In his sermon on Acts 2:1-13, John Piper states:
From Knowing to Experiencing
This is what happened, it seems, to the disciples in Acts 2 when they saw tongues of fire and heard the violent wind. It filled them with an overwhelming sense of the presence of God. Until that moment we can imagine them praying (Acts 1:14) and reciting to each other the 23rd Psalm and saying, “Though I walk through the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for thou art with me,” and rejoicing that God was with them—he was right there in that very room. How did they know it? The Bible told them so. Just the way we know so many wonderful things: “Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so.”
Then suddenly something happens that utterly transforms their knowledge of God’s presence into the experience of God’s presence. They see fire on each other’s heads and they hear a loud wind. And they are filled not merely with a deductive certainty of God’s present reality based on Psalm 23, but with an experiential certainty based on the extraordinary outpouring of the Holy Spirit. The fire begins to burn in their hearts (Luke 24:32) and in their mouths (“tongues of fire”), and the sound of the wind surrounds them and envelops them with the tokens of God’s power. And they are simply overwhelmed with the greatness of God. And it begins to spill out in praise. Like John White, they are almost undone by worship—so much so that some people say they are drunk (v. 13).
You may listen to the whole sermon, or read it in its entirety at DesiringGod.org
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