Acts 2:14-21 | What in the World is Going On?

Two responses to the same act of God. One was wonder and the other scorn. People still respond to God’s work in this same way. Peter, as the spokesperson of the disciples stands up to answer the question, “What in the world is going on?” That’s the big question we are asking today and we are looking at four points from the passage. Please stand with me in honor of God’s Word as we read Acts 2:14-21

14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel: 17 “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke; 20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. 21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Peter stands with the eleven and lifts up his voice and addresses the multitude. Notice that there isn’t self-defense here. He’s not scolding the people and chastising them for their curiosity or their mockery. Peter is respectful, logical, and firm. This is Spirit-filled boldness, not Spirit-less harshness. This teaches us something important, truth can be spoken without rubbing people the wrong way. In our culture of social media we tend toward two equally destructive errors: either we speak the truth without love or we offer love without truth.

Jesus never made that error. He loved perfectly and spoke truthfully every time He opened His mouth. This is the model that Peter follows here. He’s not performing. He doesn’t retaliate against the mockers. He does what a Spirit-filled person does and that’s point to the Word of God.

Look at the accusation Acts 2:13

13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”

So there are people there that believe, “Oh, they’re just drunk!” But Peter dismisses this in one sentence. It’s 9am! Even in our modern culture that is so far from the Lord that’s too early! So Peter moves on and what he moves on to is everything! “This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel.”

Peter doesn’t defend the Holy Spirit’s word with emotion, he opens the Word of God. He doesn’t let his experience interpret the Bible, he lets the Bible interpret his experience. When Christians lose sight of the Scriptures, confusion intensifies. Division grows. Panic begins to set in. But when the Bible becomes the lens through which we see life the our panic melts away and assured confidence in the Lord blooms! Not because we are in control and have everything figured out, but because God has already told us what He is doing.

God's Plan Is Not Chaos But Fulfillment

R. Kent Hughes is one of my favorite commentators. I would recommend any of his commentaries to you. One of the things he said in regards to this passage is that Peter was not preaching with notes. He did not even know he was going to preach that day. What poured out of him was what had already gone in: the Word of God, hidden in his heart.

That is worth thinking about for a moment. The man who denied Christ before a servant girl now stands before thousands and proclaims Him without flinching. Why? Not because Peter naturally became courageous but because Christ kept His promise.

8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

The Spirit didn't come to make a spectacle, He came to point us to Jesus. And one of the most important things I can tell you about biblical Christianity, especially in a world full of Spirit-filled churches chasing spiritual experiences, is what R.C. Sproul said plainly: the Holy Spirit always points beyond Himself to Christ. If you are in a church that is excited about the Holy Spirit but not focused on the person and work of Jesus Christ, you are not in a Spirit-filled church. It is that simple.

Now, let’s look at verse 17, Peter quotes Joel. But he doesn’t quote Joel exactly.

28 “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions.

Peter says “in the last days”. This is not an accident. This is Peter interpreting the Old Testament and applying it for us. Peter is saying that what Joel prophesied about is happening before their very eyes. The age that God had been pointing to for thousands of years have finally arrived. The last days, not just a future chapter but days that began with Christ Jesus.

Listen to what the Word of God says, not me.

1 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.

20 He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you

18 Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming, so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.

Paul says

11 Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

The last days are not something we are waiting to enter into. We are in the last days now.

God's Spirit Means the Last Days Have Begun

They began with the first coming of Jesus and will end at His second coming. So where are we now? We live in the in-between time, the already/ not yet. Peter views the life, death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ with Pentecost as the beginning of God’s final days of redemption in history. This is the time where the Spirit is at work in the world. This is the day that we have to share the Gospel!

This means something for us because the question “What in the world is going on?” is not just a question for those people in Jerusalem, but ours as well! We live in a time of war, upheaval, moral collapse, churches dividing, pressures assailing. What is going on? The same thing that was going on at Pentecost. God is moving His plans and purposes forward. God has not lost control. Everything is proceeding according to His good and perfect plan and it remains so til Christ returns and all things are made new.

But then our passage takes an extraordinary turn,

17 “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams; 18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.

Notice there’s sons and daughters, young and old, servants. Age, gender, social class, the divisions that had organized humanity are named and crossed with the Holy Spirit. This is the point!

If we go back to Israel in the desert in Numbers 11 we see the people of Israel complaining again. Nothing exasperates a leader more than complaining. Moses is exhausted and He cries out to God

14 I am not able to carry all this people alone; the burden is too heavy for me.

God tells Moses to get seventy elders and meet at the tent of meeting and so God takes some of the Spirit that was on Moses and places it on them and they begin to prophesy. However, two men, Eldad and Medad had not gone out to the tent. They stayed in the camp and guess what? The Spirit falls on them there too, among all the people and they prophesy as well but Joshua panics! He runs to Moses

28 And Joshua the son of Nun, the assistant of Moses from his youth, said, “My lord Moses, stop them.” 29 But Moses said to him, “Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”

Moses had seen what the Holy Spirit does to people. Moses was blessed when he saw those seventy men receive what he had and now there’s two more in the wrong place at the wrong time according to Joshua but the Spirit falls on them too. Moses isn’t interested in managing the Holy Spirit. He would rather everyone have it! Pentecost is in a lot of ways an answer to Moses’ desire here.

The Holy Spirit is not poured out on seventy, not a hundred and twenty, but on all flesh. Men and women. Young and old. Servants as well! Paul says it this way Galatians 3:28

28 There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

God's Spirit Unites What Sin Divides

This is your standing before the Lord. Its not about your age, your history, your social status, your gender. The questions is are you in Christ? If you are then you share the same Holy Spirit as every other Christian that has ever lived. This is what unites us! The same Holy Spirit that fell on Peter, James, and John is the same Holy Spirit that filled Spurgeon, Carey, and Whitefield and also resides in your heart.

What divides us? Complaining divides us. Pride. Sin. What was happening in Numbers 11? The people were complaining about what God was providing. Joshua was getting territorial. Miriam and Aaron get jealous in the next chapter.

Sin fractures community and fellowship. We’ve seen this in our own flock, haven’t we? But what unites us? What brings us together is the Spirit of God by the power of the Gospel of Christ! It creates unity where pride builds walls. That’s the point of Joel’s prophecy. Its the longing of Moses. It’s Peter’s announcement here.

Then Peter shifts to the cosmic signs that we can’t ignore. There’s blood, fire, the sun darkened, the moon turned to blood. This is language of divine judgment and it’s not new. It is covenant language of God’s own appearance drawn directly from Exodus. Blood was on the doorposts in Egypt, Fire led the people through the wilderness. Smoke rested on the mountain where God descended. This is what it looks like when God Almighty acts in human history.

And it had already started. Fifty days before Pentecost, Jesus Christ hung on the cross. Luke 23:44

44 It was now about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour,

The veil in the temple tore from top to bottom. An earthquake rocked Jerusalem. Many of the people standing in the crowd saw these events take place and they remembered the sky going dark at noon. Now fire descends from heaven and 120 people are declaring God’s mighty works in languages that they had never learned before. “What in the world is going on?” Peter connects the dots for them. What you saw at the cross of Christ was just the beginning. This is the next part and there’s more to come because

God's Plan Includes Judgment and Salvation

The "Day of the Lord" is a phrase with a long history. It refers to any decisive moment when God acts in history to bring judgment and salvation simultaneously. We see this Isaiah 13 where Babylon is an instrument of God’s judgment. We see it in Ezekiel 30 where Egypt is judged on the Day of the Lord. But there is also The Day of the Lord which is a once for all day of judgment and salvation. So once again we live in the in-between. This time between the resurrection and ascension and the return of Christ. And what marks this time is the presence of God’s Holy Spirit within His people.

This is the tension that we have to hold onto. Does Christ reign and rule from heaven today? Absolutely. Every angel and demon knows that truth, but the fullness of that reign where every knee bowing and every tongue confessing Christ is still coming. The last days have begun and the last days have not yet arrived. But listen, these signs of judgment, wrath, the Day of the Lord, at not meant to drive us to despair but rather to urgently participate in Gospel ministry. Joel doesn’t end in judgment and neither does Peter.

The great day of the Lord is coming and it will be terrible. Judgment is real. History has an end in sight and we are in the middle of the best time of salvation in the history of the world.

21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’

Not those that earn salvation. Not those born into a certain family. Not the ones that have a great walk or never doubted. Everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord. If you connect with this then God is calling you. Call on the Lord Jesus Christ today. This is grace because He is seeking you and invites you to call upon Him! Who is the Lord? We will study it more next week but spoiler- alert! It’s Jesus.

The Holy Spirit came because Jesus ascended. The last days began because Jesus resurrected. This is the name you and I call out to for salvation and He promises to hear you.

Listen, salvation is not based on who you are, where you come from or what you’ve done. It’s based on who you trust in. Who you call on.

Pentecost didn’t happen because God was losing control, but because He has control. The Holy Spirit came because Christ reigns. The last days began because Christ rules right now. And judgment is coming because Christ reigns. Now salvation is offered to you freely because Christ reigns. So the question isn’t so much, “What in the world is going on?” it’s “Have I called on the name of the Lord?”

Head: God wants you to know that the last days began at Pentecost.

We are living in them now. History is moving purposefully toward the day when Christ returns and consummates His Kingdom. Can we take a moment as a response time think on that for a moment?

Heart: God wants you to believe that the same Spirit poured out on those first disciples has been given to every person who is in Christ.

There is no tier system in the Kingdom. No second-class citizens. No age, gender, or social status that puts you closer to or further from God. The offer of salvation is as wide as "everyone who calls." Can we take some time to consider what this means for us right now? The Christian you might be wrestling with has the same Spirit. So why are you at odds with them?

Hand: God wants you to call upon the name of the Lord.

If you have, then say it plainly to someone this week who hasn't. The Spirit didn't come so we could keep it to ourselves. He came so that witnesses would go to the ends of the earth. Let’s take a moment in our response time to consider those people we need to share the Gospel with or perhaps even now you might need to call on the Lord. I’ll be up here after the closing prayer to answer any questions you might have about how you can know the Lord.

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