Seeking for the help of the Lord,
I direct your prayer for attention to the Acts of the Apostles,
chapter 3, and reading from our text, verse 18 and 19. But those things which God before
had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should
suffer, he has so fulfilled. Repent ye therefore, and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord. Acts 3 verse 18
and 19 Christ's sufferings foretold and fulfilled. There are many
prophecies in the Old Testament that prophesy of the coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, his birth, Emmanuel, God with us. They prophesy
also of his death, they prophesy of his resurrection, of his ascension
also into heaven. also of his ministry as well. But one thing that is prophesied,
and which is highlighted here by the Apostle Peter, is not
his birth, or resurrection, or those things, but his sufferings. And we know, of course, with
the prophecy of his death, are included there, but it is very
specific how he says here, those things which God before had showed
by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer. A suffering saviour. Our text highlights that part
of the walk of our Lord Jesus Christ. And what then is also
highlighted, and must by implication, God himself cannot suffer as
his divinity, his Godhead, as altogether divine. It must be
God manifest in the flesh. It must be as born of a woman,
our Lord Jesus Christ, from his divinity, from the Godhead, true
God, and from his birth through Mary's line, a true humanity. And it is in that humanity and
his voluntary humiliation, his obedience, even unto death, the
death of the cross, was truly in the same nature as those whom
he came to redeem. So those sufferings are in a
measure, or more than a measure, or ours are in the same measure
as our Lord in body and also in soul. And so it is the thought
this evening to consider those sufferings, firstly, that which
was showed by the mouth of all his prophets. And then secondly,
that Christ has fulfilled that which was foretold. And then
lastly, as an application, as based on verse 19, where our
sin is seen to be the cause of Christ's sufferings, we are called
to repentance and not to despair. Firstly then of Christ's sufferings. Now the Apostle emphasizes here
that it is in the mouth of all his prophets. He mentions this
again in verse 21 regarding the Lord's coming again. God has
spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world
began. You know, as I read this and
searched up and tried to find, there are many prophecies that
it's very hard to actually see. the foretelling of Christ's sufferings. There are those, and we hope
to mention those in a moment, that very, very clearly do. But
the Apostle, he says here, all, all. And so it should be our
desire as we look into all of the prophets to see there the
sufferings of our Lord set forth, maybe in places where many people,
the commentators, many do not actually see and do not recognize
that they are speaking of the sufferings of Christ. But this is the testimony of
the inspired Word of God. I want to look at some of those
that are very clear. Firstly we would think of Moses
in the first books of Moses and how that's the first promise
of our Lord Jesus Christ in Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 that the seed
of the woman should bruise Satan's head and thou shalt bruise his
heel. And right with that very first
promise, it's speaking of the Lord being bruised, the seed
of the woman, that that redemption and that work that was to be
carried out would involve suffering. And again, bound up with this
is the fact that he was to be made flesh and the first promise
of course pointed immediately to that, that our Lord should
come to this world and that his life, his death, would involve
suffering. We also think of the Paschal
Lamb, the Passover, the bloodshed. Without the shedding of blood
there is no remission. And so there is to be that suffering
in the fire of the flame of the sacrifices, in the shedding of
blood, that was to be set forth by Moses. We could include, if
we looked earlier on, even like with the ark, How that when the
wrath of God came upon the old world, then Noah and those who
were with him, they sheltered in the ark. The ark was what
bore the wrath of God. The ark was born up in the waters. The rain descended, it fell on
the ark, it didn't fall on those sheltering within it. And we
have a beautiful time of our Lord Jesus Christ in that way
as a suffering saviour, a hiding place, a refuge, that that bore
the wrath and that bore the vengeance of God upon it or upon the Lord
and not upon those sheltering within. Then we think of David. the Psalmist David a thousand
years before our Lord Jesus Christ. And we have the sufferings foretold
in Psalm 22, the very first verse, the hiding of a father's face. My God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Who not forget that that is a
cause of suffering? We think of Job, oh that I knew
where I might find him, another one of the prophets, that I might
come even unto his seat. A path of affliction and Satan
especially attacking Job and permitted by God to do what he
did to Job. And so we have intimations there
of the suffering that was at the hand of Satan. But in Psalm
22, again we have the pointing to what he should endure. In verse 13, they gaped upon
me with their mouths as a ravening and a roaring lion. I am poured
out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is
like wax, it is melted in the midst of my bowels. My strength
is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue cleaveth to my
jaws. Thou hast brought me into the
dust of death, for dogs have compassed me, the assembly of
the wicked having closed me, they pierced my hands and my
feet. I may tell all my bones, they
look and stare upon me. They part my garments among them
and cast lots upon my vesture. And by the mouth then of David
is told the sufferings of our Lord. And further, in Psalm 69,
we have the The whole psalm really setting
forth his sufferings, but we have in verse 21, they gave me
gall also for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar
to drink. And throughout the psalm is the
intimation of all of the sufferings of our Lord Jesus Christ. When
we turn to the prophet Isaiah, then in Isaiah 15 and verse 6,
I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that fucked
off the hair. I hid not my face from shame
and spitting. And of course, the well-known
Isaiah 53, that speaks of the sufferings of the Lord predominantly,
how that he suffered at the hands of men, despised and rejected
of men, how that he was smitten of God, and afflicted, how that
he was wounded for our transgressions, bruised for our iniquities. The chastisement of our peace
was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed. You are told how
that the Lord laid on him the iniquity of us all, how that
he was oppressed and he was afflicted, how that he is brought as a lamb
to the slaughter. how that he was taken from prison,
how that he was cut off out of the land of the living. For the
transgression of my people was he stricken, and that it pleased
the Lord to bruise him and to put him to grief. He shall see
the travail of his soul. All of these prophecies is pointing
to sufferings. These are what the apostle was
pointing to. We think of the prophet Daniel,
who prophesied of the Messiah, that Messiah shall be cut off. And again, we are pointed to
his death, to his being cut off. Then we think of the prophet
Zechariah, and how that they shall look upon him in Chapter
12 and verse 10, that they shall look upon him, me, whom they
have pierced. They shall mourn for him as one
mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for him
as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn. We have also
the following chapter, S13, when awake a sword against my shepherd,
against the man, That is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts. Smite
the shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered, and I will turn
mine hand upon the little ones. Those are very clear prophecies
of the sufferings of the promised Messiah, the Redeemer, the Saviour. There are also, of course, all
of the sacrifices, the blood that was shed in great multitudes
of the lambs and of bulls and of goats, that all set forth
that the redemption was in a path of suffering. We think of the
types as well, like Joseph. Joseph, a type of Christ, he
came to position next to Pharaoh, was through a path of suffering,
a suffering at the hands of his brethren. a suffering at the
hands of those that he was sold to and then brought into prison,
the same as what was prophesied of our Lord. He is brought from
prison and from judgment. So was Joseph. We think of Jeremiah
brought into the dungeon and the sufferings that he walked
through as well and was foretold in his prophecy. Ezekiel as well,
and many of the prophets, Hosea and others like him, were called
to do things that involved sufferings concerning their wives, concerning
lying in awkward positions, doing difficult things. It was brought
before the people that the message of salvation, the message of
the Lord, was to be brought in a path of suffering. And so this is the message that
the Apostle is bringing before the people here, God using the
miracle to draw their attention to them, and so that they don't
take the credit themselves, they're pointing to the Lord Jesus Christ. We think of those two on the
way to Emmaus. They had seen the sufferings
of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, but they did not put
together the sufferings of the one that they knew, heard his
ministry, seen the miracles that he'd done, and the one that they
trusted should have redeemed Israel. They didn't link And that's why the Lord Jesus
Christ drew near to them. And when he chastised them and
rebuked them, he said, ought not Christ to have suffered these
things and to enter into glory? This very point the apostle is
bringing up, they seem to have overlooked. It was that which
was, you might say, offensive. the very thought of those saying
to the Lord on the cross, if thou be the Christ, save thyself
and us. If thou art the Christ, come
down from the cross, we will believe thee. The idea that it
was God's way, God's appointment, that he endure the cross, despising
the shame, and then be sat down at the right hand of the throne
of God, they couldn't enter into this. And so it is with us as
well. We should remember, if this was
the path of our Lord, then this will be also the path of the
people of God, that they also know what it is to suffer for
the Lord's sake. We think of what was said of
Saul of Tarsus, I will show him what great things he must suffer
for my name's sake. The Lord says, they have persecuted
me, they'll persecute you, that if they've kept my word, they
will keep your word. He says, I have given them thy
word that is the people of God, thy word, and the world hath
hated them. It is a path as well that is
set forth for the people of God so that they are not offended
that they are not surprised, that they know not, think it
a strange path. Peter, he says, think it not
strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you as
though some strange thing happened unto you, but rejoice as much
as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings, that when he shall
appear, ye shall also appear with him. And so it is a very
vital thing to clearly see this is what was appointed to our
Lord, and this is appointed for the people of God, each in their
measure, some in very severe ways. We read of those at the
end of Hebrews 11 that suffered in many ways. Those that were
tortured, those that were scourged, those that suffered in many different
ways, and yet they held on, believing, trusting in the Lord, in the
coming Saviour. And no doubt, some of those in
their sufferings had an eye to those prophecies that pointed
that the one that was to redeem them, the one upon whose hope
they were looking for eternity, was indeed a suffering saviour. So I want to think then, secondly,
of those things being fulfilled. Christ hath fulfilled that foretold. of how the disciples may well
have overlooked much of the suffering that our Lord endured even before
he came to the cross. He says, how long shall I be
with you? How long shall I suffer you?
We read in Hebrews that he endured the contradiction of sinners
against himself. They called him the prince of
devils as Beelzebub. They contradicted him. They baited
him. They laid snares for him. They
tried to cast him down from the top of a hill. They tried every
way to take from him the testimony that God was his father. The Lord knew sufferings before
he came to Calvary. that when he comes there, those
sufferings first began in the Garden of Gethsemane. There was
laid on him the iniquity of us all. There he first sweated those
great drops of blood falling down unto the ground. The words of Isaiah, thou hast
laid on him the iniquity of us all. And we think of that suffering. The disciples, could ye not watch
with me one hour? Could they not bear any part?
No, that suffering must be borne by the Lord. He is the nail in
the sure place. Hung upon him is all the sins
of his people. All his people hung upon him.
And then he shall be cut off as Daniel prophesied, he should
be slain. Ought not Christ to suffer these
things? Our Lord in that garden, when
Peter drew his sword, put up the sword within its sheath,
the cup which my father hath given me, shall I not drink it?
Thinkest thou that I cannot pray the father he presently give
me, whose twelve legion of angels But how then should the Scriptures
be fulfilled? And the part of the Scriptures
to be fulfilled was his sufferings. That must needs go through. When
he told, foretold of his sufferings, and Peter withstood him and said,
Be not that unto thee, O Lord, he turned and rebuked him. Get
thee behind me, Satan. Thou savest not the things that
be of God, but the things that be of men." Because in effect,
Peter was saying, you are not to suffer. That is not your path. But that was the path. That was
the path that was foretold and set forth. And so he is brought
forth from prison. He is brought forth before the
judgment seat. He was wept before he was crucified. The flowers ploughed upon my
back. I gave my back to the smiters. What we read of in Isaiah 50
verse 6, but also it is in Psalm 129 the same, pointing to that
agony, that sufferings, and them being crucified, they pierced
My hands and my feet, also his temples with the thorns, the
sufferings that he endured while he yet lived on the cross. These things that the Lord went
through as I looked upon him, As he was a spectacle there,
as he was lifted up above the earth, as he uttered those words
exactly as David had foretold, my God, my God, why hast thou
forsaken me? Each one of these is fulfilling
those scriptures. He is suffering as was foretold. And yet those dear disciples,
they saw those sufferings. and they didn't see the scriptures
being fulfilled, not until the Lord opened it up to them, not
until he showed it to them, is something that we would recoil
from with the idea that there could be salvation some other
way, an easy way, a path that didn't involve suffering. Remember
what was said concerning Moses, that Moses, in verse 22, said,
truly, a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto your brethren
like unto me. Him shall you hear in all things
whatsoever he shall say. unto you, that Moses that was
plucked from the water, that was chased, as it were, from
Pharaoh's court, that dwelt in the wilderness, that, as we read
in Hebrews, chose rather to suffer affliction with the people of
God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. And so the record of our Lord's
sufferings puts the seal that this truly is the Christ that
was set forth, doesn't undermine it, which it appears the apostles
at first thought, and this is why the apostle here chooses
to highlight this specific path of our Lord of Emmanuel. not
his coming, not his birth, but specifically his sufferings. And we would remember that the
ordinances that God has given, the Lord has instituted for the
Church of God also set forth these same things. Baptism is
burial into death and then rising again is sufferings in dying,
is set forth in baptism, in the Lord's Supper, his broken body,
his shed blood, our attention constantly is drawn to his sufferings
and what was brought about through those sufferings, through sufferings
made perfect, through sufferings putting away what we deserve,
what we should have eternally, what God's people would have
had, and those outside of Christ will have. Remember, it is the
wrath of God that shall make hell what it is, and it was the
wrath of God that fell upon the Lord. In 1 John, we read that
his sacrifice was a propitiation, a wrath-ending sacrifice. and it ends for the people of
God, the Lord hath borne their sufferings. Hymn writer says,
we do but taste the cup, thou alone has fully drunk it up. What I want to draw from this
is what Peter does. When Peter sets forth before
those here, remember those here had been the ones that had killed
the Lord. He clearly charges them with
this, ye denied the Holy One and the just, desired a murderer
to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life, whom God
hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses. And having
said this before them, and then clearly showed that these sufferings
were foretold, ordained of God, that Even what they did, sinful
as it was, it was fulfilling the Scriptures. Then he has a
word of application to them. Repent ye therefore and be converted,
that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord. For those he is
immediately addressing, the first call was repent, in other words
turn from their thought that this was an imposter, a malefactor,
and believed that he truly was the Christ, he was the Messiah,
he was the one that all of the prophets had foretold. That it changed their mind and
changed their whole thinking on concerning the Lord Jesus
Christ. They were to walking a completely
opposite path than the path they had been walking before. The
call then, we might bring this into a gospel day, wherever God
sets before a sinner his beloved son, where He is lifted up before
them, where they see that it is their sins, where it is our
sins that have pierced Him, that they may have done the deed,
but God had laid on Him the iniquity of us all. And when we see this,
when we view these prophecies of the sufferings of Christ,
that the sufferings were needful to bear our sin, to put our sin
away, to be in our place where that is seen, where we realise
that and feel that. They shall look upon him whom
they have pierced, they shall mourn before him. We think of
those in Acts 2 where they were pricked in their heart when they
were charged with these things. Conviction of sin is a real thing. David says, against thee, the
only have I sinned and done this evil in thy sight. Repentance is toward God. It's not like the repentance
of Judas, who came, realized he was wrong and threw down the
money. I betrayed the innocent blood
and led to despair, or like Esau, After he'd sold his birthright,
he sought a place of repentance with tears, and yet he found
it not. It was just a regret he thought
he'd missed out on the inheritance of the firstborn. There's no
godly sorrow toward God. But with David, when he had committed
adultery and murder, then it was against the Lord. And though
he had been forgiven, though Nathan said, as soon as David
was convicted when he was given the picture of the poor man's
lamb. And David said, and Nathan said,
Thou art the man. And David fell under that. I
have sinned. As soon as that was said, then
Nathan said, The Lord hath also put away thy sin. How could he
say that? Because David had been brought
to see his sin, acknowledge it, confess it. And in doing that,
then it was clearly seen that is linked to what Christ did
at Calvary. It is only those for whom Christ
died that really see what the Lord has suffered for them and
in their place, that have any idea of the sufferings and agonies
that the Saviour went through. And when that is realized, Then
there is that call to be turning unto Him, repenting with godly
sorrow. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us our sins. But there's another
aspect to this, because repentance is a gospel gift. You know, the
gospel is completely free. There are no conditions for the
gospel, or perhaps we might say one of which the hymn writer
says, all the fitness he requireth is to feel your need of him. But we mustn't put anything and
say, well, to have the benefits of the gospel, you must repent.
To have the benefits of the gospel, you must believe. To have the
benefits of the gospel, you must change your life. All of those
things that is the Gospel, the Lord is exalted to give repentance
and remission of sins unto Israel. He gives all of those benefits
and all of those blessings. It is a perversion of the Gospel
to actually put conditions on receiving the benefits of the
Gospel, because those flow from the Lord Jesus Christ. He begins
the work of grace. He brings a sinner to conviction. He brings one to feel their sinnership. He brings them to look upon the
Lord in his sufferings. The Lord says, no man cometh
unto me except the Father which sent me draw him. And then he
says, and I, if I be lifted up above the earth, will draw all
men unto me. So they're being drawn unto a
suffering Saviour, drawn unto Him upon the cross. And when
we are drawn there, we have this assurance and the promise that
the blessings of the gospel are ours. He will give godly sorrow. He will give repentance. We are
exhorted to it. We are to seek to do so. But those blessings flow from
Him. He gives it. He softens the heart. He draws out the affections.
He gives God this sorrow. He brings us to mourn over our
sins and after Him. Those things, and forgiveness
joined with it, they are the fruits and blessings of the Gospel. Oil and wine to heal and cherish,
Jesus still to Israel gives. It is like the man stripped and
wounded, that the Samaritan came right where he was, poured in
oil and wine, healed him, did everything that he needed. That
is the gospel. The law is what condemns us. The law is what brings us in
as guilty. The law is what brings in men
so that they have no hope in themselves. And all the world
might become guilty before God, but it is the gospel that provides
every blessing and every favour. It is true The message of the
vital need of repentance flows from the beginning of the word
to the end of the word. Because all we like sheep have
gone astray, we're all going the wrong way. If there is never
a turning, we're all men most miserable which are perished
eternally. But the only real turning, only
saving turning, is that which is wrought by God himself. and
wrought when sinners view the Saviour like these did under
the preaching, like those who are appointed to a suffering
Saviour. And then the application is the
repentance, and joined with it the sins blotted out, and the
expectation of those times of refreshing, times of blessing,
from the Lord. And some of us can know, since
we've been converted, those blessed times of refreshing, times of
blessing under the Word, times of help, times of being lifted
up, times of really encouraged, times of being softened down,
as the Lord has shown us some aspect of his sufferings, of
his death, and what he has gone through. The people of God will
not be unmoved. when the Lord reveals himself
to them in this way. And so Peter, he clearly sets
before them and set before us this evening those things which
God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets that
Christ should suffer, he has so fulfilled. The Lord has his blessing. Amen.