Acts, chapter 2. It's a long chapter. I'm going to read two big chunks of it. It begins on page 909. To sharpen your attention, this is a very timely message. It was already on our list of Bible stories that everyone should know. Just a couple weeks ago, we had somebody over from church discussing church and background with them, and they were talking about Pentecostals. My two older children were at the table. I said, hey, you guys know what Pentecostals are? They said, no. That's OK. Do you know what Pentecost is? They said, no. I said, uh-oh. All right. So we have this so that you'll know what Pentecost is and what also we'll get to Pentecostals as well. So Bible story everyone should know, beginning in Acts chapter 2. When the day of Pentecost arrived, They were all together in one place. And suddenly, there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them, and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. Now, there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven, And at this sound, the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. And they were amazed and astonished, saying, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear each of us in his own native language? Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God. And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others, mocking, said, they are filled with new wine. But Peter, standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea, And all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. For these men are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh, 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 male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall return to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved." Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst as you yourselves know. This Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. Skipping down to verse 32. This Jesus, God raised up, and of that we are all witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." And when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent and be baptized every one of you 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 for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself. And with many other words, he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. So those who received his word were baptized. There were added that day about 3,000 souls. And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and the prayers. All right, there are so many Bible passages that I could have read. I confine myself to this one. But we could have begun in Exodus 23, or Leviticus 23, or Numbers 28, or Deuteronomy 16. Because in those four places, God called for this feast, a feast that is here called Pentecost, and is today by Jews called Shavuos, or Weeks. That is in your English Bible also called the Feast of Weeks, and the feast also called the Feast of Harvest. You see, in the first books of the Bible, in the Torah, God said, three times a year, all your males will appear before me in the place that I will choose. Passover, the best known of those three feasts. Pentecost, this is the second one, and it's called Pentecost, or weeks, because they were to count seven weeks, 49 days, yes, one, 50 days, from the end of Passover until this feast. It's the Feast of Harvest, because it's at the end of barley harvest. It's the Feast of Weeks, because it's seven weeks later. It's Pentecost, because Pente is five, and it's 50 days later. So we could have begun there. And in Deuteronomy 16, we see this. It's a feast during which you are to rejoice before the Lord your God, you, your son, your daughter, your male servant, your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, the widow. It's to be a time of rejoicing before God at the end of harvest. Thank you, Lord. You've given us food. We will eat for another year. Now, in Jewish tradition, from before the time of the New Testament all the way through now, they link this to Sinai and the giving of the Ten Commandments, the giving of the whole Torah. Because there's a built-in link. It's supposed to be counted from Passover. Passover is all about the exodus out of Egypt. And what did they do after they came out of Egypt? They went to Mount Sinai and received the Ten Commandments. So since this feast is linked to Passover and Passover is linked to the Exodus, they said, OK, well, let's celebrate Sinai and the giving of the law and think about that at the time of this feast. As the Jewish philosopher Maimonides says, Torah is the aim of the Exodus. That is to say, they were not anymore to serve Pharaoh with slaves. Instead, Pharaoh was told, let my people go that they may serve me. And they served me via the law of God, giving them there on Sinai. So that's what we're talking about. In the first place, this is a Jewish feast, when every male, and the women were welcome as well, they were all to be there. And that's why you have this crowd from everywhere. You'll notice this list of all these different countries, places, most of which you don't know where they are, but it's all over the Middle East. And that's because Jews at this point had been scattered by the Assyrians, and the Babylonians, and the Persians, and the Greeks, and the Romans, and they were all over the place. It was known as the diaspora, the dispersion of Jews all over the place. But they still had this command to come up for the feasts. And so if you lived in Israel, you might go up for Passover, and then go home again, and then come up for Pentecost, and then go home again, because you'd only have to walk for two or three days. But if you're coming from Rome, or Libya, or Egypt, or Mesopotamia, Iraq, or Parthia, Iran, you're not doing that every year. And if you do make the trip for Passover, you're just sticking around for 50 days and celebrating Pentecost as well, if you can afford it, and then you go home. And then maybe you don't do that for another 10 years. So part of this crowd here, part of what's going on is this is the big crowd. A lot of people come in from out of town, out of the countries, speaking other languages from these other places, but they're Jewish. And they're there, or perhaps they're proselytes, which is Gentiles on their way into Judaism. And they're there. They've probably been there for Passover, and they're still there for Pentecost. Now, why is this a big deal to Christians? Welcome to what we just read in Acts chapter 2. At this time, you are 50 days past the crucifixion and the resurrection. And Jesus has appeared to his disciples over a period of 40 days and is newly ascended to heaven. And he has told his disciples, the whole group of them, about 120, you will be my witnesses to all the earth, but stay in the city. until you're clothed with power from on high. And so they're there, and they're praying. They've been praying and seeing from the scripture that they ought to replace Judas. And so there's a new 12th apostle. You can read about that in Acts 1. And they're together, and they're praying. Here comes the next great feast. And it's on the occasion of this feast that suddenly there is the sound of a mighty rushing wind. It's not a coincidence that it's wind. The Hebrew word for spirit is ruach, and the Hebrew word for wind is ruach. It's the same word. So as in the Hebrew you have one word that can mean wind or spirit, so when the spirit comes, it comes with the sound of a mighty rushing wind. Also please note, in Genesis 1-2, it says the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters, and God proceeded with creation. And here, As God prepares a new thing, the Spirit comes, and there is something new. John had said that Jesus was baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. And so as the Holy Spirit comes, they see tongues as a fire, you can think of flames as a fire, appearing and seeming to rest on each one of them. And then they begin to speak in tongues, by which they plainly mean other known languages spoken by some of the visitors from different parts of the world. Now, this wasn't just a private sort of sound. It was a public sound. People who were not in the house and were not already Jesus followers could hear that there was some strange sound. And so a crowd comes together and they're called devout because, of course, that's why they're in Jerusalem. They're in Jerusalem because God called them to be there for the feast. They're there. They are devout. and they are hearing something, and they recognize, as the apostles spill out of the house and are continuing to speak, they recognize a couple of things. One is the guys from Persia recognize that they're hearing something they haven't heard in a while, and that is they're hearing Persian. They're hearing ancient Farsi. And the Arabs, Arabic Jews, are recognizing that they're hearing Arabic. The visitors from Rome are hearing Latin. They heard a little of that, but not as much, and so on. And as they look to their fellows with whom they share a common language, Aramaic and or Greek, they can identify, you know, I'm hearing Persian, and you, Arab guy, you say that you're hearing Arabic. So they identify that there is something strange going on with the languages. They also can identify that the guys talking are Galileans. Now, we don't know if that's because their Arabic had a strong Galilean accent. There evidently was a strong Galilean accent, because Peter, when he denies Christ, he gets identified, you're one of them, because you talk like them. So there was certainly a Galilean accent. Maybe that carried over to the new language. Maybe it was their clothes. Maybe enough of them had seen them with Jesus to recognize them as those Galilean guys with Jesus. Who knows? But anyway, they identify, one, these guys are Galilean. But two, they're speaking my language from far away. And these guys did not take that in school. They did have school. And they learned how to read and write their Hebrew, perhaps. And they would have learned some Aramaic and Greek living there. But there was no reason for them to be learning all these other languages. No way for them to do it. And so they're trying to figure out what this is. What does this mean? And there's always a scoffer there saying, they're acting strangely. They must be drunk. Never mind. And so Peter's speaking one of the languages that most of the crowd had in common, probably either Aramaic or Greek. Peter begins to speak to as much of the crowd as is regularly possible. He's not going to let the scoffers explain. He's like, look, it's only 9 AM. They haven't gotten into the liquor yet. Instead, this is Joel 2. And then he goes on with a long quotation from Joel chapter 2, verses 28 to 32. That's one of the longest quotations you get in the New Testament. Why does it go on so long? Well, first, he's driving home the point that this is the Holy Spirit come. This is a prophecy fulfilled. That's a sign that God is working. Secondly, he may want to get to that middle part, talking about the sun turned to darkness, to remind them that on the day Jesus was crucified, The sun was darkened in the middle of the day. But the last reason he goes on so long is he's trying to get to the end of it, where he says, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Because that's what he's going to tell them to do. He's going to tell them who the Lord is, and tell them to call on his name that they may be saved. Which is what he then goes to do. Having explained what they're seeing from the Old Testament, He then says, OK, now it's time to talk about why this is happening. It's happening because of Jesus. Jesus that you knew did miracles. Jesus whom you watched crucified. God has raised Him up. He's in heaven and He has poured out what you're seeing and hearing. And how is He able to do that? Because He's the Messiah. Understand that. The message of the Holy Spirit speaking to you in all these tongues is that Jesus is the Messiah. this Jesus whom you crucified." Now, just as a side note, is this how Christians should always talk to Jews? Should we always say to Jews, this Jesus whom you crucified? Answer, no. Just look at Acts 13. Acts 13, you have an example of Paul preaching in a synagogue, far away, years later. He doesn't say, this Jesus whom you crucified. He says, Jesus whom the leaders in Jerusalem crucified. So you have to be appropriate to who's guilty of what. Peter says, whom you crucified, because he's still in Jerusalem, and it's part of the same crowd. It's 50 days later. These are some of the same people who have presumably said, crucify him, crucify him. That's why he says, whom you crucified. It's a Jerusalem and time-specific charge. And they feel it. They say, What should we do? We crucified the Messiah, but God has placed him in heaven. And of course, he quotes Psalm 110, which Jesus had quoted to them the last week before he was crucified. Psalm 110, that should ring some bells for them. The Lord said to my Lord, said to my right hand, until my enemies are my footstool, and you must be his enemy, because you crucified him. Oh, what should I do? He has an answer. Repent of your sins. always part of the answer, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. And that's what's new. To be baptized in the name of Jesus, and He calls Him Christ, which is to say Messiah. To be baptized in the name of Jesus, the Messiah. And you will not only be forgiven, you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And that is the start of the preaching mission of the Church. On that day, they go from 120 people to 3,000. Church life, you could say, begins here. And so there's a description of it and what follows on. And the church goes on to grow from here. So Pentecost, what is it? Well, first, it's a Jewish feast. And it was on that Jewish feast that Jesus poured out the Holy Spirit and the Christian church was formed and began to grow from there. This is an at-last-moment inscription. When you come to Acts chapter 2, to be at last. Because all the way back in the Tower of Babel, people were divided by language. And a linguistic barrier is a big barrier. When you can't talk to someone, you smile and nod and you're pretty much done. There's not much else friendly you can do, plenty of unfriendly things you can do, but there's not much friendly you can do with someone that you cannot speak to. And here, God, he doesn't make them all understand one person speaking. I mean, most of them understand Peter as a second language. But what he does is he has his people able to speak, each one of them able to speak a different language. So everybody can hear the message together. There's a moment when Moses has had enough, quite a few moments when Moses had enough. And so God said, I will take some of the spirit that is on you, and I will put it on 70 elders. And when God does that, the elders begin to prophesy. Two of them, however, were not with Moses. They're back in the camp, and they start to prophesy. Joshua is disturbed at this potential threat to Moses' authority. Moses said, hey, I wish all of God's people would prophesy. For Moses, that's just a wish. It's only gone as far as 70 elders. But here, the whole community goes out, and they are speaking. Joel, of course, had lived hundreds of years after Moses, but before Jesus. And so Joel has this incredible prophecy. And then it just sits there. It's not fulfilled yet, until this moment at last. John the Baptist said, there's a greater one than me coming. You're impressed with me, and you should be, but there's a much greater one coming. He'll baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And as you read the Gospels, Jesus comes, and Jesus is great. Jesus is doing so many things. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit doesn't happen until here. You read all the way through the Gospels, you get to the end of the Gospels, it hasn't happened yet. At last. And Jesus had told them, you're going to be my witnesses to the end of the earth, but stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high. Boom. Luke ends. He said it's Luke 24, 49. And they're there, they're praising God, and they're there, they're praising God, and the Gospel ends, it hasn't happened yet. Acts 2 is in that last moment in scripture. Now, why did Jesus pour out the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? And why did he do it that year? A year hard to pinpoint, 30 AD, 33 AD, one of those possible years in there, early 30s. Why do it that year? Well, Jesus was recently crucified, resurrected, and ascended. He had ascended to heaven and ceased to appear to them in the flesh maybe 10 days before. So he's getting on with it. He's told them they have a mission, but they can't start yet. He's not going to keep them cooling their heels for years. After 10 more days, after his final appearance, he gives them the Holy Spirit. Also, of course, everyone in Jerusalem remembers Jesus. Jesus had been in the temple, teaching, being opposed by the Pharisees, and the Sadducees, and the Herodians, and giving answers, and then grabbed at night and crucified one morning, right at the time of Passover. The memories are fresh, and the crowds are assembled again. The locals have gone home and come back. They still remember. The out-of-towners have stayed the whole time, and perhaps talked about the strange things that had happened leading up to the Passover. But not only that, it was fitting that it be at Pentecost because of what the Jews associated with Pentecost. Just as Pentecost completed Passover, so Pentecost and the pouring out of the Holy Spirit completes the crucifixion and the resurrection. Think about it. Exodus, out of Egypt, they go on to Sinai. They no longer serve Pharaoh. Now they come to serve God. They're no longer slaves. They serve God as a holy nation. God makes a covenant with them. They're holy as they keep God's law. God gives them signs at Mount Sinai. Thunder and the sound of a trumpet, and great clouds and darkness. Now we're moving from the crucifixion, which happened at Passover, to the pouring out of the Spirit on Pentecost. And again, the message is that a crucifixion and the resurrection liberates us from sin, so that we can serve God, so that He makes us a holy nation, so He's made a new covenant with us. And He makes us holy, not by giving us a law to keep, but by putting His Spirit within our hearts. That's why you read about, not under law, but under the Spirit. And of course, God gives signs of what He is doing. You might say that Jesus died to remove our sins so that he could baptize us with the Holy Spirit. He removed our sin so that God could live within us. And as Pentecost was to be a time of joy for all classes of people, so the Holy Spirit comes on all, as Joel had said. So it's a new stage in redemptive history, not under law, but under the Spirit. No longer a time of preparation, but a time of maturity. Not just God is near, but guarded off in a temple or a tabernacle. But God is within. And so we ourselves, our bodies, become the temples. And the apostles were being clothed with power so that they were ready to go out into the world, not being off by themselves and forming their own community and fighting their way in and keeping others out. Being clothed with power on the inside, they go out into the world to spread the worship of God. So again, it connects with the Tower of Babel. Here, God is giving them. Not one language, but at least for the moment, the ability to speak to whoever was there. Somebody in their number had the ability to speak to whoever was there. Now, tongues. Why tongues? It means languages. Languages are to be assigned to Israel. That what's prophesied in Joel is being fulfilled. A way of saying, now pay attention, this is of God. They do not appear to be like the tongues that are spoken in some churches today. The current tongues appear to be ecstatic speech, which, when analyzed, does not seem to be any known language. And something similar is known in other religions, by the way. It has a name, glossolalia, or something like that. So what you see today appears to be different. This was actually different languages. And that was to jumpstart the mission. As they're going to go to speak to every nation, they get to jumpstart the mission by speaking to Jews from every nation who already speak those other languages. And they tell them the message of salvation in the language they best know, perhaps, giving them words that they can then use when they go home. It's also a sign of some hard work left to do. I'm sure many translators have wished that God would pour out the Spirit and they would have it down like that. Instead, you need to pray for the missionaries as they have to do language learning and language translating. It's a sign of the labor to come. As you go on, of course, in Acts chapter 14, Paul and I think it is Barnabas run into a language barrier. are speaking in Greek to people in modern-day Turkey. And they do a miracle. And then all the locals go local language on. And they're really excited. And they're speaking Lyconian, all barring if they'll speak Lyconian. They have to wait and see, oh, they're going to try and sacrifice animals to us, like we're gods. And then they have to go out speaking Greek and saying, stop, stop, in Greek, which is probably not as effective as it could have been if they had known Lyconian. And later on, Paul leaves a Roman centurion in the dark, as Paul code switches between Greek and then back into Aramaic. So this is Pentecost, the day on which God, Jesus, poured out the Holy Spirit on his disciples, on the whole community there. They spoke in other languages. They spoke about Jesus in other languages. And this was the foundation at the beginning of the spread of the Christian church. Now, of course, I began by mentioning Pentecostals. So now that you know what Pentecost is, what's a Pentecostal? Well, Pentecostals are Christians. They are Protestants. They are, for the most part, Bible-believing Protestants who love Jesus and therefore should be accounted our brothers and sisters. I do have to make an exception for the oneness Pentecostals. When you start hearing oneness, you start to get a little suspicious that, in fact, the term oneness is to deny the Trinity, which is to deny the deity of Jesus, which is why I say we must make an exception and not call the oneness Pentecostals, brothers and sisters. But the other Pentecostals are Trinitarians, and we view them as our fellow believers. As they have read their Bible, they've read about the Holy Spirit speaking in tongues, and they've wanted to know, well, why not now? Which is not a question unique to them. It's been a question that's sort of recurred throughout church history at different times. Not the first to ask, but not the first to speak in something like tongues. In our own country, about 1900, there was a very famous time in Los Angeles at the Azusa Street Revival, which seems to have been sort of a catalyzing moment for the Pentecostal movement in this country. If you're driving by and you see a church that's called Church of God, or Assemblies of God, or Pentecostal, well, all of those would be examples of Pentecostal denominations. The term charismatic is kind of similar. Charismatics come more from the 1960s, but they have a similar emphasis on the gifts of the spirit and speaking in tongues. Now, I'm calling them brothers and sisters, but obviously we think they are mistaken about something. We don't say that they are mistaken about telling us how important the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit is, in fact, crucial. Jesus came to pour out the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God the Spirit. Clearly, the Holy Spirit is central to our salvation. They make a mistake in a couple of ways when they say that speaking in tongues is necessary or expected or usual. They make a mistake if they say that they have some prophecy that should be on par with or greater than the scripture. That is a mistake. Remember what Jesus said about the master of the vineyard had various servants and he had one more to send, a beloved son. With Jesus, the one more to send, the canon is completed. You do not expect any further revelations on par with the scripture. So they make a mistake if they say that they do have that. Some would say that, some would not. And they make a mistake if they talk so much about the Holy Spirit as to eclipse Jesus. I'm not saying all do, but if that were to happen, that would be an error. Because Jesus said, I will send you the Helper, the Holy Spirit, and he will glorify me. That's John 16, 14. The Holy Spirit, when he comes, he glorifies Jesus. And so you'll notice here, Peter does not go on about the Spirit. Having explained what they are seeing, he then uses the power of the Spirit to witness to Jesus. which is the job that Jesus gave him and gives to all who would preach in Jesus's name. So how do you answer when you come into conversation with a Pentecostal believer? How many of you who went to college had to work this out while you were in college? Oh, yeah. Most of the people here who went to college had that experience in college. So college students and future college students, be prepared. What do you do when you come across a Pentecostal Christian in college? Well, again, you might want to ascertain if they're one of those Pentecostals or not. And if they're not, you view them as a brother or sister in Christ. And you can talk about the Bible and how much you both love Jesus. Should they press you that your Christianity is deficient because you don't speak in tongues? as certainly happened to me. It sent me back to study the scriptures. You can find a scripture that says, do not forbid to speak in tongues. But that is a far cry from saying, you must speak in tongues. It merely says, do not forbid it. You might also notice that speaking in tongues only really happens, prophesied, is going to happen in Joel. It happens in Acts, and it's talked about in 1 Corinthians. And that's it. It's in Acts. And it's in 1 Corinthians. If it was something that we were expected to do, you'd see it in a lot more books than that. You see it again in Acts, when a new group religiously or ethically believes, it's noted that the Holy Spirit came on them and they spoke in tongues. The tongues is a sign. They have the Spirit, so treat them as full members. Treat them as brothers and sisters. Baptize them, because I have. And the church in Corinth was just really fascinated with spiritual gifts. And so when the Apostle Paul writes the letter to the Corinthians, he says to them, you know, I will show you a more excellent way, a more excellent way than all this talking about gifts. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Love is patient. Love is kind. Where there's prophecy, it will cease. Where there are tongues, they will pass away. But these three abide, faith, hope, and love. And the grace of these is love." The famous love chapter comes as a way of getting the church off of spiritual gifts and onto something more important. He also says, and why do you have spiritual gifts? It is to build up the body. It's for the good of each other. And furthermore, if you're going to be really into one, prophecy is greater than tongues. Because when you speak in a tongue, that's just for you. Apparently, those tongues are more like the modern ones, not to communicate with other people. The tongues in Corinth, as opposed to the tongues on the day of Pentecost. But if you prophesy, now you're educating and helping other people. So the whole effect, if you read 1 Corinthians 12, 13, and 14, is to downplay the spiritual gifts, not to deny them, but to say, you know, love is the central thing. And when you have a gift, it's for the good of the body. And so these things are not to be, I mean, each one has a different one. So no one should be requiring one or another of anyone. So what's Pentecost? Well, again, today, some of your neighbors would call it Shavuot, or Shavuos. Weeks. The Feast of Weeks is the Feast of Harvest. It's the feast that the Israelites already keep. It's about 50 days after Passover. And it was on that holiday, back the year Jesus was crucified, that he, being resurrected, and ascended to heaven, poured out the Holy Spirit. And they began to preach about him, and the Christian church began. The tongues at that point were other languages, known languages, that were used to communicate with other people there on the day of Pentecost. They were a sign. that God was fulfilling what he had promised. And you'll notice, I just noticed, recently I talked about why does Peter talk about it being the last days? Well, look, here's Peter calling it the last days because he's quoting from Joel. When the Holy Spirit comes, God calls that last days. Notice right there in verse 17. In the last days it shall be I shall pour out my spirit. He poured out the spirit. I guess I should call it the last days. And what is it that we ought to do, seeing this thing here? What should you do as a result of what the scripture we have covered today? Well, look at verse 36. We are to know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus who was crucified. That's the key message of Pentecost, is that Jesus is resurrected, He is Lord, He is Messiah. And we are to repent of our sins and be baptized in His name. Because that is the salvation that God has put before us. This is the Lord He has given to us. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank You for the gift of Your Holy Spirit. Lord, we pray that You would strengthen us by Your Spirit. We pray that we would exhibit the fruit of the Spirit in our lives. We pray that we would walk by Your Spirit. And Lord, as each one has received any gifts from You, let us use it to serve one another and to build up the whole body. Heavenly Father, we pray that You would give us wisdom and understanding, also as we deal with brothers and sisters from other churches, with other understandings. Help us, Lord, to be wise and full of grace. to speak wisely of you, and to rejoice in you, and to commend repentance and faith in you. We pray this in Jesus Christ. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.