Acts 1:7 But he said to them, “It is not for you to know the times or seasons that the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest part of the earth.

Acts is excellent history. Luke begins his book in Jerusalem, picking up his account with the closing hours of the earthly ministry of Jesus Christ. It is the period between Jesus’ resurrection and ascension into heaven. Then Luke methodically records the spread of the new religion throughout the Roman world. At the beginning it is spread largely through the influence of the apostle Peter. The first half of Acts recounts this. In the second half of the book, Luke shows how Christianity spread even to Rome through the phenomenal life and ministry of the apostle Paul.

The Disciples Ask a Reasonable Question

Now when the apostles hear the promise of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, they ask in verse 6, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?”

This was not a foolish question, even though verse 3 says that Jesus had been with them for 40 days talking about the kingdom of God. Because, you remember, back in Luke 22:29–30, at the Last Supper Jesus had told them that the kingdom would be restored to Israel—they themselves would sit on thrones as rulers along with the Son of Man over a renewed and believing Israel. And they knew from the Old Testament (Ezekiel 39:29; Isaiah 32:15; 44:3–5; Joel 2:28ff.; Zechariah 12:10) that this restoration was going to be the result of a great outpouring of God’s Spirit. So it is not a foolish question to ask, “

The point of the question is the time, whether “at this time” Jesus is restoring the kingdom to Israel. The fact that the kingdom is, indeed, to be restored to Israel is taken for granted.

Jesus’ Response to Their Kingdom Question

Since it is not a foolish question, Jesus does not rebuke them. He says in verse 7, “It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has fixed by his own authority.” It was not good for them to know that time any more than knowing the time of our own death would be good for us.

Jesus points out that their only concern should be the promise of receiving power for their world-wide testimony. This is spiritual power which is communicated directly by the Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal miracle, a complete and an adequate equipment of mind and of spirit for the great future task. This describes the Pentecost miracle in advance and defines in Jesus’ own way what “being baptized in connection with the Holy Spirit.

Life after Easter Operates on Power

The word Jesus used in verse 8 is significant. It is dynamis, translated “power.” The Greek word dynamis entered the English language when the Swedish chemist and engineer Alfred Bernhard Nobel (1833–96) made the discovery that became his fortune. He discovered a power stronger than anything the world had known up to that time. He asked a friend of his who was a Greek scholar what the word for “explosive power” was in Greek. His friend answered, “Dynamis.”

Nobel said, “Well, I am going to call my discovery by that name.” So he called his explosive power “dynamite.”

That is the word here, it refers not to the power one has by intrinsic or even by a delegated authority, but to the explosive, life-changing dynamic of the Holy Spirit operating through the proclamation of the gospel. This is not political power. Political power is what the disciples wanted. They asked Jesus if he was going to set up a political machine. They could understand that kind of power, but that was not the power Jesus was talking about. He was talking about power that flows from God.

What is it that really changes the world? From a secular standpoint, it is always the power of an idea. It is not armies that change the world. They just put different people in charge of the problems and their ideas rule. It is not money that changes the world. Not even laws change the world. Laws do not change things. Only ideas change things. Changes occur when ideas possess people’s minds.

In the spiritual realm, real changes come when the Holy Spirit uses the gospel to regenerate fallen men and women, causing them to repent of their sin, seek righteousness, and live for Jesus Christ. Changes follow in a big way when that happens. Then you have reformation.

What Happened at Pentecost

They were so filled with the fullness of God, they were overwhelmed with the length and breadth and height and depth of the love of Christ, that they began (as Acts 2:11 says) to speak “the greatness of God.” Their mind was full of a fresh, new, breathtaking vision of God and their mouth overflowed with praise.

This is what Jesus was talking about in Acts before his ascension to heaven, telling the disciples that they were to be his witnesses. Our English word witness comes from an old English word we do not use very much anymore but was used in Elizabethan times and afterwards. It is the word wit. “To wit” means “to know, so a “witness” is one who knows something and testifies to it. In the case of the disciples, these men were to be witnesses to who Jesus was and what he had done. Above all, they were to be witnesses to the truth of the resurrection. They were to advance Christ’s kingdom not by coercion, but by testimony to the truth.

There is an error today concerning this, the error of thinking that the kingdom of God is advanced by the “miraculous” or by what those who argue for it sometimes call “signs and wonders.” The argument is that where the Holy Spirit is active, signs and wonders follow. Jesus taught that when we receive the power of the Holy Spirit, the result will not be miracles, signs, or healings, but witnessing.

The Power Received Then is Available Now

The Holy Spirit was poured out on the Day of Pentecost, and the baptism of the Holy Spirit is an accomplished fact. Nowhere in the Bible does it say that a Christian today is commanded to be baptized with the Holy Spirit, but we’re all commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Be filled with the Spirit” (Ephesians 5:18). And when we’re filled with the Spirit of God, we’re filled with the Spirit of power.

Life After Easter is More Than Ordinary Christian Living

Acts 1:8 But you shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come on you: and you shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth.

This experience of the “coming upon” or “being clothed” by the Holy Spirit was something beyond ordinary, happy Christian living. In the Old Testament “being clothed” with the Spirit referred to extraordinary times of empowerment and prophecy as in the lives of Gideon and Amasai and Zechariah (Judges 6:34; 1 Chronicles 12:18; 2 Chronicles 24:20). But it is most obvious from what happened on the day of Pentecost.

First, the disciples were to be empowered for their task by the Holy Spirit.
Second, they were to be agents of a world-wide geographical expansion of Christianity.

Jesus said they would receive power from the Holy Spirit and that when that happened, they were to go into the entire world with the gospel. That is, their witness was to begin at Jerusalem; then it was to expand outward like ripples on a pond, embracing Judea and Samaria, and then overflowing beyond those known communities to the farthest reaches of the Roman Empire. That is exactly what Luke shows us by the end of Acts when Paul is in Rome witnessing about the Kingdom of God.

Christians today are not always fully aware of how thoroughly that plan was carried out by the first generation of the church. The entire pagan world acknowledged as fact the early Christian apologists’ claim that Christianity had permeated everywhere. Tertullian, who wrote around the year 200, declared in his Apology, “We are but of yesterday, and we have filled every place among you—cities, islands, fortresses.

How is this working through us today?

To witness—to share the love of Jesus. You say, “Well, I thought He was going to do it.” Yes, He’s going to do it, but He’s going to do it through you; and if you don’t allow Him to do it, then it will not be done. We are to be witnesses.

Jesus didn’t call us to be lawyers. Many say, well, you know, I just can’t witness. Of course you can. Suppose you saw an accident, and they brought you into the courtroom, and they said, Tell us what you saw. You say, Well, you know, I just can’t do that. I’m not a lawyer. Remember the old police show, Dragnet, Sgt Friday would say, just the facts, ma’am—just tell us what you saw and what you heard.

Jesus meant by the “witnessing” in Acts 1:8 that will be able to extend the gospel to the end of the earth. “You will receive this power … and you will be my witnesses.” You will no longer be merely advocates who can prove like a good lawyer that Jesus rose from the dead. But under the influence of this power—this experience of the Spirit of the risen Christ—you will speak with the unwavering assurance of one who has tasted and knows the reality so immediately that all doubt is gone. You move from being an advocate of Christianity to being a witness of the living Christ. You move from simply deducing Christian truths from valid premises to proclaiming them boldly as experienced realities. This is the power and the witness that will take Christ to the end of the earth.

We will never on this side of heaven know how God will use our simple witness to bring people to Himself.

We just need to allow His Holy Spirit to make us bold and then just be obedient. Simply share what Jesus has done in our life, that is it.