What Really Happened 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. I have to have confirmation that the Lord is using it for His glory, otherwise it would be just money wasted from your end of it as well as ours. But when we realize that from your letters, your phone calls, that the Lord is using our teaching to open the Book to a better understanding, and as I just shared with the class, nothing thrills me more than when someone writes and says, I never before understood the difference between God dealing with Israel and the Church. Well that just tells me that something is coming through. So anyway, we want you to know that we appreciate your letters and your phone calls, and always be aware that all of these lessons are available on videotape. Many of them now are available in printed form. The pools are just working day and night to transcribe, and it won't be very long until all the programs that are on tape will also be available in print. Now realize these are not authored books, they are just word for word transcriptions from what I�m saying here in the class, and maybe someday we�ll take the time to put all this into an authored book where we can have the footnotes and the bibliography and all the rest. But so far these booklets are just transcriptions. So much for announcements again, and now we�re going to pick right up where we left off in our last lesson in Acts chapter 1, and we�d left off in verse 11 where they had just seen the Lord ascend from out of their midst on the Mount of Olives, and now they return back of course to Jerusalem, and they�re congregating in an upper room. Now I don�t know what that situation was, it must have been a rather large facility because we�ve got at least 120 people meeting here, and I even wonder if that isn�t just the men, and then there were women and others besides. So wherever they were meeting it must have been rather commodious, and must have had a fair amount of room. But now they were instructed by the Lord back there in Acts chapter 2, and that�s what they�re doing. There�s a 10 day interval now from the Ascension until we get into the coming down of the Holy Spirit in Acts chapter 2. So in this 10 day interval now, we see them congregated in Jerusalem in the upper room, and if you�ll read the names or count them in verse 13, they�re all 11 there, plus other men, and like I said other women and probably children. And then in verse 15 we�ll continue on in those days, in other words in that 10 day period between His Ascension and chapter 2, Peter stood up in the midst of the disciples, that is these believers, these followers now of Christ as their Messiah, and the number of the names together were about 120. Now I have made the comment, and I say it cautiously, is this all the believers that there were in the area of Jerusalem after 3 years of ministry? I tend to think so. Now of course like I said there were women, but of the men there were 120. Now I�m not going to be real strong on the point, but I have taught it before, and I know one time I had just taught it the night before, and the next day I got a little book in the mail from someone, but that was his approach. That after 3 years of Christ�s earthly ministry in the immediate environs of Jerusalem, this was the sum total of His fruit. And I can sort of believe that, but whatever. Take it for whatever it�s worth, and it just says that there were 120 men, not counting the women. Now Peter realizes that since Jesus had left them with the idea that the Kingdom was still at hand, He has not told them that it�s going to be postponed for 1900 and some years, and since the Kingdom is going to be ruled by Christ with the 12 tribes of Israel, well if you�ve got 12 tribes you have to have how many? Well you have to have 12, and there�s only 11. So Peter sees the imperativeness now of filling that 12th slot, so that they�re ready for the return of Christ when He sets up His Kingdom. So in verse 16 he says, I Peter 2.2a I Peter 2.2a 1. This scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, who was guide to them, who took Jesus. For he was, Judas, numbered with us, and had obtained part of this ministry. Indeed he had, he�d been with them the whole 3 years. He was even one of the officers. What was his office? He was the treasurer! He held the bag. And so indeed he had a part in the ministry, although we know that he never had a spiritual part of it, because Jesus said Himself, I think back in John, that he was a devil or a demon, not just those last few weeks, but from the beginning. So he had completely fooled the other 11 men, but he had never fooled Jesus. Jesus knew who He was, and Jesus knew what He was, but that of course is why David by inspiration prophesied it. Now I guess this came up the other night, and I always have to stop for the benefit of our television people just as well as our class people. How many times haven�t people suggested, �Well poor old Judas, he never had a chance. God had already created him to be the betrayer.� No, Judas wasn�t put in that kind of a situation. Judas wasn�t left without a choice. He had just as much choice as the others, but God in His foreknowledge knew what Judas would do when he was given the opportunity, and so prophecy foretold it. Now of course when prophecy foretells it, then it has to happen, otherwise the book becomes a lie. But never take away Judas� free will. He had full opportunity of accepting, had he wanted to, but the psalmist foretold that he would betray, and that he would fall by transgression. Now this man purchased the field with the reward of iniquity. Now remember what he did when he took his 30 pieces of silver, he took them back to the priest at the temple, and threw it at their feet because of his own guilt. The priest, knowing it was blood money of course, couldn�t put it into the treasury, so they took it and bought the potter�s field with the money that Judas had thrown on the floor. And so that�s why verse 18 gives Judas the credit for purchasing the field, when in reality he didn�t, the priest did. Now this man purchased the field with the reward of iniquity, and falling headlong he burst asunder in the midst, and all his bowels gushed out. Now I�ve commented on this several months ago, but you want to realize that before Judas actually betrayed there in the Garden of Gethsemane, Satan did. And so I would like to think that what happened here, as Judas now comes back and tries to get out of the whole situation, that as Satan leaves him, he literally just catapults the body of Judas. Now there�s a lot more than meets the eye, because you see one point of Scripture like it says here, that he was burst asunder, in other words that there was an actual bursting of his torso, and then another point of Scripture says that he was hung. Now how are you going to reconcile the two? Because it�s not that Scripture is contradictory, but you�ve got to be able to put all these things together. So what I like to think is that as a result of this catapulting action of Satan himself as he leaves the body of Judas, it could have actually catapulted him to the place where he hung on a low branch of a tree, or on a fence post, or anything like that. So he ended up in both categories. He was literally burst asunder, but he also ended up being hung on a tree. Well that�s just something to make you dig into the Book, and I throw some of these things out just to make people study a little more. Now verse 19, and this was known unto all the dwellers of Jerusalem, insomuch as that field is called in their proper tongue Al -Qadamah, that is to say the field of blood, because it had been purchased with blood money. Then he goes back to the Book of Psalms where it says, Let his habitation be desolate, let no man dwell therein, and his bishopric, his office, as one of the twelve, and his bishopric let another take. Now then, Peter says, Luke 19. Wherefore, of these men who have accompanied with us all the time that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us, beginning from the baptism of John, unto that same day that He was taken up from us, must one be ordained to be a witness with us of His resurrection. I�m sure most of you have heard, and I remember one of the great Bible teachers on the radio when I was young, I can still hear him say it, that he thought that Peter was being presumptuous here. Peter was jumping the gun, that Peter should have waited for the Apostle Paul to fill this 12th slot. And I�ve heard others say that. But I come right back and say, how can educated, good, solid Bible teachers make a statement that Paul should have been in here? Because look at the qualifications, that�s all you have to do. Just look at the qualifications. It had to be someone who had been a follower of Christ from John the Baptist at the very beginning of his earthly ministry, and he had to have been a follower all through the three years right up until the Ascension. Paul wouldn�t have fit that. You couldn�t drive Paul into that slot with a sledgehammer, because he was an opposer of Christ. He called Jesus of Nazareth a blasphemer. He would have never fit this. And so evidently out of the 120 some men that are gathered, there were only two that had been followers and believers of Christ right from the beginning all the way through His ministry until He had ascended. And who are they? Well Barabbas, who was surnamed Justus, and Matthias. Now then, I think they put some sort of a choosing device, either a dice or a short and a long stick. Now you know when you go back into the Old Testament, how did God arrive at some of these decisions by using the priest? What were the little stones? What were they called? The umen and the thumen. Remember those two words? Well those umen and thumen were evidently two little gemstones that went into a pouch behind the ephod, and Scripture doesn�t define it. But when they had to have a decision of yes or no, the priest would pull out the umen and thumen, and maybe throw them on a table like we would dice, but however they would end up that was God�s answer, yes or no. And much the same thing I think takes place here. I don�t think it was a vote of 120 hands and so forth, but somehow or other now they get God�s decision by the choice between these two men. And then of course we find in verse 26 that they gave forth their lots, in other words they cast these things out for the matter of choosing, and the lot fell upon Matthias. Now again I�ve heard some argue that this doesn�t really tell us that Matthias was God�s choice. Well what are you going to do with the last part of the verse? I think it says it as clearly as it can say it, that he was numbered with the eleven. He became the twelfth man, and it was God�s choice. Now as we come into chapter 2, the Day of Pentecost, and the first thing I always have to point out to people is, you come back with me to Leviticus chapter 23, it�s one of the Jewish feast days, it�s one of the seven feasts of Jehovah listed here in Leviticus chapter 23, and it was to be 50 days after the Passover, and it started way back here in Sinai as they were given these various feast days for the nation of Israel now coming under the Law. Now in Leviticus chapter 23 you have the Passover, and then in verse 6 the Feast of Unleavened Bread, and then in verses 9 -14 you have the Feast of First Fruits, and then you come down to verse 15 and here is the next feast. Leviticus 23a "...and ye shall count unto you from the morrow after the sabbath, from the day that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering, seven sabbaths complete." How many days is that? Well that�s 49, but then they were to go to the next day, and that would be 50. And so the word Pentecost arises from that, and so this was the fiftieth day after Passover, and it became a feast day. And it was one of the seven feasts that was practiced year in and year out throughout Israel�s history. Now then, come back with me to Acts chapter 2, and don�t forget the setting. Christ has just been crucified at the time of Passover, and now they were waiting for Pentecost, which would be the fiftieth day. 40 days He was with them in His post resurrection ministry to them, and then they waited another ten days, and now we come to the fiftieth day. And don�t lose sight of this, and remember too the background. Every one of these seven Jewish feast days, Jews would come to Jerusalem from the whole then known world, which was predominantly the Roman Empire, all the way from Great Britain to India on the East, from Northern Africa and across the Mediterranean Sea over to Greece and Asia Minor, and so forth. And so all these Jews would come to Jerusalem, and remember the Temple is still operating. No one has told these Jewish believers or anyone else to cast aside Temple worship, or to cast aside the Law. So these Jews are still practicing these seven feast days, and here we have Pentecost. Keep that in your mind, and watch how clearly the Scripture points it out. Verse 1. When the day of Pentecost was fully come, the fiftieth day after Passover, they were all with one accord in one place, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. Nothing visible, but just like on a windy day, you can look out the window, and you can�t see the wind, but you can see the results of it. You see the tree leaves blowing, and you see other things blowing, but you can�t see wind, and you can�t see air. Now the same way here, the Holy Spirit came in, and it wasn�t anything that they could see, but they could feel its result. Now in verse 3, in order for them to be able to see something, there appeared unto them cloven, that is separated. Now the word cloven is just like when you talk about beasts with cloven hooves. You�re talking about sheep, and goats, and cattle who have the two aspects of a hoof instead of a round one like a horse or a camel. These little tongues of fire were cloven, they were one, but they had a separation. And so there were cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them. Now again we have to be careful, it doesn�t say it was fire does it? It didn�t burn their hair, but it was from outward appearances like little flames of fire. But it wasn�t fire, it was like unto fire, and it sat upon each of them. Now verse 4, and they were all, the 120 plus however many others that there were of these Jewish believers. Now when I maintain the believer aspect, always remember how much had these Jews been able to believe. That Jesus was the Christ, that�s it, that�s all they were to believe. He was who He said He was, as He showed it through His three years of signs and wonders and miracles. So they were filled, all of them, with the Holy Ghost and the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other languages. Now the Greek word for tongues does not mean an unknown gibberish, it means a language, an understandable language. You want to remember ever since the Tower of Babel, there have been all kinds of dialects and languages throughout the then known world. And these Jews have been out there in a dispersion, you want to remember the ten tribes of the southern kingdom went into captivity into Syria about 775 B.C., and they never really came back as tribes, and that�s why some people call them the lost tribes. But they were out there in a dispersion already. Then about 150 years later the southern two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, which we call Judah, they were taken captive all the way to Babylon, and only a few thousand came back after the 70 years. So what happened to the rest of them? They were assimilated into that whole Middle East. Now it�s just like here in America, if any of you happen to come from a community that still has the old European ethnic background, and I know we�ve got several in here. When those immigrants came over, even though they tried to learn the English as quickly as they could, but as their little children came along, what did those kids learn first? Well the native language that their parents had come from, German or Dutch or French or Greek or whatever it may have been. So a lot of the kids of years gone by were bilingual, in fact I imagine we still have a lot of that amongst the orientals that have immigrated in the last generation. And it isn�t until two or three generations go by that they lose that mother tongue, and then they pick up their adopted language, which here in America of course is English. So it�s the same way here. These Jews now have been living out in all these other Gentile nations, and they have picked up that language. Their children have been raised under it, and so they�ve probably almost forgotten the language of Aramaic and Hebrew and so forth. So they come into Jerusalem speaking the language of the other nations to the east, the nations in northern Africa, of Greece, and Italy, and Spain, and Great Britain, and so all these Jews are coming in with various language backgrounds. But they�re languages, they�re all separate languages. Now let�s look at verse 5. So there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, see how plain that is? We�re not dealing with Gentiles here, we�re dealing with Jews, it�s a Jewish feast day at the Temple. And so there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Now that�s plain language, every nation in the then known world, and I�ve already delineated that. From Great Britain on the west, to at least the western part of India, the Indus River and so forth on the east, all these nations had Jewish communities in them. Now the other important word in here is devout. So what kind of Jews would spend the money and take the time to come back to a feast day? The devout ones, that were practicing their religion, and that�s why they were here. There were thousands of them out of every nation under heaven. Now verse 6. Now when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man, whether he was from India, whether he was from Syria, whether he was from Greece, Italy, Spain, Great Britain, Morocco, Northern Africa, Egypt, wherever these Jews had come from and had been assimilated and had embraced that language, what happened here? They heard these twelve men, especially the twelve disciples now, speaking their language. Now I have to emphasize that, because this is where we�re in so much confusion today. These believing Jews were speaking the languages of the people that had come in from every end of the empire. And that�s what it says. Now verse 7. And they, that is this multitude of Jews, were all amazed, and marveled, saying one and another, Behold, are not all these who speak Galileans? Now remember when Jesus was choosing the twelve? What part of Israel was He? Well He was up in northern Israel, He was in Galilee. And so the twelve were all from Galilee. Now you know there�s a culture situation here. Jerusalem, of course where the Temple has been, and where all of the activity of the priests and so forth, they were more cultured, they were more educated, especially in Biblical things than those up in northern Israel. Northern Israel was more rural, and they weren�t as highly educated. I mean after all most of those people were farmers, and sheep herders, and so forth. And they probably just stuck out like a sore thumb. You know I�ve always told my kids, now I don�t mind you being a farmer�s kid, and I don�t mind you letting people know you�re a farmer, but I�ll tell you what, when I walk into the city, I don�t want some city dude to be able to see me stick out like a sore thumb, and say, �Hey there goes a farmer.� I�ll never forget when I farmed up north, I did quite a little banking in one of the big banks in Minneapolis, and I could have never been paid a higher compliment. I found out years later the guy became president of the whole Northwest Bank situation. But anyhow I�ll never forget one day I was walking through the lobby, and I came into his office and he said, �You know Les, just looking at you I would never dream that you�re a farmer.� And I said, �That�s the way I want it, because when I leave the farm, I don�t want to look like one, and there�s nothing wrong with that.� But these Galileans were rural, and these 12 men evidently just showed that they were not from that cultured area of Jerusalem, and the crowd could tell it. And so they said, �Now wait a minute, how can these guys all talk all these languages? They can�t be that educated.� And you know that is a point of education. Do you remember when we were in Israel? Our guide spoke perfect English, and then I asked him one day, �Now what do you do when a bunch of Italians come?� And he said, �I can speak Italian.� Well come to find out the guy was brilliant. He could speak fluently 7 languages. Now what�s the first thing I thought of? �Hey, this guy is brilliant.� That�s Route 1, Box 760, Kinta, Oklahoma, 74552. Through the Bible with Les Feldick is viewer supported, and your gift is appreciated. Thank you, and be sure to tune in next time, for Through the Bible with Les Feldick.