“This promise is to you, and to your children, and even to the Gentiles—all who have been called by the Lord our God.” (Acts 2:39)
Here’s a promise from God—you know that’s gotta be good! You know that’s one you can count on! How special is it that God is making a promise to you that is undeniably real?! This is not a politician’s “campaign promise” which will not hold up to the demands of the elected office. This is a promise that can be counted on, 100%.
This promise of Holy Spirit presence and power is for you listeners (right now, it’s available), and for your children (this is not a temporary thing, but it is valid to the next generation), and it’s for the non-Jews, the Gentiles (this is not confined to the Jewish people. That’s a startling statement in itself!) The Good News about Jesus the Messiah will go forward, across boundary lines of the original, chosen people. In fact, the Preacher brings it home with a stunning, all encompassing-statement: the promise is for all who have been called by the Lord our God.
I like to savor that statement. God appears to be saying that this wonderful promise whose truth is unfolding before your eyes is for you now, your descendants later, for non-Jews…and going forward in history, it is for all peoples, of any generation, and any ethnicity. God knows who they are. He has his hand upon them. He is bringing them to truth and into a place of blessing. All of that happens, based on the promise which He is fulfilling before them, and to which this audience was a witness.
The crowd in Jerusalem ran together to hear the Galilean Upper Room Believers speaking languages that were spoken in all geographic directions of the known world at that time. That miracle of language, across racial and linguistic barriers, was an indicator of this Holy Spirit promise. Now the Preacher, who was part of that controlled chaos on Pentecost Day, says that all of this reaches far beyond a single moment, a single event with extraordinary phenomena.
“God has a plan. All of You who are part of this day are partakers of that plan. Let that wonderful realization sweep over you! What you are seeing unfold before your eyes is a point of time in the continuum of history. His promise is just now beginning to unfold in a powerful way. And you are personally part of it!”
“Father, thank you that your promise goes forward even to this present time and to all of those whom you have called!”
Freddy Boswell 