The Sending of the Spirit
A Sermon on Acts 7:37-38
Scripture
37This is the Moses who said to the sons of Israel, ‘God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your countrymen.’ 38This is the one who was in the assembly in the wilderness together with the angel who spoke to him at length …
37¶ This is that Moses, which said unto the children of Israel, A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear. 38This is he, that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel which …
Sermon Description
What gives power to the gospel message? Or even better, who gives power to the gospel message? The world looks for those with eloquence and bravado, but God looks for holiness and faithfulness. In the sermon “The Sending of the Spirit” that focuses on Acts 7:37–38, Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones proclaims that the power with which the apostles preached was not of human strength, but it was a direct result of what God had done in them. On the day of Pentecost, God sent his Holy Spirit to indwell and empower the ministry and life of those Christians gathered in the upper room. This accounts for the apostles’ boldness before the very Jewish leaders who had put Jesus Christ to death only a matter of days before. This new Spirit-empowered boldness surprised the Jewish leaders who thought the apostles to be nothing more than uneducated fishermen. But it was the Spirit that filled these rural uneducated men to speak with clarity and power of the risen Messiah, Jesus Christ. This Spirit that indwelled the believers of the early church is the same Holy Spirit that spoke in the prophets of Israel in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit also inspired the Scriptures and the same Spirit that has been active in the church through the centuries. It is the power of God in the life of individual believers and in the church universal.
The Book of Acts
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones (1899-1981) was a Welsh evangelical minister who preached and taught in the Reformed tradition. His principal ministry was at Westminster Chapel, in central London, from 1939-1968, where he delivered multi-year expositions on books of the bible such as Romans, Ephesians and the Gospel of John. In addition to the MLJ Trust’s collection of 1,600 of these sermons in audio format, most of these great sermon series are available in book form (including a 14 volume collection of the Romans sermons), as are other series such as "Spiritual Depression", "Studies in the Sermon on the Mount" and "Great Biblical Doctrines". He is considered by many evangelical leaders today to be an authority on biblical truth and the sufficiency of Scripture.