Before Jesus ascended to heaven he promised the Kingdom to be restored to the world, and that the Holy Spirit would come upon all the believers. Joel, a prophet of the Old Testament, prophesized the arrival of the Holy Spirit in Acts 2: 16-17, and this highly anticipated event came in full force in the form of a great gust of wind, to empower the people and give them the gifts to go out into the world and bring the message to all the nations. There are mainly two points that can be recognized in this event: How the Holy Spirit came upon the people, and secondly, what happened as a result.
The arrival of the Holy Spirit in Acts was simply an expansion of scale, compared to the Old Testament empowering, the function did not change. According to Peter, the empowering work that happened to the Old Testament is to happen to all believers, as promised by Jesus in Acts, “You will be baptized with the Holy spirit not many days from now” . And that the promised Holy Spirit would come upon them. However, to do this the disciples would need to be receptive and true to their faith. In Acts 2: 14-36 Peter delivers a sermon to the people of Jerusalem after the Holy Spirit has come upon the 12 disciples, after hearing this sermon the people ask “brothers what must we do?”. Peter’s first response is “repent”. This order is the main command that God calls us to do to become a faithful follower. “Repent… And be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus the Messiah for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. Here Peter directly tells the people that to receive the Holy Spirit they had to repent. This is needed because by repenting we draw ourselves closer to God and his Grace and Mercy, allowing us to receive more of his gifts. God needs us to repent to receive the Holy Spirit.
The arrival of the Holy Spirit in Acts was simply an expansion of scale, compared to the Old Testament empowering, the function did not change. It comes upon people in the same way it came upon the great leaders of Israel in the Old Testament. This can be seen through out the biblical history, going as far as back as Moses and the seventy elders who the Holy Spirit “rested on”. This was a key part in the foundation of the nations around the Promised Land and played an important part for the rest of the biblical history. Then came the ‘Period of the Judges’, here God’s Spirit “came upon” the leaders of Israel, helping them defend the nation against her enemies. God’s Spirit was also at work in the rest of the Old Testament, founding the monarchy by giving Saul “power” and also “the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power” when Samuel anointed him with oil, the Lord’s spirit also empowered the prophets, whose works could not of been achieved with out the power of the Lord’s Spirit. All these empowering moments within the Old Testaments have been to individuals or specific groups, where as the empowering of the spirit in the book of Acts was for all believers, anyone who heard and received the message of God, had the Holy Spirit enter him/her.
The coming of the Holy Spirit upon people is a repeatable event. The very first believers, the disciples were “filled with the Holy Spirit” a the Pentecost in Acts 2:4, but they were further ‘filled’ again later on “When they had prayed, the place where they were assembled was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak God’s message with boldness”. This shows us that the empowering of the Holy Spirit can be a repeatable event and that when the people in the books of Acts received the Holy Spirit they could then go forth and spread it around the world.
Now that we see how the Spirit came upon the people we can fully appreciate what happened as a result to the Holy Spirit coming to the people in Acts. One of the initial results of the Holy Spirit arriving was the overflow of some kind of prophetic response in the people. This includes praise and tongues, which are cousins of the broad term prophecy. This can be seen in Acts 2:4 where they spoke tongues and Peter preached converting three thousand, Acts 4:31 the Spirit came and the people began speaking the word boldly, Acts 10:46 the new believers began speaking in tongues and praising God, and Acts 19:6 People in Corinth were filled with the Holy Spirit and began speaking tongues and prophesying. These are all things that made a difference; they were effective at spreading the Word of God and getting the Holy Spirit moving around the region. What you’ll also find with the Holy Spirit coming to the people is that something observable happens. This again helps get the Word across that it is God doing this, and it attracts crowds of thousands to hear the message. The most common observable result would be verbal as that is the easiest gifting to manifest itself immediacy, and also the broad term prophetic, including tongues and praise. Yet this gifting was in general. The Spirit came to all believers, there is no such thing as ‘empowered’ versus ‘unempowered’ , all the believers in the given group or area were impacted by the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit came upon the people because the disciples listened to Jesus’ commands and stayed within Jerusalem to await the arrival of the Holy Spirit and once it arrive they were willing to receive the power and take it too the streets to draw the crowds. Once the crowds heard what had happened the result was an overflow in prophecy, praise, tongues, healings, and ministries. The Holy Spirit enables us to receive the gifts of the Kingdom and is a crucial part to linking up with the supernatural workings of Lord Jesus Christ. This is the only way we are going to spark the flame which will become the bush fire of revival within New Zealand.
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