THE KING’S BUSINESS
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in preaching. The tongues o f fire rested upon the women as well as upon the men (vs. 17, 18). It is to be noticed however, that the Holy Spirit does not say that they (i.e., the tongues of fire) sat upon each one o f them, but that “it,” i.e., the Holy Spirit who manifested himself in the tongues o f fire, sat upon each one o f them. This change from the plural to the singular is very significant, though most people seem to overlook it in reading the verse. v. 4. “And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.” Here we see again that the blessing was not to the church as a body, but to the. individ uals that constituted the church. “ They were all filled with the Holy Spirit.” This is clearly a fulfillment o f chapter 1 :5, but in that verse the expression used is “ bap tised in the Holy Spirit", here the expres sion used is “filled with the Holy Spirit." So it is clear that these two expressions are practically syfionomous. The expression here used brings out the thought that the Holy Spirit takes complete possession of the faculties o f the one who is filled with the Holy Spirit. The immediate result of thus being taken possession o f by the Holy Spirit was that they “began to speak with other tongues” (cf. ch. 10:46; 19:6) but the baptism in the Spirit did .not always manifest itself in this particular way, but always in some new power for Christ (1 Cor. 12:6-10, 30; ch. 4:31; 9:17-22). There was a special reason in this cáse why there should be a diversity o f tongues ;' people were gathered at Jerusalem at that time from many lands, and the mighty works of God needed to be proclaimed in the tongues o f the people there gathered together. This manifestation was entirely different from manifestations today that are claimed to be the same thing, where people do not speak in the definite tongues o f those gath ered together, in order that they may be instructed,-but speak in some unknown lan guage that some one has to interpret and no one knows whether it is a true interpre tation or not, and in many cases is no lan guage at all, but gibberish. It may be said
in , passing that speaking with tongues is not the most, but the least important result o f the baptism in the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 14:2-19). But they hot only spoke in the tongues o f .the many different classes o f people who were gathered together to hear them and be instructed by them,, but fur thermore, they spoke, not only their own wisdom, but “as the Spirit gave them utter ance.” So ought we to speak and so. may we speak. The Holy Spirit is ever ready to give to each preacher and each personal worker a wisdom not his own, so that he speaks with a wisdom and power from on high (cf. 1 Cor. 2 :4 ). , vs. 5, 6. “Now there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, from every nation under heaven, and when this sound was heard, the multitude came together, and were confounded, because that every man heard them speaking in his own lan guage.” The noise o f the wind from heaven was heard not only by the disciples gathered together in the upper room, but by the mul titudes' without as well. They rushed together to find out what it meant. The multitudes always will gather when the Spirit comes upon God’s people. The dis ciples filled with the Holy Spirit seized this opportunity o f the gathering crowd, and began to speak. The Holy Spirit put upon their tongues words and languages that they did not understand, but which the outside multitude did understand. They heard them speaking in their own languages, i.e., the various languages o f the listeners. This greatly perplexed them. They were filled with confusion at this strange phenomenon. vs, 7, 8. / ‘And they were all amazed, and marvelled, saying, Behold, are not all these that speak Galileans? and how hear we, every man his own language, wherein we were born?" In the sixth verse we were told that they were confounded. Here we are told they were “amazed,” and “mar velled.” In the twelfth verse we are told they were “perplexed.” Expressions are multiplied to show the overwhelming influ ence upon the unbelieving multitude that gathered around o f what occurred. The world cannot account for a Spirit-filled
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