Certification of Delivery

We recently concluded a series of lessons entitled The Helper which tells of the sending of the Holy Spirit. The four lessons were:

* I Won't Leave You Helpless
* Let Me Introduce the Helper
* Jesus Promised, God Delivered, the Helper Came
* The Helper & You

In this blog entry, I want to share an object lesson from our third lesson. Hopefully you can use this in your ministry.

"The Helper Came"
Props: Bible, Envelope, Certified Mail Slip
Slides: Optical Illusion (easily found on the internet), Acts 2:4

I’m sure that you’ve all seen optical illusions before. (Show slides of optical illusion.) While looking at this picture, you are seeing a picture and quite possibly the person sitting beside you that is looking at the same picture sees something entirely different. This can cause quite a bit of confusion.

When our heavenly Father was sending the Helper, He wanted to insure that there was no confusion. He wanted each and every person receiving the Holy Spirit to know that they know that they know that the Holy Spirit had been sent as promised.

So, when this gift was sent from heaven, God eliminated all confusion by providing a proof of delivery. Just like certain types of mail sent by our United States Postal Service require an evidence of the envelope or package arriving (show envelope with attached Certified Mail slip), heaven made it so evident of the arrival of this Helper by a proof of delivery found in today's Bible verse.

“They were all filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began
to speak different languages.” Acts 2:4 (New Century Version)

Did you see the evidence or the proof of delivery? Our verse says that when the Holy Spirit arrived, each of the 120 people began to speak in a heavenly language. How do we know that this was the proof of delivery? Because we see it again and again when we read Acts 10 and Acts 19. They all began to show the arrival and indwelling of the Helper as they prayed in another tongue.