« Doctrines :: Gentile Pentecost or Great Sheet Revelation

Gentile Pentecost or Great Sheet Revelation

When did the GENTILES receive the Holy Spirit? This is the question that needs to be answered clearly for you here.

We know in Acts 1:4, Jesus told the disciples to wait in Jerusalem for what the Father had promised,"....for John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now."

The following question that the disciples asked Jesus in verse6 is interesting. “Lord, Is it at this time that you are restoring the Kingdom to * ISRAEL*?” This is what they asked Jesus after he had just spent 40 days with them teaching them things concerning the Kingdom! (Acts 1:3)

In Acts 1:7, Jesus went on to tell them, "It is not for you to know the times or the seasons (epochs) which the Father has fixed by His own authority;"

So we all know, because it has been revealed and accepted by the modern church as a whole, that the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost.( Acts 2:1-4) That's correct, isn't it?

Were there any Gentiles there that day, which had believed and received the Holy Spirit? The answer is NO....

I want to say” Pentecost" is just the day the Holy Spirit decided to come to the Jews in fulfillment of what Jesus had promised.” Pentecost" is not the reason He came.

Please understand this; the JEWS celebrated Pentecost for thousands of years before this day. It was and still is a Jewish day of celebration.

They celebrated the festival of Pentecost 50 days after the Passover. Passover was held and celebrated on the 14thof the first month, Bib (April to us Gentiles). Then there was a period of seven full weeks---49 days.

Then the day after, on the 50th day, (Puente means "50") they celebrated the Pentecost (the wheat harvest), in remembrance of their deliverance from and out of Egypt. This was held and celebrated on the6th day of the third month, Sivan (to us Gentiles, June) Remember also, this was a Jewish festival that was celebrated in Jerusalem.

Realize, that I know what we have celebrated as "Pentecost" has been celebrated in our modern churches as a great tradition for centuries. And as I told my congregation today I am "Pentecostal"--- whatever that means. I am all things to all men. I do not want to lose any of my Pentecostal friends. I was raised in a Pentecostal background, as were many of the people in my church. I have just changed (renewed) my mind, and sought out the entire truth in the Word of the Lord. If it is not within the scriptures and able to be backed up by those scriptures, it is then a TRADITION OF MAN, and in the end-time churches, should be wisely corrected to reflect the TRUTH of the Word of the Lord.

Therefore, let's go to Acts 10:44-48 & 11:15-18and see what the Word of the Lord IS. In these passages we see that the Gentiles believed and received the Holy Spirit. How do we know this??? Because Peter and the Jewish believers who accompanied him (circumcised believers) heard the Gentiles in Cornelius' house speak in tongues and exalt God. (Acts 10:46) It even says that all the circumcised believers with Peter were "astonished" or "amazed" because the Holy Spirit had been poured out on the Gentiles.(Acts 10:45)Why, if it had already happened to full-blooded Gentiles in Acts 2, were these circumcised believers "AMAZED"???? Look at the rest of the verse--Acts 11:45-46 "....BECAUSE the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles ALSO...for they were hearing them speaking with tongues and exalting God."

ALSO, means "In addition to". So, the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out upon the Gentiles IN ADDITION TO the Jews. This---the filling by the Holy Spirit---had never happened before this moment in time.

Now, you also must then see that later, when Peter returned to Jerusalem, the "circumcised" were upset with Peter (11:1-3) "You went to uncircumcised men (GENTILES) and ate with them?" This tells us that Peter was still being required to observe the laws of Moses by his fellow Jews. We know according to what Peter told Cornelius in Acts 10:28, that to the Jews, it was UNLAWFUL to even associate with a foreigner---a Gentile.

Acts 11:4 is a wonderful verse. We see that Peter began to explain or REVEAL to the Jews who were criticizing him, in orderly sequence, what had happened. The Jews were for the first time dealing with the fact that Gentiles had believed and received the Holy Spirit. (Question? If Gentiles had received the Holy Spirit prior to Acts 10, why was all this DISCUSSION even necessary?)

This had never happened before, so therefore it could not have happened in Acts 2. No FULL-BLOODED GENTILE had ever received the Holy Spirit prior to Acts 10.

Now please look specifically at Acts 11: 15 &16," And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them (the Gentiles) just as He did upon us (Jews) at the beginning. When was” at the beginning”? When IT happened in Acts 2 for the Jewish believers! "And I remembered the word of the Lord, how He used to say,” John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit."

This is exactly the same thing written in Acts 1:5! Exactly. But Peter was now using Jesus' words to explain the Gentiles receiving of the Holy Spirit!

See, up until this time, the Jewish believers were still under the assumption that God was restoring the Kingdom to ISREAL. At first, it was just Jewish believers who were believing and receiving the Holy Spirit. Until the Holy Spirit fell on Cornelius, his friends, and his relatives, Jewish believers were the only ones receiving the Holy Spirit!! This had to have radically upset the way they had understood "the Kingdom".

Also, we see in Acts 11:17, "If God gave them (Gentiles) the same gift as He gave to us (Jews) also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was that I could stand in God's way?"

Then we see in Acts 11:18 that God had granted salvation to the Gentiles also. It says this: "And when they (Jews) heard this, they quieted down and glorified God, saying, "Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life,"

The early church along with the apostles and prophets did not realize that salvation with the seal of the Holy Spirit could occur for us as Gentile believers until Acts 10:44-48 & 11:15-18. Most scholars say this was a period of 7-10 years.

Can you believe this? We have been taught and have celebrated " PENTECOST" for hundreds of years--- some assume thousands of years----thinking that the Holy Spirit fell and came forward Gentiles in Acts 2 on the day they named "Pentecost"--- When in all actuality, Pentecost was a Jewish feast--- a Jewish day of celebration, about the Jewish deliverance out of Egypt. This had, and has, nothing to do with us as Gentile believers.

Now, as we see the truth of the Word of God (not the word of man), we understand that the Holy Sprit finally fell upon the Gentiles 7-10 years after He fell upon the Jews. This all occurred because God gave Peter the "" Great Sheet revelation ""and He also dispatched an angel to a man named Cornelius in Acts 10!!!!

This should help you understand "Pentecost" and learn how to rightly divide the Word of Truth a little more clearly regarding the Holy Spirit falling on two clearly separate believing peoples---Jews and Gentiles.

By Pastor Ronald David Kosor