Seizing the moment in the midst of the crowd's bewilderment and confusion, Peter addresses the people in Spirit-filled utterance (see 2:4). He begins with a formal address, Fellow Jews, which will soften as he proceeds (men of Israel, 2:22; brothers, 2:29). His message will explain the Pentecost event as God's saving acts (see also 4:12; 13:38: 28:28) and show its crucial importance for his hearers and for us.

Though those drunk and those filled with the Spirit are "carried out of themselves into an abnormal sense of freedom and expressiveness," the cause and the end results are entirely different (E. F. Harrison 1986:64). Peter with good humor dismisses this empirical explanation with further empirical evidence: in a culture where the first meal is not taken until ten o'clock, nine o'clock in the morning is too early in the day to find people drunk (see Josephus Life 279).

The ultimate cause and significance of the Spirit's empowerment is found in God and his saving purposes, as the prophet Joel foretold. In the last days—the final days of this age, the time when the "age to come" is inaugurated—God promises to pour out his Spirit on all people. Joel used the imagery of the vivifying impact of a Near Eastern torrential downpour on parched earth to picture the generosity, finality and universality of the Spirit's coming. And Peter declares that this is now happening before the very eyes and in the very hearing of his audience. In contrast to the selective and occasional outpouring of the Spirit on king and prophet in the Old Testament time of promise (1 Sam 10:10; 16:14; Ezek 11:5), here the Spirit comes without regard to age, sex, social status or, as Acts 2:39 indicates, ethnic origin.

What the Spirit empowers people to do is prophesy. Prophecy for Luke encompasses Spirit-filled speaking in other languages (2:12, 16), predictive discourse (11:27; 21:10; compare 9:10; 10:10; 16:9; 18:9, where dreams and visions guide the post-Pentecost church) and proclamatory witness (15:32). As the Old Testament prophets made God's will known by witnessing to his Word, so now, as Luther says, all Christians are Spirit-enabled to bear witness to "knowledge of God through Christ which the Holy Spirit kindles and makes to burn through the word of the gospel" (Stott 1990:74; compare Acts 1:8).

Joel and Peter remind us of the decisiveness of these last days by pointing to cosmic signs on earth and in heaven. The universe will reveal what a shambles sinful humankind makes of things by its constant assault on God's moral order. From this the human race should know that judgment must come at the day of the Lord (Is 13:6, 9; Ezek 30:3; Zeph 1:14-15). The hope held out by Joel is thus vitally significant. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Acts 2:21/Joel 2:32).

Today, living in a time of rapid social change, moral decay, environmental crisis and seemingly unmanageable economic and political problems, we can identify with the apostle's and prophet's sense of the end. We are comforted that history is not out of control, for God is constantly at work. We live in the time of the Spirit's life-giving presence—and there is the challenge: will we call on the name of the Lord and be saved?