The Book of Acts 2 Topics - Beginning of the Church, Tongues, etc.
Acts 2 · Roger Henderson · Mar 2, 2014
Acts (2014), No. 09
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926419283384

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

They were going to put the section in the schedule as a little section to go over some topics that come up in Acts chapter two. So we're going to look at the topic of tongues and the beginning of the church and then maybe another topic included in there and. You know, for some of you, maybe you don't see.

Well, what's it? What's the big deal about tongues? And so we're going to look at the word and go through the acts. And part of the rationale for spending time on this is that I'm not really good on the history of the I'll call it the tongues movement.

But sometime maybe in the 50s and 60s, maybe I might be a little believers kind of decided that tongues were tongues, as we see in Acts and actually Corinthians were something that they should experience as a normal part of their Christian life. So they started teaching that. And anyway, it seems like that, you know, a careful look at the scriptures and what we're trying to do, especially the acts in Rome, trying to see that there's really a language and not not I don't know whether you've been exposed to... Actually, I have some family members that are on Bonnie's side.

They're believers, but they're kind of into thinking that what's called speaking in tongues, and in their definition, that's speaking in something unrecognizable, almost like a... I would call it gibberish. That's somehow necessary for the Christian life, or that's an indication that they the Spirit of God is working their lives. That's about all I'm going to say about that.

We don't agree with that here at Holly Hills. I'm going to try to show you what, certainly in Acts, I think it's pretty clear what's being taught in Acts. When you get into Corinthians, it might be a little bit harder to see that. I'm going to leave that for Corinthians. I'll talk about that when we get there. One of the questions is, what's the purpose of tongues?

Definitely that's something you need to We need to understand that actually helps a lot. And the fact our tongue is something that is something we should see in the church age now versus what happened in the early church in Acts. Acts was a changing period and things happened there.

The apostles had tremendous power. We're going to see next week. I had the first chapter I do in chapter 3, the first section where Peter heals the lame man. I mean, the apostles could heal people. Now people today claim they can heal people too. One of the questions is, is that really truthful? There are certain powers and things that happened in the early church, which I don't think happened today, are not to be repeated.

There's actually a verse that talks about tongues are deceased in Corinthians. We're going to talk about tongues here in Acts. I want to go through all the verses in Acts. We're going to look at that. We're going to look at when the church started. There's another question that comes up. When did the church start? It all focuses back on Acts. I think Acts chapter 2 is pivotal in that as well. That is an introduction. If I haven't gotten you too spun up here, we'll go ahead here.

The word in the New Testament for tongue is glossa. This is out of Vine's expository dictionary in the New Testament and Old Testament words. Basically tongues can be used and actually in Acts chapter 2 and verse 3 we saw that it says that expression tongues They appeared to them as tongues like a fire, you know, kind of on the heads of the different people in the room there at Pentecost. So that's an obvious one where it's just, it resembled a tongue, a tongue of fire. Tongues are also used as an organ of speech. And we see that in just various verses. Like we see where this verse, Glossa, not versa, the word Glossa is used in Mark and the Gospels for speaking of the tongue. Like in some cases, the Lord healed a person who had a speech impediment.

He healed that. They said he touched their tongue or he spread some saliva on their tongue. Then it's also a language, basically a known language. And it's coupled with this word phule, which I should have written it out there. And that actually appears in Revelation a fair amount. It talks about nations and tribes and peoples and tongues. Speaking about different languages. And then lastly, this is the one that we're going to focus on mostly here.

Tongues are the supernatural gift of speaking in another language without having been learnt. I guess that's some good English. Old English. Learned. Learned. Anyway. OK, well, that was the beginning point. Let's kind of get it. So here. Actually, let me just go through it all up here.

There are six occurrences of the word tongue or tongues. Actually, it's always in the plural. Well, actually, it's in the singular here. Six, six places in the acts of the word tongues appears. We've talked about them already about the acts to three.

We're going to look at a few others here in Acts 2 and Acts 2.4 and 2.11. There's actually a corollary word called dialects, dialectos. We can look at that a little bit. And that also speaks of languages, and it talks about in their own dialect.

What's interesting is that the Lord, not only, this is pretty cool, He, in the early part of Acts of the day of Pentecost, people heard the good news in their own language as well as their own dialect. I was kind of thinking about that would be like. Southern, or maybe British English. If a British person were here, he'd hear the good news in his own native dialect. It's a little nit in my mind, but the Lord was so careful that it's sort of like somebody that you knew, somebody from home, would tell you the good news. That's kind of interesting. There are six occurrences of the word dialect as well. They said it was in their own dialect.

So actually in Acts 2 and 4, and then there's an occasion here where in Acts 2.26, it's a quotation from Psalm 16. It talks about exalting the Lord with my tongue. And then there's two other occurrences which we're going to spend some time on looking at in Acts 10 and Acts 19 where We see what is X 10 is what's called the the morning handouts are back there in 10.

That's OK. OK. That's all right. Go in 1046 is what's called the Gentiles Pentecost. We'll look at that a little bit. And then in 1906, Paul. This is where the disciples of John come and ask him about the baptism of John. He talks about that. But tongues, the word tongues is involved there too. OK, so let's start with the first one here I want to talk about.

It's in Acts 2.4. And we've been over this before already. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. And James and Joy, what we're doing today is this is kind of a special topics time I kind of put aside here. We're looking at a couple of things that come up in Acts chapter two, tongues and the start of the church. So we're gonna spend some time talking about that today.

So, okay. So basically other tongues is the idea that word other is a word heteros. other of a different kind. So this is a, they began to speak, the Amplified Bible has it been to speak in other different foreign language tongue. So it's another tongue, but it's a known language. It's something that was known. It wasn't an unknown language. And it's not like you said, kind of. It's not like a, some call it an ecstatic utterance.

And you may have heard that, possibly. So this is in Acts 2, 4. Other tongues, heterose tongues. And that word heteros is used in other places in connection with tongues. It's used in 1 Corinthians. It makes a quote from Isaiah. And actually, it's used in Galatians for a different gospel, a heteros gospel, another of a different kind.

Then in Acts 2.6.

Here's another occurrence, it says, when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. Now this one here, this is not Glossa, this is the one I was speaking about. This is this word dialectos or dialect. So what's interesting is, and this is really kind of cool, and as I was mentioning, the word is provided so they would hear it in their own dialect. Just like if we were from the South or we were from England, we would hear it in our own dialect. I thought that was just really cool. So once again, it's an understandable known language or dialect. A couple of other references there. Let's look at the one We'll just turn to Acts chapter... Let's just go through all of it. Acts chapter 1. We'll just look through all this real quick. Acts chapter 1. The first one is in verse 19. And that one says... No, for some reason I don't have that right. Alright, well, let's see. It says language. Mine says tongue. Yeah, that's right. No, actually, you're right. It is right. Thank you. OK, I didn't read it right.

In 19, it says, and it became known to all who were living in Jerusalem so that in their own dialect, dialectos, in their own dialect, the field was called, how am I sure I can pronounce that? Basically, field of blood. OK, so that's one occurrence. And over in chapter 2, verse 8, it says, And how is it that we each hear them in our own language or dialect to which we were born? So once again, it's that personalization the Lord gave that they heard it in their own dialect, their own language. And then the last one, we won't turn to it, but it talks about the Hebrew dialect.

He got up to speak and he was speaking in the Hebrew dialect in Acts 21.40. Okay, so that's Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 2 verse 4, Acts chapter 2 verse 6. And I guess the other thing too is that the apostles or whatever were never to those countries or areas to have learned it.

And that's part of the miraculous thing that happened. People, when the Holy Spirit was given, they were given this special ability to do that. And as best we can tell, that's something that was for that time period, and it was And that, you know, there's a verse that comes later on talks about the tongues will cease. And also what was the purpose of the tongues?

And we're going to see that shortly. So it talks here that the Cretans and the Arabs, we hear them in our own language, speaking of the mighty deeds of God. once again kind of referring to personalization there. And actually the Amplified have, we all hear them speaking in our own native tongue.

So a couple of observations that seem to make sense. Tongues on the day of Pentecost were actual known languages and tongues allowed all the assembled to hear God's word in their native language and dialect. So that's kind of a two prong approach there. Not just they heard it in English, but they heard it in the English that you grew up with, that you were accustomed to. OK, so that's Pentecost.

Now, after Pentecost, we have a few other occurrences in the Book of Acts of the word tongues. We have that one, which I'm not going to look at, the one I quoted earlier about praising God It was a quote from Isaiah, I think, or from Psalm, actually.

In Acts 2.26, it says, therefore, my heart was glad, and my tongue exalted moreover, and my flesh also will live with hope. And that was a quote from Psalm 16. But the last two I want to look at are two other occurrences. So after the Day of Pentecost, we have two other events in Acts where The Holy Spirit allowed men to speak in other languages. So the first of that is what's called the Gentile Pentecost. And we're going to get to this in detail down the road. So I won't spend a lot of time on this. But let's just go ahead.

Could someone read these verses 44 through 46 in Acts 10? You can read off the overhead or from your own Bible if you like. 44? 44. Is that right? Yeah, 44 through 46. While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who heard the word. And those of the circumcision who believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles also. For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. OK, great. So if you look at the context of this, once again, what's interesting is Peter here He's preaching this sermon to the Gentiles. So that starts back in verse 34. And basically, he preaches Christ. And he tells them that Christ came, and that he died, and so on. And then while he was speaking, the Holy Spirit said, the Holy Spirit fell upon them.

And what was amazed, and this happens after some other events that Peter Now, the Lord convinces them that the Gentiles are part of this. It takes a little convincing. So basically, what happens is, they have the gift of the Holy Spirit poured out upon the Gentiles, for they were all hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God. And Luis has it, for they all were hearing them speak by means of languages. Basically Peter explains this following in chapter 11. If you go down to verse 17 and 18. So there were Jews and Gentiles there then? There were Jews and Gentiles there together.

So what was amazing here, the Jews didn't see the Gentiles as part of God's working because the nation of Israel was God's chosen people. They didn't see the Gentiles as part of that. It took a while for them to come to understand that God's plan was to have the Gentiles to be saved as well. And the Gentiles were there maybe just led by the Holy Spirit or just kind of, you know what I mean? Because they were doing a Jewish Tradition, right? So the Gentiles maybe were hanging around. The context of this, let me just see. This is Cornelius. This is Cornelius. Was he Jewish? No. So this was later on then. This was later on. Since we are jumping ahead way and we don't have all the courses. The Gentiles are the major audience, but other Jewish people are with Peter.

They're accompanying him. That's why it says they were amazed. They just were amazed. You realize the Jews are all about signs. We're going to see a couple of verses about that. For them to be satisfied that God was working, they needed a testing miracle. They had to have a sign. In fact, there's a verse. Just to point out that the Jews needed signs. Let's look at John chapter 2. Gospel of John chapter 2. Let's read. In 17 it says, John chapter 2 verse 17.

His disciples remembered that it was written, zeal from thy house will consume me. The Jews therefore answered and said to him, what sign do you show us seeing that you do these things? So they questioned. When Jesus first appeared on the scene, they questioned him. Where's your sign? Where's your testing miracle to validate who you are? The Jews had to have a sign.

And this was a sign. And God's good with it. And He's good with that. He's right here. When you want a sign, I've got a sign for you. He gave them a sign. That's just kind of key. One of the questions is, is that to be the modus operandi of the church? in 2014 here in Colorado. Are we looking for signs? God can do whatever he wants. I would say if God wants to put tongues out there or healing out there, if you say I'd like a sign, he might give you one. This wasn't just, oh by the way, a sign might be nice. This was, where's your sign? The Spirit was being given and that was the whole point here. The Spirit fell upon them and the attesting miracle that validated that was that they spoke in this other language. And that's kind of the rub there that's happened.

Is there a group of folks that think, well okay, I'm going to live an axe. My church is going to be an axe church. I'm going to live an axe. And I'm going to expect to see all these things happen. I'm going to have healings. I'm going to have miracles. I'm going to have signs. I'm going to have wonders. That's how I'm going to expect my church to be.

Well, I think they're kind of mixing some of the Old Testament. That's why. Right. So go ahead. And the thing is that they were speaking in times is in the wonders of God. And it would be what we have completely in front of us. Exactly. So they didn't have the canon of scripture wasn't believed. And that's why we see what the apostles, they had tremendous power.

We're going to see next week that Peter, he sees a man who's laying from birth. He heals them just like that. Now there are people today that claim they can do that. Well you know if you claim you can do it versus God's doing it through you. I know. And it seems like even maybe if missionaries went to other countries and they didn't know the language and they might not have Bibles. So maybe God could use that. Maybe he's doing it now. I know a translator being present to kind of make sure that that's what the person is saying.

But maybe it could in places still be helpful for God to use it. Anyway, okay. We're going to keep going here. Alright, cool. Alright, so the next verse, the next occurrence, that's the first occurrence after the Bay of Pentecost. The second occurrence after Pentecost is when Now we switch to Paul. The ministry kind of moves to Paul. We're going to see that as we go through this. Paul's now in view here.

And Paul said, he's speaking of John the Baptist. John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling them, the people, to believe in him who was coming after him, that is, Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. And when Paul laid his hands upon them, The Holy Spirit came on them, and they began speaking with tongues and prophesying.

So what we're going to see here again, a very similar kind of situation. Basically, in this case, Paul's an apostle, and he basically puts his hands on them. And this is the idea of laying on hands. This is another thing that people have tried to come up with. Well, we'll copy that. I'll come over, and I'll lay my hands on you, and something's going to happen. Well, the apostles did that, but is that something that church age should be about?

So they began to speak in other languages and began to prophesy. Do you know what the word prophesy means in scripture? Prophesy is the idea to speak as a prophet and you are proclaiming the works of God or the message of God is to basically tell forth God's message. So it's not like to predict what's going to happen. There can be. Holly, you're a prophet. You're a prophet, you don't know it. What's going to happen when you die? going to live forever with God. How do you know that? Because that's what the Bible says. So when you tell somebody about that, you're proclaiming God's truth, right? So you're a prophet in that sense.

There is also a very real sense that the prophecy spoken of here is very different than the simple proclamation, because as it was prophesied that the tongues would cease. It was also spoken that the prophecy would end. Knowledge. Exactly. Well, so right. There's different aspects of the idea that we all proclaim the truth of God. Well, we proclaim what God has already revealed and they proclaim what God was revealing. Good. You know, at that time, that's very good. Thank you. I appreciate that.

OK, so I have a little note here from Merriman from Merriman's book, Merriman's thing. If you don't have that, that's actually available online. Ronmerriman.com or whatever. He, you know, he provides that for a donation. It's, you know, it's well worth it.

He has, but he only has the first seven chapters. Sorry. He claims he's going to get more chapters. He says, there's no reason to believe that Luke, using Glossa in Acts 19, any differently than in Acts 2 and 10. In Acts, tongues consistently refers to recognizable foreign languages. Those involved were proselytized to the Jewish kingdom. Message of John the Baptist. Tongues were a confirming sign to them that the Apostolic. I can't pronounce that. Thank you. Apostolic because that's raised Catholic. Apostolic message that they heard was from God. Thank you.

I'm stumbling over myself here. Okay, let's see. So what I wanted to show you here just real quick. What was I going to point out? Okay, let's look at, and we're going to come back to this verse several times. Let's look at 1 Corinthians I'm going to refer to this in just a second, but 1 Corinthians chapter 14, and this is going to tell us, and we kind of alluded to this already, what's the purpose of tongues. 1 Corinthians 14 and verse 22. Could someone read that? 1 Corinthians 14.

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. So you have to read it kind of carefully. It says, so then tongues, glosa, this word glosa, are for a sign, a testing miracle, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers. So don't we see that in Acts? Wasn't that what happened? We saw that they They were all these unbelievers out there and they saw each other speaking in other languages. They couldn't understand that. They were just amazed.

But then the rest of that verse says, but prophecy, and it's right, it has the idea that proclaiming God's word for future events, for what the plan is going to be, is for a sign, not to unbelievers, but to those who believe. So proclaiming God's word is for us who believe. The Glossa tongues are for those who do not believe. So that kind of really rubs against what people try to do in the current day. They want to have tongues to encourage believers or to convince believers that the Holy Spirit is working in their lives.

Well, I have the Holy Spirit. I can speak in tongues. That's the wrong point of view. Anyway, OK, so a couple of little summary points here comes close and other books. And actually, you know, at some point we're probably going to have we've had in the past that we don't first Corinthians. We probably have. I just forgot. I don't remember exactly, but at some point we do first Corinthians. So I'm going to kind of defer somewhat to that because we just had a lot of time in first Corinthians. And there's three chapters that talk about tongues. the misuses and the proper uses of tongues. And Glossa is used in all those chapters.

But as in 1 Corinthians 14.22, tongues at Corinth were for a sign, as stated in there. And tongues also were a sign to the Jews.

And that's the one we read in John 2.18.

They were for, just like they asked Jesus, where is your sign? needed a sign to attest that that was God's. Without scripture, they didn't have scripture. They had the Old Testament. That was in the temple. So they wanted a sign to confirm that was from God. So they needed a sign. Otherwise, you could be a charlatan. I'm sure there are plenty of charlatans out there. Another quote from Merriman. Tongues were part of the sign gifts that confirmed the message of the early church. Those couple of verses there. Let's read, let's look at Mark, Mark 16, 20. Can someone read Mark 16, 20? It's the last verse in the Mark.

And they went out and preached everywhere while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word by the signs that followed. Right. So the early church was confirming the message by the signs that followed. I included a couple of charts here from Vern. Basically he had presented these in the past. And actually this is back to the verse we just read. A couple of the previous verses.

And he is basically pointing out tongues had a primary and temporary role as a sign for the Jews as a ministry to the unbelieving. And basically this is the verses that perceive what we just talked about. So then tongues are for a sign, not to those who believe, but to unbelievers. And then he kind of gives a little history here of tongues.

Tongues in the Old Testament were used kind of as a warning of God's judgment. So let's just look at maybe one of these here. Well, the first one, like in Deuteronomy, talks about the fact that the Lord will bring a nation whose language you shall not understand. But let's look at the one in Isaiah. Isaiah 28, 11 and 12. Could someone read that?

Indeed, he will speak to this people through stammering lips and a foreign tongue. He who said to them, here is rest, give rest to the weary. Basically, the guy goes on and says, and there is repose and they will not listen. So basically, he proclaimed that people were going to come and basically overcome the Jewish nation. And so these foreigners with foreign language would overtake them. Then Jeremiah says, in the Jeremiah passage, it says, I am bringing a nation against you, a nation whose language you do not know or cannot understand.

And then some of these are kind of reapplied or quoted. They're quoted in Corinthians. At least the Isaiah passage is quoted about these foreign tongues. And then Verne kind of quotes a couple of verses in here that are kind of interesting. Basically, let's look at 1 Corinthians. This is just kind of confirming about the Jewish mindset for signs.

1 Corinthians 1.22.

I think I've got, the Jews request a sign and Greeks seek after wisdom. Keep reading. but we preach Christ crucified to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks foolishness. So this is interesting. It says for indeed Jews ask for signs and that's literally attesting miracles and Greeks seek for wisdom. So the Lord kind of recognizes people's bent The Jews want a sign.

Our culture is more of the Greek mentality. We search for wisdom. What's valued in our country today? money's value, but also how many things you have behind your name. If you've got a PhD, you're considered wise. I have lots of learning, so I'm wise. That may be true or may not be true.

But contrary to that, we preach Christ crucified. It's a stumbling block for the Jews, and to the person who thinks he's wise is foolishness. The fact that a man would have to die, that God would send his own son to die. What's the thing about death? That's foolishness to the mind that wants wisdom. I have a nice in my study Bible that says to the Jews who expected a political savior, Jesus was a stumbling block.

They wanted somebody to come in and get rid of the Romans. They didn't like Roman rule. They wanted the Romans to be out of there. That's part of what we see in the early part of Acts there with Peter. They're looking for this Messiah to come in and boot out Rome. But that wasn't God's plan. And then actually in here he talks in 1 Corinthians, if you turn over to 13. And this is a really neat chapter here,

13. The love chapter here. We get down to verse 8, and it says, love never fails, but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there are knowledge, it will be done away with. So God is basically saying that in terms of tongues here, the tongues are going to cease. These languages are not going to be necessary. But a lot more can be said about that.

Then 1421 we've already looked at already. Okay, so then the last part, he kind of shows the same kind of thing here, with a timeline of the first century. And try to show here basically that after Corinthians, we don't see tongues mentioned at all in the rest of scripture. And tongues isn't alluded to as being part of God's plan. We have God's word, the completed canon of scripture. Tongues were there for a purpose during that time period, but they've ceased for us.

And they were part of the sign gifts. Any last thoughts? That's my quick on tongues. Since I'm kind of learning and new, I have a question. So this can't be interpreted that these things will go away when Christ returns the second coming? there's somewhere I guess that says that these will end before that. You know what I mean? Because some of the things that they refer to, it's like, oh, that's about the millennial kingdom.

Right, right. Well, you know, this is in Corinthians, it talks about, you know, the church in Corinth had tongues was involved in their church in Corinth. But then, and there's a whole key, you know, if you look at chapters 12, 13, 14, it talks about that. Tongues were involved there and the misuses of tongues. And it also talks about, you know, they're for a sign and their purpose as we saw that.

So, but we don't see them, you know, you see in the rest, you don't see them mentioned outside of Corinth, outside of the church in Corinth, you don't see them mentioned except for the case where they might be referred to as praising God. They mentioned revelation. in terms of people groups or whatever. There's not likely a connection between that. No there's not. Thank you. Now we're going to switch gears here.

The other question that I wanted to talk about here was when did the church begin? Maybe for most of you, hopefully this isn't an issue, but some places it can be an issue. In your handout, I gave you Vern's little Q&A. He did a Q&A class for a while and he had a whole lesson on this. He did a great job and he brought a lot of points that I'm not going to make.

I had a more simplistic approach. He brought in talking about dispensationalism, which we teach here, but we don't really emphasize it a whole lot. If you look at what we teach, we teach about law and grace, Israel and the church, the teaching from scripture, the literal interpretation of scripture. He comes at it from a dispensational perspective and goes through that ultra-dispensationalism.

I'm not going to get into that. If you want, we can do that another time. I'm just going to talk about some things that occurred to me. First of all, I was going to hit you with what it says. If you haven't seen our doctrinal statement, it's on the web. You can print it off.

This is the part that talks about the church. It says, we believe the church, which is now the body of Christ, and shall be the bride of Christ, is a spiritual organism made up of born again persons, originating at Pentecost, and be taken up bodily at the rapture. So some would say, and it all kind of hinges on the fact that the first people saved were Jewish people. And they kind of get hung up on that. is that they want to move the church to the Gentile Pentecost, so to speak. They want to move the starting point of the church out there. And it doesn't seem right. It seems that from what we've been reading in the last two months, we're looking at the first part of Acts, and God's message was to the Jewish people, but it's a message that was for all people. So one of the verses that, in fact, we looked at this a little bit already, basically back to the Gentiles Pentecost.

And this is where Peter basically says, and we read this before, he says, hey, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it did on us at the beginning. Therefore, in verse 7, therefore, if God gave to them the same gift as he gave to us after believing in the Lord Jesus, who was I that I could stand in God's way? So I guess what I take away from this is that is that God operated with the Jewish people and the Gentile people in the same way. The Holy Spirit was given.

They spoke in signs in other tongues or other languages. To try to chop it up and move it and say, well, okay, the church really didn't start, even though it was Jewish, didn't start until the Gentile Pentecost seems to be kind of arbitrary. But people have done that. And another verse that is in Ephesians, there is one body and one spirit, just as also you were called into one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and father of all, who is over all and through all.

So this one baptism part that I'm kind of focusing on here, is the idea that they were all baptized or they were all placed into Christ at the moment that they believed. And that occurred for the Jews the same way it did for the Gentiles. So to arbitrarily say that what happened with the Jews is not part of the church seems to be, you know, there's one baptism. There is a different kind of baptism for the Jews and another kind of baptism for the Gentiles.

It's one baptism. There's also another side of things that because the Bible I think does clearly speak that the church started at Pentecost. Exactly. But we come from a background where there are many that believe that the church started with Christ and his disciples and even some that go back as far as the church started with John the Baptist. So you go the other way. We don't ascribe to that. We don't make any sense biblically. Although they tried to.

But the fact that one baptism is seen here. There's the baptism of John and there's the baptism of Christ. And you come into Acts and you say, well, what baptism were you baptized with? Is what one of them asked. And they said, well, we were baptized with John's baptism. And Barnabas says, well, that's not, I don't know, Apollos says, well, that's not good enough. So Apollos is the one that baptized with John. He said, well, that's not good enough. You need to be baptized in the baptism of Christ. Showing that there is only one baptism. That is in Christ in the Spirit.

And if you were baptized as those, John the Baptist, or those that followed Christ were also baptized into Christ's baptism. But back then, you don't share in this one baptism. Particularly as, and I was just looking through to see what was in there, 1 Corinthians 12, by one Spirit, are we all baptized into one body? And to say that any other relation brings it, well there's only one time that they're baptized in the Spirit, and that's at Pentecost. So what if some of the same people who were baptized by John then had faith and then they're baptized in the Holy Spirit?

That's exactly what happened to Paul and Sinoza and that's exactly what they said. You know you were baptized into John but now Christ has come. Now there is no other name under heaven given among men whereby you must be saved that is Christ. You must be baptized in the name of Jesus. That's why baptism doesn't do anything except to identify you with the particular teaching that was there. So they were identified with John's teaching. And then they needed to be identified with Christ's teaching. And then Christ himself identified them in his spirit. And was that like a separate thing then?

You know what I mean? Well actually we read the passage. The passage we read about back here. If you look back in your notes, we just talked about I only quoted one verse, but it's the one that's on page, it's on chart seven. It's Acts 19 through six there. John, you know, where he, this is John, John, John, the Baptist disciples.

So they had already been baptized in the baptism of John. And so basically he points out the full context of that in chapter 19, which we're going to study down the road. We'll get there. That full context is where those people are then baptized and right after that they are baptized again in Christ's baptism. So the baptism of John is a baptism of repentance.

It's a different kind of baptism. Yeah, but it actually wouldn't start until the Holy Spirit came. But it could include other people from the past. So actually what Vern does here, he just points out, there's no distinction made however between spirit baptism in Acts 2, Acts 8, 10, he goes through the whole list.

If there's one baptism, there's one kind of baptism, that baptism is into Christ and Christ alone. So that's kind of the point. So that's kind of my, let's see. So there's a few other things I have to say here at Pentecost. So basically, if you're interested, read Vern's handout about when the church started. I wanted to go to this one last little section here. Just real quick.

So John the Baptist was alive at this time. No, he was dead. Okay, thank you. Yeah, he was dead. Okay. No, okay. I think he got, you know, the story, you ought to read about what happened to John the Baptist. Yeah. Didn't he die while Jesus was still alive? Oh yeah, yeah, he got... Yeah, okay. Actually, look at your Bible. That will be your homework assignment. Look at your Bible and see what happened to John the Baptist.

No, I know what happened to him. His head lay on a platter. But I was just as far as time would go. So I didn't care if that was before or after. It wasn't treated real nicely. No. Okay. Alright. So let's just talk about, and that's a Q&A handout. It's in the back of your handout. Okay. So here's something that's kind of cool. I didn't come across this myself. I thought this was really neat.

In this passage, Jeremy talked about it a little bit last week. This is kind of between what Bob and Jeremy taught. Acts 2.36 Therefore all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him Christ, both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom he crucified. Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and said to Peter, and the rest of the disciples. Brethren, what shall we do? So we kind of see a pattern here.

God's message, the word is given out. The word is given out and Peter gives his sermon and he kind of summarizes it in the therefore statement. Therefore God has made him both Lord and Christ. So that's God's word given out. man hears the message. It says, now when they heard this, they heard the message.

So what happened when they heard the message? The Holy Spirit convicts or better convinces them, their hearts were pierced. That word pierced is the idea to wound in the conscience. This is an interesting wound in the conscience to greatly pain or deeply move. So they were convinced of what he was saying. And they said, in man's response, what shall we do? And it was a very similar one in Acts 16 with the jailer, the Philippian jailer. He says, what must we do to be saved?

So this is kind of a pattern. This is sort of God's approach. God's word is given out. Man hears it. And that hearing has to be the hearing that... I can read this message. I got in the streets of Denver. I can read this message. People will walk by and not... They'll hear it, but they won't hear it. This is a hearing with perception. They hear it. The Holy Spirit uses God's word. And they're convinced. They're convicted of that. And then man's response is, do they believe that? What shall I do? How shall I be saved?

So that's kind of the pattern. I thought that was just really neat that this pattern is there. I can think back to when I met the Lord. It was over a long time period, but I was taking in God's word. And after a while I said, wow, This is different. I don't want to understand this. I don't understand what's being said here. It doesn't have to be as quick and as direct as this was, but this is God's process. The word is given out, man hears it, the Spirit of God uses that, and man responds to that.

I thought that was just kind of cool, that little section there. Also, I was gone a week and you guys had some neat discussion while I was gone. So I want to talk about that, actually next week. Next week we're going to talk about Peter healing the first 11 verses of chapter 3. where Peter heals the lame man. But I also like to include in that, maybe toward the end, we'll talk about, and I have a little homework assignment for you here, read over a couple verses here. I thank James for bringing up some interesting points here. Part of my focus here, so what does it mean, guys talk about it, I noticed on the tape, on the message online.

In Mark 15 it says, Mark 15 34, and at the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, Eli, Eli, Lamb of Sabbath and I. Which is translated, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? So the question is, what does forsaken me mean? What does that mean? And it's a quote, that's a quote from Psalm 22, So what does that mean and how does that connect? Is there some connection with that Christ was forsaken? Is there a connection with that to other parts of scripture?

Some occurred to me right off the bat and some were mentioned when you guys were talking. So I'll kind of talk about that. Now I wondered if there wasn't a connection with Matthew 26-39 when Christ was in the garden. And he said, my father, if it's possible, let this cup pass from me. So he basically says, why have you forsaken me? And then he says, let this cup pass from me. Is there a connection with those two?

And is there a connection largely with what transpired where it says, like in 2 Corinthians 5.21, he made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. So he was made sin. That's a pretty mind-boggling thing. So anyway, I think there's some connection with all that. So we can talk about that maybe next week along with Peter healing the lame man. Any last thoughts or comments?

I like your pointing out here, Acts 28, it reminds me of Romans 10, 17, faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. That pattern that Paul says is directly evidenced right there in that passage. I didn't see this, someone else I was reading, I saw this and I said, wow, it's just so good. I thought that was just so good. Faith comes by hearing. We can't either hear it audibly, You read it and hear it in your mind, so to speak. And that's how faith comes.

And we know, right back to the aspect of tongues, is that people today look for tongues to give evidence of the fact that they want to learn. The Holy Spirit teaches me, well, I don't have the Holy Spirit if I don't have tongues. But if you look at the pattern of Scripture, hear the Word of God, believe the Word of God, and the Holy Spirit will confirm the Word of God.

And you're getting the whole thing backwards when you start to look for signs. You've got the tail wagging the dog, so to speak. And maybe there are people. Like I said, maybe somebody out in the jungle. I don't know. Maybe that's possible. Anything's possible with God. But the normal approach is what we have right here. This is the normal way. And this is how we grow too. This is the same pattern. Another one of my favorites. As you receive Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him. How do you receive Christ Jesus the Lord? By faith. How do you walk in the Christian life? By faith.

So you hear God's word. The Spirit of God uses God's Word and in man's response you believe it. That pattern is whether it's for salvation or whether it's for any truth in scripture. It's the same way. That's why it's so vital to take in God's Word. You can't get to the starting point without the Word. You're not going to hear it outside of God's Word. OK, let's close. We thank you so much, Father. We thank you for the blessings we have in our Savior. We thank you for our time this day. In Christ's name, amen.