The Holy Spirit and the Feast of Pentecost

I am happy to be able to speak about the Holy Spirit. Speaking of the Holy Spirit invigorates us, fills us with joy and enthusiasm simply because of the essence of God that moves through our words. I hope that you are also enjoying this study about the life filled with the Holy Spirit.

We saw in our previous program about that, that prophecy that the Lord said and that command that He gave His disciples to go all over the world preaching the Gospel was fulfilled to the letter, even beyond what would have been expected even in those two thousand years that the Church has been on Earth. It was fulfilled in a spectacular way, even though the Lord was directing that charge to an insignificant group of men and women who did not promise much.

We said in our study that what made the difference and what allowed these men and women to carry out this commission from the Lord was precisely the impartation of the Holy Spirit. Where do we see that the impartation of the Holy Spirit took place on the Church and on these people to whom the Lord directed these instructions? we all know.

Book of Acts chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, 50 days after the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, these disciples, the Lord has already ascended to heaven, now they are alone here, in a sense, speaking, no longer It is the children that the Lord fed them in person, they are no longer even adolescents, they have already entered a responsible adulthood; now they are on Earth, now they are the Church of Jesus Christ. Now the Lord has gone away, as we see in the parable of the Lord Jesus Christ, he has gone to a distant country, heaven, and he is sitting up there at the right hand of God the Father, and it is time for them to start working alone. , as adults in the world, carrying out the commission and the tasks that the Lord has assigned them.

How are they going to do it? The Lord had already told them, they are going to receive power, and they did what they had to do. They gathered in that high place, that upper room described in the Book of Acts chapter 2, they were there praying in one spirit with one intention, united, determined, determined not to leave there until the promise of the Lord was fulfilled. .

And the Bible says that at one point, God did what He had to do. In chapter 2 of the Book of Acts it says: "When the day of Pentecost came." Interestingly, the Day of Pentecost is, in the Old Testament, a Jewish harvest festival in which the first fruits of the grain harvest were presented to God. You can read that for example in Leviticus chapter 23:17.

How interesting that that day when the Jewish people celebrated the first fruits of the harvest, those new fruits of the harvest that were brought to the temple as a sign of gratitude and recognition that the harvest was coming, and that is the day that God chooses to pour out the Holy Spirit.

Here we see something and it is that many of these rites and these festivals, and these events that we see in the Old Testament are a foreshadowing of things that were to come later, such as Easter and this of the Paschal Lamb, for example, they were hints toward the coming Ministry of the Lamb of God.

Here we see that that festival of Pentecost or of the first fruits was a festival that pointed towards this moment when this group, this nucleus of believers, on that day was going to receive the first fruits; In other words, this is where the life of the Church begins. Here we already see the beginning, the first harvest of the Church of Jesus Christ through the Coming of the Holy Spirit.

So on that feast of Pentecost, on that feast of the first fruits that Leviticus chapter 23 describes, it says that: "They were all together, and suddenly there came a sound from heaven, like a mighty wind blowing, which filled the whole house where they were sitting, and there appeared to them scattered tongues of fire, settling on each one of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other languages as the Spirit gave them to speak. " There we have the precious and fundamental description of that first great visitation of the Holy Spirit.

Just as John had described it, as the Lord had described it, that irruption, that explosion, that initiation of the Ministry of the Holy Spirit, characterized by fire, characterized by miraculous sounds, characterized by a supernatural endowment of ability to speak in other languages. The languages that the passing disciples received were not mysterious, incomprehensible angelic languages. Interestingly, they were national languages, recognizable languages, human linguistic languages that were possible to recognize by all those Jews who, on the Day of Pentecost and on that Feast of Pentecost, came from all parts of the diaspora, that is, from the exile from where there were all the Jews from all parts of the earth, who migrated to Jerusalem to celebrate that particular feast as an act of piety.

So that day interestingly, God chose the Day of Pentecost strategically. It was a day that expressed those first fruits, the beginning of the life of the Church, the harvest of the Church. It was a day when Jews from many different countries were in Jerusalem, all of them speaking the different languages of the countries where they trafficked, worked, where they had perhaps been born still being Jews, they came to Jerusalem and for now in that small city, these men and women begin to speak without having any instruction different languages that the Lord allows them to speak.

We see here that: "The crowd gathered." It says that: "In Jerusalem, Jews, pious men of all nations under heaven, when they heard that noise" because the noise was like a summons from God: Come because something is happening in this place, then people come from the city , from different countries. And they listen to them, he says, and they were astonished and amazed saying: "Look, aren't all these who speak Galileans? How then do we hear them speak in each of our languages in which we were born? Parthians, Medes, Elamites and those who inhabit in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, etc. and Romans living here, both Jews and proselytes, were all stunned and perplexed saying to each other: what does this mean? " not? Book of Acts chapter 2, verses 6 onwards.

Interestingly God chose that moment where different nations were in Jerusalem, represented by these pious Jews and converts also to Judaism, God chose that strategic moment, facilitated this powerful noise to announce that something new was happening in the world, the beginning, the first fruits of the life of the Church and of her evangelizing work through the Power of the Holy Spirit. These men and women were filled with the Spirit, they began to manifest the signs that Christ suggested in Mark in chapter 16, and something different started here.

Interestingly, in that manifestation of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost the Lord is also saying something very important and that is: the Gospel is for all nations. The Gospel is something international, global. The Gospel is not only for the Jews, the Gospel is for everyone who believes; those who are far, those who are near. The Gospel is to spread to all nations.

I imagine that many of these people who saw that supernatural manifestation of God through the noise, through the tongues of fire, through these people who spoke in those languages without having studied them, many of those people converted to the Lord. and what happened? They then returned to the different countries from where they came to continue their normal and daily life, and they took the Gospel with them, and they too began to proclaim the Word of God.

How strategic is God and how do we see that He chose this moment to unite a series of factors here that were emblematic of the ministry of the Church on Earth, a ministry of power, a supernatural ministry, a ministry of humble people who were open to Power. of God and it was all that was necessary. A ministry of people who, upon receiving the Gospel, were then going to take it to their different nations and continue to be witnesses of the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, the Savior of humanity. Wonderful example here right?

The last thing we could say is that this fall of the Holy Spirit here, God chose some very powerful and thunderous ways to manifest the Coming of the Holy Spirit because it was the initiation, it was the beginning, it was the initial irruption. And although many of these characteristics were to manifest later in the lives of believers, it did not necessarily have to be that way every time. That is, not every time the Holy Spirit manifests there have to be tongues of fire on people's heads or necessarily people speak in a recognizable human language.

Moreover, I would say personally, this I personally believe, you can believe something else if you wish, I do not necessarily even believe that the baptism of the Holy Spirit has to be characterized by tongues, that can come later. It can be characterized by other things but not necessarily by languages. This was seen at this time because it was so and in fact, tongues do accompany the movement of the Holy Spirit on many occasions, but it does not have to be the only way in which God manifests Himself.

But let's talk a little more about that, don't worry if I've left an intrigue there, then I want to clarify it too. Wonderful passage and I hope it is a blessing and inspiration for your life. God bless you, I say goodbye in the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I say goodbye, until next time.