’t go over someplace and start the meeting, you go over there because you’ve already heard it’s breaking out over there. If you look at the stories of awakenings in the past, you’ll see that that’s true. One of the clearest cases of this in our own country is the second evangelical awakening. And you see in the life, for example, of Charles Finney and of Moody and of others, this feature that the Word of God is over here already at work, and we go because it’s already there. And it is characteristic of a spiritual awakening that it functions in that manner.
And this kind of work is what was going on even in Paul’s ministry as a missionary. God went before him. When he was in Corinth, he had a vision in which God said to him, don’t be afraid. Speak up. Let your word be heard because I have much people in this place. In Acts 13, 48, we find the scripture reading, as many as were ordained unto eternal life believed. And we find this in the great missionary movement of our more recent times. Many people are often struck by the fact that the greatest of missionaries were hard-necked Calvinists. But when you begin to look at the lives of these people and ask why they went, you find that they went because they knew God was already there. And it is in that confidence in the Word of God that Peter stood and spoke. And that is what we are to expect as a people of God as we come together to receive the power of God.
If we can come through the path of discipleship and shared experience and love to the place where we really are with one another, and where the most important thing in the world is to see the kingdom of God advanced in our lives and in the lives of those around us, then God is ready to begin to impart that power.
There are a number of negative things that I need to say about tongues on this point because again, this is something which is very much in the air. And although I don’t really like to spend this much time on these things because I think there are so much more important things to talk about, the historical situation dictates that some things be said. And so I want just very quickly to say a number of negative things and then to conclude by accentuating the positive.
The first thing is, when you’re dealing with this issue of tongues, I would urge you to follow the advice of Paul in 1 Corinthians 14, 39. Don’t get caught up in forbidding people to speak in tongues. Paul says here, verse 39 of the 14th chapter, Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues. Now one of the very simple reasons why I urge you not to do this thing of forbidding is because you’ll get absolutely nowhere with it. You might as well tell the wind not to blow because if a person is set on this, the best thing you can do is get out of their way. Now if it involves a meeting in the church, you have the directions of Paul as to how to handle it. We find in the 14th chapter here, If any man, 27th verse, If any man speak in an unknown one, let it be by two, or at most by three. The first rule is no more than three in a meeting. And secondly, that one after the other, not together, he says by course, one after the other, and thirdly, one must interpret. If there be no interpreter, let him keep silence in the church, and let him speak to himself and to God. Now you see, this isn’t a matter of forbidding people to speak in tongues, but this is also a matter of not allowing those who wish to dominate services to do that. There’s something more important to be done also. And Paul says, God is not the author of confusion, but of peace. If you’re going to do it, do it that way. And if you’re smarter than Paul, God bless you. I’m not. And so I take his advice. I don’t forbid to speak in tongues, but if someone is going to do it, and it is in a church where I have a role of authority, I will certainly see to it by the power of God, not by hitting anyone in the mouth or kicking anyone out of the church, I don’t have to do that. As Paul says to the Romans, the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power, and he gives that power to his ministers, and they can accomplish his work. I don’t have to bully anyone. There are other ways of doing that, and it can be brought to pass. You have power to accomplish the work of God. You see, one of the troubles that has happened with the charismatic movement is that this movement has come into churches which are almost completely powerless. The only thing they can get done is by means of committees or exclusion or bullying or brow beating, and consequently, they don’t know what to do with it. They have no resources for handling it. But again, you have to look at the New Testament ministry and see how it is handled. There is power in the word of the minister of the kingdom of God, and he can accomplish what needs to be done by the power of that word alone. I’m afraid that may be something of a mystery to some of you, and I wish I had time to expand on it more fully, but I don’t this evening. I must go on to something else.
The second negative thing I say to you is don’t say you won’t talk in tongues. Don’t say you won’t. I’ll tell you why. It isn’t good to tell God you’re not going to do anything. Let me tell you a little story from one of the past revivals in America. There was a very great movement, as I mentioned, under Charles Finney, and in one of the places in upstate New York, there was a grove out by the side of a little town, and for some reason or other, people just got to going into that grove and getting converted right and left. Finney had preached them under conviction of sin so that they were just crushed by it, and people were, they somehow, some people first went out there and they found release there, and the word got passed, and people just sort of beat a path to that grove, and there was one judge in that town, and he said, I am not going to go to that grove and pray. This is dumb. Why should anyone have to go to that stupid grove and pray? No reason, really. He was right, but he set his will against God on that point, and because of that he could not find peace with God. He had to break on that point, and finally he went to that grove, and when he went to that grove, he got so saved that he came back through town and literally knelt in every mud puddle he could find and prayed, just to show that he had gotten it all broken down. But you see, you don’t set yourself against God. Don’t tell God you won’t sit on a flagpole, right? Don’t tell God there’s something, just don’t do that, please. Don’t tell him you won’t talk in tongues, because you just might wind up finding yourself in a bind with God over that very point.
Don’t feel superior to those who do. That goes down hard with some of us folks, I’m afraid.
Don’t feel superior to those who do. It’s no special point that you don’t talk in tongues. Just as, in my opinion, it’s no big deal if you do. Many people don’t know that tongues are even manifested among non-Christian religions. Nearly all of the gifts of the Spirit are manifested in one measure or another in the non-Christian religions. You may not have known that, but it’s true, and that’s what we have to understand and we have to remember with reference to all of the gifts. They are gifts. They are things that are put on you. They don’t show much of anything about you. That’s why a gift is so strongly contrasted with a fruit which shows something about you. It shows what your inner nature is. But a gift is something that’s tied onto you, that is given to you for a purpose for God. And the fact that you can preach or you can sing or you can heal or you can do any of these things may show very little of anything about you. And we get this all confused because we think, my, this fellow can do wondrous things. He must be a tremendous man of God, bologna. There are some very phony people running around who actually do some good things in the kingdom of God. Look at the seventh chapter of Matthew with me for just a moment. Seventh chapter of Matthew, the 21st verse and following. Not everyone that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. But he that doeth the will of my Father, which is in heaven. Many will say unto me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name have cast out devils in thy name done many wonderful works. See, that’s wonderful works religion. That’s wonderful works religion. And maybe that’s the religion of the big deal. Here I come, get ready for me. I’m gonna really do something. Watch me. See, that’s what Simon Magnus saw. He saw these people doing a strange thing. Peter, how much could I give you to get you to let me do that? Peter said, thy money perish with thee. That’s pretty strong because, you know, that indicated he was gonna perish is what that indicated. Right? Thy money perish with thee because thy heart is not right with God. Now look at what Jesus says. Then I will profess unto them I never knew you. Depart from me, ye that work iniquity. But I said wonderful works. Is that iniquity? Now the point is, you see, iniquity is at one level and wonderful works is at another. God uses people for all sorts of things. He used some very ungodly people in the Old Testament that thrashed the daylights out of the people of Israel and called Gentile kings his shepherd. That’s his purposes. We don’t feel superior because of that and we don’t feel inferior.
I think the most important negative thing I have to say to you is this. Don’t allow fear of the tongues to rob you or turn you aside from participating in the power of the Spirit of God. Believe it. It’s for you. It’s not the least, the greatest, every one of you. We are all to know this in some measure. It is something we learn. We learn to do something that absolutely means nothing in itself and all of a sudden we find that it has transformed someone. It has made some great difference. Someone is healed. Someone is corrected. And it’s God that’s doing it. It isn’t you. But you see, if you’re not open to that, you will never know it. And that is why Paul says, seek or covet the best gifts. But there are many folk in the land today who are so scared of the tongues that they won’t open up for anything. Don’t be at God’s disposal. Don’t be frightened of these things. Listen, you know and I know that the best things in this world are taken by the devil and twisted and made something evil of. That’s true of money. That’s true of power. That’s true of health. That’s true of sex. That’s true of knowledge. That’s true of everything. It’s true of parenthood. And you mustn’t at all be surprised if this happens to that great gift of the Holy Spirit.
Now then, positively, you are perfectly safe as long as you understand that the rule of our life in the kingdom of God is the commandments and teachings of Christ and following him. The test of our position before God is not whether we speak in tongues or don’t. Not whether we heal someone or don’t. The mark of the Christian is the simple, humble following of Christ. By this shall all men know you are my disciples if you have love one towards another. Take that as your mark and as you go forward, watch to see God breaking forth in you and your friends. Look for it. And as he brings you along, he’ll prepare you for it. You probably, most of you here, will have some preliminary experiences to go through before. It would be good for you that this should, similar sorts of things should happen. Be open to them. Say, Lord, lead me into them. Prepare me for it. Just as these people were prepared, prepare us. And when you feel and see the leading of God, as you walk forward in the commandments of Christ, respond, obey, say, Lord, I will by your grace, I will go forward, I will do whatever it is that is put before me as a way of showing the truth and the power of the way of Christ in this world. And as you go forward, you will begin to step out into the exercise of power. And when you do, it won’t turn your head. It won’t upset you. It won’t make you think you’re a spiritual hotshot. It won’t do any of those things, or if it does, you’ll get straightened out very fast because you’re in the hands of the Lord. And you will begin to see the effect of a spiritual ministry in your midst. And you will know that it is not you that is doing it. You will know that God is in your midst. That’s the story of the book of Acts. That’s the story of the creation of the church. It is the realization of a people which are literally drawn together as the temple of God. And they know it for a fact, and they see it. And they understand that it is a power in their midst accomplishing the will of God.
I close now just by reading the last part of the second chapter of Acts. Forty-one and following. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day there added unto them about three thousand souls. Oh, I would talk in tongues twenty-four hours a day if I could cause that to happen. And they continued. Now, watch the community which evolves out of it. They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, and in the breaking of bread and in prayers, and fear came upon every soul. Many wonders and signs were done with the apostles, and all that believed were together and had all things in common. And so their possessions and goods imparted them to all men, as every man had need. And they, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people, and the Lord added daily, such as should be saved. The Lord was building his church. They didn’t have to go out and round people up. The Lord added people in, and he added them in because of the quality of the life which was in the group.
Now we will see, pretty soon they decide they’d better kill them instead of add in, and there’s a lot of tension that arises, and the attacks now begin upon the church. But I want you to just see this group of people brought together.
We must never make the mistake here of saying that, well, if we want the book of Acts to return, let’s go sell everything we’ve got and buy a house and move in and have a community. No. Any more than we should say, now we want to be filled with the Spirit, so let’s get together in a room and pray until he falls on us. That is not the way. The way is the way of simple discipleship, a full commitment to do the will of God and to follow Christ. And as he draws us together with other people and molds us into his image, he will bring us to the place where we will know what to do. He will give us the power to do what we should do. That is the way of Christ. We go by the way of the cross. It is only those upon whom the cross has been placed who live under it and who daily take it up and who understand that they live a life beyond their desires and their own self-assertions and their own dissatisfaction, who have something more and who live in that, those people. It is safe to turn the power on, otherwise it’s not and we can thank God he doesn’t do it until we’re ready.
Let’s bow in prayer. Lord we’re so thankful for this marvelous passage and we know it would be wrong for us to say let’s go back and do that. Lord we know it isn’t for us to do. We know it is for you to do. But oh help us today to take the cross seriously. Help us to take self-denial in the fellowship of a suffering Christ where it is necessary, very seriously and to understand that unless we’re prepared to lay aside everything and follow you, we’re not fitted for your kingdom. Help us to understand that and approach these matters in that way. Touch every heart and every mind, oh Lord touch me and lead me into the ways I should go from where I am and do so accordingly for everyone here this evening as we close the service in Jesus’ name, Amen.
We’re going to sing number 462 and I’m going to extend to you an invitation if you would like to meet with me or with others from the ministry of the church. For the purpose of recording a decision or asking counsel, I’m going to ask this evening if you’re in that category if you just go out through here and go back to the choir room and we’ll come back in a moment and meet with you to pray and to help you with anything that we can. Otherwise, let’s just stand prayerfully and sing Living for Jesus number 462. Living for Jesus, a life that is true, striving to please Him in all that I do, yielding only to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God the Son of God, the Son of God the Son, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of God, the Son of My life I give, henceforth given, O Christ for Thee alone. My prayer is that this week, that course that you’ve just sung, will just mean so much that is concrete and real to you, and that you will sense the goodness of that. My life I live, henceforth to give, O Christ for Thee alone, and know the peace and joy of just resting in that, and knowing that all of these other things we’ve talked about and we see in the book of Acts is a part of what is given to us as we live together, ready to follow his will, he brings us into it. We don’t have to make it happen, it’ll come to us, if that verse is our prayer. Lord make it so, in all of our lives, in Jesus’ name, Amen.