The day of Pentecost is a critical day for Christians.
Through the death of Jesus Christ, our sins have been atoned for, and through His Resurrection we can have eternal life. The day of Pentecost, however, is also key for our faith. It is the day the Holy Spirit came and filled the 120 followers of Jesus and empowered Peter to preach to the masses. Without the coming of the Holy Spirit, there would be no power, authority and guidance to go and fulfill the Great Commission.
The day of Pentecost also did something we rarely think about. It reversed what happened at the Tower of Babel.
One for Israel Ministry discussed with Dr. Erez Soref how Pentecost acts a reversal to the self-seeking acts from the people of Babel.
“Everyone was coming together for man’s glory,” a ministry member said of Babel. “Now, all of a sudden, they’re spread out, separated, divided. And now, we’re being united by God under God’s ways instead of man’s glory.”
In Genesis 11, as the people focused on uniting together to build their own tower to heaven, God decided to “confuse their language, so that they may not understand one another’s speech,” (Gen. 11:7). This confusion of language was reversed on the day of Pentecost when “they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit enabled them to speak,” (Acts 2:4). It is this reversal to speak to others in their native language that Soref focused on.
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“Those Galileans, the simple people that were speaking, they didn’t study it. Then they spoke perfect Cappadocian, Roman, whatever, it was perfect language,” Soref says. “It’s definitely a supernatural event that God is saying to all the people on the planet, ‘I am here. I want to bring you back.’”
Soref also believes there is a powerful connection between Pentecost and the giving of the Mosaic Law in Exodus chapter 19. He draws the parallel of how the Israelites came out of Egypt in the middle of the first month. Fifty days after that would be the time when God told Moses to have the people prepare because He was coming down to meet them.
In the same way, Jesus told His followers after His resurrection to wait and prepare because something monumental was about to take place. It was after this waiting period when God’s glory showed up in the form of the Holy Spirit with tongues of fire resting on the believers.
“It was an individual symbol that each one was indwelled with the Holy Spirit,” Soref says.
As we look throughout Scripture, we can see the promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit and the great harvest of souls for God’s glory.
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Abby Trivett is a marketing copywriter and coordinator for Charisma Media.
Stephen Strang