Tongues of Fire in Acts 2
Shavuot/Pentecost
“He breathed on them and said,
‘Receive the Holy Spirit.”
After His Passover Resurrection Jesus Appears to the Disciples
(John 20:19-23; Luke 24:36–49; 1 John 1:1–4) It was the first day of the week, and that very evening, while the disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of their fellow Judeans, Jesus came and stood among them. “Peace be with you!” He said to them. 20 After He had said this, He showed them His hands and His side. The disciples rejoiced when they saw the Lord.
21 Again Jesus said to them, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.” 22 When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” John 20:19-23 (How can they repent, if we will not forgive?)
Feast of Weeks (7) later:
Acts 2:1 When the day of Shavuot came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like a mighty rushing wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw tongue-like flames of fire that distributed out and settled on each of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Our need has never been greater for the Holy Spirit and the Heavenly language emphasized by Yeshua to His closest disciples, and then poured out on all in the House of the LORD waiting in Jerusalem for His power to be poured out.
As I write this, it is Monday morning, June 10th and the first things I saw this morning became my confirmation of the direction to emphasize this week in the Weekly Summary of Prayer Requests from Israeli Ministries.
The first was a word from an anointed American prophetic brother I have been following for some time, Garris Elkins. He wrote, “This is a word of encouragement for Pentecostal, Charismatic, and Spirit-filled churches. The Lord is inviting us to re-engage with something we have left behind. That re-engagement is part of God’s preparation to make us ready for a future we do not yet understand. Our engagement involves moving once again in the gift and blessing of speaking in tongues. Over time, some have drifted away from this unique gift for various reasons. We are on the cusp of a new season where only a demonstration of God’s power will impact our churches and the cultures where those churches are deployed.
From there I tuned into the Watchman for the Nations global broadcast with Tikkun Global which was already in progress. I came in around 27 minutes into the broadcast where Asher Intrater was speaking about Shavuot, Pentecost. One of the important points Asher made was that this prophetic feast is not just about remembering things in the past, but it is also for our future – that globally, believers need the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. He went on to speak about praying in the Spirit – tongues or the Heavenly language. He wrapped up with a prayer for a worldwide outpouring of the Holy Spirit for the season ahead of us all. It is not just in Israel but in all the nations we are going to need the ability to pray beyond our own understanding which is what the Heavenly language is all about. Praying in the Spirit is communication with God that cuts out our own human deficiencies that releases understanding from God into our own minds. This equips us with power of the Holy Spirit.
Yeshua/Jesus intended this blessing of praying in the Spirit for us. We can see from John 20:21-23, even before Shavuot when the Holy Spirit was poured out in the Upper Room, Yeshua said to His “disciples were together with the doors locked for fear of their unbelieving Judean countrymen.” It is not so different for the believers in Israel today and increasingly as the religious take greater control over governing in Israel, it will become dangerous as it was in the hour after Yeshua appeared to His closest disciples in Israel. Many Israelis do not hate or persecute the Messianic Jews, but when the governing powers do, great injustices can be carried out against them with impunity.
What did Yeshua say to His disciples hiding in fear from the Jewish authorities who had just seen to it that Yeshua was sacrificed before Passover? “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent Me, so also I am sending you.” When He had said this, He breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit.
Tuesday evening the Feast of Shavuot will began at sundown, just like it did almost 2,000 years ago as we read about in the Acts of the Apostles. Maybe you are like me and find the explanations of how to count out the 49 days, 7 weeks, between Passover when Jesus became the sacrificed Lamb to the 50th day, which is Shavuot, or the Feast of Weeks somewhat confusing. There are many sources within the Messianic Israelis who explain that and I will leave it to them.
BUT the I want to jump straight to: It is essential for all of us today to grasp the meaning of what Yeshua was giving us in Acts 2. Christians have separated from understanding Pentecost in its context as the God- ordained Feast of Shavuot. Even as this year Christians observed Pentecost on May 19th – 24 days earlier than the date given by God to observe Shavuot, Christians and Messianic Jews are separated by more than just a matter of dates!
Yet God is calling us to come back together in one accord. Ephesians 2:15 explains God’s intentions for us “to create in Himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace” between Jew and Gentile believers in Yeshua/Jesus.
Which brings me to the other conspicuous connection Yeshua made in John 20:23 If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”
Receiving the Holy Spirit is as much to do with giving us the power to forgive as it is the power to speak in tongues, lay hands on the sick to be healed or to cast out demons! That is because forgiving may be the most difficult thing of all for us human beings. We need the power of the Holy Spirit outpouring to get there – even with each other. Because unforgivness is so sneaky: It hides itself even from us and we are quick to dismiss the tell-tale indications that our “forgiveness” is not really what we are extending to other. This is true of the gap between Messianic Jews and Gentile Christians too.
In the famous passage of Matthew 9:5 when Yeshua heals a paralytic man, He said to the crowd watching, “Why do you harbor evil in your hearts? 5 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk?’ 6 But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins...” Then He said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your mat, and go home.”
Before we will have authority on earth to heal the paralytics, we will have to realize first we have been given authority on earth to forgive.
We can forgive anyone anything, but we can’t forgive Satan. Personally, I believe that we can’t forgive those who have crossed a line that only God knows of human beings who are in Satan’s kingdom and never will repent and receive Yeshua.
When Yeshua was walking on the earth, even He said that He ONLY went to minister to those He saw the Father was working in. We can pray for people who are entrapped by devilish false narratives, but if our expectation that we could pray and the Holy Spirit would just sweep through terrorists camps and give them all a revelation of Jesus, we are completely ignoring our need - like Yeshua - to discern in whom the Father is working, and those in whom only Satan is working in.
This may be the provision covering many in terrorist camps: “if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.” It may speak to an issue that goes directly to the question of who can we forgive, and who is beyond our forgiveness? I know of a few terrorists who have come to faith, but I will never be among those who stand before God and pray that the Holy Spirit will sweep through the Gaza terrorists camps to cause them all to repent and be saved. I find it naïve about the nature of evil that is involved.
WE SHOULD NOT BE SPIRITUALLY NAIVE: IF A BELIEVER CALLS THEMSELVES BY THE NAME OF YESHUA/JESUS, and do not embrace God's heart about God's people, they are kidding themselves about the depth of their faith in Him. As Paul exhorted us in Philippians 2:12-13 Therefore, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not only in my presence, but now even more in my absence, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling. 13 For it is God who works in you to will and to act on behalf of His good purpose.
Also please read: On Shavuot/Pentecost: Receive the Holy Spirit to Understand
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