The Spirit and Baptism (5)

We are going to make another attempt to finish the baptism in the Spirit this evening. That's generated such good discussion and I've enjoyed that very very much. Certainly don't want to squelch that at all, but I think we are positioned to finish that part of our series of studies on what the Bible teaches about the Holy Spirit. I think we are poised to be able to finish that tonight. Next week we will begin another section of the ministry of the Spirit, the filling of the Spirit, which is just as interesting and just as much to talk about there. So hopefully we will be able to glean some truth there that will be good for our hearts and lives. Let me just remind you since it's been two weeks since we were in this study where we are, we are talking about the relationship between spirit baptism and speaking in tongues. And we talked about last time the relationship between the two, the relationship between speaking in tongues and spirit baptism. Charismatic theology, Pentecostalism basically teaches that there is a very close relationship, basically teaches that speaking in tongues is a direct consequence of the baptism, what they would call the baptism of the Spirit. And they say you get baptized in the Spirit or the baptism of the Spirit and the consequence of that, the result of that, the evidence of baptism of the Spirit is speaking in tongues. So we are just looking carefully at what the scriptures say to see if there really is that kind of relationship. And what we looked at last time was that there is just a little tiny bit of a relationship in the book of Acts, but not as much as you would expect. There are only three clear instances of speaking in tongues in the book of Acts, possibly a fourth one we will look at. And in only one of those is baptism in the Spirit even mentioned. And there is no direct relationship indicated between the two. So where you come up with that is certainly not out of the scriptures because it is just not there. Just a careful look at the scriptures shows that there is no relationship between the two. There is no cause and effect relationship. Now it is important to understand that they happen in the instances where speaking in tongues happened in Acts. It happens at the time when people are getting saved. So when people are getting saved, they are also at the same time being baptized in the Spirit, but there is no relationship between the two. In fact, when a person gets saved, there are several ministries of the Spirit taking place. Not only baptism in the Spirit, but in dwelling of the Spirit, ceiling of the Spirit, all of those take place at the time of salvation. There is no cause and effect relationship between any of those and speaking in tongues. In fact, we also looked last time at the three reasons why tongue speaking occurred, the three purposes of them in the New Testament. And we found that the first one was to authenticate the ministry of the apostles. It served as the credentials for the apostles that this indeed was God's work. It was a miraculous, what the Bible calls, a sign gift. A gift that was intended to be a sign of something, to point to something. And so it was designed to authenticate the ministry of the apostles. And there are no apostles today, apostles by their clear qualifications in Acts 1, could only have lived in the first century. Because they had to have seen Christ, ministered with him from the beginning of his ministry and been directly commissioned by Christ. So there are no apostles today, by definition, they could have only been in the first century. So that purpose has already been completed long time ago. Second purpose we saw was to serve as a sign of judgment on the Jews for their rejection of Christ. And Paul clearly says that in 1 Corinthians 14, 21 and 22. Quote from the Old Testament and says, just like Isaiah said, God is going to show that He's judging you by sending you to a foreign nation in captivity where you will hear a different language spoken. I am showing my sign of judgment on this generation of people who rejected Christ. And that obviously is the Jews. And so clearly again the Scriptures point to that as being one of the purposes. The third purpose and the one we're going to really look at tonight is found in the book of Acts itself. And that is one of the reasons for speaking in tongues was to show the unity of the church. In the early church as the gospel went to different people groups, it was important to show that when it was going to these different people groups, this was the same thing that happened in Jerusalem under the appendicoast. And so when it goes to a new people group, there's a tie-in made to what happened on the day of appendicoast. And I think we'll see as we look at the four instances of that kind of activity in the book of Acts that it's pretty clear that the purpose is to show the unity of the church. Remember, it's difficult for us to grasp how important this was to the first century church. Remember the tremendous animosity between Jew and Gentile. They hated each other. And Jews in particular did not feel that Gentiles were worthy of having the gospel. And so God had to really break down some barriers so that people would recognize there's not going to be a Jewish church and a Gentile church. And there's not going to be a Samaritan church because Jews in Samaritan say to each other too, this is all one church. And in order to show that unity and break down those barriers, God did some miraculous things to make it clear, whoa, this is a God thing. That's what tongues was all about. Now let's look at those occasions in the book of Acts. I think we'll see that. Acts chapter 2 is the first one. In all four of these instances, the gospel is going to a different people group. Okay, in Acts 2, obviously it's going to Jews. All right, so the first group of people the gospel goes to is Jews, Injuruslim. But here's the thing. This is on the day of Pentecost. Now you remember what the day of Pentecost is. It's a feast, 50 days after the Passover and the feast of unleavened bread, which is when Jesus died on the cross, 50 days later is the feast of Pentecost. And that is what is happening here in Acts chapter 2. Now just like for the other major feast of Israel, Jews would come from all over the world from most every nation where they could get to Jerusalem. Jews would come from all over the world and be there for the feast. So that's what you've got going on here. And that's what's important to recognize. Okay, let's look at Acts chapter 2 and we'll begin reading in verse 1. When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place, all the apostles in the upper room and others listed in chapter 1. They were all together in one place, verse 2. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire. Okay, they're going to be speaking in tongues and these little tongues, what seems to be what looks like tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. So what you see happening here is that the speaking in tongues is tied more directly to the filling of the Spirit. Baptism search is not even mentioned here. Now it happened. We know it happened on this day because remember Acts chapter 1 verse 5, Jesus said it's going to happen in a few days and in Acts 10, Peter looks back and says this is the same thing that happened on the day of Pentecost. So we know baptism in the Spirit happened but that's not mentioned here. What is mentioned is the filling of the Spirit which as we will see in our future studies, the filling of the Spirit is a divine enablement to do a special task for God. And in this case God gives them a divine enablement to do something miraculous, the apostles. Okay, and let's see what that miraculous event is verse 4. Now there were staying in Jerusalem, God fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound a crowd came together in bewilderment because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Now notice carefully how that's stated. These people from all these different nationalities and languages, people groups, heard the apostles preaching and speaking in their native tongue. In the language they spoke and understood. So verse 7, utterly amazed, they asked are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? That's where all the apostles were from. Only one apostle was from Judea and that was Judas Iscariot. All the others were from Galilee. So the only remaining apostles who were doing this preaching are from Galilee. And so they're trying to figure out, wait a second, these guys aren't foreigners, they aren't from our area of the world, they're from Galilee. Verse 8, then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? And then he lists something like 15 or 16 different areas of the world. Parthians, Meeds, Elamites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Capitose, Apontus, and Asia, Fregya, Pamphilia, Egypt, and the parts of Libya near Cyrene. Visitors from Rome, both Jews and converts of Judaism, Creotans and Arabs, we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues. Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, what does this mean? And Peter is going to answer that question with his sermon, although they have been a cause. Okay, we're not going to get into that. But what I want us to see is that the nature of the gift of tongues is clearly indicated here. It is not speaking in some kind of heavenly language or some kind of gibberish or some kind of unknown tongue that nobody's ever heard of that's been given from heaven. No, it's clear the speaking in tongues here was the ability to speak in foreign languages. The ability to speak in languages that all these people from these different parts of the world could understand. It says quite clearly, we hear them in our own language. This is not some heavenly language that nobody has ever heard. This is the language we speak. Now, the miracle that was accomplished on the day of Pentecost was that the apostles were uniquely gifted by the Holy Spirit in a miraculous way to speak in foreign languages they had never studied. I mean, these guys from Galilee, they're fishermen and tech collectors and other occupations, but they've not studied all these languages, obviously. They don't know all of these languages, but God the Holy Spirit gives them the ability to speak in these languages. And that's a miraculous gift. And so that's the sign part of it. It's the miraculous part of it. Okay, so what's happening here is they are speaking in foreign languages, a miraculous gift to the Holy Spirit. That's what speaking in tongues was. It's not even similar to what people practice today that they claim is speaking in tongues. Whatever speaking in tongues is today, and we already talked about a number of reasons why that may happen. It certainly isn't what happened on the Pentecost. On the Pentecost, it was the ability to speak in a foreign language you've never studied. Now, this did give the gospel a running start. I mean, these people are from all over the world. They're going to go back and Peter preaches a gospel message to them and rest the chapter. But they're going to know that this was a miraculous event. This is a message from God, and they're going to take that message home with them and give the gospel a running start throughout the world. But as you can see, baptism of the Spirit is not even mentioned here. It did happen. We know that because these people got saved. And so, as they got saved, they were placed into the body of Christ, which is what the baptism in the Spirit is all about. But they were also indwelt by the Spirit. They were sealed by the Spirit. Those aren't mentioned here. The only thing is mentioned is the filling of the Spirit. And that was given to the apostles to be able to enable them to have this special ability to speak in languages they've never studied. So, there's no cause and effect relationship here at all between baptism in the Spirit and speaking in tongues. No relationship at all in Acts 2. Okay, comments or questions about what's happening on the day of Pentecost? John. This is the basis for the people who now speak in tongues. This is their starting point. This is one of the passage they point to. You hear a lot about Acts 2. That's a huge difference between making one of an understandable language in one completely. Yeah. What I have never been in a tongue-speaking service, but I've read some Charismatics. I taught a class on spiritual gifts at ABC in the Master's program. And I had the students read three different books. And one of them was one of those books that has four different views on sign gifts. And one of them is from a very Charismatic, one of them is from a kind of a John Piper type of, I'm not a Charismatic, but I think God may do that. Kind of a let it happen type of thing, which Piper, that's his view. And then the two other two other views more like ours. So I've read what they teach and you'll hear a lot about what happened on the Pentecost, kind of from an emotional perspective. You hear a lot about the rushing wind and the tongues of fire coming down and then speaking in languages. But it's just not a careful look at the text. Because it's clear these are these are not it's not what happens in Charismatic services today. This is speaking in foreign languages. But yeah, it's taken from here and also from some of the other passages, but also in first Corinthians four teams where the Charismatics get a lot of their ammunition. Okay, any other questions? I'm not sure if I'll have your question, Jim. I'm sorry. Yeah. They hear it in their language. But the miracle was not in their ears. The miracle was in the tongues of the apostles. I take it that part of what's happening in verses one through eleven is before Peter starts preaching. That seems to be the instance. They're spreading the gospel message in these foreign languages. And then when Peter starts preaching, that's something totally different. I would assume that people still heard it in their own language. I'm not sure about that. What we know is in the first eleven verses, whatever was being shared was in their own language. But the miracle, some people say, well, the miracles in the ears of the hearers, they heard it in their own language. But it's clear from these verses that what they were hearing was these men were speaking in those languages. So the miracles in the tongues of the apostles. I'm sorry, say it again. Yes, they did. Yes. Well, actually, the miracle was in the speaker. The speaker was speaking the language that people could hear. In other words, let me use a current example. If I were to suddenly start preaching in German, I've never studied German. I don't know German. But if I were to start preaching in German, people who knew German would hear the message in their own language. Now, the miracle is the fact that I'm speaking in German, not that they're hearing it. But they are hearing German and understanding the message. And that's what was happening on the epinecoast. They were hearing the message in their own language, but only because the apostles were speaking that language. Now, when Peter starts preaching, I'm assuming Peter was preaching in Aramaic in the language of his day. They evidently understood, well, Peter's message is directed to Jews. And Jews would pretty much speak Aramaic or Hebrew. Aramaic is a first century form of Hebrew. They would have spoken that anyway. All of them would have understood that language. The miracle was they were also hearing it in the language of their home place. So it's like somebody would be speaking and let's say Peter preaches in English. Everybody from whatever part of the world to speak English would hear that and understand it. But the miracle was they also heard it in their home language or their language of their country of origin. We had a hand over here first and we'll get to David. Yes. Yes. Okay. I think maybe what's happening here is we're confusing the first 11 verses with Peter sermon. The first 11 verses is all the apostles sharing the gospel with multitudes of people in the temple area. Right. Right. They were speaking in different languages that could be heard by the different people groups who were there. Peter probably preached in Hebrew or Aramaic and the Jews in the temple would have heard that and understood that as well. But Peter is not speaking in all these languages. I'm not suggesting that. Yeah. I mean Peter is speaking directly to Jewish people who are obviously the only people in the temple. I mean there might be some Gentiles in the court of the Gentiles but Peter is speaking to Jewish people and he's going to accuse the Jewish leaders of putting to death Christ and that's the message and so forth. I'm assuming he spoke that message in the Hebrew or Aramaic of the day. David. So the plural of what he and the people need to speak in their own language is the end of language. Everybody else has been hearing their language by the power of the spirit. No, it's not that they were speaking in their own language, the apostles and everybody was hearing in their own language. They were speaking in those foreign languages. That was the miracle. So the apostles in the first eleven verses and we don't know what they were sharing. They were evidently sharing the gospel in some way. Peter is not preaching yet while that's happening. Peter's message comes later to explain what that miracle of tongues was all about. That's a different event. It happens on the same day but it's a different event. So the miracle was actually that Philip and John and James were actually speaking in these foreign languages. They've never studied them but the Holy Spirit was giving the ability to speak in the language of the parthians and the Romans and the Mesopotamian. And all those kind of local dialects. So it wasn't like all the apostles were speaking in Hebrew but everybody was hearing it in their language. No, they were speaking those foreign languages. Now whether or not they knew what they were saying, I doubt it. The miracle just seems to be the ability to speak in a language you've never studied. I don't think that necessarily is nothing to say about it but I don't think that necessarily translates into the fact that all of a sudden James understood this new language. What he was saying, he was just speaking in that language. Fascinating isn't it? Okay. Any other questions? Those are great. Kisti? Do you think that the key to implementing the Catholic existence of people this year, the gospel and their heart language? Yeah, that's a great point. Kisti's asking is that does this kind of confirm the fact that it's important for people to hear the gospel in their heart language? That's a good point and I think it does confirm that. You know, lots of people in other countries, not so much in America but in other countries speak more than one language. Especially when you get into tribal dialects, they may speak a national language and then everybody speaks their own tribal dialect too. You'll hear missionaries talk about that, for instance, in Togo. They'll speak French but they also speak a tribal dialect, tribal language. And it is really important to those people when they can hear the gospel in their tribal dialect. Yeah, and I think this kind of confirms that, that all these different languages. Because most people in this day, most Jews would have understood Hebrew or Arabic, most people would have understood Greek because it was the common language of the whole Roman Empire. It was the trade language. If you did business, you did it in Greek. So most people would have understood that. But yeah, I think that's a good point. Okay. Any other question about their Finnecost? Alright, let's move on to Acts 8, which is the second possible instance. There's a different people group here that the gospel is going to and that is it's going to Samaria. Now remember that Samaria is actually kind of a buffer zone between Judea and Galilee. Judea and Galilee are the two real parts of Israel. Samaria was kind of in between them and it had been populated by many foreigners during the Assyrian captivity when the northern kingdom was taken into Assyria to captivity. It had been populated by lots of Gentiles. They intermarried with the remaining Jews and in the Jews' eyes kind of a half breed population came from that. They were not really considered pure Jews and so the Samaritans and Jews hated each other. So this is really a different people group, the Samaritans. And so now the gospel is going to go to the Samaritans and that's going to create some potential conflict. Now, you'll notice in your outline I've put a question mark beside Acts 8 and the reason for that is this. Neither the baptism in the Spirit nor speaking in tongues is mentioned in Acts 8. However, miraculous signs are mentioned, other miracles are mentioned and people are getting saved and receiving the Holy Spirit. So there are some other common elements that would lead you to believe it's possible that speaking in tongues was happening but that's not mentioned here. But there are other common elements, gospel going to a new people group and so that's confirmed by miraculous signs happening as people receive the Holy Spirit. Okay, let's just read it and see if that helps clear that up a little bit. Get in verse 5, verse 4. Those who had been scattered from the persecution in Jerusalem in the first four verses, those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. And Philip went down to a city in Samaria and proclaimed the Christ there. When the crowds heard Philip and Saul noticed, saw the miraculous signs he did. They all paid close attention to what he said. With shrieks, evil spirits came out of many and many paralytics and cripples were healed. So there are two miraculous sign gifts that were performed by Philip at least, we know that are mentioned, casting out of demons and healing of people. So verse 8 says, there was great joy in that city. Now for some time a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great and all the people both high and low gave him their attention and exclaimed, this man is the divine power known as the great power. They followed him because he had amazed them for a long time with his magic. But when they believed Philip as he preached the good news of the Kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, and they were baptized, both men and women, and by the way that's water baptism there. They got saved and they were baptized, water baptism is indicated there. Verse 13, Simon himself believed and was baptized, and he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw. Now notice this kind of general statement about great signs and miracles are taking place. We don't know exactly what they were two were mentioned earlier, but there may have been others. And speaking in tongues may have been one of those, although it's not mentioned here. Verse 14, now here's the important part. Well all of it's important, but for our discussion tonight, this is the key element. Verse 14, when the apostles and Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them. Peter and John are the two of the high ranking apostles, if you will, the two of the three inner circle of Christ, leaders among the apostles. So verse 15, when they arrived, they prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit had not yet come upon any of them, they had simply been baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. In other words, they had just been baptized in water, baptizing in the name of Jesus is water baptism. So they had been baptized, they had been saved, they hadn't received the Holy Spirit yet. So Peter and John come up from the Jerusalem church and pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit, and they do. Verse 17, then Peter and John placed their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. Now there's something strange going on here. People are getting saved and they get baptized, but they haven't received the Holy Spirit yet. And you're thinking, John, I thought you taught us many moons ago when we were talking about the end-welling of the Spirit, that the end-welling of the Spirit happens at the moment of salvation, and it does. So that leads us to ask some questions, why would the receiving of the Holy Spirit be delayed until apostles from Jerusalem could come and lay their hands on them, and that would happen? Well, it seems obvious that the reason for the delay in receiving the Holy Spirit until apostles from Jerusalem would come was to show the unity of the church. In fact, it seems to be indicated the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the Word. So they send two apostles up there to check this out. What's going on up there, and when they arrive, they pray they might receive the Holy Spirit, because the Holy Spirit did not come on them yet, so they placed their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit. So this doesn't happen until the apostles from Jerusalem come to see, is this a genuine work of God? And it seems to me that the only reason for that is to show the unity between what happened in Jerusalem and what's happening in Samaria. The apostles see that this is truly a work of God, not two competing works, not two competing churches, as would have been the tendency to happen. Okay, we're going to have a Jewish church and we're going to have a Samaritan church. And what God is doing is showing, no, no, we're going to link these two. We're going to wait till apostles from Jerusalem get up here for these new believers in Samaria to receive the Spirit, and they receive the Spirit when the apostles from Jerusalem pray for them, which links the two groups together. You see what's happening there? That's the only reasonable explanation for why there would be a delay. Now, this doesn't always happen. There are lots of times in the book of Acts where people get saved and immediately Spirit indwells them, and it's just normal like what happened today. But this is a unique situation where the gospel is going to a different people group, and there's the potential for two churches to be competing against each other. And so the link with the apostles in Jerusalem provides, I think, the key interpretive clue to this passage. That's why this happened, because it had to be seen that it was the same, same church. The apostles in Jerusalem witness this outpouring of the Spirit on the new believers. That's why it is not done until they get there. They witness it, and so they realize, okay, yeah, this is the same thing happened to us back on the day of Pentecost. So this is the same work of God. They are part of us. This is not going to be a separate kind of new brand of church. So that's what's happening in Acts 8. Again, I want to make it clear, baptism in the Spirit is not mentioned, although we know what happened because people got saved, and the baptism of the Spirit happens when people get saved. So that, and speaking in tongues is not mentioned, although in general there were lots of miraculous signs and things going on, and it may have included that, we don't know. But since it's so similar to the other instances, I want to include it. Okay, any questions about Acts 8? What's happening there? Yes. You know, it's hard to tell. I don't think he was. I'm not sure that he was really saved later in verses 18 and 19, when he sees all these miracles, he offered Peter money. Give me this ability to, that on everyone whom I lay my hands, mercy, the Holy Spirit. It looks like he was just trying to establish his magic business, a little better, afraid it was losing it. And so verse 28, Peter says, may your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God. You pent of this wickedness and pray the Lord, perhaps you will forgive you, for I see that you're full of bitterness and captive to sin. That doesn't sound like the God saved. Now whether or not that jolted him out of his hypocrisy and he got saved, it's hard to tell because he does ask for Peter to pray for him. I think at least I'll say it this way, Kathy, I think his salvation is suspect for the kind of motives that he has. It's a little difficult to know exactly what was going on with him. Yes sir. Is the Holy Spirit a good place to be? On those Samaritan believers, the people that had believed the message of Philip and got saved and were baptized, the Holy Spirit comes on them. Or he has received. In other words, the apostles are saying they prayed that they might receive the Holy Spirit, that the Holy Spirit might come to indow them and be in them. And verse 17, they received the Holy Spirit. Back in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit is upon those who were asleep. Up on the apostles, he comes to give them that special gift. There is a little bit of a difference there though, you're right. Barry? Yeah, we're going to see one of them in chapter 19. It's a very similar situation. At least that one instance. Okay. Let's go ahead and look at chapter 10. Chapter 10 is the most outstanding example, I guess, chapter 10 and 11. The gospel is now going to go to the Gentiles. I'll save a little bit of the story. Remember how God spoke to Peter, let down the sheet with all different kinds of unclean animals that as a Jew, he should not be eating and God told him to rise up, kill and eat. It's okay to eat all these and Peter said, no, no, I'm not supposed to eat these. Moses said in his law and God basically says that's done. That's done. We're beyond that now. We're not operating by the mosaic law anymore. So I'm letting you know that that's gone. Now that clears the way for Peter when he gets these representatives from Cornelius, who is a Gentile Roman soldier. When he gets a message from Cornelius to come to my house in Cessaria and share the gospel with me, well, Peter can no longer say, no, I'm a Jew, they're Gentiles, I can't take the gospel to them because God's just giving them an object lesson. We're not going by that distinction anymore. Okay. So all of that's happened. Now look at what happens in chapter 10, verse 34. This is once Peter gets to Cornelius' house, verse 34, then Peter began to speak. I now realize how true it is that God does not show favoritism, but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. And he knows that because God had shown him in that object lesson that the old barriers are being broken down. He goes on to begin speaking the gospel to him. I won't read all of this, but he tells him the gospel story about Jesus, Jesus' death, burial, resurrection, verse 43. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. Now look at what happens in verse 44. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all those all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished. These are Jewish believers from Jerusalem that came with Peter or from the job of where Peter was staying. They were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on the Gentiles. Now how did they know that was happening? Verse 46. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. Then Peter said, can anyone keep these people from being baptized with water? They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have. So they ordered they'd be baptized in the name of Christ and so then Peter stays a few days. So you see what's happening? When Peter preaches the gospel to the Gentiles, these Jewish believers are shocked that the Holy Spirit comes on them, the Gentile believers, just like he did on the Jewish believers on the Epinocost and the evidence of that that this is genuinely work of God is the same miraculous sign happens of speaking in tongues. Now it's clear that the purpose of this is to tie what's happening with Gentiles to what happened in Jerusalem. And that becomes even more clear in chapter 11. Peter goes back to the Jerusalem Council of Apostles and shares what happened and they're upset with him. You've taken the gospel to Gentiles. What are you doing Peter? And so Peter tells them the story of the sheet and what God showed him in that vision. And then he begins to explain everything that happened in Cornelius. He tells the story verses 11 through 14 and then look at verse 15. As I began to speak, now this is Peter telling the Apostles and Jerusalem what happened. As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit came on them as he had come on us at the beginning. You see, Peter is clearly tying what happened to the Gentiles with what's happening, what happened on the Epinocost. He's showing the two of the same work of God for 16. Then I remembered what the Lord had said, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. He remembers the promise of Jesus in Acts 1, what happened on the Epinocost was the baptism in the Spirit for 17. So if God gave them these Gentiles, the same gift as he gave us, us Jews in the Epinocost by chapter 2, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I to think that I could oppose God? Verse 18, when they, that's the other Apostles, when they heard this, they had no further objections and praised God, saying, so then God is granted even the Gentiles repentance under life. So it's clear that the reason for speaking in tongues is to show that the same thing that's happening with Gentiles is what happened in Acts 2 to Jews on the Epinocost. Again, tying the two together and Peter makes that clear. He says, I recognize that what was happening there was just the same work of God that happened with us on the Epinocost. So it's clear Peter understands the reason for the speaking in tongues with the Gentiles to show the tie-in with the Jerusalem church. So again, there's not going to be two churches, there's going to be one church. Jun Gentile are in one body. Now it will take the Apostle Paul to come along a little later and explain that theologically in the book of Ephesians. But Peter is beginning to understand it now. Jun Gentile are in one body. So the purpose for tongues here was to demonstrate in a unique miraculous way the unity of the early church. Yes, people were baptized in the spirit at the same time, but there's no cause and effect relationship. The speaking in tongues is not because of being baptized in the spirit. The speaking in tongues is to show that this work is the same thing that happened in Jerusalem. The whole purpose of it is not to show up and baptize in the spirit. Now the purpose of it is to show in a miraculous way the union of the Gentile believers with Jewish believers in one church. That's what Peter is explaining to the Apostles in Jerusalem. Tommy? Not necessarily, that's not going to happen all the time. It does happen on occasions only three that we know of in the book of Acts. There are lots of other times where like Paul goes on his missionary journeys and there's no indication that he was given a miraculous ability to speak in the native language. He just spoke in Greek and everybody understood it. So it's not necessarily that every time they take the message somewhere else they're going to speak in that language miraculously. But in these new occasions where the gospel first goes to a new people group, that happens. And the reason is not just so that people can hear it in their own language. The reason is to show this is the same thing that happened on the appendix. It's the gospel of the church. It's the unity of the church. That's what's happening in the book of Acts. Walt? Yes. They were. Like a whole new testament was written in Greek. Because that was the common language of everybody in Roman Empire. Everybody in New Greek. But people also spoke their language of their mother land too. We got one more passage in its eight o'clock. I do want to cover this one, hopefully, at least touch on it, chapter 19. And this one's a little more bizarre. There is a fourth people group the gospel's going to. And this is what I'm going to call Old Testament believers, believers who were already saved, already believers in the Lord before they ever heard of Christ. These were followers of John the Baptist. And they're in Ephesus, or excuse me, in Ephesus. Look at chapter 19 verses one through seven. While a policy was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior of Ephesus. There he found some disciples and asked them, did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed? Now see, Paul's asking that question because this is a different group of people. And he's not sure that they've heard the gospel yet. There in a sense Old Testament believers. So here's the way they respond, middle of verse two. They answered, no, we've not ever even heard. There is a Holy Spirit. But it's obvious they've not been taught church truth that has been taught by the Apostle Paul since the death of Christ. Verse three. And then we'll ask, with what baptism did you receive? Then what baptism did you receive? John's baptism they replied. See what Paul's trying to do is identify, who are these people? How much of the gospel message do they even have? And what he's finding out is these are people who've never heard about Jesus and his death. They just, all they ever got was the message of John the Baptist. And somehow it had gotten to them. Maybe they were in history old. The time John was ministering, took this back to Ephesus with them, but they've never gotten the rest of the story. And so John's finding that out. So verse four, Paul said, John's baptism was a baptism of repentance. He told the people to believe in the one coming after him. That is in Jesus, on hearing this, they were baptized into the name of the Lord Jesus. When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied. There were about 12 men in awe. Now this is the same type of situation as what we've seen before the gospel is going to a different people group, if you will, not a different nationality, not a different language, but in this case, a different group of believers. These are people who are not new testament believers yet. They're still old testament believers. They've heard the message of John the Baptist. They were believers kind of like Isaiah would have been, or David would have been. They trusted God and they trusted in the message that John preached about repentance, but they didn't even heard about Jesus. They didn't even heard about the Holy Spirit yet. So they did not have the Christian message yet. And so what's happening here is the same miraculous gift, receiving the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues to show that okay, now we're not going to have a John the Baptist church. This is the same thing that happened on the day of Pentecost. This is the same church. These people are being brought into the same church that began with Jewish believers, then spread out to Samaritan believers, then spread out to Gentile believers. And now it's even taking in people who were kind of from the Old Testament era who had not yet heard about Christ yet. Now when they receive Christ and get saved in that sense and get baptized, then they are seen to be included in the same church. That again seems to be what Paul is driving at here. So the only tie-in with the baptism of the Spirit and speaking in tongues is baptism in the Spirit happens because they get saved. Speaking in tongues happens for an entirely different reason to show that this is the same thing that happened on the day of Pentecost. So these are the same, this is the same church. That to me is the only way to explain all four of these instances in the book of Acts where the gospel is going to different people groups. Remember the book of Acts is kind of a hybrid situation. It's different than what we experienced today because the gospel is just getting started and it's encroaching into whole new territories where the gospel has never been heard. And so the church is just getting started and it's important to show that this is all one church. So stuff keeps happening to show the tie-in to Jerusalem and the Jewish believers there. Okay, so a couple of hands is going to have to be really quick because we're already six minutes over. Tommy, you're quick. The laying on of hands, it's a common thing in scripture to show identification. And that's another reason why, when Paul or one of the apostles lays their hands on them, they're identifying with these new believers. Okay, you're one of us. Yeah, they're being accepted, being identified as one of them. Steve, you have a quick question? Okay, all right, we need to pray and go. So you can get your kids. Thank you, Father, for your word. Help us to understand it as clearly as we can and to be thankful for the spirit's ministry among us today. And the fact that things are a little bit more uniform today because we're past that first century era of introducing the church and get spread out to different people groups. And we know that what Paul teaches us is that all of this happens at the time we get saved, the baptism, the indwelling, the ceiling, all of that just automatically happens and we're in the body of Christ. And there's no need to prove that it's tied to the original church. And so we thank you that we can understand that and yet also understand what's going on in the book of Acts. Help us to be able to understand clearly your truth and stand on it and be able to be guarded against error in Jesus' name, amen.