Alright, Acts 2, and this morning
we'll be looking at Peter's sermon beginning in verse 14. It's been
a while since we've been together in the book of Acts, so let's
go ahead and recap what we went over last time that I had preached
from this book. I preached a sermon that I entitled,
Pentecost, and in that sermon, We looked at the day of Pentecost
and why it was the Spirit of God chose the day of Pentecost
in order to manifest Himself on that particular day as opposed
to another day. Remember that the Lord Jesus
Christ used the Feast of Passover for the day of His death, and
the day of Pentecost was the day that the Spirit of God used
for His outpouring. Now, at the day of Pentecost,
we know that this was the day that He chose because at Pentecost
what they did was a wave offering. They took a loaf of bread that
they had made from the firstfruits, two loaves of bread, and they
waved them before the Lord. This pictured Christ as the firstfruits,
and it was at that time that they would begin the harvest.
And so, that's what the Holy Spirit here is doing. He's beginning
the harvest of souls. The harvest of souls of men.
And so, at this day of Pentecost, the Spirit of God poured out
upon all flesh as Jesus had promised before He ascended into heaven. When I preached last time about
the Day of Pentecost, we noticed that this Day of Pentecost was
very special. You see, very special in that
God the Holy Spirit poured out Himself and gave many gifts and
signs and wonders on this day. But we know that the Day of Pentecost
is not something that happens every Sunday. There are a group
of fools who decide that they want to have Pentecost every
Sunday. We don't think that the Lord
Jesus Christ, when He came and He was born of a Virgin Mary,
and He lived in this world, and He died on the cross, we know
that those things happened one time. We know that He came and
He lived on the earth one time, He died one time, and we know
He's not going to come again in the same manner. And so it
is with the day of Pentecost. This thing happened for a time,
for a purpose, and for a reason. It was manifested in such a great
way on the day of Pentecost and in the early church so that they
might know that what the apostles were preaching was the truth.
What they were preaching was the truth. It was manifest so
that everyone would know that they have this Word from God. We know that this happened for
a certain time, and you can prove this in the Scriptures if you
ever meet anybody that is of that persuasion. Think of Philip. Remember Philip? When he was
an evangelist, he was saved and anointed with the Spirit of God,
with the gifts of the Spirit of God. And the Scripture says
he went into Samaria preaching the Gospel. And notice this,
that when he preached the Gospel, many believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ. But you see, the apostles had
to come down to Samaria and anoint them with the gifts of the Holy
Spirit. Philip could not anoint them
with the gifts of the Spirit. He had to wait for the apostles.
The apostles were the only ones who could pass on the gifts of
the Spirit, such as speaking in tongues and these miraculous
things. But after they had laid their
hands on someone to give these gifts, the other person couldn't
pass them along. So therefore, they were used
for a time and for a purpose. And they were used so that they
might witness of the Lord Jesus Christ and His resurrection.
That they might prove that the Jesus that they're speaking of
is now ascended into heaven and has all power given to Him. So, Peter in his sermon here,
he uses these gifts. Imagine this, these men are out
there and they're speaking in languages that they've not ever
learned. And we're not talking about an
unknown language, we're talking about languages that people could
understand. We're talking if you were from
Africa, then they would speak in your native language. And
they never learned the language. This was a miraculous thing.
It's something that happened during this time. And since the
apostles, it has never happened again. So we see a wonderful thing that's
happening here. And what does Peter use it for?
Does he use it for his own glory? For his own boasting? No. He uses this as a springboard
to show them the gospel of Jesus Christ. And they were speaking these
other languages. There were some that said, what does this mean? I don't understand what this
means. This is something miraculous. I just don't understand it. And
then some men said, well, these guys are drunk. These guys are
drunk. You know, if you came to me speaking
Zwahili or something, you know, I would probably think you're
drunk too because I don't know anything about that language. I wouldn't
know the first syllable in that language. So there were some
that thought they were crazy speaking in these other languages.
Well, Peter takes this opportunity and look at this in verse 14.
It says, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and
said unto them, You men of Judah and all ye that dwell in Jerusalem,
be this known unto you and hearken to my words." There are three
things about this message that I want us to draw our attention
to this morning that I noticed. The first thing I noticed was
in that verse, I noticed something about Peter's boldness. I noticed
something about Peter had changed in the last few days. Isn't that
right? Something's changed about Peter
in the last few days. Now, Peter's always been a boaster. You can read the Scriptures.
You can't tell. I mean, this guy's always speaking
without thinking. He's always doing that. I understand
that. Sometimes I speak without thinking.
But Peter learned a great lesson. Remember when he told the Lord,
Lord, I don't care if everybody else is going to leave you, I'll
die with you." Remember those words? What happened? What happened to Peter? The Lord
said before the cock crows, you will deny me three times. He
said, Lord, I won't do it. Nope, I won't do it. I won't
deny you. And then here he is trying to
warm himself by the fire. And that little girl comes up
and she says, hey, I know you. You're with him. And he says,
I am not. I am not. And he begins to cower
down and to run away and to find another little corner to hide
in. And somebody else comes along and says, yes, you are. You're
him. You were with him. He says, no, I wasn't. He runs
off again and the third time he does the same thing. You read
that in John chapter 18. He changes His voice here though,
doesn't He? He's no longer running and hiding
and cowering, denying the Lord Jesus Christ. But here at this
place, He stands up and above all the other men, He says, you
men of Judah and everybody else here, listen to Me. Listen to
the words that I have to say. Because the words I have to say
are very important concerning the question you ask. You ask,
what meaneth this? Listen to what I've got to say.
There's a great difference now in Peter to lift up his voice
and not deny the Lord, but to confess the Lord. He is here
going to confess the Lord Jesus Christ in front of everyone. You see, he's not concerned with
how uneducated he is. He's not concerned with how educated
the people he's talking to. He's not worried about them at
all. He's not worried about what they're going to think about
him. You see, he has one purpose,
one mission, and that's to preach the gospel of Christ. And nothing
will stand in his way. What made the difference? What
changed Peter to be so bold as to stand up in front of everyone
and say, listen to me! Listen to what I've got to say,
because it's altogether important. What made the difference? I'll
tell you this, right now, the Spirit of God made the difference. The Spirit of God made Him and
gave Him this boldness. Therefore, I say to us, may God,
by His grace, give us boldness to witness of the Lord Jesus
Christ at every opportunity. I had a friend this week, and
he was listening to some... He does this, and I tell him
to stop, but he just can't help himself sometimes. He listens
to radio. He drives a truck a lot, so he
listens to radio. And he had one of these false prophets come
on, false preachers come on the radio, and he's talking about
peace. And my friend starts to listen, starts to turn it off.
He says, well, I'm just going to listen to him, see what he has to say.
I said, you know, you're always going to know what he's going
to have to say. He's going to say the same thing. You know,
I expect a dog to bark, don't you? I expect a dog to bark,
and I expect a false prophet to preach a false doctrine. And he did. He didn't disappoint.
And so my friend was so upset, he called the radio station,
called the church, and he started talking to the secretary, and
I said, no, no, no, no. That's not boldness. That's just
not thinking, okay? That's not boldness. God will
open the opportunities for us to speak. Let's not try to make
opportunities. In other words, what we do is,
you know, if we're talking about, you know, cars and we just interject
Jesus every time we talk about it, we're trying to make a path.
We're trying to show ourselves. We're trying to elevate ourselves
when we do that. I said, just wait and God will
give you the opportunity to speak. Well, sure enough, he was at
the barbershop and the guys at the barbershop were talking about
that very sermon. And he kept his mouth shut. He
just sat and listened. It was then that the barber asked
him, what do you think about that message? Well, who opened
that door? Who opened that opportunity for
him to now speak? God did. God opens those opportunities. And Peter was preaching, but
these men asked a question. They said, what meaneth this?
Well, I'm going to tell you what this means. That's what he said. Who gave
him that boldness? The Spirit of God gave him that boldness
to make a difference. in His voice, so that He may
speak. May God give us boldness and
let us, by the grace of God, give an answer to everyone that
asks of the hope that is within you. Has anyone asked of the
hope that is within you? Do you pray that God would bring
someone to ask that question to you? I do. I pray that God
would bring people to ask that. What's different about you? Why
do you go to that church? What is up with that church?
I mean, I don't understand. You're always there. I don't
get it. Let me tell you. You see, you have an opportunity
then. Stand in the boldness of the Spirit of God. My friend,
we who hold the truth and righteousness are not to fear lies. Don't fear
them. They have nothing that you can't
handle if you have the truth. As light chases away darkness,
so does truth chase away error. Stand, therefore, in the truth
of the Gospel. Cast the weight of your soul,
your life, your everything on the Gospel. Cast everything on
Christ and Him crucified. That's the truth. And everything
that goes against that is a lie. Let your light so shine among
men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father.
Let your light so shine among men. Do you not understand? Do we not understand? Sometimes
we lose sight of this because we look to ourselves to speak. We look to our own abilities
And then we become afraid, like Peter looked at the water when
it became boisterous, and his faith began to sink. Why? He
looked in his own strength to stay on that water. We're not
to look to our own strength. We're to look to the strength
that comes from the Spirit of God to give us boldness. You
know, Jesus said this, if you're a father and you know how to
give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your father
give you, what? the Holy Spirit to them that
ask." Ask God for the Spirit to stand in boldness that you
might speak the truth in love. And therefore, when you speak,
you are a light. You're a light in this dark world.
And where does the light belong? Does it belong under something?
No. It belongs up high so that it
gives light to everything. When you walk into a room, my
friend, you give light every time. And you see, this source of light
doesn't come from us, it's a reflective light. You know how the moon
reflects the light of the sun? When the moon is directly in
line with the sun, it's the brightest, isn't it? And my friend, when
we are directly in line with the Son of God, we shine the
brightest. When the Spirit of God is poured out on us, we shine
the brightest. When He gives us strength, let
us pray for the Spirit of God to move on us. To teach us. Have we learned
everything that we need to learn? Is there not more? I think this
is something that's a problem with even believers. We think
we come to a plateau. We say, oh, that's it. I've learned
all I can. I don't need the preacher anymore.
I've got everything I need. I know all of that. Do you? Really? Maybe you should be up here.
If you know it all, No, we can always learn, we can always grow
in the grace and knowledge of Christ. Pray the Spirit of God
teach us and give us boldness to speak. Second of all, I noticed
the source of his message. Let's look back at our text.
He says in verse 16, answering their question, what meaneth
this? He said, but this, speaking in tongues, the miraculous things
that they were doing, he said, but this is that which was spoken
of by the prophet Joel. When he stood up to speak, did
Peter have, well, this is my opinion. Let me give you my opinion
as to why this thing is happening. Is that what he said? No. He said, let's go to the Word
of God. The source of our boldness comes
from the Spirit of God only by using the Word of God. You see,
you can't be bold in your own knowledge. It's not about opinions,
because if you give an opinion, somebody else can give their
opinion. You see, we don't give opinions. I declare to you the
Word of God, and that's it. No room for debating me about
it. I don't care to. I don't care to haggle with you
about it. God said this, and that's all there is to it. I
don't need to say anything else. This is not my opinion. This
is what God said. And so when we go to the Word
of God, we can stand in boldness, because God's Word is truth.
You see, there is no other truth. Anything that goes against the
Word of God is a lie. And there's no debating it. There's
no controversy about that. The Word of God. He went to the
Word of God as a source. See that the pouring out of the
Spirit was never done before, was it? You know, this thing
that they had, this speaking in tongues, that was new. Something
never been done before, right? Never in the Word of God has
that been accomplished before. But here it was. The Spirit of
God was doing something new. But let me ask you, did He say
anything new? Did He say anything new? No. The Spirit of God used this as
something to get people's attention. And then he directed them directly
to the Word of God. He said, this is what was spoken
of by the prophecy Joel. What you see and hear. The Spirit
of God uses always the Word of God. Why? He wrote it. He wrote it. Holy men of old
were moved by the Spirit of God to write this book. The Word of God. has the same message it had from
the beginning. What's that message? Salvation
by grace through blood for an atonement. Isn't that the message
from the beginning? When Adam sinned, God came down
seeking Adam. There we see grace. You see that? Adam wasn't seeking God. Adam
was seeking fig leaves. God came down and sought Adam.
And He covered their nakedness, how? By killing animals, by shedding
of blood. He covered their nakedness. There's
atonement. You see, it's always been that
way. It's always been that way. Ever since the beginning and
every time you go into Scriptures from Genesis, every page, it
gives a little more light, doesn't it? A little more light. A little
more light. Until when? Until Christ comes,
who is the fulfillment of all of those things. And now, what
does the Spirit of God use to light the Word of God? He uses
Christ. Christ is the light. You want to understand the Word
of God, you're going to have to understand it's of Christ.
Everything in this book is Christ. Jesus Himself. When He talked
on the road to Emmaus with those disciples, Scripture says that
He began at Moses and the Psalms and all the prophets and things
concerning Himself. You see, all these things are
about Jesus Christ. And so when Peter preached, he
used the Word of God, and so should we in our witness. Let
us become familiar with the Word of God. How familiar are you
with the Word of God? And you have to answer, don't
look at the person next to you, just right there. I'm not asking you,
I'm asking me. How familiar am I with the Word
of God? How much time do I avail myself to study and become skilled
in the Word of God? If we're going to stand in the
Spirit of God in boldness and speak the Word of God, should
we not be familiar with it? Yes. Ask God to teach you. My wife just opened up the passage
of Scripture one time the other day and she read it. I saw Christ immediately. And
she said, what does that mean? Speaking about Christ. I think
it was in Jeremiah, he was talking about two sets of fruits, good
fruit and bad fruit, and I saw it. I saw God's election. I saw
God's redemption in the good fruit, and I saw God's rejection
in the bad. What made the fruit good? Christ.
Christ. Familiarize yourself with the
Word of God. I did this in my Sunday school
lesson when I was back in Houston. I told the children, I said,
turn your books to Hezekiah. Hezekiah. And they looked at
me and they started flipping around. What is that? It's not
there. Be familiar with it. Be familiar
with the Word of God. And when you are, don't be afraid. You won't be afraid. You ever heard this when you
approach somebody with the Word of God? Ah, you're not supposed
to judge. You ever heard that? Don't judge
me. Isn't that what the Bible says? You're not supposed to
judge people. What fool goes through life and doesn't make
judgments? I mean, only a fool goes through life and doesn't
make judgments. Somebody comes to you and says, hey, I've got
a bridge I want to sell you. You're going to make a judgment
unless you're a fool. You're going to say, that guy's
crazy. I'm not buying anything from him. You have to make a
judgment. And there's judgments we have to make concerning people
all the time. You look at someone, they're
living in adultery and sin. Remember Herod? That's what John
the Baptist did. He determined. He looked at Herod
and he said, you're sinning. Repent and believe the gospel. You see, people don't like their
sin exposed, so they'll say that to you. But the Scripture, if
you were familiar with the text, is judge not. And they use that,
but it means judge not lest you're ready to be judged. You see,
if you're in Christ, you're ready. Because Christ is all your righteousness,
all your hope. Yes, we're to make judgments.
And if people are living in sin, we're to say, repent in love
and compassion for them, realizing that if God wasn't gracious to
us, we'd be there. But yes, stand. Stand in the
truth of the Gospel. Be bold. And lastly, notice his
subject of his message. He was bold and notice the source
of his message was the Word of God and the subject of his message,
verse 36. Therefore, let all the house
of Israel know assuredly that God hath made this same Jesus,
whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. That's the subject.
And you'll find out that's the subject all the way through the
book of Acts. That's the message they preach all the time. Jesus
Christ and Him crucified. This is the sum of all the believer's
life and therefore it is the sum of our message. It's the sum of our message.
Christ and Him crucified. We that believe on Christ know
that God had determined to raise up Christ and to deliver Him
to be crucified. Don't you know that? I do. Because the Word of God says
that. Look at this sermon back in verse 23. He said, "...Him, Christ, being
delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God." You
see, the cross of Christ was never plan B. It was always plan
A. This is the only way of redemption. This is the only way of a hope
for a sinner. The blood of Christ. That's it. There is no other hope. Therefore,
there is no other message. There is no other message. But
Jesus Christ didn't crucify. Jesus Christ took our sins. and satisfied the justice of
God in our stead. And number two, that He raised
Him from the dead. You see, I don't preach a dead
Savior. I preach a living Savior. He's alive and He is on the throne
and He is working all things after the counsel of His own
will. And you know what He's doing? You believers, you know
what He's doing. He has one purpose. And the purpose
of everything is to save His people. That's it. So all this
little extra stuff we see going on around us is just that. It's
wheels, cogs moving together for that one purpose that God
would save His elect. That's all. The reason you're
here this morning, because God has one purpose, to save His
people. That's it. Why are you breathing? One purpose, that God may use
us to call His people. That God may use you to witness of Christ and may use that witness To call out His sheep. Isn't
that something? There's no other reason for you
to live. But to tell the message of Christ.
That's it. That's our purpose. Purpose-driven
life? Witness of Christ. Tell of His
great grace and mercy to sinners. Maybe God will use us, use our
witness. I keep thinking about that little
maid in Israel, I mean in Syria, naming the leper a great man. Who did he listen to? A little
maid. God used a little maid. and it moved a great man to go
to the prophet of Israel. Maybe God will use your witness
to have someone come under the sound of the gospel. Isn't that
something? I pray that we would pray toward that end. God, make
us bold. Teach us your Word. Give us the
message of Christ that we may speak to lost sinners. I pray this will bless your heart.