text: Acts 2, John 14, Exodus 20-32

The parallels between what the Jews celebrated and taught from the traditions about Pentecost and what happened on Pentecost 50 days after the Last Passover are too crazy to be made up.

Pentecost was celebrated as the time when God gave the Torah to His people through Moses at Sinai. At that time, the people begged to not have God talk to them, but for just Moses to do all of the talking. At the New Pentecost, many many people wanted God to talk to them–and He did.

Rabbinical tradition taught that God’s voice was immediately split into the 70 languages of the nations whenever He spoke from Heaven. They said that happened at the top of Zion, so that the Hebrews and all of the aliens with them would understand what God said. VERY appropriate that on the New Pentecost, God would split His voice up for the nations through men. The Holy Spirit is no longer external, it’s within mankind, so the various languages will not come out of the sky but out of God’s people–His body.

There was fire at the top of Mount Sinai, and with His own finger God wrote out and signed the Covenant.  50 days earlier, at the Last Passover, God signed the Covenant in His Son’s blood, and sent the fire into His people on Pentecost.

Some of these events are sort of a parallel reversal. At Mt. Sinai, the people became tired of waiting and committed idolatry while Moses was on the Mountain that they wanted to flee from. The Levites executed 3,000 of them and so became God’s priestly tribe. From then on it would be Levites only serving before God in the Tabernacle and the Temple.

At the New Pentecost, there were thousands of people around that wanted to draw near to God during the feast of the Pentecost, or the Feast of Weeks. Every adult male in ISRAEL had to come to this feast! Just like today, in the midst of any religion, there are hidden people that are genuinely seeking God with all of their might–whether they know of God sending Jesus to seek them out or not. That hidden remnant of genuine God-seekers were cut to the quick on that day, and 3,000 people were added to the Church. Those 3,000 were from all over the world, and they carried The Good News back to all of the nations in the world. They became the priests to the nations as God enlarged His tent (Take a look at Isaiah 54 to see why I’m crying at the Donut Bank as I write this).

Finally, at Mt. Sinai, God gave His people a way to live. The Torah was a way of life, not just rules, that when lived out, would make God’s people stand out in the world. The Torah would show off to the other nations of the world that God was the one true God, and people like the Queen of Sheba and others would come and see that the God of Israel was really the one true God of the Universe.

The Torah, however wonderful a guideline or framework for life that it was, could not change people from the inside out. God new that from before the beginning. Jesus said in His final talk with His disciples:

John 14:16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever
John 14:17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
John 14:26 But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

On Pentecost that came to be, and The Great Internal Reminder/Teacher took up residence in His people. He is now living inside His Church to teach, guide, help, correct, cheer, rebuke, heal, and LIVE LIFE in the people.

In light of all of this, we can see how absolutely absurd it is to teach people to live by any method or steps, to teach people a “Christian Ethic” or a “Christian Worldview” or to force a political or philosophical agenda on people. Let us RUN to the Spirit. Let us CRY OUT to God to send His Holy Spirit into us with thunder and fire and move out into the nations to change them from the inside out. Let us THROW DOWN and THROW UP any teaching that depends on man’s desire, effort, self-discipline or ‘conviction’ and be filled with the Holy Spirit that changes people irrevocably. The 3,000 that were added that day didn’t added to have strong marriages or have financial success. They came because they knew what Peter said was true:

Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off—for all whom the Lord our God will call.”

Acts 2:38-39

- John 11. 41 – ���Father, I thank you that you have heard me. 42 I knew
  that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people
  standing around, that they may believe that you sent me.���

Previously some of the leaders had said that Jesus had a demon,
      and others asked, “Can a demon open the eyes of the blind?” Now
      Jesus does something that they all know, no matter how hard
      hearted they may be, that no demon could ever do. And they know
      that for something of this magnitude, God would never listen to a
      sinner.
Jesus showed a lot of humility in calling on the Father. I don’t
      want to say that though, because there is an arrogant or prideful
      tone to saying someone “showed a lot of humility”. He deferred to
      the Father for the Father to get Glory from this event. When
      Moses got angry and struck the rock, he said, “Shall I bring
      water for you out of this rock?” and God was upset with him
      because he did not “Bring glory to God.”
      Jesus brings God glory by showing to everyone around that this
      miracle is at the request of a man to God. It is not luck,
      chance, fate, God’s unstoppable do-what-He-pleases will, or the
      work of demons.
I was in a class once and the prof was talking about praying for
      people and then afterwards asking if they felt anything when he
      prayed for them. A student in the class asked, “Weren’t you
      afraid of God looking bad when they said, no, they didn’t feel
      anything and your prayer wasn’t answered?”
      The teacher answered something about how he left God’s reputation
      up to God and that he thought he’d be lying if the made the
      person think that God answered every single prayer we pray
      instantly. I think another aspect of it is what happens here with
      Lazarus. There are many times that I tell people that I’m praying
      for this or that, and I really am, because I don’t want God to
      answer my prayer and them give credit anywhere else.
The Father wants us to know that He listens to us. He wants us to
      know that He deserves glory and credit and attention for the
      things He does, and that we do not benefit in any way by trying
      to skim some of it off for ourselves.
There are a lot of situations and events that I think people are
      afraid to ask God about. They may be afraid to be honest with Him
      or afraid that if they get what they ask for, it may require
      opening a tomb that stinks. The fact is, that’s underestimating
      Him and selling Him short. How much better to be over the top in
      our confidence and dependance on Him, so that when He does more
      than we ask He will get even more glory?

John 11.4 ���This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.���

As always, Jesus sees more to the situation than anyone else. He sees that Lazarus died for the glory of God, just like the storm came up in the middle of the night while the disciples were alone in the boat, and the little girl died, and all the people got hungry, and the bride and groom ran out of wine.

���For none of us lives to himself alone and none of us dies to himself alone. If we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.��� (Rom 14:7-9 NIV)

This is where I get into that confusing zone of God���s sovereignty. How many things does God allow to happen and how many things does He MAKE happen. I have no idea, but the fact remains that everything we do is not just for ourselves and does not just concern ourselves. We live to the Lord and we die to the Lord. I know many times that I have been distracted during my Bible study time, only to meet some event in the day that I should have been spiritually prepared for and wasn���t. I know many other times that whatever great Bible study I had / or prayer time, or whatever time with God was a direct prep and teach time for the thing that happened during the day.

(Or the next several days. I was memorizing James 1 days before we flew across the Atlantic on an 8 hour flight and David was about 14 months old and threw up for the last 6 of those hours. It was quite a trial, and all I could think about was ���Consider it pure joy, my brothers, when you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance.���)

So Lazarus didn���t MEAN to get sick and die, but it happened for God���s glory. I don���t want to say that God made it happen, because that takes me into areas that I just don���t have evidence to make a conclusion about. But either way, like so many other things, Jesus turned a circumstance into an arrow to God���s glory.

���Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.���
(Is 6:3 NIV)

If the whole EARTH is full of His glory, how much more so would be every event, circumstance, situation. May God give us eyes to see that in the midst of our daily activities!

Genesis Rabbah 63:6 says that Esau committed idolatry. The Rabbis couldn���t come to grips with the fact that YHWH would allow a ���bad��� thing to happen to someone, or that God would curse someone from birth, so they deduced that Esau must have committed idolatry in the womb.

There were a lot of rabbinical debates in Jesus��� day, and the disciples and the Pharisees often asked Jesus about them to find out whose side he was on. The issues of taxes, resurrection, and divorce, were other controversies in Jesus��� day. As I think about those questions, I don���t remember Jesus EVER giving a straight answer, but always cut through the politics to the heart issue. I wish I could do that as people at work talk about stem cells and evolution.

<<<2009.03.12>>>
Looking at my notes from the 10th, wondering about how throughout all history people have really had trouble with the idea of ���bad��� things coming from God. All of the advice given to Job is based on him deserving it b/c he must have sinned, but we get a look at the very beginning that he is about as righteous as a man can get!
Then I think about Jesus being THE most righteous and undeserving person on earth getting crucified, and that God wanted that!  Isaiah 53.10

Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him;
he has put him to grief;
when his soul makes an offering for guilt,
he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days;
the will of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

The wisdom of the wise is confounded and the ways of the Lord are as high above our ways as the stars are above the land. Even the simplest switch in thinking needed an absolute miracle to be comprehended. The switch from seeing hardship as punishment for sin to seeing hardship as a method for God to reveal His Glory is so hard to believe that a man had to be born blind, then healed illegally (kneading on the Sabbath) to help us believe in it!

I remember when I learned that no one in a desperate situation can be trusted. That was also when I learned not to ask people ���can you do such and such?��� because the guy I was asking would think, ���my child hasn���t eaten in 4 days and this guy is going to pay me to do this, so I can figure it out.��� Desperation brings out some of the worst things in people. I remember seeing women at the Shoe Carnival push and shove other women, over 40 even-I���m not talking about rowdy teens! over a 6 pack of socks! (if that can be referred to as desperation. I guess they felt like they were, nonetheless.)

I think of that same thing as I read about Jesus talking about people seeking their own glory. Here I am on the weekend before a big election and the news is nothing but people seeking their own glory. And what crazy foolishness God lets people get into when they are focused on their own glory! What silly things we do when we try to get people to like us! And the more diverse the people, the crazier our antics!

The fact that Jesus was not seeking His own glory but the glory of God must have been so absolutely foreign to the Pharisees. To imagine them doing something that would make someone else look good, at their expense, seems impossible. Jesus taught the truth without any care of his reputation or standing with other people. He was free from the bondage of acceptance-shopping, so He could treat everyone equally, rich or poor, powerful or weak, intellectual or simple.

I know I���ve written about this before, but Jesus didn���t need other people to tell Him who He was. He knew who He was, and He knew what God thought of Him, and that was all that He needed. That���s how we know that God does not show favoritism, because Jesus showed us what a person is like that needs no approval, and does not judge people on their outward appearance, or what they are tricked into thinking of our outward appearance.