The Outpouring of the Holy Spirit

  • Series: Year Of The Message
  • by: David Crosby 10/05/08

The pride and self-worship of the people who built the Tower of Babel prompted God to send confusion of languages that divided the nations.

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost was a reversal of that fracture, a coming together by people from many languages and cultures.

Sin divided the human family. The Holy Spirit reunited the human family.

The Jews had not become the missionary people that their divine calling required of them. Instead they remained separated from Gentiles, unable and unwilling to see that the promises of God were for all people.

Perhaps some people would have followed Jesus as the Messiah of the Jews even without the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the coming of the Holy Spirit was the event which pushed the church to its comprehensive identity and mission, firts in Jerusalem with Jews gathered from around the Roman Empire, then in Samaria through the preaching of Philip, and finally in the home of Cornelius when the Spirit came upon Gentile believers.

Jesus is the Savior of the world, not just of the Jews.

And his coming is the fulfillment of Old Testament Prophesy just as Peter said on the Day of Pentecost, "This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel" (Acts 2:16).

God gave birth to the church through the outpouring of his Spirit.