Acts 2 The Spirit

In Acts 2 we learn more about the Holy Spirit as the power source and motivator. The believers were together, praying, reading and listening to the apostles repeat what Jesus had taught them. They were sitting down together in the big house which Jesus and his disciples had rented just prior to his death. It had a large upper room and probably a courtyard and further rooms below. Then something happened. What Jesus promised, arrived: the Holy Spirit.

The filling of the Holy Spirit is not just a private, personal experience – it is the equipping of the whole body to come alive and fight! Ezekiel 37 is the Old Testament passage that matches with that day the Spirit came upon the disciples in the house. In that vision, Ezekiel saw a valley of dry bones – the remains of a defeated people. He was told to speak God’s word to the bones and in the vision he heard them rattling and saw them joining up again to form complete skeletons and then new muscles, sinews and skin covered them – but they were still lifeless bodies. Then he was told to announce God’s word to the breath of life (the Holy Spirit). The breath came across the valley and suddenly all the bodies stood on their feet and assembled as a huge and mighty army, ready to fight God’s enemies. God told Ezekiel that the meaning of this was God’s promise to put his Spirit within his people and make them strong in their own land. Jesus had already taught his disciples and ‘fleshed out’ their new lives, but now it was time for them to come fully alive in their spirits and overflow with the life-giving energy of the Spirit. It was time for them to arise as a mighty army. Every subsequent soldier joining that army needs to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Christians are not holding out for a significant Christian to be raised amongst us –what is needed is that the whole body (in all its component parts) is brought to life! All of us together need the filling of God’s Spirit. It will be obvious that we have become a lively body when it is not only a few individuals who are eager to serve God, but as a church we are all together bursting to tell of what Jesus has done and speak praise of him. The proof that we haven’t reached that point yet is seen in our restless silence when the opportunity arises for us to confess Jesus as Lord and thank him for his goodness. Pray that sometime soon the Holy Spirit will impress himself upon us as a group. When that happens, there will not be uneasy silence while we wait for people to confess their love of God and tell of Jesus’ goodness and greatness – we will all be bursting with eagerness to share and sing, pray and confess.

On that day, the Spirit came with three phenomena: a sound, a sight and a voice. The sound was like the rushing of strong wind. There is no mention of the effect of ordinary wind, as no was blown over. It was a spiritual sound that came from out of this world. It was the same rushing of wind that Ezekiel heard in the vision of dry bones. That sound filled the entire house and could be heard for some distance from the place, because people came running to see what was going on.

Jesus said that the Holy Spirit was like the wind, to emphasise his sovereignty. He is not programmed into action by people, nor is he conjured up by getting into an emotional frame of mind. He comes and goes according to God’s will. The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit (John 3.8).

You should not expect to be ‘touched’ by the Holy Spirit by going to emotional church programmes. If we are expecting the Spirit to bring power and blessing on our lives and in our church, then we must do what those early disciples did; they made sure that they were following all the instructions Jesus had already given them to that point. They stayed where they were put and were waiting for the promise of the Father (1.4,5). They remained in fellowship together (2.1), devoted themselves to prayer (1.14) and consulted the Scriptures (1.16), reflecting on all that Jesus had instructed them (1.3) – see Luke 24.44-49. It was in these circumstances that the Spirit fell upon them.

The correct way for individuals and a church to experience the motivational fire of the Holy Spirit, is to make certain we understand and are carrying out the instructions we have already been given. The Holy Spirit comes to confirm the words of Christ, not to work in spite of them. For example, if we have heard his words of instruction about marriage and do nothing to make sure that we are doing what he said about that, we should not expect that the Holy Spirit will ignore our disobedience and fill us anyway. We must do what we have already been told if we are to be in the place where the Spirit of God will come energetically into our midst. If there are people in the church resisting the instructions of Jesus, they are an obstacle to the work of the Holy Spirit. Jesus rebuked a group of people once: “Why do you call me ‘Lord! Lord!’ and do not do what I tell you?” Luke 6.46. These people spoke as if they were on his side, but never committed themselves to obeying what he commanded. Clearly, if we want an experience of Holy Spirit power – we must be in the right place. The right place is to be repenting of anything we are aware is offensive to God and positively doing the things we have already been taught.