340. Pentecost The Promise Fulfilled

This Was Worth Waiting For!  

Acts 2:1-41

Key Verse:  "Therefore, let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."  Acts 2:36  

When Jesus was crucified, Pilate had a sign placed above the cross, written in Latin, Greek and Aramaic, proclaiming His crime: "King of the Jews!" (John 19:19-22) Now, at Pentecost, Babble was undone and each heard in his own language, "God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ." (Acts 2:36B) In other words, Pilate had been correct. Now, the whole world knew it.  

What a sermon Peter preached! He does not hold back from the truth of who Jesus was and is. He also states boldly who is responsible for what was done to Him. He lays out the sin of the Jewish people in terms that cannot be denied.  Yet, Peter's sermon is not simply a gloom and doom, wringing of the hands type sermon without hope. No, he also proclaims the assurance to the people that, because of Jesus’ death and resurrection, now the time we have been waiting for, the time predicted by Joel has come! A new way is dawning.

What the locusts of sin and man devoured through greed, power and selfishness is being restored through the Holy Spirit of God. "In the latter days," says God, "I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy." (Acts 2:17-18 & Joel 2:28-29)

That is what is being fulfilled at that very moment. Imagine living in a moment when you are certain that an ancient prophesy is being fulfilled! Is it one of those moments that make you wish that you could stop time and drink it all in? Would it be one of those moments that you wish you could engrave upon your memory and never forget? Yet, those moments had been happening since Jesus was born. Everything He did fulfilled prophesy, but no one saw those moments for what they were.

Peter continues from Joel: "I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord." (Acts 2:19-21 & Joel 2:30-31) The sun turned dark at the crucifixion, but even the disciples didn't make the connection that prophecy was being fulfilled.  

Then, Peter holds out the hope of a loving god. Even though you missed it then and may not understand it completely now, "everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." (Acts 2:22) What a loving God. He does not condemn us because we didn't get it before. He does not require years of study with salvation as the diploma for our efforts. All that He requires is that we call to Him and believe in Him and repent from going the wrong way and He has promised to save us because He has already redeemed us. It's our turn to reach out to Him.  

Hymn: "The Holy Spirit Came At Pentecost"