Last week when I introduced this subject of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, I said that understanding this text correctly is crucial to understanding not only the purpose of the church, and the function of the church, but the empowerment of the church. It is one of the most important texts in the Bible and as a result I think it is one that the enemy has done his best to sow in the tares of confusion and false teaching, so as to render the church powerless and weak and ineffectual. I would even go so far as to say that by deceiving people as to the true nature of the Holy Spirit and substituting a false doctrine of the Spirit, he has made a mockery of Christianity in many circles, and caused the church to be the object of derision and ridicule as unbelievers witness what is happening in the church in the name of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus was about to pass on the baton of His ministry to the apostles, He said very clearly that the power to do that ministry, to carry on the work of Christ in His absence, would be due to the power of the Holy Spirit. And so He said they were to wait in Jerusalem for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, so that they would have the power to do the ministry that He was charging them to do.

Now this is such an important topic and yet I’m afraid that there is so much misinformation out there on this subject that we cannot just skim over it. So I want to deal with it in a thorough manner, even if that means we might cover some material today which was mentioned last week. Today I would like to show you what the purpose of the Holy Spirit is, and what the Holy Spirit is not, and then I would like to show you what the Holy Spirit did, particularly on the day of Pentecost.

To start with then, let’s look at what the purpose of the Holy Spirit is. And to understand that, it is only necessary to go to the words of Christ Himself as the apostles were gathered with Him in the upper room during the Passover, the night before He was crucified where He delivers one long discourse as to how this transition between His ministry and the ministry of the Holy Spirit is going to work. So we are going to cover a lot of verses in the book of John, starting in chapter 14 and going through chapter 16 in which Jesus outlines the purpose of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has just told the disciples that He is going away. And then He says in chapter 14: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever; that is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it does not see Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you and will be in you.”

So note that Jesus is leaving, but in His place the Father will send the Helper, that is the Holy Spirit. He is going to help them do what Christ had done. Namely, speak the word of God. Jesus starts off in that chapter saying “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” He adds in vs. 10, “The words that I say to you I do not speak on My own initiative, but the Father abiding in Me does His works.” So first Jesus calls the Spirit the Helper, and then He calls Him the Spirit of Truth. There is always this connection with the Spirit and with the word of Christ. John 6:63 “It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh profits nothing; the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life.”

Then back in 14:23 Jesus emphasizes that the Spirit of God will dwell in us. He says, “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our abode with him.” There is that connection again between the Spirit and the word of Christ.   Then in vs. 26 Jesus continues, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.” Now that is a comprehensive description of the ministry of the Holy Spirit; He will be your Helper, He will be the Spirit of Truth, He will teach us, and He will bring to remembrance the words of Christ. Now that was specifically true for the apostles, and it is true for in a general way for us as well. But especially for the apostles, Jesus is promising that the Spirit of Truth will bring to mind the words that Jesus said and taught, so that they might be able to teach the world the gospel of Jesus Christ.   So that the words of Christ might be able to be written down so that generations to come might know the word of Christ, because the knowledge of the word is the wisdom that leads us to salvation. (2Tim.3:15)

In John chapter 15 Jesus reiterates again the mission of the Holy Spirit to give them the words of Christ and their assignment to be His witnesses. John 15:26 “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me, and you will testify also, because you have been with Me from the beginning.”

Then turn over to chapter 16, to continue what Jesus said concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Look at vs. 7 “But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you. And He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me; and concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer see Me; and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.” Now we see a little more definition as to how the Holy Spirit will help the apostles carry out this ministry. He will not only bring to their mind the words of Christ and teach them what to say, but He will also be working on the other end of the equation, working in the hearts of the hearers of the word to convict them of sin, reveal righteousness, and concerning the judgment to come upon the world. So the Spirit works to equip the witnesses to give the testimony of Christ, and works through the word to convict the hearer as they hear the word of Christ.

Then very interestingly, Jesus says in vs. 12, “I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.”

What Jesus is saying is that there was a lot more that He could say to them, but that wasn’t the time. After the Holy Spirit comes in power on the day of Pentecost, He would guide them into all the truth, He will tell them what is to come. He will take the words of Christ and disclose it to them. In other words, the Holy Spirit is going to reveal the word that will make up the New Testament. So this is the whole of Jesus teaching on the Holy Spirit. He is the source of the word of Christ, and He is the power of the word of Christ. There is no other emphasis given by Jesus as to the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

See, the church is going to be founded on the doctrine and teaching of the apostles. Acts 2:42 “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of bread, and in prayers.” That is the word and doctrine that will comprise the New Testament. That is the foundation of the church that Eph. 2:20 speaks of.   And that is really the overriding emphasis that Jesus puts on the ministry of the Holy Spirit. He is the means by which the apostles will receive the word of God, which is the only equipment that they will need to turn the world upside down.

One other point we should make from the text we looked at in John 16:12, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak. He will glorify Jesus, for He will take of Jesus and will disclose it to you. He says, “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” So we need to be mindful of the fact that Jesus was the exact representation of the Father, He spoke the words of God, He did the works of God, He was as Hebrews 1:3 says, Jesus is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of God’s nature. In the same manner, Jesus says, the Holy Spirit is the exact representation of Christ. He will not speak on His own initiative. But He will take the words of Jesus and disclose them to them.   And I love this; He will not glorify Himself. See, the Son glorifies the Father, and the Spirit glorifies the Son, and so they are One.   I’ve said it before and I will say it again, because that is exactly what Jesus is saying; that if you want to know if something is of the Holy Spirit simply look at the word of God and see if Jesus did it. If Jesus didn’t do it, then the Holy Spirit isn’t going to do it. You’re not going to see the Holy Spirit running around acting in a way that is incompatible with what Jesus did.

Now let me show you one other thing. We know that Luke 2 tells us that Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit. He was fully man, and yet fully God because He was born of the Spirit of God. And then at His baptism, at the start of His earthly ministry, the Spirit of God visibly came down out of heaven and rested upon Him. And what did Jesus do at that “baptism of the Holy Spirit?” Did He start speaking in tongues? Did He start acting like He was drunk? No, Luke 4 then says Jesus being full of the Spirit, was being led by the Spirit. He began His earthly ministry under the power of the Spirit and He began to preach the word.

So if I were to draw a diagram, then we might draw a man representing Jesus, and put a big S over Him, to represent that though He is in flesh a man, yet in His Spirit He is God. And then that is a picture of those that are saved as well, is it not? Man is born again, by the Spirit of God, filled with the Spirit so that we might be governed by the Spirit. And then that is also a picture of the Word of God. The Word of God was written by human instruments, through the apostles and prophets, yet it was by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. 2Pet. 1:21 “for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” And 2Ti 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” Now that is the comprehensive work of the Holy Spirit.

Well that brings us to the second point of my message today, and that is what the ministry of the Holy Spirit is not. The text says that as the disciples were speaking of the mighty works of God in 15 different languages some people that were in the crowd began to mock them, to ridicule them and say that they were full of wine. In other words, they said they were drunk. And Peter gets up and says to the crowd, “No, these men are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only 9 o’clock in the morning.” Now why were the disciples accused of drunkenness? I would suggest to you that as the crowd were perplexed and amazed at what was happening, some of the bystanders there in a spirit of mockery attempted to explain what was happening by associating this phenomenon with something that they would have had some familiarity with. And that was the mystery religions of Greece and Rome.

There were many different mystery religions that were being practiced at the time of Christ. Many of them had started centuries earlier and are spoken of in the writings of Plato. And while we don’t have time to go into them all today, there were two in particular that kind of epitomized what was being widely practiced in those pagan societies that the Jewish people lived among. One was the cult of Bacchus, the Greco-Roman god of wine. According to the historian Livy, who wrote around the time of Christ, they were known for extreme intoxication, resulting in ecstatic experiences, unintelligible utterances which were believed to be of divine origin, and sexual initiation rites.   Much of what is known about the cult of Bacchus seems to be derived from the earlier Greek religion known as Dionysus, another wine cult. This one also featured the intoxicating and uninhibiting effects of wine which produced the state of ecstatic possession by the god’s spirit. In these rituals the intoxicated participants would exhibit unintelligible ecstatic speech, and in some cases a trance like state where they rolled their heads back and danced to rhythmic drums and music while imitating anthropological movements.

A contemporary historian said of these Dionysian rituals; “Following the torches as they dipped and swayed in the darkness, they climbed mountain paths with head thrown back and eyes glazed, dancing to the beat of the drum which stirred their blood’ [or ‘staggered drunkenly with what was known as the Dionysus gait’]. ‘In this ecstatic state, they abandoned themselves, dancing wildly and shouting ‘Euoi!’ [the god’s name] and at that moment of intense rapture became identified with the god himself. They became filled with his spirit and acquired divine powers.”

Plato’s dialogues describe these ecstatic occurrences as well. In his Phaedrus, Plato discusses what was known as ecstatic madness in terms of prophecy, inspiration, poetry, and love. In discussing madness as prophecy, Plato alludes to the prophetess at Delphi, the priestess at Dodona, and Sibyl, all of whom he thinks “have conferred great benefits upon Hellas through their ecstatic speaking when out of their senses, but when not, little or none.” For Plato, the contemporary poets were like the prophets and priestesses; they created their compositions during ecstatic trances and from ecstatic utterances. Plato stated that good poets compose their poems not by art but because they are inspired and possessed. They are not in their right minds because God takes away their minds and uses them as his minister.

Though I could recite much more evidence from these mystery religions, I think what we have quoted here should be sufficient for us to see that these travelers in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost who were from the Gentile regions of Greece and Rome and the surrounding areas would have undoubtedly been familiar with these type of religious ceremonies in the mystery religions. By the way, I think that the city of Corinth was a hotbed for that kind of activity and that is why Paul in 1Cor. 14 spends so much time on the abuse of tongues that was occurring there. And when they heard these men and women speaking in foreign languages, they automatically assumed that they were seeing another example of these mystery religions that relied upon intoxication to produces these ecstatic utterances.

But as I said, Peter was quick to point out that what they were hearing was not the effect of drunkenness. There was no evidence to even suggest that. It was 9 o’clock in the morning for one. But the effect of the Holy Spirit was not anything like the drunken reveling of the mystery religions. These 120 disciples were speaking of the mighty works of God. And when they spoke, those hearing understood everything that was being said in their own dialect. In the mystery religions, no one could understand the gibberish that was uttered when they were intoxicated and under spiritual possession.

And Paul writing in Ephesians makes that contrast as well between being filled with the Spirit and drunkenness. Ephesians 5:18, “And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit.” He is saying that the two are diametrically opposed. Drunkenness is dissipation, it says in the NASB. It means depraved, degenerate. A life marked by licentiousness, reckless abandon. It’s to abandon propriety, to act immorally. That is what drunkenness produces. And that produced the ecstatic orgies of the mystery religions.  But we know what the produce of the Holy Spirit is don’t we? Love, peace, joy, gentleness, self control. The opposite of drunkenness.

So we have looked at what the purpose of the Holy Spirit was according to Jesus, what the power of the Holy Spirit was not, and now let’s look at what the person of the Holy Spirit did. The Holy Spirit is a person, don’t forget that. He is not a power, He has power, He gives power, but He is not some inanimate power. He is a person, the third person of the trinity.

Jesus said when “He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” And we see that happening when He comes upon the disciples.

The first thing that happens in vs. 11 is that the disciples begin to speak of the mighty deeds of God. The text doesn’t tell us exactly what that speech consisted of. We know it was intelligible speech, because 15 different nationalities heard it in their native tongue. But if I might imagine what they were saying, I would imagine that it was something similar to what Jesus was saying to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. When Jesus disappeared from their sight, remember they said how their hearts burned within them as He explained how the Old Testament scriptures spoke of Him. Luke 24:27, “Then beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, [Jesus] explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.” I think that these 120 disciples were declaring something along those lines.

So the first thing the Holy Spirit did was give the disciples the words to tell this multitude of devout men in Jerusalem. He gave them utterance. He put the words in their mouth to tell of the wonders of God.

The second thing the Holy Spirit did was He gave Peter a sermon. This is Peter’s first sermon, and it’s also the first sermon of the church. When the church was born, the first activity was not to plan, not to have a strategy session, not to have a committee to decide what to do. The first thing the church did was preach the Gospel.

Peter stands up and suddenly he is a Bible scholar. He preaches an expositional sermon. He starts off with a reference from Joel. Peter says, these men are not drunk as you suppose, but this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel, ‘AND IT SHALL BE IN THE LAST DAYS,’ God says, ‘THAT I WILL POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT ON ALL MANKIND; AND YOUR SONS AND YOUR DAUGHTERS SHALL PROPHESY, AND YOUR YOUNG MEN SHALL SEE VISIONS, AND YOUR OLD MEN SHALL DREAM DREAMS; EVEN ON MY BONDSLAVES, BOTH MEN AND WOMEN, I WILL IN THOSE DAYS POUR FORTH OF MY SPIRIT And they shall prophesy.

I want to stop right there for a moment and point out that Peter doesn’t say that the evidence of the Holy Spirit being poured out will be that they will speak in tongues. He says they will prophesy. The charismatics would like to say that tongues is prophecy, but I would simply point out that Paul does not make that correlation. In 1Cor. 14:1-4 Paul says, “Pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy. For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries. But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation. One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself; but one who prophesies edifies the church.”

There are two types of prophecy. There is the predictive prophecy, where things are said concerning future events, and there is proclamatory prophecy, which is proclaiming the word of the Lord. That was what was happening on the day of Pentecost according to Peter. Not future telling, but forth telling. They were proclaiming the mighty works of God.

However, Peter is quoting from a predictive prophetic passage. And we could debate all day over which parts are still in the future and which parts have been fulfilled. But the key as far as I’m concerned is that Peter is affirming that it is the last days, according to Joel. And all of the New Testament prophets spoke of those days as the last days, whether Jesus, Peter or Paul or James or John. They all spoke of the present age as the last days. And so we have to understand that the last days or the last age is already begun. It began at Pentecost.

I would suggest that it was an apocalyptic message particularly for Israel. It was the last days for Israel. Jesus had prophesied on the temple mount a couple of months before that this generation would not pass away until all these things took place. And within 35 years, one generation, the temple would be destroyed and the sacrifices would cease, and the Jews would be massacred and the remnant scattered to the four corners of the earth.

So whether Joel’s language is simply apocalyptic and allegorical and referencing the end of Israel as they knew it, or whether or not he had a telescopic vision of the future that started at Pentecost and continues 2000 + years later, I don’t know for sure. I tend to think it may have been fulfilled in 70 AD. But it’s also possible to accomplish both an immediate result and a future result.

Joel says in vs.19, ‘AND I WILL GRANT WONDERS IN THE SKY ABOVE AND SIGNS ON THE EARTH BELOW, BLOOD, AND FIRE, AND VAPOR OF SMOKE. ‘THE SUN WILL BE TURNED INTO DARKNESS AND THE MOON INTO BLOOD, BEFORE THE GREAT AND GLORIOUS DAY OF THE LORD SHALL COME. AND IT SHALL BE THAT EVERYONE WHO CALLS ON THE NAME OF THE LORD WILL BE SAVED.’

It’s interesting that not only does this OT prophecy establish the ministry of the Holy Spirit, but it addresses the gospel of salvation. And Peter, by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, uses this as a pretext to introduce the author of salvation, Jesus Christ. Now isn’t that exactly what Jesus said the Holy Spirit would do? He would disclose glorify Jesus, He would manifest Jesus. He would convict the world of sin, and righteousness and judgment. And that is exactly what we see the Spirit doing in the message of Peter.

And Peter introduces Jesus as the author of salvation in four verses. He reminds them of the mighty deeds of God that Jesus had performed in their midst. He reminds them of the fact that they were guilty of putting Him to death, and he tells them that God raised Him from the dead.

And to give credence to that claim He quotes another OT scripture, this time from the Psalm of David, Psalm 16. And Peter makes the obvious correlation to the Messiah whom David was speaking of, because he said, David is dead in the tomb and they knew where his grave was, but the grave of Jesus was empty, because God would not allow His Holy One to suffer decay.

By the way, Psalms says Sheol, and Peter says Hades. They are the same place. Peter says in 1Peter 3:18,19 that Jesus though dead in His body, yet alive in His Spirit, went to Hades and preached to those in prison, that is in Hell. But God did not abandon Him there, but raised Him from the dead.

Peter continues his message in vs. 30 “And so, because [David] was a prophet and knew that GOD HAD SWORN TO HIM WITH AN OATH TO SEAT one OF HIS DESCENDANTS ON HIS THRONE, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that HE WAS NEITHER ABANDONED TO HADES, NOR DID His flesh SUFFER DECAY. “This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. “Therefore having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.”

Then Peter quotes another Psalm, Psalm 110, all of this by heart, by the way. He didn’t have some big scrolls up there he was rifling through. He was just speaking the word of God as the Spirit gave him utterance. In Psalm 110, David says, the Lord said to my Lord, which was a statement of divinity. Peter is making the connection clear; Jesus is the Lord, the Messiah, the second person of the trinity. That is such an important doctrine, and Peter is making sure that is clear.

Look at vs. 36, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ–this Jesus whom you crucified.” See that? Jesus of Nazareth whom you crucified, is both Lord and Christ. Both God and Messiah. That is the gospel. And that truth of the gospel cut them to the quick. Vs. 37, “Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?”

That’s what the word of God does when it is spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit – it pierces to the heart. Heb. 4:12 “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” The word of God is inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it is empowered by the Holy Spirit. And the Spirit of Truth will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. That is what Jesus said He would do, and that is exactly what happened.

And the result was that they interrupted the message at this point and said “what do we need to do to be saved?” What do we need to do to be saved from the judgment we deserve from putting to death the Son of God? And Peter’s answer was simple, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. “For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.”

Listen, this has been a long message, and I won’t belabor it any longer. Except to say that it was your sin and mine that nailed Jesus to the cross by the hands of godless men. We are as guilty as they were. There is none righteous, no not one. All we like sheep have gone astray. We have all turned aside, we have all sinned against God. And as such we all deserve the judgment of God upon sin. And that judgment is death. The Bible says that the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. You can escape that judgment by repentance from your sins and faith in the sacrifice that Jesus made for you on the cross. And if you will come to Him in repentance and faith, He will give you the promise of the Holy Spirit, that you might have eternal life through Him and have the power to life that life for Him. For the promise is for you and your children, and for all that are far off, as many as the Lord will call to Himself. Today you hear His call, Come to Jesus, all you who are weary and are heavy laden, and He will give you rest. I trust you will come to Jesus. As the scripture promised through the prophet Joel, “And it shall be that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.”