Acts 2:12-36
Sunday
Morning Bible Study
Introduction
Before ascending to
heaven, Jesus had told the disciples to wait in
On the day of
Pentecost, a sound of a rushing mighty wind filled the place, tongues of fire
divided themselves on the heads of the disciples, and they began to praise God
with foreign tongues, declaring the mighty works of God.
:12-13 The response to the Holy
Spirit
:13 Others mocking said, These men are
full of new wine.
Or, "full of
sweet wine". Wine that hadn't aged too much, was very sweet to the taste,
yet was also very intoxicating.
Lesson:
The Spirit and
wine.
This isn't the only
time in Scripture that the filling of the Holy Spirit is put side by side with
being drunk with wine.
Eph
5:18-20 And be not drunk
with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit; {19} Speaking
to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making
melody in your heart to the Lord; {20} Giving thanks always for all things
unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
Apparently, the
filling of the Holy Spirit and being drunk are similar in a couple of ways.
Both tend to change
your personality in some way.
Both tend to give a
feeling of happiness, singing songs, etc.
It has been said
that alcohol and drugs are Satan's counterfeits of the Holy Spirit.
A counterfeit looks
like the real thing, and sometimes can get you some of the same results, until
you get caught.
Don't allow
yourself to get ripped off by Satan's cheep imitations, when you can have the
real thing.
Illustration
In "Point
Man", Steve Farrar tells about a photographer for a national magazine who
was assigned to take pictures of a great forest fire. He was advised that a
small plane would be waiting to fly him over the fire.
The photographer
arrived at the airstrip just an hour before sundown. Sure enough, a small
Cessna airplane was waiting. He jumped in with his equipment and shouted,
"Let's go!" The tense man sitting in the pilot's seat swung the plane
into the wind and soon they were in the air, though flying erratically.
"Fly over the
north side of the fire," said the photographer, "and make several
low-level passes." "Why?" asked the nervous pilot. "Because
I'm going to take pictures!" yelled the photographer. "I'm a photographer,
and photographers take pictures."
After a long pause,
the "pilot" replied: "You mean, you're not my instructor?"
Sometimes it's kind
of important to make sure you get in the right plane with a "real"
pilot.
Don't settle for
quick substitutes.
:14-21 Peter explains
:15 For these are not drunken, as ye
suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day.
It would be about
Apparently the
orthodox Jews had a custom of not eating or drinking before
Peter is simply
trying to say, "Hey guys, it's pretty unlikely that this many people would
be drunk on a feast day like Pentecost at
:16 But this is that which was spoken
by the prophet Joel
Peter is going to
explain to the people the phenomena with Scripture.
Lesson:
Practice is
governed by Scripture.
The things that go
on in church should have Scriptural explanations behind them.
But for some
people, they end up basing their church behavior upon experiences, and not upon
God's Word.
Example -
The truth and
Mormonism.
The Mormon church
will send it's representatives to your door, and ask you to believe them based
on an experience, upon a "burning of the bosom" you're supposed to
get from reading the Book of Mormon.
God wants you to
judge the truth of what they say not based upon some experience, but based upon
God's Word.
:17 I will pour out of my Spirit upon
all flesh
Peter is now going
to quote an entire paragraph, Joel 2:28-32.
:17 your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams:
visions … dreams - technically, visions are what you see when you're
awake, dreams are what you see when you're asleep.
:20 The sun shall be turned into
darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the
Lord come:
day of the Lord - generally refers to the time just prior to when
Jesus comes back, as the events in the book of Revelation, chapters 6-19.
Some see the
"day of the Lord" actually beginning at Pentecost, and finishing up
when Jesus comes back.
Even though Peter is
applying this prophecy to the day of Pentecost, he can't be implying that this
is a complete fulfillment, since the sun isn't being darkened, and the moon
isn't turning to blood.
In the book of
Revelation, we see the rest of the prophecy happening:
Re 6:12
And I beheld when he had opened the sixth seal, and, lo, there was a great
earthquake; and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair, and the moon became
as blood;
:21 And it shall come to pass, that whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.
Lesson:
Salvation by
faith.
This is all it
takes to be saved, to call on the Lord and ask for His help.
Do you realize that
you need God's help?
All God wants is
for you to ask.
:22-36 Peter Preaches Jesus
:22 a man approved of God among you by
miracles and wonders and signs
approved of God - better, "proved to be of God"
Jesus was proved to
be of God by the miracles, wonders, and signs He did.
:22 which God did by him in the midst
of you, as ye yourselves also know:
The subject of Jesus
wasn't something these people were unfamiliar with.
They had seen His
miracles.
:23 Him, being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God
determinate
counsel - NAS - "predetermined
plan"
So many of the
ancient prophecies pointed to the fact that the Messiah would die for us. Eight
hundred years earlier, Isaiah had written:
Isa
53:5-7 But he [was] wounded for our transgressions, [he was] bruised for our
iniquities: the chastisement of our peace [was] upon him; and with his stripes
we are healed. 6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one
to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. 7 He was
oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as
a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he
openeth not his mouth.
As tragic as the
cross was, it was God's plan all along.
God saw that our sin
was causing separation between us and Him.
God knew that the
only way to remedy the situation was to have the sin dealt with and paid for.
And the payment for
sin is death.
With one death, the
death of God's only begotten Son, the death of God the Son, the debt we owed
was paid for.
:23 ye have taken, and by wicked hands
have crucified and slain:
We have an
interesting mix of God's "predetermined plan" and yet humans being
responsible for taking the initiative to do these things.
Even though it was
God's plan for Jesus to be a sacrifice for our sins, the way it was done showed
just how wicked our human hearts were.
This wasn't a
sacrifice performed in a pure, holy way.
Jesus was taken by
wicked men, beaten, mocked, and crucified in a totally humiliating way between
two thieves.
Lesson:
My sin put Him
on the cross.
Just because we
think about God's love and how God has taken care of our salvation, we
shouldn't forget that it was our sin that put Him on the cross.
Yet even then, it
wasn't nails that held Him to the cross, it was love. Love for us.
:24 it was not possible that he should
be holden of it.
It was not possible
for death to hold power over Jesus.
Why? Because the
Scriptures said that He had to be raised from the dead.
:25 For David speaketh concerning him
Peter is now going
to quote David's writings as the reason why death could not hold power over
Jesus.
Did you notice how
well Peter is quoting Scripture?
Did you notice what
a command of Scripture Peter has?
You might say to
me, "Well, the Holy Ghost is bringing all things to Peter's
remembrance!"
But the Holy Ghost
can't bring to your remembrance what you've never learned.
Lesson:
Being filled
with the Word.
People God use
mightily are people filled with the Word.
Billy Graham in his autobiography, "Just as I am",
pg.212:
"Early 1954
gave me very little time at home in Montreat. Ruth maintained in her counsel
and advice to me that my studies should consist primarily of filling up
spiritually; she believed, as I did, that God would give me the message and
bring to remembrance in my preaching the things I had studied. This was always
the most effective preaching, we had discovered: preaching that came from the
overflow of a heart and mind filled not only with the Spirit but with much
reading. Hence, I picked each sermon topic carefully, read myself full,
wrote myself empty, and read myself full again on the subject."
From time to time I
see folks get a taste of what it's like to be used by God.
I'll see someone
show up at the Tuesday morning prayer meeting for a few weeks.
I'll see someone
start coming on Sunday nights and Wednesday nights to get more Bible Study.
And then they get
disappointed when Pastor Chuck hasn't called them on the phone and asked them
to take over when he retires.
The people God uses
are those committed to daily prayer, daily Bible Study, regular fellowship -
it's these ones that God ends up using in a big way.
There are no
shortcuts to faithfulness.
:27 Because thou wilt not leave my soul
in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
Peter has quoted
another entire section of Scripture, Psalm 16:8-11
Hell - "hades", the place where the dead live.
In the Old
Testament times, all of the dead went to "hades" (Greek) or
"sheol" (Hebrew).
This was a place
thought to be in the center of the earth, with two compartments, a place of
torment for the unrighteous, and a place of paradise, called "Abraham's
bosom", for the righteous.
Both places were
called "hades" or "sheol"
David sounds like
he's saying that he knows that God isn't going to leave him in this place of
the dead after he dies.
corruption - diaphthora - the decay of the body after
death.
David is making it
sound as if his body wouldn't experience the decay of death.
:28 thou shalt make me full of joy with
thy countenance.
This ends the quote
from Psalm 16.
Ps
16:11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence [is] fulness of joy;
at thy right hand [there are] pleasures for evermore.
Peter could have
stopped his quote from Psalm 16 a verse earlier, but he continues on to the end
of the passage.
I wonder if it's to
further tie in with the events at Pentecost.
Lesson:
Joy comes from
God's presence.
David might be
ultimately talking about the joy we'll experience when we get to heaven and see
Jesus face to face.
But there had been
a great deal of joy expressed on Pentecost, so much so that the people thought
they were all drunk!
There is a sense
when we're filled with the Holy Spirit that we become extremely aware of God's
presence in our life, and that ought to fill us with joy!
The Holy Ghost
baptizes us with joy, not lemon juice!
:29 David, that he is both dead and buried,
and his sepulchre is with us unto this day.
There is a place in
Jerusalem today that's ornately decorated and called "the tomb of
David". Whether or not it really is, in Peter's time, the tomb of David
was still there.
Peter's point is
this, how could David be speaking of himself as not decaying if he himself has
long been dead, and his bones are in a tomb?
:30 Therefore being a prophet
Peter is concluding
that David was speaking prophetically.
:30 of the fruit of his loins,
according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ
Peter is adding
another point to his thinking, the fact that God had promised David that the
Messiah would be one of his descendants (Ps. 132:11; 2Sam.7:12-14)
:31 He seeing this before spake of the
resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh
did see corruption.
This is Peter's
conclusion from the Scriptures, that David had been prophesying about the
resurrection of the Messiah from the dead.
It was Jesus, not
David, whose soul was not left in Hades, and whose flesh did not decay at
death.
It seems that when
Jesus died, He went to a visit to Hades -
Mt
12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so
shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
But in rising from
the dead, He emptied the "paradise" side of Hades, and led them to
heaven.
Eph 4:8
Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and
gave gifts unto men.
:32 This Jesus hath God raised up,
whereof we all are witnesses.
All those who had
been baptized in the Holy Spirit that morning were witnesses to the fact that
God had raised Jesus from the dead.
:33 Therefore being by the right hand
of God exalted
Even though Jesus
was raised from the dead, He wasn't around to talk to the people because He had
ascended into heaven.
:33 and having received of the Father
the promise of the Holy Ghost
The things the
people had seen were from the Holy Ghost, which Jesus had sent from the Father.
:33 he hath shed forth this, which ye
now see and hear.
shed forth this - it's the same Greek word that's translated in
verses 17&18 as "poured out".
Peter's talking
about the Holy Spirit which has been poured out, which they are now seeing and
hearing.
:34 For David is not ascended into the
heavens: but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right
hand,
Now Peter quotes one
more time from David, to give a Scriptural reason why Jesus ascended into
heaven.
In doing so, he
quotes from one of Jesus' favorite passages (Psa. 110:1; Mat. 22:42-46), a
passage known by all as one descriptive of the Messiah.
And now Peter pulls
from this same passage to talk about the idea of the Messiah sitting at the
right hand of God until the time comes that God brings all of His enemies into
submission to Him.
Peter is pointing
out that there had to be a time when the Messiah would be sitting in heaven at
God's right hand, waiting for the time when the enemies would be conquered.
Jesus had to ascend
into heaven.
:35 Until I make thy foes thy
footstool.
thy footstool - literally, "a footstool under your feet"
In the eastern
cultures, putting your foot on something was a way of proclaiming your victory
over them. (Josh 10:24; Deut. 11:24; Rev 10)
The Messiah would be
in heaven until God conquered the enemies of the Messiah.
:36 whom ye have crucified
Boy, he really lays
it on heavy!
:36 both Lord and Christ.
I think Peter is
referring to Psalm 110:1 when he says "Lord" here.
He's saying that
God has identified Jesus as the "Lord" in Psalm 110:1.
And God has also
made Jesus to be the Christ, the Messiah, the one anointed to save His people.