Please turn to Acts chapter 2, we're going to be reading verse 13 verses of the chapter, continuing in our new series on the book of Acts. Hear God's word. 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 in Asia, Phrygia in Pamphylia, Egypt in the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, And visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians, 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." May the Lord add his blessing to the reading of this word. So the disciples have returned to Jerusalem. where they spent the last few days and outside of which they watched the crucifixion of the Lord and they've returned there as Jesus instructed them to wait for the promise of the Father which was the baptism of the Holy Spirit and here in chapter 2. we see that promised baptism of the Holy Spirit in an event we usually call Pentecost. That's why there are Pentecostal churches. They focus on this event as a crucial turning point in church history, and it is. But Pentecost is not just an event in Christian history. It was a festival before for the people of Israel. And that's why there are people together in the city of Jerusalem at this time. The disciples are together in one place, and what's going on around them, and perhaps they were participating in it as well, most likely they were, is Pentecost, which is known also as the Feast of Weeks. And it takes place seven weeks after Passover. which if you count inclusively, meaning you count the day that you're counting from and you count the last day, makes 50 days. 49 days would be counted as 50 days for the ancient Jews. That's why Jesus is raised on the third day, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. So that makes 50 days. That's where you get the sort of Latin name Pentecost. It comes from the word 50. And this is a celebration of harvest. This is a celebration. There's several celebrations of harvests in the Israelite calendar. And this is one of them. This actually celebrates the grain harvest being completed. It would usually, mostly, or entirely be done by this time in the year, which takes place, again, like 50 days after Passover, which is a springtime festival. And this is, what a perfect festival for God to choose to pour out the Holy Spirit, right? A harvest festival. Remember Jesus' words, that the fields are white with harvest, and that the workers are few. And telling his disciples, pray that the Lord of the harvest would send workers for the harvest, because the harvest is great, but the workers are few. He also spoke of the grain harvest as a metaphor for his own death and resurrection and for the growth of the church. He said that unless a grain of wheat dies, it can bear no fruit. But if it dies, it can bear much fruit. This is one of the feasts, according to Deuteronomy, at which Israelite men had to appear before the Lord. They were supposed to appear before the Lord three times a year. This is one of those times. Now, the reality is, by the time of Jesus, many, many Jewish people lived all over the world. And we've got a little geography lesson that we'll look at later. All of the places that are named here are places where there are Jewish communities. And of course, they went even further than that. There are Jewish communities recorded in Spain and on the far side of the Black Sea and well up into Europe and well down into Africa. So, of course, with thousands and thousands of Jewish people living around the world, far more than lived in Judea and Jerusalem at the time, very few of them are ever going to make it a pilgrimage all the way to Jerusalem. But many did, and so every year you would have thousands more people showing up at feasts like Passover and the Feast of Weeks or Pentecost. And this would draw pilgrims from very far away. It's not an accident that we run into all these people from different nations in one place. We also read that they are gathered together in one place. Now, last week's sermon, we saw them meeting together in this upper room. It may well have been the same upper room where Jesus and his disciples had eaten the Last Supper, although we don't have a way of knowing that for sure. They're gathered together and they've been praying and they've been meeting daily, no doubt, for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, go wait for the gift. They start praying for the gift and now the gift of the Spirit arrives. And that's what we read about in verses 2 through 4. We read about a sound of a mighty rushing wind. And then the sound of wind fills the entire house where they're sitting, and then they see divided tongues that look like fire sitting and resting on each one of them that are gathered together. And then they are filled with the Holy Spirit, and they begin speaking in other tongues as the Spirit decides, right? take a Pimsleur course or work really hard on Duolingo and start speaking. It's the spirit that decides what languages they're going to be speaking in. And so we read about this wind coming. And it's interesting. It's not interesting. It's important to know that the Greek and Hebrew words for spirit also mean breath or wind. So when the wind comes, It's a manifestation of the Spirit coming. The Spirit is more than a wind, but manifests in this way like a wind. This should remind us of other places in Scripture where the Spirit shows up in some way. We can think about Elijah on Mount Sinai, Mount Horeb, who goes, he's fleeing for his life, and he hides in a cave. And there are three manifestations of the Lord's presence that meet him. We hear that, first of all, that a powerful wind is blowing around outside of the cave where he is. And he goes out and listens for the Lord's voice, but the Lord doesn't speak to him at that point. Then an earthquake, the Lord still doesn't speak. Then a still small voice speaks to him. It's a very famous passage. Well here, the powerful wind is the Lord speaking to and through his people. We also read about a number of places in the Old Testament where the Spirit rushes on people. It's a striking word, it rushes on people. So we read in a couple of different places, two, three places, that the Spirit rushes on Samson, the judge, this mighty man with the long hair, and makes him strong enough to slay his enemies, and he defeats them in battle. We read that this happens to King Saul, the first king of Israel, a couple different times. And different things happen. So the Spirit rushes on Saul to make him prophesy against his will. It's actually kind of a hilarious moment where Saul is sort of minding his own business and the Spirit of God comes on him and he starts prophesying with a bunch of other prophets and it becomes a proverb. Is Saul also among the prophets? Probably sounds better in Hebrew. than it does in English. But there's another point at which he hears about an attack by the Ammonite king Nahash, whose name means serpent. It's a horrible, he wants to mutilate all of these people from Israel. That's the price of peace with the Ammonites. And the spirit rushes on Saul and he becomes angry and he decides this is not going to stand and he goes to deliver his people from their enemies. Saul is not all bad, remember that. This is one of those moments where God uses him in a clear way as an instrument in his hand. We also read that the spirit rushes on David in his anointing. This is important stuff and actually I think the most striking parallel or connection in the Old Testament is in Numbers chapter 11. You know, Numbers 11. You're all familiar with that, right? Not Number 11, but Numbers 11. Where Moses is crushed with the burden of ruling over all the people of Israel. And so the Lord has him appoint 70 elders of the people to assist him. and the Spirit, we read, rushes upon them so that they prophesy. Isn't that interesting? Do you remember last week we looked at the task of the apostles was at the same time to preach the gospel, to be witnesses for Christ, but also to care for and rule over the church. Well, in the same way, these people are given the task of rule and the Spirit rushes on them and they preach. Right? Ruling and preaching, they go together among the people of God. So the Spirit rushes on these 70 elders and they prophesy. And later Moses remarks, would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put His Spirit on them. Is that not exactly what's happening here in the book of Acts? We also read in the book of Isaiah in a number of places that the coming servant of the Lord is described as having the spirit of the Lord on him. And there's a promise that in the New Covenant, we read in Isaiah 59, my spirit that is upon you and my words that I've put in your mouth, the word and the spirit work together. shall not depart out of your mouth or out of the mouth of your offspring or out of the mouth of your children's offspring, says the Lord, from this time forth and forevermore. In the new covenant, the Spirit and the Word will belong to God's people. The Spirit is connected over and over again with power and with prophecy, especially with prophecy, with speaking the Word of God. So this is the rushing of the Spirit on the people at Pentecost. But we also read about these divided tongues as a fire, right? that tongues of fire appear like hovering over their heads or something like this. And the language is kind of reminiscent of what Jesus saw when he saw the dove descending. It appeared to him at his baptism. And remember that Jesus had said, and John the Baptist had said of Jesus, I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Well, what's the meaning of this? Well, this is several things that have to be unpacked and I'll go through them quickly. Remember first that the Lord appears in fire over and over again in the Bible. So Moses is tending his father-in-law's sheep and goats on the mountain of God, and he sees a burning bush, a bush that is burning but not consumed by the flame, and God speaks to him from out of this burning bush. Later on, 10 chapters later in the book of Exodus, we read that the Lord leads his people out of out of Egypt in a pillar of fire. He appears as a pillar of fire by day or by night, excuse me, in a pillar of cloud by day. And then, of course, at Mount Sinai when the people appear and Moses goes up to meet with God, there's this, here's a million dollar theological term for you, a theophany. A theophany. It means an appearance or a manifestation of God. God is invisible. God is different from us. He cannot be seen with our eyes and yet he chooses at times to make himself visible in places like Exodus chapter 19 and 24. We read about God appearing in fire and in lightning and in cloud above Mount Sinai. And furthermore, the Lord judges with fire from heaven in different places. So there are places where fire comes down and consumes the sacrifice that's offered to the Lord. Well, that's a really good thing. If you offer the Lord a sacrifice, you want fire to come down and consume that sacrifice because the alternative is fire comes down and consumes you. You want the Lord to consume your sacrifice and accept your sacrifice instead of destroying you. We read, of course, in Genesis 19 about fire and brimstone coming down from heaven to destroy the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, which had reached the absolute limit of their wickedness. We read about Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, who bring, we read, strange fire, meaning an unauthorized incense offering to the Lord, and fire comes out from the presence of the Lord and destroys them. What's happening in Pentecost is that the disciples of Jesus have become like the burning bush. They're burning, they're covered with fire, but they're not consumed by that. The presence of God has come, and by all rights, the presence of God should destroy us, because God is holy and His Spirit is holy. But it does not. It rests on them. It shows them His favor is with them. They're burning and yet not consumed. By the way, just as a side note, one of the oldest symbols of Presbyterian churches is the burning bush that says in Latin around it, but not consumed. It's a pretty good symbol for a church, I would say. And as this happens, they begin to speak in other tongues as the spirit gave them utterance, meaning other languages. And it becomes very clear what this means in a moment. It means other human languages. We'll see that in a minute. This does not mean the utterance of non-human speech, which is sometimes called, you'll run into this term, glossolalia. And that's completely unhelpful, because all it means is speaking in tongues, tongue speaking. It does not mean non-human language. I'm not sure if that ever happened. I'll just touch on this briefly here. There's a famous passage where Paul talks about speaking in tongues in the book of 1 Corinthians. And he says, among other things, he says in 1 Corinthians 13, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And some people who are especially from Pentecostal or charismatic churches will point to this and say, this is what we do in our church. We speak with the tongues of angels. I think this, first of all, that's the closest you can get to a clear reference to speaking in non-human languages by the power of the spirit. And I think there's a good chance Paul is just using hyperbole here, that he's just speaking, he's exaggerating for effect, as he does through a lot of 1 Corinthians, especially 1 Corinthians 13. So I'm just setting that out there for a second. I hope that's not too distracting. But as far as I can tell, all or at least most biblical speaking in tongues means what it did in Acts chapter 2. It means that there's a miracle that happens and God's people begin speaking in languages that they never learned. They begin speaking in human tongues as the Spirit gives them utterance. What does that mean? What does it mean to speak as the Spirit gives them utterance? It's prophecy. They're prophesying. They're all, just as Moses longed for, they're becoming prophets. Just like the Spirit rushed on the elders of Israel, the Spirit has rushed on the church at this point. And we read a few verses later in verse 11 that what they're talking about is the mighty works of God. They're preaching, but they're also praising. They're praising God. in these other languages, in the hearing of people who understand them. And this is in keeping with Psalms like Psalm 71. Your righteousness, O God, reaches the high heavens. You who have done great things. Same terminology here. O God, who is like you. Psalm 105. O give thanks to the Lord. Call upon His name. Make known His deeds among the peoples. That's exactly what's happening here. They're making known His deeds among the peoples. In a moment, Peter will preach, and he'll preach most likely in Aramaic, the local language. In a moment, Peter will preach, but right now, the primary content of these prophecies, I think, is praise. That's what it means to tell the great deeds of God, the mighty works of God. Prophecy can contain foretelling, telling the future, warning people, teaching people or praise. Properly speaking, real prophecy, we can use prophecy with a small p to talk about preaching or even teaching in some ways. But properly speaking, prophecy is always ecstatic, meaning it comes from outside of oneself. It involves being taken over or carried along by the Spirit of God. So Peter talks about this in 2 Peter 1. He says, no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And that's what's happening here in Acts chapter 2. Now who hears this? Clearly they spill outdoors, right? Or maybe they just had the windows open like we do and they were really loud. But I think they're outdoors when some of this is happening. And we read that there are dwelling in Jerusalem devout men who are mostly Jewish from every nation under heaven. Now these people could be pilgrims. They could be immigrants. They could be resident aliens. They could be people with second homes who would mostly be sort of wealthy business types. Dwelling is a bit stronger of a word than visiting. So it doesn't just say they're visiting. It says they're dwelling there. Maybe we shouldn't read too much into that. But one thing that we should see here is that when we read about these people who are about to hear the great acts of God, preach to them in their own languages, Luke wants us to understand that these are neutrals. These are neutrals. It's not that long, it's a matter of weeks before that the crowds of Jerusalem had shouted for the crucifixion of Jesus. And we are to understand that these people are not to be painted with the same brush as the natives of Jerusalem who sought the condemnation of Jesus. And that's going to become more important. We'll see this in the next week or two as we look at Peter's sermon. But these are people who are starting somewhat neutrally. They're Jewish. They know the scriptures. they're listening. Some of them will receive what's said to them. They're not ready necessarily to automatically reject it as the people of Jerusalem had rejected Christ some weeks before. We also read that they're devout men. And this term is used to describe Simeon at the beginning of Acts, Stephen, the first martyr that we read about in Acts chapter 8, and the good Ananias. Now, you have to, in the book of Acts, there's two Ananiases, good Ananias, bad Ananias. And good Ananias is described as a devout man. And they each hear in their own language. The public miracle of Pentecost is not the wind or the fire. That seems to be something that the disciples experience and see and hear, but the outsiders, those outside the church, don't see and hear. The public miracle of Pentecost is the preaching of the mighty works of God in various languages. And again, we'll unpack that more in a minute. We also read that they're all puzzled. They say, aren't these people Galileans? The majority of the apostles were from Galilee, not Judea. And maybe they were known by their clothes. They may have had Galilee hockey jerseys on, for instance. You can laugh at that. That's a joke. They didn't really play hockey in ancient Israel. Possibly they were known by their speech. So that's what happens with Peter. He gets outed when he's hanging out in the courtyard of the high priest's house because somebody says, hey, you have a Galilean accent, aren't you? You must be one of the friends of Jesus. Possibly they're just already well-known people in Jerusalem. Galilee, though, we should know, was known for rebels, not known for scholars and speech makers. And then we're given a little geography lesson, and Luke pauses to just give us an idea of all the different places that people were hearing their own languages from and understand that these would all be people who spoke Aramaic or Greek kind of as a second language. You could think of somebody who grows up in the United States or who grows up in the United States but is really from a Central American country. Well, which is their native language? Well, they're both their native languages, right? They speak Spanish. They also speak English. And there are people here we read from Parthia, Media, Elam, and Mesopotamia. These would now be Iran, Iraq, and Syria. There are people from Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia. These would be people now from Syria or Turkey. There are people from Egypt and Libya. Well, Egypt and Libya are countries today in North Africa. There are people from Crete, the island of Crete, which is also its own country. There are people from Arabia, and it says Judea. Now, some scholars are kind of puzzled about why would you put Judea in here, given that Judeans are not foreigners in Jerusalem. I'm not sure. All the manuscripts seem to say it, so there's no reason to dispute it. But all of these are areas with known Jewish communities. And there's some foreshadowing here, right? If you know your literature class, foreshadowing is when we get a little reference to things that are going to happen in the future. Acts will record the gospel spreading in many, although not all, of these places. We read, furthermore, that there are both Jews and proselytes together in this place. Now, in the language of Acts, a Jew is an ethnic identity as well as a religious identity. Jewish people are people who are born Jewish. A proselyte This is a term we use as sort of a negative term in English if we use it at all, it's rare. A proselyte is someone who's converted to Judaism. If he's a man, it means he's been circumcised and they've all undergone a ritual bath to pass from being Gentiles to being Jews. There are many of these around the ancient world because there are many Jewish communities and people Gentiles were drawn to the worship of the one Holy Invisible God. They were drawn to the story of redemption from Egypt. They were drawn to the promise of resurrection from the dead, which was preached everywhere there was a Jewish community. And by the way, there's a third category that we'll run into later. Jews, proselytes, and the third is God-fearers. And God-fearers were generally speaking, a God-fearer was someone who worships the God of Israel, but doesn't want to fully undergo conversion. Partly because that means circumcision, and that's not necessarily a fun thing to do. Well, what's the reaction to this? They're bewildered in verse 6. They're amazed and astonished in verse 7. They're amazed and perplexed and they say what does this mean in verse 12. These visitors who are the primary viewers of the miracle don't know what to make of it. And in these words, there's a hint of readiness to believe, but not yet belief. That will come soon. We don't read in this section with all of these resident aliens or pilgrims hearing the gospel or hearing the great works of God spoken in their own languages. We don't read yet about conversions. We don't read yet about baptisms taking place. We also read that some are really ready to reject what they're hearing. Others mocked. No crowd, I would say bigger than a household, will ever all believe at once. And these devout men are no exception. And some of them say, some of them mock and say that they are filled with new wine. Now that's not really fair. New wine is kind of like a hard cider that's begun to get alcoholic. It's not as alcoholic as it'll get later and it's got all sorts of solids and you really don't want to overdo it on that stuff because you'll get a wicked headache and you'll spend a lot of time by yourself, I guess. They're filled with new wine. Now, grape season had not yet started, so that's definitely not what's happening. And besides, as Peter will point out in verse 15, it's still early in the day, so it's unlikely that they're all hammered. But there's more truth in what they say than they realize. Remember what Jesus says in Luke chapter 5, and no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wine skins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, the old is good. The disciples are full of new wine, full to overflowing, because they're full of the Holy Spirit of God preparing them not for one, but for 100 generations of witness. This wine will age in the ages to come. witness that will prepare hearers for the coming feast of God. And remember how Isaiah describes that feast. He says, on this mountain the Lord of hosts will make for all peoples a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wine, of rich food full of marrow, of aged wine well-refined. And he goes on to speak of the resurrection of the dead. Those who prefer the old wine of the old covenant will either have to have a change of heart where they will have no place in the coming feast. So I've done just, I feel like, a rapid race through of this passage because there's something I want to talk about and it's built into the title of the sermon which is Babel and Pentecost. I want to read, and you can turn here with me if you want to, from Genesis chapter 11. Genesis chapter 11. I'm going to start reading in verse 3 and read through verse 9. By way of introduction, what's happening here is that the people of the very ancient world have gathered together, many of them have gathered together on, it says, the plain of Shinar, which is in Mesopotamia or Babylon, and they decide that they're going to build a tower to heaven. We read, come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly. And they had brick for stone and bitumen, which is tar for mortar. And they said, come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower with its top in the heavens. And let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the children of man had built. And the Lord said, behold, they're one people and they have all one language. And this is only the beginning of what they will do. And nothing that they propose to do will now be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and there confuse their language. so that they may not understand one another's speech. So the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. Therefore its name was called Babel, or Babel, because there the Lord confused the language of all the earth, and from there the Lord dispersed them over the face of all the earth." Now the miracle at Pentecost means a bunch of things. Don't think that this is all that it means, all what I'm going to get into. The miracle at Pentecost serves first as a warning to the people of Jerusalem, especially, that judgment is coming. And this is subtle. You're not seeing this in the passage we just read, but I think you will. It'll become clear in Peter's speech, which we'll look at next week, as he explains the meaning of this and links it back to the prophet Joel in the Old Testament. The miracle of Pentecost serves as a deposit, as a deposit. What do I mean by that? Well, when the offer we made on our new house was accepted, I had to swallow hard and pull out my checkbook and write out a check for $5,000. Now, that's not the whole amount of the house. That would be a really good deal, probably. That's not the whole amount for the house, but it's a deposit to show that the whole amount would be coming later. And at first, the church will witness in Jerusalem, but the preaching of the church is to go forth from there to the whole earth. Well, here in Jerusalem are people from every nation under heaven. And on that day, they hear praise for God's mighty works, and to some extent, the preaching of the gospel. And some of them would no doubt bring this news home with them when they went back to their homelands. And when apostles like Paul traveled far away to preach, they sometimes found handfuls of Christians in the lands that they visited before they got there. But the more important point is that what starts small in Jerusalem will spread throughout the world. And Pentecost is a promise of that worldwide mission. And that continues today. But the third thing that the miracle of Pentecost serves as is a healing, a reversal of Babel. In Genesis 11, the arrogance of unified humanity is rebuked by Almighty God. He will not let humanity challenge him with their manpower, their institutions, or their high technology. Think about that. Burned brick and tar for mortar. It's very easy to make this primeval story kind of childish, I think. It makes a really good children's storybook, doesn't it? Tower of Babel, and you've got suddenly people speak French or Chinese at each other. They give up in frustration. They walk off the job, and they go their different ways, and they settle to various nations. We imagine that if we just hung around long enough to learn each other's languages, the divisions could have been overcome. It just seems like a practical problem, doesn't it? And in general, when we think about the division of languages, it seems like a practical problem. Maybe a huge practical problem for those of us who have tried and failed to learn foreign languages. But we've got bilingual people. We've got trilingual people. We get along. It's OK. It's not that bad. But what we're missing here is that division by language is just the tip of the iceberg. Language is an obvious difference, but with it usually go culture, and customs, and values, and ways of thinking, and history, and normally, religion. In world history, these things are normally separated. So I want us to see a couple things out of this. First of all, division of speech is judgment from God. Division of speech is judgment from God. I'm going to kind of broaden this so that it makes a little bit more sense to you. Now, sometimes people can speak the same language but still not understand each other, right? In fact, that happens all the time. Think about the last time you had a fight with your spouse or you could not understand what your coworker was trying to communicate in a memo. to be divided by language, to be unable to understand each other, whether that happens through a language you can formally classify or you just can't talk to each other, is a picture of every kind of division. And there is a need, not just to move information through different sets of sounds and alphabets, but for peace And the division of language is an indication of every kind of division and the need for peace among people who are divided in these ways. Now what's happened at Babel is that in His mercy, God divided us. Because a human race divided into many, many groups fighting lots of small wars is actually a way better alternative than a human race united to fight a great war, a rebellion against God. And to be clear, ultimately any rebellion against God is a rebellion against our own existence. It is merciful when God divides us so that we cannot unite against him. In every age, When man becomes mighty in his rebellion against the Creator, the Creator has mercifully stopped us from wiping ourselves off of the earth. He's done that in various ways, but it all comes down to division. Better than fragmentation and division, though, is the gift that only God can give, and that is true peace, true peace. Peace will never come through our reaching out to God and one another. We don't want to reach out to each other. We don't want to offer the white flag of peace. In our stubbornness, we wait for our enemies to apologize first, or to withdraw, or to disarm. And it seems completely obvious to us that we will not be the first to do that. Peace and healing can only come if God reaches out to us. If He comes to us. And the coming of Jesus Christ was God not waiting for us to make the first move. He came to us. And at Pentecost, He does not wait for these devout foreigners to come figure out what's going on with this Jesus. He does not wait for them to come to church. When the prophecies come, they come in the language of the nations. And they are an offer of peace, a reversal of Babel. What is divided at Babel is united together at Pentecost. And a building, not of the tower of man's pride, but of the gates and the walls of the city of God, the true Jerusalem, as John the Apostle puts it, the true Jerusalem that comes down from heaven. We are living today, my friends, in a fever of division, as Americans and as Christians. Our republic is literally in peril. as we careen toward the November election. Before the pandemic, we already lived too much online, interacting with even neighbors and brothers and sisters in Christ, mainly through Facebook and Twitter and YouTube comments. Algorithms controlled what news we read, what videos we saw, and whose thoughts we were exposed to. And those algorithms, maybe with good intentions behind them, maybe not, put left and right, Christians and non-Christians, into different silos, where they never heard from anybody who was different from them. That, by the way, I'll say as a side note, is a small blessing of being conservative Christians in New England. We can't get away from people who are different from us. And those silos, those algorithms, allowed liars with computers to fan flames of anger. With the pandemic, especially, that division and inability to talk to each other has become metastatic since we live more online than ever. Now, the Bible has lots of examples of nations coming under judgment, but usually you read about a king who's responsible, right? You read about this king or that king, that they were worse than all the other kings of Israel that came before them, and they lead the way into evil, although the nobility and even the regular people are blamed as well. Not in Genesis 11. In Genesis 11, the nations rebel against God, it seems, democratically. It's a group effort. So it is in the United States. And our division is the sum of our individual decisions. This is judgment. This is judgment. We read again something we read a few weeks ago in Micah chapter seven. Put no trust in a neighbor. Have no confidence in a friend. Guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your arms. For the son treats the father with contempt. The daughter rises up against her mother. The daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man's enemies are the men of his own house. And if these states were ever united, they aren't very united right now. And Babel, or the United States, have two choices, to repent and turn to the Lord or to fragment and collapse. We need the Spirit of God to work in us, to make us speak and hear the same message. We need the Spirit of God to make us intelligible to one another. That message does not start or end in politics, although it certainly speaks to politics. It starts and ends in the great works of God. As Paul puts it in 2 Corinthians, that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. Now as we look around us, as we think about this sort of culture war division in our country today, it's fun to think of ourselves at war. It feels kind of good. It feels exciting. We have enemies, we attack them, get ready for them. But in Christ, we're called to wage war against the sin in our own hearts. He'll take care of the war in the streets or in the news media. He'll take care of it. We have to pay attention to our own hearts. The most effective things you can do to fix America right now do not involve voting. I'm not saying don't vote. I'm saying it's a sideshow. They are praying for your family members and neighbors and co-workers who you would kind of like to kill. And they are swallowing hard and taking the opportunities before you not to take shots, not to score points, Not to walk away, but to have the conversation. Division of language is judgment. Second point, we need God to change our hearts and speech so that understanding can happen. Now let me point out something else about this story in Genesis, but also the story here in Acts, and that is that in Babel, speech is confused. Hearing is not confused. Do you notice that? There was nothing wrong with their ears, there were things wrong with their lips. That's literally what it talks about in Hebrew, is their lips. And that highlights a culpability in the speaker. that there's something wrong with those who are speaking primarily. And our speech, our speech needs to be cleansed by God in order for there to be peace and understanding. The burden of being understood, now it's always gonna be imperfect and there's some people who will never hear you no matter how hard you work at it and how much you pray. But the burden of being understood lies mostly on the speaker, not the hearer. And at Pentecost, a miraculous gift of speech, literally tongues, is given. Not a miracle of hearing, but a miracle of speaking. A people united to do evil break apart into competing interests and ways. and cannot be understood by each other. And just as sin is the reason for death, sin is the reason for our confusion and inability to be heard. The problem actually goes deeper than language itself into the hearts of men. And the same thing that will cure our sin will make our speech understandable by our neighbors. What is that? Well, you remember what we read earlier from Isaiah. Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken from the tongs of the altar, or with tongs from the altar. So this is a sacrificial coal. Sacrificial fire is about to cleanse him. And he touched my mouth and said, Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin is atoned for. What is Pentecost but a coal from the fire coming and touching the lips of the people of God so that they can be understood by those who would be their enemies? Isn't this what we need? And isn't this what our nation needs? The purification of our lips, the clarification of our words, and the salvation of our souls. Therefore, let me leave you briefly with what to pray for and what to do. First, what to pray for. Pray that the Holy Spirit would give us clean lips, truthful, being careful to guard the good name of others, not slanderous or vicious even of our enemies. Remember what the Psalms say, Psalm 101. This incredible passage concentrates on what kind of ruler pleases God, whoever slanders his neighbor secretly, I will destroy. No one who practices deceit shall dwell in my house. No one who utters lies shall continue before my eyes. In Psalm 15, in the same vein, O Lord, who shall sojourn in your tent? Who shall dwell on your holy hill? Well, much of what he has to say now has to do with speech. He who walks blamelessly and does what is right and speaks truth in his heart. who does not slander with his tongue and does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend, he who swears to his own hurt and does not change, he who does these things shall never be moved." Pray that you would be that kind of a person. And Jesus calls us to a yet higher standard, and that is prayerful love for our enemies. love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. And Paul makes this more specific at a day when no matter what you think of our government, state, local, national, whatever, we are not ruled over by the Roman Empire. Paul was, and he said, First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. Pray that the Holy Spirit would give us clear language that can be understood by unbelievers. Pray that the Lord would set us among unbelievers who are ready to hear the word. like these devout men from every nation. Pray that we would be patient as we wait for his gifts. And finally, what to do. Watch your mouth. Watch what you say. Practice truth and pure speech, even when you're alone, even when somebody almost kills you in traffic. Don't say anything, by the way, that you could possibly regret later on the internet, because you will. You truly have no control over who hears those words. Second, keep your promises and commitments, your church vows, your work obligations, your marriage vows. And I say that intentionally. People are stressed, divorces are up, and the example we get from many of those in power is all wrong. Thirdly, be wise and prudent. Hope for the best from everyone, but do not be shocked by the worst. Be as wise as serpents and innocent as doves, as Jesus says. Fourth, train yourself to speak truth through prayer and the reading of the word of God. That's your training, okay? You train for a race by running. You train to speak truth by reading and speaking back to the Lord in prayer. Not particularly, by the way, through apologetics courses and books, although those can be good. but those are just kind of a help on the side. You train yourself to speak truth by reading the word and by praying. Do not be anxious, Jesus says, about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. Fifthly, practice integrity so that when the time comes you are ready to, sixthly, speak when the Holy Spirit put something in your mouth. Let's pray. Lord, like the prophet, we have to confess to you that we are people of unclean lips and we live among many others of unclean lips. And that in Christ, we have seen your face. And yet we confess this with hope, praying that you would cleanse us in the ways that we need to be cleansed and that you would prepare us to speak. That you would surround us with believers who are ready to hear your word and we pray that your spirit would give us speech when that opportunity comes. We pray not blindly for the healing of divisions in our nation because we know that this is judgment from your hand. But we pray that you would give our nation a true peace that only the gospel of Jesus Christ can bring. Lord, we are a humble and small church. We are in a humble and small state. There is little, humanly speaking, that we can do to change the world around us. And yet we rejoice when we see that humble, small outpouring of your Spirit, powerful and intense, but really tiny, that began at Pentecost and continues to this day, and we pray that you would pour your Spirit out on us, so that we would speak with pure lips, and so that we would be understood. In Jesus' name we ask it. Amen.