Tongues? What is That All About? Acts 2:4

[HKHaugan]

Vs.4  “All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. They began to speak in languages they had not known before. The Spirit gave them the ability to do this.” 

 

We’ll break this verse down into three parts, spiritual filling, spiritual tongues and spiritual ability.

 

First, spiritual filling.

 

This verse presents us with the real challenge.  This is the key verse that opens the door to everything that happens after Pentecost, the spread of faith in Jesus, the beginning of the Body of Christ and the birth of mission and ministry.  What does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit?  For the sake of our personal self-assessment, our interpersonal witness and what we believe God wants of us, we need to face three very sobering realities involving God the Holy Spirit, guilt temptation and risk.  Face them because these were the same the disciples had to face. 

 

None of these were issues for Adam and Eve until they disobeyed God.  Then the devil’s spirit, sin, entered their hearts and they were separated from God.  The Holy Spirit no longer enabled the oneness with God they had been born with.  What had been their unashamed physical nakedness was now their spiritual nakedness filled with fear, which was completely new to them.  Ever since Adam and Eve mankind has tried to clothe itself with the fig leaves of worldly symbols of success and accomplishment, thinking these will cover their inner nakedness which is really the absence of the Spirit (Gen.3:10).  So these three, temptation, guilt and risk stand before every human being.  How did Jesus handle these three?

 

First, temptation.

 

Temptation is not just a concept.  It is a reality every human being faces within.  True, it is external in that there is always something or someone that is the object or subject of temptation.  But the feeling within that comes with the need for differentiating between right and wrong choices, decisions and consequent behavior rides relentlessly in the night of our aloneness as individuals.  While common to all, temptation is individualized in its pressure on the uniqueness of our personal weaknesses.  This is where the devil comes in.  He knows all of us are weak and spends time observing us and tempts us when he thinks he can penetrate our personal weaknesses with one or more of his spirits. 

 

Look at the temptations of Jesus (Matt.3).  The devil tempted Him in the areas he thought Jesus would be weak.  After all, wasn’t He hungry after all that time with no food or water?  If not that then wasn’t it necessary to prove who He was? If that temptation doesn’t work then of course, if He was who He said He was wouldn’t He want to control the world and rid it of all its problems?  To each temptation Jesus quoted Scripture in the power of the Holy Spirit and the devil left Him.

 

The questions for each of us, what are our unique weaknesses and are we ready to meet them in the consciousness of the presence of Jesus who has come to us and lives in our hearts through the Holy Spirit?

 

Second, guilt.

 

What is guilt?  Genesis 3 offers the best analysis of this human condition.  Guilt is the frustrating ever-present result of our inability to control and satisfy our spiritual emptiness.  Our emptiness is what dictates our behavior.  We fear what others think.  We fear what we find ourselves thinking and doing.  We are constantly adjusting to what we, apart from God, conclude is going on in the minds of people around us.  When things don’t go our way we look to either to blame someone or something, condemn someone or something, shift the heat from self to someone or something and if those don’t work, to justify our reactions and ourselves to someone or something.  Check out Genesis 3 and see if that doesn’t about sum it up. 

 

The power guilt has, places us at the mercy of the spirits of self-doubt, self-deception and a belief that we can overcome it by ourselves.  Consider Judas and what guilt did to him.  What about Peter and his denial of Jesus?  Then we have Paul and his persecution of Jesus’ disciples as well as his recognition that he was chiefest of sinners? Look at Thomas who doubted and the other disciples who deserted Jesus?  Each of them walked the corridors of guilt.  It is this deep inner conflict that desperately needs resolution. 

 

The power of guilt was what Jesus cancelled on the Cross.  Jesus was the perfect sacrifice for guilt because He was the only One who ever lived that had no guilt nor did He ever feel guilty.  This is apparent since Jesus is the only person who ever lived that never had to kick Himself for anything He ever said or did.  He never had to think or ponder whether He was right or wrong.  He was always right.  He never took back any of His words or apologized for anything or doubted Himself.  Think about other ‘religious’ figures in human history.  All of the biographical sketches about them record guilt about past thinking and behavior before their so-called ‘enlightenment.’ 

 

Then think about people in general.  There are only two great classes.  Those who think they are right but got caught and those who think they are more right than the right ones because they didn’t get caught. 

 

Now, think about Jesus.  Only Jesus stands out as sinless, always right and without guilt.  Why?  He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, lived by the Holy Spirit and died trusting His Father through the power of the Holy Spirit.  Need we say more?

 

Third, risk.

 

Risk is the third barrier.  This is where we come to that moment where fear is confronted.  There are many things that incite fear.  Physical harm, emotional pain, rejection, death, hidden secrets, how others see us, health, not being and appearing right; all these curry fear’s favor.  Fear is what isolates us and makes us hide.  We hide behind what we believe will look good, keep up appearances, give us marketability and acceptance whenever and wherever we go.  This is the politics of individuality or ‘individualitics,’ the politics of momentary survival. The methodology of ‘individualitics’ is to compromise any and all concepts for the sake of convenient acceptance, acceptance being the goal, the success, the idol.  Knowing what works at any given moment is the measure of intellectual perception, which qualifies you in the secular world for guaranteed self-fulfillment and emotional satisfaction.  Note the absence of risk for, and the absence of, absolute truth, the lack of integrity and the total dependence on the belief that self is in control of every next moment. 

 

Real risk is a spiritual.  Whenever you place your belief, your trust and your faith in someone or something outside yourself that is spiritual risk.  The question is, since everyone has faith in something or someone, has the object of that faith experienced death and risen from it?   An atheist believes in not believing in God.  Is it worth placing your life and the way you live it in that context?  Can that context provide love, acceptance, purpose, meaning, significance and a secure knowledge of right and wrong?  Which is the greater risk, to believe in something that dies, changes form from person to person, is a human philosophy and an intellectual concept or to take the risk and test believing in a sinless person who dies and rises from the dead?  What do you have to lose?  Only eternity.

 

But for Christians risk is central to the calling we have.  Risk is the nature of faith.  It is living every next moment in the context of a relationship with an eternal Person and His values.  The risk is in the choice we have either to compromise for the convenience of surviving in every next moment or to believe that the risen Jesus is present in the midst of my every next moment.  To keep me convinced of His presence in the midst of the temptation to compromise with the world in every next moment, that is the work of the Spirit.  My willingness to let Him have control in every next conscious moment is the risk, the spiritual risk to choose Jesus’ way or the devil’s wrong. It is the Spirit of truth who inspires us to choose His way and empowers to act out of our eternal born again nature as opposed to self-centered sin and its promise of momentary survival.