The Day of Pentecost

The Day of Pentecost

Series: Book of Acts #9
Acts 2:1-14[1]

Intro

Show text from “The Visual Bible: Acts Volume I”

In our study of Acts, the Day of Pentecost has come. The Promise that Jesus had told His followers to prayerfully wait for has arrived.


I. notice with me the perfect Timing of the Spirit.

Pentecost was one of the three Jewish festivals in which individuals were to journey to Jerusalem and appear before the Lord at the temple with their gifts and offerings.[2] What we read about in Acts 2 occurs when the city is filled with people who will witness the outpouring of the Spirit. On that day 3000 will be saved and be filled with the Spirit and then return as witnesses throughout the Roman world. God’s timing is always perfect. Surely some of the 120 wondered why it was necessary to wait in Jerusalem. Jesus didn’t explain to them all the whys and wherefores. He simply told them what to do and they did it and it worked. Has God told you something to do without filling you in on all the whys and wherefores? “The just shall live by faith.”[3] Sometimes we have to simply trust His guidance and see what happens.

Acts 2:1 says, “When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place.” We’re not told specifically whether they were still in the upper room or not. We know that at some point they are in the temple court where Peter preached his sermon. It was also their custom to attend the morning and evening prayer times at the temple.[4] So they may have been in the temple court when the Spirit was poured out or they may have been in the upper room and came out to the temple court.

The important thing is this: the day they had been waiting for came! And when it came they were ready. They were all there together in one place doing exactly what Jesus had told them to do. The times and seasons that God has designed for the world and even for our own personal lives are in His hands. He has wisely and sovereignty planned the steps of our lives.[5] Our part is to simply trust and obey. Are you doing that? If you are, good things are about to happen in your life because you serve a very good God.

Pentecost is from the Greek word meaning 50th. It is referring to the 50th day after the Passover. The Passover was sacrificed on the 14th day of the first month of the year (Abib). The third day following that sacrifice a sheaf of barley harvest was offered to God. That sheaf was the firstfruits of the harvest. When Jesus rose the third day after His crucifixion 1Cor. 15:20 tells us He was the firstfruits of the resurrection. Seven weeks later they offered God two loaves of wheat bread which represented the gathering of the final harvest.[6] That was the Day of Pentecost which was on a Sunday. Lev 23:15-17 "’From the day after the Sabbath, the day you brought the sheaf of the wave offering, count off seven full weeks. 16 Count off fifty days up to the day after the seventh Sabbath, and then present an offering of new grain to the LORD. 17 From wherever you live, bring two loaves made of two-tenths of an ephah of fine flour, baked with yeast, as a wave offering of firstfruits to the LORD.”

Why is all that important? Because the typology teaches us that Pentecost is about the harvest. Jesus established the connection in Acts 1:8 “But you will receive power when the Holy