The Day That Changed Everything

00:01 Greet you this morning in the name of Jesus. I want you to turn in your copies of the Scriptures to Acts chapter 2 this morning. Acts chapter 2. We want to share this morning on the day that changed everything. And it really was a day that changed everything. It was known as the day of Pentecost. 00:22 It was known as the Feast of Weeks. The Feast of Weeks was celebrated 50 days after the Feast of First Fruits. The Feast of First Fruits was the celebration of the first fruits of the barley harvest. 00:41 The Feast of Pentecost was exactly 50 days later after the Feast of First Fruits and celebrated the first fruits presentation of the Lord of the wheat harvest. It required that all males make their trek to Jerusalem. 00:58 And as the priest was offering the sacrifices and the offering to the Lord, they would have baked loaves of bread and had two loaves of bread mixed with leaven and waved before the Lord as a thanksgiving for the harvest that was coming in, the wheat harvest. 01:19 The spiritual application of that is that we are about to see the greatest harvest that the world has ever known, the harvest of the ingathering of souls for the kingdom of God. And when the day of Pentecost had fully come, verse 1, they were all with one accord in one place. 01:41 And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared on them or to them divided tongues as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. 01:56 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the multitude came together and were confused because everyone heard them speak in his own language. 02:17 Then they were all amazed and marveled, saying to one another, "Look, are not all these who speak Galileans? And how is it that we hear each in our own language in which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Elamites, those dwelling in Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 02:37 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya adjoining Cyrene, visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs. We hear them speaking in our own tongues with the wonderful works of God." So they were all amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "Whatever could this mean?" Others, 02:57 mocking, said, "They are full of new wine." But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them..." We're going to stop reading right there and set the scene. The immediate context was, as we had mentioned, this was the Feast of Weeks, the Feast of Pentecost, 03:17 50 days after the Feast of First Fruits. But the spiritual impact is much greater. And that is that this was the fulfillment of that which was spoken of by John the Baptist, John the Baptizer. And you remember what he used to say when he would baptize. He said, "I baptize you with water. 03:37 But there comes one after me whose shoe latchet I am not worthy to unloose. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire." And what does that mean? Well, he went on to say that his winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will purge his floor, his threshing floor. 03:58 And he will gather the wheat into his barn and gather the chaff and burn the chaff. And so whatever this baptism of the Spirit is or would be, John the Baptist said that the one coming after him, the Lord Jesus Christ, would do the baptizing. And they would be baptized by the Holy Spirit and fire. 04:20 And we don't maybe understand all of the impact of that fire, except that it does involve a separation. It involves a judgment on sin. 04:29 It involves an initiation into the body of Christ in a new and powerful way. If we think about the benefits of fire, we could draw some analogies. Fire gives us warmth, and it gives us light. 04:49 It gives us heat. Spiritually speaking, the fire of the Holy Spirit gives us illumination, gives us light. It gives us warmth, the warmth of God's love. For God's love is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit. It gives us a fire of passion for God. 05:06 And that comes from the energizing power of the Holy Spirit as he heats up our souls and gives us the power and energy to feed our souls with a new understanding of God and his word and of his ways. 05:26 Fire not only is energy, but it also gives nutrients into the soil. And it is the Holy Spirit that releases those nutrients into our soul and the soil of our souls. 05:41 Fire clears out the dead wood and purges the dead wood to give room for new growth. If you've ever seen a forest fire, one of the things that happens after a forest fire is that the dead wood is all burned up, and there's new growth that comes up. And when God judges our sins through the fire of his Spirit, that same thing happens. 06:03 He gets rid of the old. He allows the new growth of his Spirit to rise up within us and grow within us. Fire purifies. Fire purifies from the insects and the weeds and the disease. And so does the cold. The cold purifies from some of those things too. 06:22 But I'd rather see warmth purify those. And fire does that. It kills the works of the flesh and makes holiness shine forth from the heart of the believer. 06:38 Intense fire is also used in smelting and forging metals such as gold and silver and other forms of iron. It refines that natural ore and refines it. In fact, I'm told years ago when they were not doing things in the modern way, 06:58 but when they would fire the gold and melt down the gold to purify it, and as they would heat it, 07:06 they would pull off the draws off the molten gold. 07:13 And as they pulled off the draws, they would know that when the fire, when the gold was completely pure, that was when the smelter could look down into the pot of 07:27 gold and see his reflection. And so it is with us. The gold is when we can see the reflection of the Lord Jesus Christ flowing out through us or being mirrored in us. And so what we have here is this day of Pentecost that changed everything. The day of Pentecost had fully come, and they were in one place. 07:49 The day of Pentecost was not only the Feast of Weeks, but the rabbis believed that this was the day that they celebrated the giving of the law, the giving of the law, the Ten Commandments. 08:03 And so we have the contrast in the writings of Paul between the Old Testament law and the New Testament administration of the Spirit. 08:15 2 Corinthians chapter 3 is very clear about that, that we don't serve God anymore with the old law of Moses that was marvelous and given to us in great, great intensity and fire and smoke on the mountain as God's presence descended. But now we serve God in the Spirit, 08:35 the administration of the Spirit, a matter of the heart. And so here we have the Holy Spirit descending, this sound as of a rushing mighty wind. 08:46 It's significant in verse 2 that we have the sound of a rushing mighty wind to give birth to the church and to give birth to the spiritual life of mankind. How did God give birth to Adam and Eve? It was by the breath of life. It was by the Spirit entering into man and into his lungs, 09:08 into every fiber of his being. And that set up the operation of life, and man became a living soul. Of course, we know that sin destroyed that. But here you have this rushing mighty wind again, filling the house, filling the soul, filling the Spirit, filling the heart to give life, 09:27 spiritual life, as the Holy Spirit now begins to indwell within us rather than just being upon us or upon a few people as in the Old Testament, few people with special calls for prophet or priest or king, 09:43 but for all believers to give spiritual life and vitality and warmth and nourishment and nurture and judgment and purification and to form the image of Christ within the believer. We have the reversal here of the Tower of Babel. 10:02 One of the things when we get our Bible school material, we always hear about the Tower of Babel as being the time when God confused the languages. But we don't often think about the reversal of that Tower of Babel was in Acts chapter 2. Now no longer were they being divided by language. They were being united by language. 10:24 The difference between the Old Testament Babel was that they were trying to be unified without God. They didn't want to have God as their ruler. They were not interested in keeping the commands of God to go and be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and replenish everything. 10:44 They wanted to make a name for themselves. Rather now here in the book of Acts, we have unity under the authority of God, under the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ for the glory of God to keep the commands of God and go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. 11:03 Beautiful picture here of the reversal of the division there under the authority of Christ here to spread his kingdom. Now, one of the things that we understand here in verse 3 and 4 and following is that these divided tongues of fire, 11:25 as it were, sat upon the 120 that were gathered in the upper room. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. 11:38 And of course, they were gathered there praying, waiting for the promise of the Lord Jesus that he gave them in Acts chapter 1, verse 5. "For John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." They didn't know what this was going to look like. 11:55 We know more now than what they did the day before of what this would look like. But the baptism of the Holy Spirit so that the Holy Spirit would now indwell the believer, the Spirit of Christ, Christ living in me, in you, in the believers who have been born again. 12:17 Now, we understand that the gift of tongues here, the tongues that are being referred to in chapter 2 were languages. They were languages. And they were not just heard languages, but they were spoken languages. 12:32 For a while, I was beginning to wonder and think, well, maybe these were just people speaking in their own in Hebrew or Greek or whatever they were speaking in. And people heard it in another language. But that's not what the text says. We hear in our own language. And in verse 4, they began to speak with other tongues. 12:53 Now, I know of situations where there have been people who have preached in a certain language and it was heard in another language. Brother Don Stahl was preaching down at an Indiana State Farm one time years ago. He was preaching to a group of, I think, I don't know. I think they were Spanish, Spanish men. 13:15 And he didn't know Spanish at all. But yet when they came to meet him at the end of the service, they said, "We heard you in perfect Spanish." God was giving them the understanding. But it was an interpretation of the English language rather than him speaking in a foreign language. 13:33 In this case, they were speaking in a foreign language. You know God can do that. God can make us understand what is ununderstandable. And he can make us communicate what is difficult to communicate. And we'll have more to say about the gift of tongues. 13:51 We don't want to emphasize the gift of tongues too much here in chapter 2 because unfortunately, people get fixated on tongues in a passage like this and miss the whole picture, the presence and the filling of the Holy Spirit in the church, the birthday of the church. Now, 14:10 some would say these tongues in chapter 1 or 2 here of Acts are different than the tongues in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14. Some say they're different. Others say it's always languages. Some say it's a heavenly prayer language. Others say it's always known languages. But it would be unfortunate if we missed the larger message in being fixated on the experience of tongues. 14:33 And when we come into chapter 2 and when we come into the book of Acts, we do have to ask the question as we interpret the book of Acts and as we apply it for our day. There's very little question about what actually happened. But the bigger question is, how does this affect us in our day 2,000 years later? 14:54 And so we have to understand that the book of Acts is descriptive. It tells us what happened. It describes the events so that we have an understanding of the early days of the early church and the baptism of the Holy Spirit in the early church. And then we have to ask the question, is this prescriptive? 15:15 When we look at the book of Acts, it's describing. But is it prescribing, saying that this should happen and keep on happening? And so that's a big question that we will possibly take a look at sometime in the future. Is it prescriptive that this should keep on happening, 15:34 that people should continue to have this experience of preaching the gospel in other languages, in other tongues supernaturally, as if they were unlearned by man and just sovereignly deposited upon them and within them by the Spirit? So is it prescriptive? And then if it is, is it normative? 15:54 Is the things that we read in the book of Acts part of the normal Christian life? And what part of what we read is a normal experience for the believer in the 21st century? Those are big questions that have a lot of different opinions and possibly even different opinions among us. 16:13 We have not talked a lot about that. 16:16 But I would say this: let us not be fearful of the Holy Spirit because some people don't understand it and take it too far. 16:30 Some people, in a sense, have co-opted the Holy Spirit and taken it and made it for their group and their interpretation of how things, what is descriptive, prescriptive, and normative or normal. 16:47 And then the other people of us have kind of taken a step back and said, "Well, if you want the Holy Spirit, you can have Him. We'll just take a little bit." And that's not fair to any of us. We want to have access, and we want to be filled with the Holy Spirit. 17:06 And we want to have that power and that energy and that judgment on our sins. And so how does that look like? We'll find out in this passage and in the days to come as we work our way through this book. So the crowd here, the Holy Spirit descends in verses 1 through 6. 17:26 And the crowd reacts in verses 7 through 13. "They were all amazed and marveled." Some of the reactions here are really interesting. "They were confused." The word confused means to throw into disorder, to perplex or to stir up in an uproar. 17:43 This was an uproar that happened here as the men and women had come from all over the world. This was one of the feasts that was prescribed and was required for all Jewish men to get to Jerusalem to participate in this feast. 18:00 And so that's why there's so many different nationalities and ethnic groups mentioned here in verse 9 and 10 and 11 because they were required to come and participate in this feast. And so they were confused. What is happening here? They were amazed in verse 7. 18:21 They were amazed. It means it has the idea of being out of one's mind. In other words, they were astonished. They were astounded. They were almost out of their mind. They couldn't understand this. They couldn't fathom this. They couldn't wrap their minds around it, we might say today, of what was happening. 18:40 And then they marveled. 18:42 The word marveled here means that they wondered, they admired. They were admiring this. This is amazing. We've never seen anything like this before. And then over in verse 12, it says they were amazed and perplexed. And thoroughly perplexed is what that word means. 19:01 And they hesitate greatly. They were very hesitant to know what to do, how to respond, and a certain amount of confusion taking place until Peter stood up and the scriptures were explained. 19:15 And so when we have the Holy Spirit descending in verse 1 through 6, we have the crowd reacting in verse 7 through 13. And we have the scriptures being explained in verses 14 through 21. "But Peter, standing up with the eleven, raised his voice and said to them, 19:34 'Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words. For these are not drunk as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day or 9:00 in the morning. Who gets drunk at 9:00 in the morning? But this is what was spoken up by the prophet Joel. And you should recognize these verses from what Brother Lawrence read this morning. 19:55 'It shall come to pass in the last days,' says God, 'that I will pour out of my Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams. And on my maidservants and on my menservants and on my maidservants, I will pour out of my Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy. 20:16 I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'" And he explains the scripture. 20:36 What you are seeing here, Jewish men from all over the world, what you are seeing here is the prophecy fulfilled from the prophet Joel in Joel chapter 2. This emphasizes that the Spirit is available for everyone, for everyone. 20:57 There's not one person left out, not one believer left out of Joel's prophecy here. He said it is for the young. It is for the old. It is for the men. It is for the women. Everyone has access to the Holy Spirit. 21:18 And may we also say that everyone who has been born again of water and of the Spirit, John chapter 3, has the Holy Spirit. We just may not realize it. We may not understand it. And we may not be walking in it. But you have the Holy Spirit by virtue of your conversion experience. 21:41 Now, does that mean that we can't be filled repeatedly? No. But we have Him. The Holy Spirit is a person. You cannot have Him in part. You don't have part of Him. "God, give me more of you." Well, you already have Him. What needs to happen is we need to give Him more of us. 22:01 Amen. We need to give Him more of us. 22:06 And so the Bible says in 1 Corinthians 12, "For we have all been baptized by one Spirit into one body." Romans chapter 8 says that "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his." And so if you are his, you have the Holy Spirit. 22:29 And it's a matter of learning to understand that and thanking God for it and walking in the fullness of the Spirit and under the control of the Spirit. And so it's for young. "The young men shall see visions. And the old men shall dream dreams. 22:46 And the maidservants and the menservants shall speak the word of God." What a blessing to be able to speak the word of God, to prophesy. That doesn't mean just foretelling the future. It means to proclaim the word of God. We can all do that. We all have access. And we all have opportunity. 23:07 And we all have the power now to proclaim the word of God for the glory of God. And awaiting the coming of the Lord, this is while we wait for the coming of the Lord, this is what we do is we walk in the Spirit. The natural disasters that accompany the day of the Lord, 23:28 the word vapor of smoke here has the idea of a volcanic eruption. And so these are natural things. But there are also power in the Spirit. Calling upon the name of the Lord is a dramatic thing. Conversion is a dramatic experience. 23:48 Sometimes I think we have this idea that we need to have some miraculous 23:56 experience and not realizing that conversion itself is a miraculous experience. Amen. You're kind of quiet. Is conversion a miraculous experience? It is. To be taken from the guttermost to the uttermost, to be saved from the kingdom of darkness unto the kingdom of light, 24:16 to be transformed from my old way of sin into my new way of sanctification, it is a conversion experience. It's a miraculous experience. And it's a miraculous experience every day that the Spirit of God continues to transform our lives into the image of Christ. 24:36 The word of God was preached in power. In fact, one of the evidences of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is the powerful preaching of the word of God, the effective preaching of the word of God. 24:53 I want you to follow with me into some scriptures here in Acts. You don't have to go far. Just turn over a little bit as we go through this. Acts chapter 2, verse 41. We'll get to this in another message or so. "But then those who gladly received His word were baptized." You see, 25:12 they gladly received the preaching and the proclamation of the word. Over in chapter 4, verse 29, it says, "Now, Lord, look on their threats and grant to Your servants that with all boldness they may speak Your word." Verse 31, 25:33 "And when they had prayed, the place where they were assembled together was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit. And they spoke the word of God with boldness." No more timidity, Peter. You're no longer hiding in the shadows around the campfire. You're now proclaiming the fire. 25:54 You are now living under the judgment and purification of the fire. And you are proclaiming the word of God. Chapter 6, verse 7, "Then the word of God spread. And the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem." And chapter 8, 26:14 verse 4, it goes on talking more about the word. "Then therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word." We go everywhere today. And we go on vacation around the world. But do we go anywhere preaching the word? Well, they went preaching the word. And God blessed that. 26:33 Chapter 8, verse 14, "Now when the apostles who were in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to them." Acts chapter 12, verse 24, again the word being proclaimed. "But the word of God grew and multiplied." Acts chapter 13, 26:53 verse 49 says, "And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region." Acts chapter 15, verse 35, "Paul and Barnabas remained in Antioch teaching and preaching the word of the Lord." Acts chapter 19, verse 20, 27:13 again another evidence of the Holy Spirit. 27:16 "Therefore," let's see, verse 20, "So the word of God grew mightily and prevailed." That's a powerful evidence of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit's empowerment is that the word of God is preached and understood and received with joy and gladness. 27:37 And repentance takes place and conversion and discipleship, walking in the Spirit and not fulfilling the lusts of the flesh anymore. Then we have the proclamation of Christ. So we have the word being explained. 27:54 And we have Christ being proclaimed in verses 22 through 36. "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves also know." Let's just pause there for a moment. 28:15 What were the purpose of the wonders and signs and miracles? Well, the purpose was that they might know Christ, that God did through him, as you yourselves know. This man was attested by God by those miraculous acts. 28:33 And so we don't seek those miraculous acts anymore. Jesus said an adulterous generation seeks after a sign. But we seek Christ. We seek to know Christ. We seek to see Christ. We seek to understand and walk in His ways and have fellowship with Him. 28:52 And so we have Christ being proclaimed, confirmed by signs and wonders. You see signs and wonders happening on the frontier as the gospel was moving out from Jerusalem and all Judea into Samaria. Signs and wonders went with it. 29:09 And then you see it happening with Cornelius and the gospel being given to the Gentiles and on that first generation of believers. But by the end of the apostolic age, you see a marked decrease in the signs of wonders and a marked increase in the revealed word of God. 29:28 And so how do we know today who Jesus is? Not that God can't do signs and wonders. But we know primarily through His word. God, in various times and various manners, has spoken time past through the prophets and with all kinds of different manifestations. But in these last days, 29:49 He has spoken to us through His Son and through His word, which was written in John, the last chapter or chapter 20, I believe it is, that many other signs did Jesus also in the presence of His disciples. But these are written that you might know that He is the Son of God and that by believing in Him, you would have eternal life. 30:10 That's the purpose of these signs and wonders. So again, the great sign and wonders was that He fulfilled prophecy. Verse 23, "He was delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God." Determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. 30:30 Was the death of Christ an accident? No, not at all. It was determined in advance. It was predetermined by God and foreknown by God that they would take Christ by lawless hands, verse 23, crucify Him and put Him to death. 30:51 And verse 24, "Whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it." I'll tell you what, you can't improve on that sign and wonder at all. Amen. That is a powerful one, the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Does God do other things that are amazing? 31:10 Yes. But the most amazing thing He's ever done was not when He parted the Red Sea. The most amazing thing He ever did was not when He gave the law on Mount Sinai. The most amazing thing that He ever did was not when He healed the leper or when He made the blind to see. 31:27 The most amazing thing He's ever done was when He raised Christ from the dead that the pains of death could no longer hold Him. For David said, "I saw the Lord always before my face," verse 25, "For He is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. 31:46 Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh will rest in hope." Who is He talking about? Himself? No. He goes on to say, "Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried. And his tomb is with us to this day." Well, David was not speaking about himself. 32:09 He was speaking about the resurrection of Christ. "Therefore my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest in hope. For you will not leave my soul in Hades or in the place of the dead. Nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life. 32:28 You will make me full of joy in your presence." Speaking of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. See, the resurrection in the Old Testament was rather obscure. In fact, it was so obscure that there was question between the Sadducees and the Pharisees as if there even was a resurrection. 32:48 Sadducees, "There's no resurrection. Show me the chapter and verse." Pharisees said, "Yes, there is a resurrection. God is not the God of the dead but of the living." Well, David comes along and rather obscurely says, "Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades. You will not allow your Holy One to see corruption." He wasn't talking about himself. 33:10 He was talking about Christ, verse 30. "Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn an oath to him that of the fruit of his body according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne. He, for seeing this," that's David, "for seeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, 33:30 that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses." And so he's quoting David, quote from Psalm 16, speaking of Christ, the anointed one of God. 33:47 "This is Jesus whom you crucified." And then he goes on in verse 33, "Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear. For David did not ascend into the heavens. 34:08 But he says himself, 'The Lord said to my Lord, Jehovah said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.'" That's where he starts getting to the heart. 34:30 Now he's moving here from explaining the scriptures to applying the scriptures. And he says, "This is how you explain the scriptures. It's about Christ. And I'm going to apply this, brothers." He says, "That you crucified him. 34:49 But God has made him both Lord and Christ." Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" And we have the invitation being received. 35:10 And the invitation is, "Repent and let every one of you be baptized, water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 35:25 For the promise is to you and to your children and to all who are far off as many as the Lord our God will call." Aren't you glad it wasn't just for the Jewish people? It wasn't just for them and their children. It was for them and their children and those who are far off both in terms of geography and chronology. 35:46 Those who are far away geographically and by time. That's us. We're far away by time. He said, "This is a promise to as many as the Lord our God shall call." And we have the invitation being received. 36:08 What does it take to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit? It takes repentance. It takes faith. It takes obedience. And it takes a simple request to our Lord Jesus, to our Father. And Jesus said it like this, "Know ye not that," uh, 36:29 how can you, being evil, know that you give good gifts to your children? How much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask? And so that's how we receive. We receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. We walk in the Spirit by obedience. 36:49 And we receive subsequent fillings of the Spirit by asking. It's really very simple. Repent, believe, obey, and request. This is a transition time. This is a day in the life of the church that has never been duplicated. 37:10 No need for it to be duplicated. But it needed to happen so that all of us can enter into the richness of the Spirit-filled life in Christ. Now you say, "Well, Brother Todd, it was duplicated in when the Samaritans believed." Well, there were certain aspects of it that were duplicated. 37:29 But the day itself was not duplicated in the same way. This was a one-time event that then had transitioned into the Samaritans. So they needed the sign that this wasn't just for Jews. It's for Samaritans. You guys get in on it too. And then we know what happened when Cornelius got saved. 37:49 Cornelius also received a similar manifestation to let us know that Gentiles are included, us. Aren't you glad for that? Aren't you glad for that? That we have access to the same Holy Spirit that they do. And then he says, "Repent and be baptized. 38:09 Be baptized. 38:10 Water baptism, a step of obedience to the command of Christ and to the command of the gospel, to identify with the Lord Jesus Christ and His people." We have nine young people, 10 young people that are in instruction for baptism. 38:31 Praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. That is an opportunity for them to confirm their faith in obedience. It's one of the first major acts of obedience in the life of a believer, is baptism. And some people ask the question, "Shouldn't we be baptized right upon confession of faith?" Well, there's something to be said for that. 38:50 But there's also something to be said, especially when we're talking about children and and and making childhood commitments of waiting until there's enough understanding and enough commitment to move forward with a lifelong decision. Remember our children, 39:10 when they gave their lives to the Lord, would often, would sometimes, occasionally talk about being baptized, "Dad, we want to be baptized." Well, I was concerned. I would never want to tell my children, "No," when it comes to spiritual things. Tell them no for other things, but not for spiritual things. And I didn't want to discourage them. 39:31 And so I would say, "Well, let's wait a little bit and and and see if if God confirms that in your life, in your heart. And then if He does, in a couple of months, well, we'll talk to pastors about it." That was before I was the pastor. 39:48 And it worked. It worked out. And when it was time and they they they either forgot about it or then soon thereafter, they say, "No, Dad, we really want to be baptized." Okay. All right. Well, we'll move forward with that in an appropriate way. And so repentance and be baptized. 40:09 You see, baptism is the first initial step of obedience in the life of a believer. And I'd be so bold as to say that God is not pleased with a lack of obedience in any form. And a hesitation to obey His commands. 40:28 It's not pleasing to God. We're not advocating baptizing babies by any means or even small children. But when a lasting commitment is made, it should be confirmed by baptism. Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 40:52 And so here we have the church emerging, the birthday of the church, where souls are cared for, where discipleship is promoted, where needs are met, where community is cultivated. There's a connection between the Pentecostal experience and the local congregation of believers. Now for the application, 41:13 we don't have time. So we're going to pick it up in two weeks. So we'll have to do a little review. We cannot overemphasize the necessity of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. We'll leave it at that at this time. 41:32 Father, thank You for this powerful witness from the scriptures and from the life of the church and from the heart and and hand of God to not leave us as orphans. Lord, You said You would go away, but You would not leave us as orphans. 41:55 You would come to us. And You have. Lord, forgive us where we have minimized the work of the Spirit, where we have possibly hindered or grieved the Spirit. 42:11 Lord, let us find the biblical truths about the Holy Spirit and how to receive Him and to walk in the Spirit and to enjoy the fellowship of the Spirit in the presence of Christ in the life of a believer. 42:28 And Lord, may this be real to us today in appropriate ways and in in in God honoring ways so that we can know that we're not left as orphans. You are with us, young, old, rich, poor, men, women. 42:47 You include us all by faith in Jesus Christ, those who are converted and give their lives and their hearts to Jesus. I pray, Lord, that You'll bless our fellowship as we continue to ponder on these things. 43:05 And may we open our hearts to a great work of God among us in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.