The power of the Spirit manifested through the early disciples enabled them to perform miracles that served as undeniable evidence of their divine commissioning and identity as children of God. Such miraculous acts not only confirmed the authenticity of the Word they preached but also facilitated the monumental task of uniting two distinct nations into one body. Without this extraordinary proof, the integration of diverse peoples into a single community of faith would have remained unattainable. Throughout our exploration, we will delve into the implications of these miraculous confirmations and their significance in the broader context of spiritual transformation. Join us as we reflect on the profound impact of the Holy Spirit's work in the first century and its relevance today.

Therefore, understanding the workings of the Holy Spirit is pivotal in appreciating the transformative power it wielded during this formative period of transition from one age to the next.

Takeaways:

• The Holy Spirit empowered the early disciples to perform miracles that validated their divine authority.
• Miracles were essential in confirming the apostles' identity as witnesses of Jesus Christ's resurrection.
• The transformation of both Jews and Gentiles into one body was facilitated by the Spirit's miraculous acts.
• The outpouring of the Spirit served to unite believers under a new covenant, transcending previous divisions.
• The unique empowerment of the apostles was crucial for the dissemination of the Gospel amidst significant opposition.

Good morning and welcome again to our study.

We have been looking at the Holy Spirit together for some time.

We finished or not finished, but we.

Well, I guess we did pretty well.

Finished.

Yep, we finished John chapters 14 through 16.

I do want to make a few comments with regard to those two, three texts.

We have concluded that in the context of those three chapters, that this was a time of very private, intimate setting between Christ and his apostles.

The Holy Spirit is promised to them.

And that's the context of these, these verses, these scriptures.

Now, having said that, we've also emphasized and we recognize the Holy Spirit was to be poured upon all flesh and that there were such things called such promises given.

In Acts chapter two, Peter said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

If you take that to mean the Holy Spirit himself being the gift, as I do, then that would support the idea that the Holy Spirit was promised to those who obeyed him, which is exactly what is said later on in chapter five.

The Holy Spirit, not the gift of the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit, would be given to those that obey him.

Well, Acts 2:38, we have those that obeyed him, they gladly received the word, and the promise to them was that they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

It is my conviction that the gift is the Holy Spirit.

It isn't what the Holy Spirit gives, it's what the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit himself.

Well, because the Holy Spirit given to them and to some others as well.

We'll talk about them a little bit later on.

But to the apostles in particular is because they had a unique role with regard to revelation and the preaching and the teaching of that revelation to make it known to the world.

They did have a unique role.

They were apostles of Jesus Christ, sent on a specific commission by the Lord with a special task at hand, and that was to represent and teach what the Spirit revealed in the name of Christ.

In other words, to either preach what he had reminded them to teach new things and things to come.

And so while it's true that the Holy Spirit is promised upon all flesh, this is something very different, very intimate and very unique with the apostles.

And it had to do with Jesus absence and their new role upon receiving the Holy Spirit.

That would not only give them the power to work miracles.

But it would also give them the power to lay hands on whomever they chose that they might receive.

That they might receive the Holy Spirit.

And that is certainly an outpouring, a part of that gift or a part of that power given by the Holy Spirit.

But it's different than than that given to the apostles.

Remember, rightly dividing the word of truth demands that we apply the context in exacting its relevance and its meaning to us today.

Here is another proof that this passage cannot apply to us.

Luke demonstrates Paul's practice of going from place to place, from synagogue to synagogue on the Sabbath day.

You see it in Acts 17, in Acts 18.

And yet they existed in that day.

Jesus had told the apostles that he mentions the synagogues and the rulers of the people that they would be brought before the synagogues.

So there's a specific mention of the synagogues.

And obviously in the life of Paul, he went to synagogues and he was persecuted and run out of town, so to speak.

He left synagogues because they rejected his message.

But he says here that they're going to put you out of the synagogue.

He says, well, if we're going to apply the guidance of the Holy Spirit upon us today from this text, then we're going to have to be apply this as well.

If not, why not?

Why won't we apply the thread of persecution that requires the attendance to synagogues and be cast out of one of them?

You certainly can't be cast out of something that you're not in, can you?

We recognize the context and the need for their comfort in a time of persecution by the Jewish authorities.

Imagine Jesus explaining the cost of discipleship and that they must endure persecution and death.

The demands were so costly that many disciples left him.

And after only three years, Jesus knew that they would not possibly be prepared to stand on their own during the hardships that they would soon experience.

They were going to need the empowerment and the comfort of the Holy Spirit to inspire them in their defense before authorities.

And when given an opportunity to address an audience of, whether it's few or many, they were given perfect recall of everything Jesus taught them.

In other words, when they spoke, they spoke all the truth.

And they did it, as we noted last week, with perfection.

In today's world, have you ever heard somebody claiming such power preach a flawless lesson?

I haven't.

In fact, I've heard a lot of them that claim to, and they were full of flaws.

Besides the numerous errors and misstatements, I hear the misapplied, misinterpret Text of Scripture.

Did you ever know anyone who you believed was empowered by the Holy Spirit but also dis.

Disagreed with their teaching?

I mean, I.

I find it amazing that there are actually people who believe that their preacher is preaching by inspiration and yet they disagree with what they teach.

Well, how in the world were you able to.

Why would anybody disagree with someone that teaches if they're teaching by inspiration and by the guidance of the Holy Spirit?

Well, you don't have any right or business disagreeing with anybody who you believe to be guided by the Holy Spirit.

Were you aware that when you do that, you place yourself in a real predicament?

Because if you believe that that teacher is guided by the Holy Spirit as we've been taught in these texts, then you're rejecting the Holy Spirit.

You're rejecting their message in Mark, chapter 13, beginning in verse nine.

And there are other accounts of Jesus, olivet discourse, Matthew 24, Luke 21.

And we find references to bringing people before the Sanhedrin councils, the disciples of Christ.

This is a Jewish context, as there are no gentile Sanhedrin courts.

So how many would fit this description today?

My friends, can we not see a mishandling of Scripture to take one element of a text without consistently applying at all?

As we have already noted, the most difficult obstacle to overcome for those wishing to apply these three chapters to us is that the benefit of the Spirit's operation is the revelation of all new truth and the perfect recall of all old truth that had been taught by the Lord.

My dear friends, you are neither an eyewitness of the things that beginning from the baptism of John until the day he was taken up, nor are you a recipient of the Spirit's guidance into all truth, nor do you possess perfect recall of all that Jesus taught while he was on the earth.

You have no recall of anything he taught because you weren't alive when he lived here.

All right?

And then finally, as we've noted, not only would he teach them, remind them of the things that Jesus had taught, but he would remind them, give them all truth.

Remember, he says, I have many things to tell you now, but I'm not.

You're not able to bear it.

But when he, the Spirit of truth has come, he will guide you into all truth.

So you've got the Holy Spirit reminding them of what Jesus had taught.

You've got the Holy Spirit giving them new truth, new revelation.

And finally and last of all, you have the Holy Spirit showing them things to come.

That's part of the revelation that was a gift given as a result of the promise, and that is that they would be able to talk about things to come.

Now this places a real burden on those claiming to have the same promise as the apostles.

Why are not such gifted men predicting inspired future events?

Some of them are, and they claim to be prophets, but many of them aren't.

You see.

But in that age, the end of all things was at hand.

First Peter, chapter four, verse seven.

Look it up.

The end that is tele the purpose, the accomplishment, the goal, the achieved goal that was at hand.

Because why the first century predictions related to an imminent fulfillment.

Things to come now, as we look further into the study of the Holy Spirit, I want to introduce then today the purpose of the Holy Spirit's outpouring.

And I suggest to you that there are at least three, and there are three that we will look at together.

I doubt we'll get to all of these.

We might.

We'll just have to see how the time goes.

The first thing that I think we would have to argue or say from Scripture is that one of the purposes is to confirm the message and I'll just go ahead and reveal the other one as well as to confirm the messenger.

The Holy Spirit would transform Israel from the old covenant glory to the New covenant glory, from Old Israel, from the Old Jerusalem to New Jerusalem.

These are all spiritual concepts.

And that was the mission of Paul, who speaks of his ministry in 2 Corinthians in chapters 3:6.

The Israel of God is no longer the physical descendants of Abraham.

Rather, God's people are the spiritual descendants of Father Abraham, identified by faith in Jesus, who have no confidence in the flesh.

Circumcision is that of the heart.

And so this transformation or this creation of God is depicted as a recreation and as a resurrection.

Paul quotes Ezekiel 37 in a miraculous context of raising Israel from the dead.

That was this ministry that he's talking about in 2 Corinthians that he references, the ministry that involved the grafting in of the Gentiles.

It required the miraculous confirmation of the Spirit's power and to confirm their inclusion, his ministry.

Paul's ministry of bringing in the Gentiles and making this transformation could only be accomplished by divine power.

A Jew and Gentile to embrace each other as brothers, that would never have been accomplished by human effort.

It required a new heart.

The Spirit here is not the miraculous or non miraculous measure of the Spirit.

It's a new mind, it's a new heart.

In other words, Israel had to change their thinking in order to accept the transformation of both Jew and Gentile into one body.

And so his purpose, through the miraculous outpouring of first century Christians, was designed to convince all of them that God has accepted all men as recipients of his grace.

This was something you remember that Peter came to realize when he saw the vision and when he met with Cornelius of a truth.

I perceive that God is no respecter of persons.

He says, but in every nation he that feareth him and works righteousness is acceptable.

That was a lesson that he learned.

Now he didn't quite apply it all together.

At that time there were a lot of pressures to conform to the old Jewish thinking.

But he could not ignore the obvious.

And so he concluded that upon seeing the things or the events around Cornelius and his receiving the Holy Spirit.

Well, take for example the case of Acts 2.

Acts 2 shows the effect of the outpouring of the Spirit.

The effect was there was amazement among the Jews.

They began to marvel.

And something was necessary to produce a captive audience.

So that by the time Paul would write to Colossae in a Roman prison, he could say every creature had access to the Gospel, that they'd heard the Gospel.

The statement that immediately follows the baptism of the Holy Spirit upon the Gentile household is the same thing that we find on the day of Pentecost.

Look at it.

It reads, and he ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

That's the beauty of the comparison.

Whatever was said to a Jew to remit his sins in Acts 2 was said to a Gentile in Acts 10.

Now consider the evidence that we have in 1 Corinthians 1.

In 1 Corinthians 1 we'll begin the reading.

In verse 4 it reads, I give thanks to my God always for you, because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him, in all speech and all knowledge, even as the testimony about Jesus or about Christ was, was confirmed among you, so that you are lack, not lacking in any gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Now these miraculous gifts were granted until the revelation of Jesus, that is the revealing of the lion of the tribe of Judah, and he'll sustain you to the end, guiltless and in the day and until the day Notice the following contexts that speak of the revelation of Jesus, defined to mean that Jesus and his glory would be revealed.

Paul speaks, for instance, of the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with his angels of his power and flaming fire.

That's in 2 Corinthians 1:7.

Well, that's a revelation, but that's a revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ.

It's not a revelation of truth that comes from him as much as he's talking about Jesus himself being revealed.

Peter writes in 1st Peter 1:7 that the proof of your faith being more precious than gold that perishes, though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

He also writes in 1 Peter 1:13, Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your mind perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Again he writes in 4:13, but insomuch as ye are partakers of Christ's suffering, rejoice that at the revelation of his glory ye also may rejoice with exceeding joy.

Paul does a similar thing.

He speaks of the revealing of the sons of God in Romans 8:19, at which time only he is glorified, and the time would come when their identity would be revealed.

1 Corinthians 1:7 is not referring to the revelation of inspired truth, is it?

It's talking about a time when he himself would come and be revealed.

And so the spiritual gifts were proof of the present work of the Holy Spirit at that time, and those gifts had confirmed them as being of God, children of God, and and apostles of Jesus Christ.

And so the Word was spoken.

And when they performed miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit, it not only confirmed their message as being genuinely from God, divine message inspired from God.

It also proved their identity.

Well, let's look at some other verses.

Verse 7 ends with this participial phrase, eagerly waiting for the Lord Jesus Christ, who will confirm you until the end, that is, until the fulfillment, until the consummation, until the goal has been accomplished.

The Messiah he claims no province, no city, no temple, no physical boundaries that would identify Christ and his kingdom.

It was a spiritual relationship it wasn't an earthly one.

It was never intended to be.

Even when Peter asked, lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?

He was still thinking in terms of a physical restoration.

Many times they misunderstood this, and we could note case after case of this.

But Jesus confirms on several occasions that that's not the nature of his kingdom.

And so we can imagine the resistance of the Jewish Christians to this spiritual kingdom that opens the door just as wide for the Gentiles as it does for the Jews.

God's people would consist of people from both who have a new law written on their hearts.

And so Gamaliel's advice, recorded in Acts 5, is to leave the disciples of Jesus Christ alone.

Because if it's the work of man, it's going to fail, just like the others have in the past.

But if, on the other hand, it is the work of God, you'll not be able to overthrow it.

And what would be necessary to prove that this new movement was from God?

What would make for undeniable proof?

And the answer is miraculous signs and wonders by the power of the Holy Spirit that confirmed their claims, that confirmed their teaching and themselves as being apostles of Jesus Christ.

And similarly, the law at Sinai was accomplished by thunder and lightning and mighty voice speaking through the smoking mountains.

And remember that.

And the people witnessed the power of God through such evidence of his presence.

And they were fearful.

They said, moses, you go and you be our mediator, lest we die.

We're not going.

We're not going to go up there.

Now that's evidence, you see.

And what they saw was proof of a power that was undeniable.

This evidence is the kind of proof necessary to make a believer out of an unbeliever.

And so when a sound of a rushing, mighty wind filled the house and what looked like flames of fire sitting on their head, the disciples began to speak in tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.

The miracle was on the speaker.

The miracle could be both on the hearer and speakers.

But definitely the miracle was in the power to speak in languages never before learned by an ignorant Galilean.

That's the whole point of it.

And while a Jew may be thinking that these men are out of their minds or full of wine, there was a constant reminder, whenever such miraculous power was present, that the messenger must be telling the truth.

The claim is so alarming and unbelievable for a Jewish unbeliever to accept.

But what is he to do with it?

What could he do with it?

You see, they never could deny that a miracle was performed.

And so these miraculous proofs testified to its accuracy.

Not only could they not deny the miracles that Jesus performed, but they couldn't deny the miracles that the apostles performed.

Acts 14 is an excellent example of the effects that this had on the Jewish communities.

Let me read it to you.

I'll read the first four verses.

And it came to pass in Iconium that they entered together into the synagogue of the Jews.

And so spake that a great multitude, both of Jews and Greeks believed.

But the Jews that were disobedient stirred up the souls of the Gentiles and made them evil affected against the brethren.

Long time therefore they tarried there, speaking boldly in the Lord, who bear witness unto the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands.

But the multitude of the city was divided and part held with the Jews and part with the apostles.

That's verses 1 through 4 of Acts 14.

Now those people remained with the apostles because they accepted the proof that Paul had to be a spokesman from God.

The proof was confirmed by the mir miracles confirmed the message.

And so in that way, the Corinthians were confirmed and the testimony of the apostles was accepted.

Without it, few would have ever listened to the apostles on the day of Pentecost or any other time.

But with it, 3,000 souls were obedient to the message.

And by Acts 5, they had grown to 5,000 besides women and children.

And as they continued in the apostles teaching and fellowship and breaking of bread, they realized that they were the new people of God.

They were the new community.

How had those gifts of the Spirit confirmed the Corinthian Christians?

This confirmation had to be based on some objective evidence.

Well, Paul was living in a time when there was an incredible controversy.

And that is, who are the people of God?

This new group of believers was claiming that Jesus was the Messiah.

And they created a new community without any kind of geographical boundaries or localized city as a capital or a temple or anything like that.

Their emphasis was on the heavenly Jerusalem.

A new temple and a new law not written on tables of stone, and a new sacrifice that had no tie to the animal sacrifices.

And because of the revolutionary views of Jesus and the spiritual nature of his kingdom, the Jews stumbled over such claims.

They had altogether different picture.

And what Jesus was painting did not fit their expectations.

And rather than conformed and change their mind about it, they were dead set that he had to be wrong.

This movement of Christ and this Messiah, this new movement is sweeping across the country.

And it took many Jews with them.

And so their world was under attack.

You can kind of understand that if you think about it that way.

And so they were zealous and they were ready to defend their way of life.

But on the day of Pentecost, 3,000 gladly received the word and were baptized.

And again by Acts 5, the number had grown to 5,000 and multiplying.

So this controversy was no small matter.

And it wasn't just a difference of opinion.

The Jewish way of life was under attack and, and they were not about to lie down without a fight.

And so the idea of a new people, a new kingdom or a new community would be very difficult to accept.

Even though the Jewish Christians recognized Gentiles as being a part of that, they were still sort of second class citizens.

They still made a class out of them, an inferiority.

We see that from Galatians 2, which we'll look at some future time.

And so a redefining of long standing traditions would be like someone walking into your church building and tearing down the foundations of your views.

Jesus and his disciples taught that the Temple, the city of Jerusalem, its sacrifices were coming to naught.

So imagine how these Jews must have felt when their world was being threatened out of existence.

They handled it the best way they could, and that's by force.

They didn't just run them out of town, they set up ambushes with the intent to kill them and pursue them and get rid of them in their land.

They stoned the apostle Paul, expecting him for death.

This seemingly impossible task of preaching the Gospel to every creature in the face of great persecution was accomplished how?

By the work of the Holy Spirit.

If left to themselves, they would have failed, no doubt.

And so the Spirit confirmed that these preachers of the Gospel were from God and spoke God's will.

How did the Holy Spirit do this?

Did he wait on men and women to gather in an assembly and and lay hands on one another and anoint each other with oil in the name of Jesus and pray for healing to take place?

No, the New Testament healing was not, it wasn't primarily performed for the sake of one needing to be healed.

Actually it was sort of secondary in purpose.

Jesus told his his native town that these were many, there were many lepers in Israel, but He said only one was cleansed.

Luke 4.

27.

He said there were also many widows during the famine in Elijah's day.

And yet he was only sent to one.

And that's in Luke 4, verse 25 and 26.

So I ask you Did Jesus come to heal every leper in Palestine?

No, but he would indeed heal as it was prophesied he would do.

And yet this was not his primary purpose, as it was not an end in itself that did not accomplish the purpose, the goal.

The Gospel of John makes it abundantly clear that his miracles gave testimony to his claims.

Nicodemus put it this way.

We know that you're a teacher come from God, because no man can do the things unless that you do unless God is with him.

John, chapter three.

His miracles confirmed his claims.

In John 20, John writes in verse 30, Many other things did Jesus in the presence of his disciples that are not written in this book.

But these are written that you might believe, and that believing you might have life in his name.

And so the same purpose is true in the work of the apostles.

Not everyone would accept even the miraculous events of the day because the message was too offensive to them.

Yet the growth and the multiplying of saints in Jerusalem was the Spirit's work.

Listen, we'll take these thoughts up furthermore, next week.

I trust you have a good day and a pleasant week ahead.