What Peter Really Said at Pentecost — Acts 2 Explained

Hello and welcome to Through the Bible with Les Feldick. An Oklahoma rancher and farmer, Les Feldick has been teaching homestyle Bible classes for 20 years in Iowa, Oklahoma, and Texas. Les Feldick's unique style of Bible teaching has made the books of the Bible come to life. When Les is teaching, it's so interesting that people say time just seems to fly by. And now, here is Les Feldick. Okay, here we go. Good afternoon, and again, it's good to have everybody back. And we'll pick right up where we left off, those of you here in the studio. We'll be starting right back at Acts chapter 2, verse 7. And we always like to let our television audience know that we appreciate your being with us, and how we appreciate your letters. And then when you tell us that you feel like you're part of the class, and that's exactly what we're trying to put across. That we're just simply teaching the Word. We're not connected with any group. We have no large organization. In fact, I told someone the other day, if it wasn't for the tax-exempt status for people who give, we probably wouldn't even become a ministry. But in order to get that status, and be able to give those who contribute the opportunity of a tax deduction, we are a legal entity. We are a legal ministry. And so your gifts are tax deductible as such. But other than that, we have no organization. Once in a while somebody will write and say that you are someone on your staff. Heavens, the only staff I have is that gal over there that's finding the Scriptures. And then the others of course, Harold and Margaret back there, they do all the business end of it for us. They do all the bookkeeping and so forth. But otherwise, we're not a big organization. I never hoped to be, although there's my wife on the screen now. I couldn't do it without her. And all we were just talking at break time. We're now beginning our fifth year, and so the station has recognized us with it. Are they going to put the cake on the picture someplace, Eddie? Anyhow, if they aren't this time, we're going to do it next time, because I want our television audience to see that even the station appreciates us, believe it or not. Okay, so much for that again. Let's get back into where we left off now. In Acts chapter 2, it's the Day of Pentecost, the Jewish Feast Day, and Jews have congregated from all over the then known world. And if someone just let me know at break time, I can even take this word tongues, as I call language, even one step further, because the Greek word is dialectos, from which we get dialect. So not only did these twelve disciples speak in a regional language, they brought it down to the dialect of individual areas. Now this is just to point out that God is so miraculous in everything He does. This isn't something to be just taken lightly, but these twelve men were given that ability of languages, and as I closed my program I couldn't believe that the thirty minutes was up, and I didn't get to make my point. But if you run into somebody that can speak seven or eight languages, you know that you've got a pretty intelligent individual. I envy that kind of intelligence, I really do. But see here, these common ordinary Galileans, these twelve men, now twelve, are not highly educated. They're not highly cultured, but they've been with the Lord for three years, and now they're speaking all of these languages down to the local dialect, so that these people could understand every word that they were saying. Now let's go on over to verse 8. And so the crowd begins to mumble between themselves, and they say, "...how do we hear every man in our own dialectos wherein we were born?" And then here's the names of the nations where they've come from. Now, Parthians, Medes, now it doesn't mean they're Gentile Medes and Parthians, these are Jews who have come from these various nations. Elamites, the dwellers in Mesopotamia, clear out beyond the Euphrates. Judea, Cappadocia, Asia Minor, and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, in Egypt, parts of Libya, see, northern Africa, about Cyrene, strangers who had come from Rome, Jews, and yes, some proselytes, that's to be expected. And then it goes on, verse 11. Cretes, Anarabians, now these are Jews who had been living in these various nations. And they come back now, and they listen to these twelve men, and they say, "...we do hear them speak in our language, the wonderful works of God." Now, this is the miraculousness of it all. This is the power that Jesus had promised would come upon them, back there in verse 8. Verse 12. "...they were all amazed, and were in doubt, saying one to another, What meaneth this?" What's going on? Can't you about imagine? And how the crowd just almost became alive, as something so supernatural. Verse 13. You've always got the doubters, you know, you've always got the scoffer, and it was no different then. And they said, "...these men are full of new wine." Now how ridiculous can you get? Now, alcohol can make a man make a fool of himself, but I've never yet seen it elevate him to a higher level of intelligence. So the whole thing is ridiculous. They couldn't learn languages through alcohol. But you see, a scoffer will just grab at straws, won't he? They'll just grab at any kind of a foolish notion, in order to have a point. Then verse 14. "...but Peter, standing up with the eleven, all twelve now are intact, he lifted up his voice, and he said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all that dwell at Jerusalem." Now I'm going to keep hammering home the fact that he's talking to Jews. Except maybe an occasional proselyte. "...and all you that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words." Listen to me. "...for these are not drunken, as you suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day." That was another thing that made it ridiculous. It was too early in the day for anybody to be that far along. Now verse 16. And here's where we're going to get real picky. But Peter says, "...this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel." Now stop and analyze what is the this, and what is the that. Well the this he's talking about, is this manifestation now of the coming down of the Holy Spirit, in a role completely different than he had ever played before. Now the Spirit has always been. You go back to creation, what moved upon the face of the deep? The Spirit did. David prayed, "...take not your spirit from me." And so the Spirit has been evident, even though Orthodox Jews today do not like to recognize the Holy Spirit as a person of the Godhead, but yet the Scripture does. And so that was nothing new, that the Spirit was a person of the Godhead. But that He would come down in this kind of a role to empower. This was something totally new. And so Peter says, "...this is that which was spoken by Joel." Now we're going to go back and look at it in a minute, because Peter of course quotes from Joel. But I want you and our television people to see, that this was all back in the Old Testament. So if you can go back with me a minute to Joel. That's right after Daniel and Hosea. You come into Joel chapter 2, and come down to verse 28. Now remember this is prophecy. And over the last four years I've been stressing that all prophecy is directed primarily to the nation of Israel. All prophecy is directed to Israel. There is no prophecy directed to the church. Now we can see the beginnings of prophecy again, but so far we're not in prophetic dealings at all. In other words, even as we see the increase in earthquakes, and we see the whole world getting ready tonight for world government, world economy, and a world religion, that's still not the wheels of prophecy turning yet. It's simply getting it ready for when they do. So all prophecy is directed to the nation of Israel. And here again it's so obvious. As Joel writes back here in our Old Testament, verse 28, "...it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions, and also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days I will pour out My Spirit." Now this is what's happening. This is what Peter says. This is what Joel was talking about. All right, read on. "...and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, fire, pillars of smoke, the sun shall be turned into darkness, the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come, and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call." Now before the camera leaves that verse completely, I want you to come back to the end of verse 29. "...and upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days I will pour out My Spirit." And then the next verse says, "...and I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, fire, pillars of smoke." Now we did this a few years ago, where we went all the way up through the Old Testament and on into the New, and we would take these portions of Scripture and show that the first part was fulfilled at His first Advent, and then there's a break because the rest hasn't happened yet. All right, now here's one of those that we like to parenthesize, and that is in verse 30. That didn't happen at Pentecost. It hasn't happened yet, but it's going to. So you can put a dash and a parenthesis in there that everything up through verse 29 took place at His first Advent, and including the day of Pentecost. But you see verse 30, 31, 32, and 30, no, 31 and 32, they haven't happened yet. That's still future. Now had Peter, now here's where I want to make my point. Had Peter had the foreknowledge that Jesus had, you know what he would have done? He would have done like Jesus did in Luke 4 when He read from Isaiah 61, and He stopped in the middle of the verse and laid down the Book and said, "...this has been fulfilled before your eyes." Because He knew that the rest of that verse in Isaiah wouldn't take place until 2 ,000 years down the road. But you see Peter doesn't know. Peter is still on covenant ground as I've shown so often that he claims the covenant promises that God made to Abraham, and we'll see that probably in the next taping if not this one. But you see Peter can't put a break here between verse 29 and 30. He doesn't know. And so he reads or quotes the whole portion as though it's all going to take place one thing right after another. Now you remember the last time I had the Old Testament program on the timeline on the board out of Psalms 2? That all Psalms 2 showed that Christ would come, He'd be rejected, He'd ascend back to glory, and then would come the time of vexation and wrath of God, the tribulation, and then, and yet have I set my King on the holy hill of Zion? Then would come the Kingdom? Well there was no hint in there that there was going to be a break of 2,000 years. And I can take you all the way up through the Old Testament that way, that the first half of those prophecies were fulfilled at His first coming. The second half are still waiting. But these people didn't know like Jesus did, and so He could stop at the appropriate place. All right now if you'll come back to Acts with me again. Still preaching on covenant and kingdom ground, has no idea that there's going to be 2 ,000 years of the age of grace, and so He continues right on with the whole prophecy. And verse 19 and 20 then, He tells it like He think it's going to happen. That next would come the showing of wonders in heaven, the signs in the earth beneath, blood, fire, vapor of smoke. That'll be the tribulation. And see Peter has no inkling but that that's the next thing on the agenda. All right now another point I always like to make is in verse 21. It shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. All right now hold your hand in Acts and let's jump ahead a few pages to Romans chapter 10. And lo and behold you find the same language. But the casual reader never sees the difference. But I want you to. What a difference! And again what's the difference? Well Peter says it one way and Paul says it another. Peter just got through quoting Joel who said that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. That's under the Old Testament economy. That is when the king says ten men shall take hold of the skirt of him that is a Jew and they'll say I'll go with you for we've heard that God is with you in Jerusalem. All right now look what Paul says in Romans 10. Verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now that's not kingdom ground. This isn't going to be done through Israel. This is where we are today. Verse 8. I'm putting it in reverse purposely. Now come up to verse 8. But Paul writes, What saith it? The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth and in thy heart. That is the word of faith which we preach. Now here it comes. Verse 9. That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus and shalt believe in thy heart that God hath raised Him and thou shalt be saved. See? That's what's the heart of our salvation message. But in order to trigger it, what are we to do? Call upon Him. You know I've always used the analogy, I like to use simple ones that anybody can understand, even a child. If you've got a whole swimming pool full of kids on a hot summer afternoon and they're screaming and they're yelling and they're diving and they never hear some weak call for help, would they? But that lifeguard has a trained ear, hopefully, and when that lifeguard hears some feeble call of some kid that's going under for about the third time, what do they do? Oh, they spring into action because they can hear a cry for help, even though the rest around them don't pay any mind. Now it's the same way with God. When God hears that sinner is in need of salvation, and immediately He's there to save. But I feel that the person has to still come to the place of realizing that they are in need. And when they're in need, they cry out and God responds. And so that's the whole concept here in Romans 10. That yes, we are to believe that Christ died and rose from the dead, but God expects us to cry out on that basis for His help, for His saving power. And that's what Joel then is writing under the aids of grace. And that's where we are tonight. The vilest sinner can call out for salvation, and it's his if he believes. But you see back here in Joel, that wasn't the case. Christ hadn't died yet. The offer of salvation hasn't been turned over to the whole world. It's still confined to Israel under the Law. But Joel is saying that when the King and the Kingdom have become a reality, that's what the living world have to do. Same thing. Call out to Jehovah God, and they could experience salvation. So it's the same wording, but under two totally different circumstances. One is under grace. The other is under the Kingdom economy. And so always be careful that you don't just gloss over and say, well, that's the same thing that Paul wrote. The words are the same, but the circumstances and the setting is totally, totally different. Let's go back to once again, verse 22 now. And I'm going to take this as slowly as I dare, without putting people to sleep. Peter, now with his great crowd of Jews from every end of the then known world, congregated for this Feast of Pentecost. Ye men of Israel, and all you pagan Gentiles, does your Bible say that? No. Who's he talking to? Jews, and Jews only. Now I tried to show someone last night, this term, Jew only, isn't original with me. I get it from the Book. Now hold your hand here in chapter 2, and we've looked at it before in this program, but I'm going to look at it again because we've got new listeners every week. Come over to chapter 11, and drop down to verse 19, right here in the Book of Acts. Chapter 11, and verse 19. And the setting, of course, is much later, but Luke refers back to Acts chapter 7, when Stephen was stoned, and that event was seven years after Pentecost. See? All right, but now look what it says. Acts 11, verse 19. Now they who were scattered abroad upon the persecution that arose around Stephen, Acts chapter 7, those persecuted Jews now, traveled as far as Phenis, and Cyprus, and Antioch, up there in Syria, preaching the Word, now remember they haven't got the New Testament yet, so what Word are they preaching? Old Testament, that's all they've got. So they were preaching the Word to none, but to Jews, only. Now you see how plain that is? The book says it. It's not original with me, and so it was Jew only, Jew only, Jew only, because God had not given them instructions yet to go to the Gentiles. He is still dealing with His covenant people, as late as Acts chapter 7. So certainly in Acts chapter 2 He hasn't breached that covenant promise, and so He's still dealing with the people of Israel, and that's why Peter addresses it as such. Plain, ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles, and wonders, and signs. Well that's why we covered them all as we came through the Gospels. And what have I said over and over? What was the chief purpose of performing signs, miracles, and wonders? To prove that He was the Son of God. That was the whole purpose in them. And of course they also had ramifications on the nation of Israel. We looked at that throughout the 8 signs in the book of John. All of those signs were given to show Israel that not only was He the Son of God, not only was He the Messiah, but He was the answer to their every need. All right, now then Peter is rehearsing that. Do you know what he did to prove who He was? Now verse 23. Him, speaking of Jesus of Nazareth, being delivered by the determinate counsel, and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified, and slain. What's another common word for the word slain? Killed! Imagine! You know I've told my class for 20 years, how would you like to have your pastor stand up behind the pulpit of your particular church Sunday after Sunday and point the finger out over that congregation and say, you killed the Son of God. Wouldn't that be awful? But we don't. We murdered Him. But, back up a couple words in this verse, and there are two tremendous words here that I'm afraid the average Bible reader... You know I read a frightening statement the other night. Once in a while I have to digress. I can't help that. I was reading a book called The Index of Cultural Indicators as a parallel to the government's index of economic indicators. And he's done it for a purpose. But in this little book of cultural indicators, he shows by graph from government figures that since 1960 all the bad things that could happen to a society have been just from 1960 to 1990 up. Abortion, single parents, illegitimate births, murder, drug use, alcoholism, all the bad things, just on a straight angle up. The next page, he's got the good things, and they've been on a line down. But the amazing thing is that on this line going up almost parallel is government spending. And you know what that told me? Our government is subsidizing our societal collapse. And we're paying for it. And then I had another experience along that same line talking about the catastrophe in our public school system. And someone had said, but we've got so many Christians as teachers. And I've always sort of taken that as a compliment. I know that in our schools we've got Christian people. And I think, well, they're going to keep this under control. But this educator, and I can't remember his name, and it doesn't matter, but he was way up echelons. And he made this statement, and I'll tell you what, I could hardly sleep because of it. He said, now you have to remember that the average professing Christian is in reality a practicing secular humanist. Now think about that. You see that? They claim to be believers. They claim to be Christians. But out there in the workaday world, they fit right in with secular humanism. And why is that? Because they're so ignorant of this book. Last night in our class, my class chuckled when I used the word ignorant. I said, now wait a minute, when I used the word ignorant, that doesn't mean they're short on brainpower. Hey, I'm average in brainpower, but there are a lot of things I'm totally ignorant of. And see, most, most church members tonight are totally ignorant of this book. They know just a little bit of the stuff that they've scratched off the surface. And so consequently, with so little biblical knowledge, they can come into the workaday world, and they can embrace secular humanism, and they don't even know what they're doing. And as I've told people, they say, well Les, why do you do what you're doing? You're not getting any compensation. I don't want any compensation. If I can just get people to wake up and realize that there's so much in this book to learn, that will help us as a nation in day-to-day living and in experience, in good citizenship. My, when we see what's taking place with our young people tonight, they have no sense of right and wrong. Why? They don't know what this book says, because here's where it all comes from. My, again I heard a tape the other night, I can't remember the young man's name, but he's terrific if you ever get a chance to hear him. Is that David Horton? Is that the right name? Barton. My, when he can show you the godliness of our Founding Fathers, and how they all quoted this book. Well there my time is gone again, but anyway, we'll pick up where we left off when we start our next program. Thank you for watching Through the Bible with Les Feldick, a weekly Bible study. 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