Good morning. Let's open this
morning's service with hymn number 42 from your hardback temple,
number 42. All hail the power of Jesus name. Let's stand together. Number
42. ? All hail the power of Jesus'
name ? ? Let angels prostrate fall ? ? Bring forth the royal
diadem ? ? And crown him Lord of all ? ? Bring forth the royal
diadem ? ? And crown him Lord of all ? He chosen seed of Israel's
race ? He ransomed from the fall ? Hail him who saves you by his
grace ? And crown him Lord of all who saves you by his grace
and crown him Lord of all. Let every kindred, every tribe
on this terrace To him all majesty ascribe, and
crown him Lord of all. To him all majesty ascribe, and
crown him O that with yonder sacred throng
we at his feet may fall, we'll join the everlasting song and
crown him Lord of all. We'll join the everlasting song
? And crown Him Lord of all ? Please be seated. Good morning. If you'd like to open your Bibles
with me to Acts chapter two and John chapter 16. John chapter 16. Let's ask the Lord's blessings
on our time together. Our merciful Heavenly Father, we come into Thy holy presence acknowledging before thee our
complete dependence on your mercy and on your grace. Lord, we have
nothing in ourselves to bring but our sin. What great hope
we have in knowing that we have an advocate, a savior, one who
has satisfied all the demands of your holy law, one who has
put away the sins of his people by the sacrifice of himself.
Lord, we do ask that you would send your spirit in power. That
you'd be pleased to lift Christ up. That you would forgive us
Lord of our sin and increase our faith and enable us to set
our affections on things above where Christ is seated at that
right hand. Or at our need today. Is for you to save us. We ask
that you would do it. For Christ sake. For it's in
his name we pray. Amen. In the second chapter of Acts,
we have. What God does on the day of Pentecost
and sending his spirit. And I want us to think this morning
about. Our need for the Spirit of God. How dependent are we? On God
to send us. his spirit in the same way that
he sent those early believers on the day of Pentecost. We know
that without the Spirit of God, our eyes cannot be opened. Without
the Spirit of God, we'll not have faith. Without the Spirit
of God, Christ will not be lifted up, will not be given grace to
rest our hope on him. Our intention this morning is
not to focus our attention on the Holy Spirit, but just to
acknowledge our need for the Lord to send his spirit. We've quoted often that passage
where the Lord said, if you being evil, and that's what we are
by nature, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how
much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to
them that ask him? Remember when Ezekiel was preaching
to that valley of dry bones, which is a picture of what we
do every time we come together. The gospel's being preached,
prophesy. Young man, can these bones live?
Lord, thou knowest. If they're going to live, you're
going to have to do it. And what the Lord tell Ezekiel to do,
he said, preach to them, preach the gospel to them. And Ezekiel
began to preach and the bones started coming together and the
scripture says, Yet there was no life in them. And so what
did the Lord say to Ezekiel? Prophesy to the wind. On the
day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter two, the spirit of God comes
as a mighty rushing wind. And the Lord said, the spirit,
told Nicodemus, the spirit's like the wind. He listeth whithersoever
he wills. You can't control him. You don't
know where he's coming from. You don't know where he's going
to. you've got to have the Spirit of God blow in your direction.
And so Ezekiel was commanded of God to call upon the Spirit
of God to bless the gospel. Because if he doesn't do it,
there will be no life. And when the Spirit of God came,
the message of the gospel was blessed. And what did the Lord
tell Ezekiel? He said, this is the whole house
of Israel. These that have been given life,
these that have stood and now they breathe. Adam, our father
was made from the dust of the earth but there was no life in
him until God breathed life into his nostrils. We are in need
of God. The earth was without form and
void and the spirit of God, the spirit of God moved upon the
face of it. You and I are without form and
void. will not see Christ, will not believe upon Christ, will
not have the hope of eternal life, will not have our sins
taken away unless the spirit of God is pleased to come. Now
that's what the Lord, that's what the Lord said. Look, look
what, look at John chapter 16. You have your Bibles open there.
Verse seven, nevertheless, I tell you the truth. When the Lord says, I'll tell
you, the Lord doesn't have to say, I'll tell you the truth.
All he has to do is speak and it is truth. He said, I am the
way, the truth, and the life. So when God says, I'm going to
tell you the truth, he's not like us. We say, now I'm telling
you the truth. I'm not going to lie. But when God speaks, it's always
truth, isn't it? I tell you the truth. That just
gives extra emphasis to the fact that this is the word of God.
I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that
I go away. It's good for you. It's necessary
for you that I ascend back into glory and take my rightful place
at the right hand of the majesty on high. For if I don't, the
spirit of God will not come. If I go not away, the comforter
will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send him unto
you. Now you and I are in need right
now for the Lord Jesus Christ who is seated as our, as our
substitute, as our surety, as our advocate before the father,
we're in need of him to send his spirit in power. The natural man understandeth
not the things of God, for they are spiritually discerned. Apart from the spirit of God,
it doesn't matter how much Bible we've learned. It doesn't matter
how much we've been to church. It doesn't matter how educated
we are or how intellectual we are. If the spirit of God does
not come, we'll not see. We'll not see. And when he is come, When He
is come, how was the evidence of Him coming? He will reprove
the world of sin. Now, the word world here in this
verse is used in the same context that it's used in John 3.16,
okay? Has everybody in this world been reproved of their sin by
the Spirit of God? No. No. And neither did the Lord Jesus
Christ come to save the world. He came to save his people out
of the world. And that's who we are. So we
are worldlings in this world, separated from God by our unbelief
and by our ignorance. And if the Lord doesn't send
his spirit to reprove the world of sin, to bring each one of
his children to own their own sin. And of righteousness, and of
judgment, of sin because they believe not on me. There's the
root cause of our sin. We know that God has sent his
spirit effectually to our hearts when we've been brought to believe
that my biggest problem is my unbelief. Oh, Lord, help that
my unbelief. That's the cause of all my sin.
Everything else that I see as the sin problem in my life is
caused by my unbelief. The Lord Jesus Christ is the
only one who had perfect faith. Our faith is, well, we've got
an old man there, don't we? And he's always doubting and
questioning God. He's always being brought into
fear. And Lord, that's my problem. That's my problem. You know that
God has sent you his spirit when you've been brought to believe
that the only real problem you've got is unbelief. That's the only
problem you've got. And everything else that you
see as a problem is caused by that. of righteousness because I go
to my father and you see me no more." We have a righteous advocate. We have no righteousness of our
own. The Lord Jesus Christ is all our righteousness before
God. You know that you have the spirit of God when you come to
believe that you have no righteousness outside of Christ. Christ is
all your righteousness before God. You've got nothing you can
bring before God to move him to have mercy upon you other
than Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ has to
stand in your stead He has to be your advocate. He has to be
all your righteousness before God. Now, this is the evidence
of the spirit of God. It's not as we're going to read
in the second chapter of Acts in just a moment. It's not, uh,
speaking in tongues or some, some other, uh, outward manifestation. This is the work of the spirit
in the heart. This is how we know today that
the spirit of God has visited us and of judgment. Judgment
because the prince of this world is judge. You see that in the
next verse in John 16 Excuse me Now what that means is that nothing
else is necessary To put away sin and to judge evil than what
the Lord Jesus Christ has already accomplished on Calvary's cross
and Judgment. Justice is satisfied. Sin's been
put away. God is pleased. There's nothing
else you can do to add to what he's done. It's finished. It
is finished. Do you believe that? You believe
yourself to be a sinner and that your unbelief is your only real
problem? You believe that all of your
righteousness is bound up wholly, completely in the Lord Jesus
Christ before God and you have no righteousness outside of him?
Do you believe that the Lord Jesus Christ was successful on
Calvary's cross to put away sin and to satisfy justice once and
for all by the sacrifice of himself? That's the work of the Spirit
of God. Look at verse 13, how be it when
he, nevertheless, when he, The spirit of truth is come. How
do we know if the spirit of truth is come to us? Excuse me. He will guide you into all truth
for he shall not speak of himself. He's not going to call attention
to himself. Anybody that pretends to have the spirit of God and
they're given the Holy spirit and the manifestations of the
spirit, all the glory and all the attention have no nothing
about the, there's a spirit there, but it's not the spirit of God.
It's not the spirit of God. Why? Because when the spirit
of God comes, he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he
shall hear that he shall speak. And he will show you things to
come for he shall glorify me. He shall glorify me. For he shall receive of mine
and shall show it unto you. That's how we know. And we've
got to have the spirit of God, brethren. And if he doesn't come and visit
us like he did these early apostles, We're nothing more than a huddled
bunch of fearful men and women without any real understanding,
without any real hope, and without any real truth. All right, turn
with me to Acts chapter 2. Now, Pentecost was an Old Testament
a holy day that acknowledged the end of the harvest. It was a harvest celebration.
It was a celebration that God gave to Israel to acknowledge
the blessings that God had given them in providing for them the
food that they needed for the whole next year. That was the
harvest festival, Pentecost was. It took place 50 days, this is
what Pentecost means, 50, or seven weeks. Passover and you
know what Passover is that's when the lamb was slain in Egypt
and the Lord said when I see the blood I will pass over you
and a picture of Christ being sacrificed and shedding his blood
that God might be pleased to pass over our sin and now what
is Pentecost all the fruits of his labor have provided for us
the bread of life not just for the next year but for all eternity
so Pentecost is a There's a harvest celebration. That's what you
and I need. We need the harvest. We need
the food, the meat, and the drink that the Lord Jesus Christ provides
as a result of him being that lamb that was slain from the
foundation of the world. So we're not looking at just
these Pentecostal experiences as some sort of historical event,
as always is the case. We're trying to understand what
does this mean for me today? Right now, I'm sitting here today. I need a harvest. I need some
food. I need some drink. I need for
the Lord to visit me with his spirit. I need for him to point
me to Christ and to reveal Christ in me. So when the day of Pentecost
was fully come, and brethren, it has fully come. It is fully
come. When the Lord bowed his precious,
powerful head on Calvary's cross and said, it is finished. He
said, I go and prepare a place for you. It's fully come. Everything that God requires
for us has been provided by what Christ has done. We don't try
to add anything to it. How does this book end? How does
this book end? It ends with a warning. If any
man Add anything to the words of this prophecy, the curses
of this book would be added unto him. Now, what that means is
if you try to add to what the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished,
then you have nothing to look forward to, but the curses of
God. Oh, we don't do that, do we?
We look to Christ alone for all our hope. And when the day of
Pentecost was fully calm. They were all with one accord
in one place. Now here's the evidence of the
visitation of the spirit of God. He brings all of his people to
believe the same thing. Now this one accord, You remember
last week the word confess your sin is homologous to speak the
same thing. This is a conjunction word also.
And it also begins with homo which means same and the second
word means passion. And so this word one accord comes
from a word that means they all have one passion. One passion. One heart, one direction. And
the picture is that of an orchestra made up of many different instruments
being directed by the conductor who is putting together a beautiful
symphony. And they all have to be in agreement.
They all have to follow the exact directions of that one conductor,
don't they? Can you imagine? an accomplished,
polished orchestra performing Beethoven's fifth symphony. And all of a sudden the guy on
percussion in the back decides, you know, I think I'll play a
little Bach or I think I'll play, you know, something else. It's not gonna work, is it? It
just creates confusion. It creates confusion. And so
we know that the spirit of God has come When he gives to the
people of God, one passion, one heart, one desire, all for the
same thing. We saw that last week in chapter
one of verse 14. Look, these all continued with
one accord in prayer and supplication with the women and Mary, the
mother of Jesus and with his brethren. Oh, where the Spirit
of God is, there's liberty. Where the Spirit of God is, there's
liberty. There's not dissension. They
all have the same desire, the same passion. Look at chapter two at verse
46. I don't have a virus. I see you all starting to back
away from me. I don't know what it is. I've got a tickle in my
throat. I'm not sick. I do have body parts falling
out. I lost a tooth this week. I got to thinking. I said, I
lost my eyesight first and then my hearing. Now my teeth are
falling out. I guess my mind is next. Verse 46, and they continued
daily with one accord in the temple and breaking bread from
house to house and that it eat their meat with gladness and
singleness of heart, like passion. praising God and having favor
with all the people. And the Lord added to the church
daily such as should be saved. The Lord has to add to the church.
And who are those that should be saved? Who are those that
should be saved? Those whom God has chosen to
be saved. They are the ones that will be
saved. And the Lord adds to his church. Now this unity, It was all about unity around
the gospel, wasn't it? We were talking the other night.
There's a lot of discussion these days about socialism. And socialism
goes back a long way, the ideas of it. It goes back further than
Karl Marx, and it goes back further than Harmony, Indiana. It goes
back all the way to the New Testament. These believers thought, you
know, we'll just pool all our resources. And look at chapter
4 at verse 32. And with great power gave the
disciples witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ and
great grace was upon them. Neither was there any among them
that lacked for as many as were possessors of lands or houses
sold them and brought the prices of the things that were sold
and laid them down at the apostles' feet and distribution was made
unto every man according as he had need. That sounds like Marxism,
doesn't it? Every man according to his ability
gives, and every man according to his need takes. Well, let
me tell you something. It didn't work. It didn't work. For right after that, the Hebrew
and the Grecian women got into contention with one another about
the distribution of the food. And that's when Acts chapter
6 is when the apostles had to anoint elders, I mean deacons,
in order to take care of that problem. There was contention
among the believers. The early contention came as
a result of their attempt to have a socialist society. How
much do we see in the pastoral epistles about if a man doesn't
work, he ought not to eat. A man that doesn't provide for
his own household is worse than an infidel. Even widows are given
very exact, specific instructions. They're to be taken care of first
by their own family, and then if they don't have family, there's
certain qualifications they have to meet in order for the church
to provide for them. You know, socialism would work
if we weren't sinners. And one day, it will. It'll be
perfect. But right now, it's not going
to work. It didn't work in the New Testament. It didn't work
under Karl Marx or Lenin or the guy in Venezuela. It's not going
to work. So that's not what they had in common. It wasn't this
one accord that they had. Certainly believers will help
one another out. Certainly believers that have
will provide for those who are in need if that need is real
and that person's doing everything they can. That's part of the
fellowship of the saints, isn't it? The one accord that they had
was not that they pooled all their resources. It's not that
they sold all their property and brought it in and said, you
know, every man according to his need. They had one accord
about the gospel. There's the evidence of the spirit
of God. The evidence of the spirit of God is that we believe the
same things about the gospel. The gospel of God's free and
sovereign grace in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ. They believe that Jesus of Nazareth
was the second person of the triune Godhead. They believe
that he was the sovereign savior of sinners. They preached him
as the creator and sustainer of all of life, both physical
and spiritual. They lifted up. Well, that's
what the Lord said, when the spirit of God comes, he will
lift up Christ. And I, if I be lifted up, will
draw all men to me. So the evidence of the spirit
of God was not that they pulled their material wealth, it's that
they believed the same thing about the Lord Jesus Christ. They believed that he was the
lamb slain before the foundation of the world. They believe that
he was the surety of the everlasting covenant of grace that struck
hands with the father in eternity past and put his life down, laid
his life down for his ride, for his sheep. They believe that
he bore all the sins of all of God's people. of every generation
in his body upon that tree and satisfied God's divine justice. They believed that his perfect
life and perfect faith satisfied the demands of God's holy law,
that he himself is the end of the law for righteousness to
everyone that believeth. That's what they had one accord
about. You see, there's no division among God's people in regards
to that. All the divisions we see in religion today, they're
not, that's not, the Spirit of God doesn't have anything to
do with that. Find me one place in the Bible where there's any
reference whatsoever to denominations. Spirit of God didn't create denominations,
that's what man created. Why? Because one man thought
he had a better idea about things in the Bible than another and
so they each divide and they just continue to divide, don't
they? God's people don't know where the Spirit of God is. There
is unity. There's unity. They are of one
accord when it comes to the gospel. They believe that all the promises
of God were yay and amen in Christ. That in the volume of the book,
it was written of him. That he is all and that he is
in all. And brethren, whatever other
differences we might have, that will unite us. That will cause
us to have like passion, one accord, one accord. Everything else is, it's not
just insignificance, it's irrelevant. It's irrelevant when it comes
to that. They believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ was all their righteousness. They believed that the Lord Jesus
Christ with all their wisdom, whatever truth and wisdom they
were to know, they were gonna discover it in the person of
Christ. They believed that he was all
their sanctification, all their holiness and all their acceptance
before God is in the beloved. They believed that they were
as dependent upon him now to get them to glory as they've
ever been and that he is, He's their glorification. God has
made him to be our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification,
and our glorification. He's our surety. He's our sin
bearer. He's our substitute. He's all
our satisfaction before God. And he successfully put away
all the sins of all of God's people once and for all. They
had one passion about that. They believed themselves to be
in need of grace. Each of them believed themselves
to be the chief of all sinners. They did not look down their
self-righteous nose at another and think, well, you know, I'm
not, not as bad as you are. They all stood before God, seeing
that they needed grace more than anybody else. They believe that
to whom much is given, much is required, and they believe that
no one No one has been given more grace and more light and
more blessing and more truth than they have and remain as
unbelieving as they are. You believe that? That's the
Spirit of God. That's the Holy Spirit that makes
us that way. We wouldn't be that way otherwise.
We'd be arrogant and proud and self-righteous and dominating
one another and intimidating one another, wouldn't we be?
That's not the work of the Spirit of God. They owned their own sin before
God, and they believed it wasn't anybody's fault but themselves. They believed that God was sovereign.
This is the one accord. This is the like passion that
they all had. They all believed that their
God was absolutely sovereign. Now, I know that's a redundancy.
You don't have to say absolutely sovereign. If something's, if
he's sovereign, then he's sovereign. If he's not sovereign of everything,
he's not sovereign at all. That's what the very word means,
but they believed he was and is sovereign in election, that
he was his will and his purpose to choose whom he would before
the time ever began. They believed that he was sovereign
in redemption. that the Lord Jesus Christ did
not die for everybody, that he died for his bride, for God's
chosen people, and they believed that he was successful in what
he did on Calvary's cross, in putting away their sins. They
had one passion about that, one heart. They believed that their
God was sovereign in regeneration. If the Lord doesn't open the
eyes of my understanding, I'll not see. If he doesn't give me
faith, I will not believe. I'm dependent on the Spirit of
God to come and call me out of darkness into his marvelous light,
or I will have no light at all. It is not of him that willeth
nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. They
all believed. They had like passion about that. They were all in
one accord. Why were they in one accord about
that? Because the Spirit of God had made them that way. You see the spirit couldn't come,
didn't come in power until he united their hearts together
in unity. And brothers and sisters, the same thing's true for us.
Where there's no unity, there'll be no power. They were all in
one accord about the gospel and God's people always are, aren't
they? They were in one accord about
sanctification. They didn't believe that sanctification was progressive
and that they could somehow get better and better and less and
less sinful and become less and less dependent upon God's grace.
No, they believe themselves to be more center to that today
than they've ever been before. And more needful for God's grace
than ever before. They believe that the Lord Jesus
Christ was the one who had to take them into glory and present
them faultless before the throne of God, or they would have no
hope. They were all in one accord. And my question is, has the spirit
of God visited us? Has he made us to be this way? Turn with me to Acts chapter
15. This one accord, by the way,
this word of like passion is found one time, I think, outside
of the book of Acts. And the rest of the time, the
other six or seven times it's used is in the book of Acts.
Isn't that appropriate? This is the, this is the, This
is the creation of the church. This is the acts of what we call
the acts of the apostles or the acts of the Holy Spirit, the
acts of God. This is the birth of the church
and the development of the church and the spread of the church.
And this one accord, this like passion is used over and over
again in the book of Acts to describe what God is doing in
bringing his people together. Acts chapter 15. Now, Paul had come back to Jerusalem
and reported the salvation of Gentiles to the other apostles. And they're still struggling
with this thing. They're still trying to figure out, you know, how
can the gospel be for those outside of Israel? And the Lord's teaching
them. And this is the teachable moment
when Paul stands before the other apostles at the Jerusalem council
in Acts chapter 15 and tells them what God had done And the
evidence of what God had done was the sending of his spirit
to the Gentiles. And the apostles all stood up
and said, how can we deny that? If the spirit of God's there,
then God's involved in it. We can't question what God's
doing. And so they sent Paul and Barnabas back to Antioch
with a letter. And in chapter 15 at verse 24, We read, for as much as we have
heard, this is what's in the letter that they send back to
Antioch with Paul and Barnabas. For as much as we have heard
that certain which went out from us have troubled you with words
subverting your soul saying you must be circumcised and keep
the law to whom we gave no such commandment. So there were false
apostles. These were the Judaizers. These
were the ones who would have said, yes, Jesus is necessary
for salvation, but he's not sufficient. And most of Christianity today
is just that. They're just a bunch of Judaizers.
Jesus Christ is the son of God and he's necessary for salvation,
but he's not sufficient in and of himself. You got to do your
part. That's exactly what they were saying. Nothing's changed. And so now the apostles write
a letter to the believer, the Gentile believers in Antioch
and say, we didn't send them. We did not send them to you.
They are subverting your souls. They are twisting the word of
God. They are, they are taking you
away from the gospel of God's grace. Verse 25, it seemed good unto
us being assembled with one accord to send chosen men unto you with
our beloved Barnabas and Paul, men that have hazard their lives
for the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. I like they've hazard
their lives. Rather than you stand for the
gospel, you're going to hazard your life. And unfortunately
we live in a day and age where we don't have to worry too much
about being put to death for the gospel, but people will kill
you with slander. They will kill you. They will
cut you off from friendships and relationships quicker than
anything. You've gone, if you hazard your life for the gospel. One accord, we all agree. No, this idea of having to be
circumcised and having to keep the law and having to do your
part in order to make what God did work for you, it's not from
us. And we're all in agreement about
that. How do we know we have the spirit
of God? Because we're all in agreement that that false gospel
that's being preached out there that says that God loves everybody
and Christ died for everybody and God wants everybody to be
saved. Man's got a free will and you got to do your part in
order to make what God did work for you. We are one in chord. One accord, it's a lie. It's
not true. Now, go back with me to our text
real quickly. You know what? I'm going to save
this. It's going to take a few minutes
to develop and I want to save it for the next hour. So let's
take a break and we'll come back.