The 120 are sitting in the upper room in one accord when a mighty wind fills the room and shafts of fire form on their heads.

Verse four: At this time they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke in languages they did not know under the power of the Holy Spirit that was now in them and empowering them.

Verses five through twenty-one: Jews came to Jerusalem from all over the world to celebrate Pentecost–the Feast of Firstfruits. When the noise of the disciples speaking in their various languages spread throughout the city they rushed en masse to the place where the phenomenon was taking place. The Apostle Luke listed 16 areas of the world from which these people had come and noted that the people from those areas each heard the disciples speaking in their native tongues. This astonished them in that, though the disciples did not know their languages, they were proclaiming to them in those languages the wonderful works of God. What was going on? After much discussion they had the answer–alcohol. For some reason they thought that too much wine had enabled them to speak languages they did not know. The Jews knew that their God had sent plagues upon Egypt which had caused the Egyptians to allow their ancestors to leave the country, had arranged for them to leave with much riches, had divided the Red Sea for them to escape, had killed the mightiest army on earth in the sea, had brought water out of a rock and had miraculously provided food and drink for their ancestors as they wandered in the desert for 40 years. Yet it did not occur to them that He could enable these people to speak in other tongues. Instead, they accused the disciples of being drunk. Peter assured them that, in that it was only mid-morning, they were not drunk. He explained that this was the fulfilment of the Prophet Joel’s prophecy concerning the end of the age. His words, “THIS IS THAT which was spoken by the Prophet Joel, ‘And it shall come to pass IN THE LAST DAYS, saith God ….” He went on to quote Joel relative to the miraculous events that would take place at the end of the last days. The Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D. was the beginning of the final days of the era, at the end of which Jesus Christ will return to earth to establish the Kingdom of God. Peter ends this part of his discourse by noting that during the time “before that great and notable Day of the Lord (the final year of the age, also known as the Lord’s Day),” those who would call on God’s name would be saved. As Revelation shows, they will be beheaded for doing so. See Revelation and the Mysteries. L.J.