Beginning there at the 30th verse,
it says, "...and in the times of this
ignorance God winked at, but now commandeth all men everywhere
to repent." That's to say that the God of
heaven, in whom is all authority, For it is in him we live and
move and have our being. He hath declared in no uncertain
terms and commanded that all men, that is, all flesh, every
man, every woman, every child, everyone who can claim to be
a member of this human race, is charged by God to repent. I don't know much about repentance, but I know that God has commanded
men to repent. And what I know of repentance
is that it is a change of attitude toward God, a change of attitude toward God. It involves a complete submission
to the hand of God. bowing to the claims of God in
God's Christ. It has to do with the giving
up of oneself unto another, even to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's not too good a definition
given in the Bible of repentance. I remember reading in the first
part of this book, something that may give us some idea as
to this repentance business. Over here in the second chapter,
let me read just a few verses to you. In the second chapter
of the book of Acts, it says this, after Peter had preached
to a great host of people. The text or the theme of his
preaching is the 32nd verse of the 2nd chapter, where he says,
This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses, therefore being by the right
hand of God exalted, that is, the Jesus that we preach. God hath raised up. You killed
him. Peter, this is the preacher now
that shied and run out into the night, cursed with an old when he looked
into the face of the Lord Jesus Christ and was charged with being
his friend. And he said, I never knew this
fellow. I don't know him. I don't know him. And he went
out into the night and wept bitterly. A coward he was. But here, this
same Peter now, with renewed vigor and strength, determination,
dedication, This same Peter said, You have
killed the Prince of Life, the Lord Jesus Christ. You have murdered
the Son of God. But God hath raised Him up, and
we are witnesses of His resurrection. Therefore, being by the right
hand of God exalted, you killed Him. God reversed your decision. It was your decision to do away
with the Lord Jesus. Pilate said, now, whom do you
want me to turn over to you? This one Jesus here or this Barabbas? Who do you want? And they said,
give us Barabbas. We have no king but Caesar. give us Barabbas." This Jesus,
do with Him what you want to. We say, thumbs down to this man
Jesus. They killed Him, murdered Him,
and Peter charged them with the murder of the Son of God. But God has reversed your decision. That was your decision. You said,
we'll kill Him. We'll do away with Him. But God
hath raised him from the dead. We are witnesses, eyewitnesses
to it. And God hath exalted him on his
right hand, having received of the Father the promise of the
Holy Ghost. He hath shed forth this which
ye now see and hear. For David is not descended into
the heavens, but he saith himself the Lord. saith unto my Lord,
sit thou on my right hand, till I make my enemies, or my foes,
my footstool. Therefore," listen to this now,
"...therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that
God hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified." He charges
them with the death of the Son of God. He said you've crucified
Him, you've murdered The Lord Jesus Christ. Now, here's where
the repentance business comes in. Now, when they heard this,
what did they hear? They heard Peter charging them
with the blood of the Son of God. He said, You've killed the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now, when they heard this, they
were pricked in their hearts. The Spirit of the Living God did something to their hearts.
I like to think that the Spirit of God stabbed them in the heart. I like to believe that's what
happened. The Spirit of the Living God set His seal to the truth
that Peter was preaching and stabbed them in the heart. to
the extent that they screamed. They screamed out and they said
to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what
can we do to undo that which we have done? And Peter said
unto them, repent, repent. Change your mind. change your
attitude towards God and God's Son. And this Jesus that you have
taken with cruel and wicked hands and have crucified, have killed,
have murdered the Prince of Life, you bow to Him. You bow to Him. You receive Him. You bless His
name. This is my beloved Son. Hear ye Him. I've said for a long time that
the issue that God has with this world is not the marijuana traffic. It's not the liquor traffic.
It's not the opium dens. It's not the roadhouses. It's not the nightclubs. It's
not bad politics and bad government. It's not war. The issue that
God has with every member of this human race is this, and
this is a fact that every man must face here or now. This is a fact of truth that
God charges if you are this morning a member of the human race, God
charges you with the murder of His Son. Now, I know that you
wasn't fired, but you were, in a sense, in the loins of them
that were there. And you would have done the same
thing that they done. But if that will not convince
you that you are guilty of the murder of the Son of God, Let
me give you this illustration or example. Now, when you kill
a man, you just, well, when you, let's put it this way, when you
ignore a man, when you completely ignore a person, what do you
do? You write him off. You write
him off of your conscience and off of your mind. You write him
off of your consideration. When you ignore a man, Now, every
one of us, one time or the other, have ignored God. We've ignored
Him. We've, as much as said, we have
no need of Him. We have no need of Him. We have
not taken Him into consideration. He has not been in our plans.
He has not been in our promotions. God has been set aside. And we
have ignored him. And when you ignore a man, you
write him off and you kill him. It's death to that man. I'll
have nothing to do with that fellow no more. That fellow has
offended me or offended my family or offended my dignity, offended
my honor. And I'll just not, I'll ignore
him. When I see him on the street,
I won't speak to him. If I come into a place in a building
where he's at, I'll avoid him. I'll walk over this way where
I won't see him. I'll write him off. What we've
really done, we've killed that man in our hearts. We've killed
him. And that's the way every one
of us, every one of us, if we're a member of this human race,
Every one of us has ignored God and ignored God's Son, therefore
we're guilty of the murder of the Lord Jesus Christ and we're
just as guilty as the Jews that had the nails and the hammer
in their hands. We're just as guilty as they
are. We're as guilty as those that took up the rocks and began
to stone it. We're just as guilty. God charges
us, Jack. He says He has commanded. He
just didn't say, now, I hope you'll listen to me. I want to
give you some good advice. I want to give you some good
counsel here this morning. We have people now, all they
want to do is counsel people, preachers and religious people,
like a counsel people. God's not counseling people here. God's saying to people here,
I command you to repent. Repent of what? Repent of this
dastardly deed. I sent my son. I sent my son
into this world and you with cruel and wicked hands, you'll
kill him. I want you to repent of that.
And you either repent of that, and I'll show you here in just
a minute in Acts chapter 17 where God gives us, He gives some basis. He gives some good basis and
lays a good foundation for the fact that you better repent and
I better repent. I know that if I repent and if
you repent, it will be by the grace of God. I know that. Our
hearts are steeled in rebellion so fast and hard against God
that there's nothing we can do about it. apart from the work
of grace of God in our hearts, unless the Holy Spirit comes.
Unless He comes and stabs us in the heart. That's what we
need. I've been preaching this for
years and years and years and years. We've just about come
to the end. We've just about come to the
end. We've just tried about everything and nothing happens. And I'm
telling you, I'm telling you this morning, not only here but
in every place, unless God, the Spirit of the living God, unless
He comes in my life, unless He comes in your life, unless He
comes to this church and sets His seal to what I've been preaching,
And the Spirit of God presents Jesus Christ the only way that
He can be presented and stabs men in the hearts till they scream
out and say, men, brethren, what can we do to undo that which
we have done? They have no hope for us. That's
all they are to us. look over here in the seventeenth
chapter of the book of Acts and at the times of ignorance God
winked at but now commander doesn't say it'd be
a good idea if you would it'd be a good idea if you would repent
He didn't say like Isaiah said of all, Come, let us reason together. Let's talk about this thing.
Though your sins be as red as scarlet. They shall be, let's
talk about, let's reason. No, it'd be a good thing if you'd
repent. It'd probably be a wise thing
if you would consider God and maybe do this. No, He commanded
all men everywhere, everywhere. I don't care whether it's in
China, or East Africa, or West Germany, or Russia, or the Philippines,
wherever, wherever men are to be found, wherever the human
race is on this globe, on this planet, God has commanded every
one of them to repent. And I'm going to tell you this,
unless every one of them repents, they're going to be separated
from God. when this thing's all over with,
because everyone that finally winds... I don't care what people
say about the way I preach, or the nature of my preaching, or
the content of my... I would. I don't give the snap
of my fingers, because I know this is true, brethren. This
is true that every man, every woman, and every child, that
ever winds up in God's celestial home, where the Lord Jesus said,
I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go, there ye may be
also, and so forth. Everybody that winds up there
is going to repent. Everybody. Everybody is going
to repent. You've got to repent. I said
repentance is a gift of God. It is a gift of God. But you've
got to repent. God's not going to repent. The
Holy Spirit's not going to repent. The Lord Jesus Christ is not
going to repent. If you ever wind up and I ever
wind up at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ, it'll be because
I repented. I'll have to repent. I'll have
to change my attitude, my outlook upon God and upon His Son. I'll have to repent. Verse 31, "...because he," that's God,
"...hath appointed," that is, he hath determined beforehand,
he hath marked out, he hath marked out a man Some folks don't like to talk
about predetermination or predestination. Folks, that scares a lot of people
to talk about, oh, let's not talk about God predestining or
predetermining certain things or people or something. But nevertheless,
God hath predetermined. He hath appointed a day in the
which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man
whom he hath ordained, that's predetermined, whereof he hath
given assurance unto all men. That is, he hath given assurance
unto all men. in that God raised this Jesus
from the dead, that he will judge men, and the gauge or the measure
of his judgment will be the white heat of the perfect righteousness
of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the gauge. That's the
stick. That's the standard. Measure out here on some of this
lumber and find out how long one of the two befores
is. If you want six foot, you've got to have something to go by.
You've got to have a standard. You've got to have a rule. You've
got to have a measurement. And so you take the rule out,
and there's the inches. One, there's the feet, and you
stretch it out. And it comes to six, you mark
it right there. And you know that's how you judge
as to whether the two before six put long or not. Well, I'm
telling you, that's the way God's going to judge you and I. That's
what He said. Now, He commands all men to repent
here, and He puts some teeth in it. He puts some teeth in
His command by saying that He will judge the world in righteousness
by That man, the Lord Jesus, whom he hath ordained, whereof
he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised
him from the dead." Well, what was their reaction? Their reaction
is about the same reaction that most of us get today. It says, And when they heard
of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. That is, they laughed
at it. They said, that's funny. And
some of them said, well, I don't know. I said, I haven't given
it much thought, and if I get some time, I'd like to hear a
little bit more about this. Well, this is what I'm saying. I'm saying that what's taking place now
is that most churches, right reverends and pastors and
leaders and so forth, they're preaching to Jesus that nobody's
mad at. Nobody's mad at the Jesus of
the 20th century. Nobody gets mad at him. He's
universally liked and loved by everybody. Now, that's not the
way it was in the Bible. So there's something wrong with
the preaching of our day if men can patronize the Lord Jesus
Christ. Now I'm telling you, He will
not be patronized. He'll be hated or He'll be loved,
but He will not be patronized. The God that nobody's mad at.
That's the God of this 20th century. Nobody's mad at Him. Everybody's
head over heels, universally speaking, in love with the Jesus
that you're hearing in the modern television program, radio program. If you've got any problems, just
bring it to Jesus. That's what they say. If you
have marriage problems, if you've got any trouble in your home
with your marriage, just bring it to Jesus. He'll solve your
problem. You've got a drug habit, bring it to Jesus. He'll solve
your problem. If you've got a drink habit,
bring it to Jesus. He'll solve your problem. If
you haven't got a job, bring it to Jesus. He'll give you a
job. If you want some wealth and health and this and that,
bring it to Jesus. But brethren, what I'm saying
is that the only way that a man can come to Jesus is as a lost,
guilty sinner. And he comes to God in Christ
for the forgiveness of his sin against God. And then we'll start
talking about coming to the Lord Jesus Christ for comfort and
for health and wealth and these things. But if you don't come
to God as a lost sinner, then you've missed Him. You've got
to come to God. So we're preaching another Jesus. We've about come to the end of
a rope, Pat. We've tried about everything.
We've just about come right down to the knot, holding on to the
knot on the end of the rope. And unless the Spirit of God
comes, as I said, and puts His seal on what we are trying to
preach, unless He comes in the person of the Spirit of God to
make Christ real and cause men and churches to present Him in
such a way that men cannot patronize him and make out like they are
neutral about him. Oh no, this is what he did in
the book of Acts. The Holy Spirit came. He came
in power. He clothed the message of Peter
and James and John and these apostles. He clothed the message
with power and stabbed men into the hearts. And men screamed
and said, what shall we do? Well, Paul was preaching, or
not preaching, but singing and praying in the midnight hour.
There in jail, Paul in silence. And all at once it was kind of
like an earthquake. And the shackles fell off of
the legs and arms of Paul and Silas. And it looked like they
were going to escape, or so the jailer thought. And he said to
himself, something's taking place here. Why, he said, I'll be blamed
for the escape of these prisoners. And he took a knife and he was
about to do himself in. And Paul said, Hold it, hold
it, hold it. Do yourself no harm. We're here. And that fellow fell down. God, the Holy Spirit, stabbed
him right in the heart. And he fell down before Paul
and Silas. And he said, What must I do to
be saved? To be saved from the wrath of
Almighty God. He wasn't a bit ashamed. He wasn't
a bit ashamed. He fell right down. He said,
Dust, will I make my headquarters? And he fell down into the dust
before these two men. And he said, Is there anything
under heaven that you can say that will be of any help to my
poor heart? You better believe on
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Believe on His name, that hated
name, and thou shalt be saved and your whole family. Well,
make no mistake about it. This man Jesus, as I said, is
the gauge of righteousness. The measure of judgment will
be determined by that man, the man Christ Jesus, whom Paul said
in Acts 17, who has been marked out by God beforehand to be the
judge of all men. All men, now listen to me again,
are to be judged. in the shadow of the white light
of the perfect righteousness of the Lord's Christ. And I say
when I hear that, that I am to be judged. My poor heart, my
life, my life is to be judged in the white light of the perfect
righteousness of the Son of God. Oh, I look pretty good sometimes
when I judge myself in light of some of you. I come away feeling
pretty good. Oh, my soul, when I judge myself
in light of the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ. Oh, I want to
cover my face. I want to crawl into a hole. I want to get under a rock and
cry for the mountains and the rocks to fall in and hide me
from the face of the Lamb who is on that throne. We're going
to be judged in the white light of the perfect righteousness. The Lord Jesus Christ who lived
here these thirty some odd years And every second, every second
of the time he spent here on this earth as a man, God becoming
a man, every second he lived in absolute perfect harmony with
the will of God the Father. Every second. He never one time
had any foolish thoughts. He never one time did anything
that was contrary to the absolute immaculate perfection of God
himself. He is absolutely perfect. You
can't go two minutes. You can't go thirty seconds without
sin. You can't, you got bad thoughts?
You don't have to have bad thoughts about some evil, just have bad
thoughts about your neighbor. Have some bad thoughts about
your wife. about your children, about your preachers, about anybody! Enough to damn you throughout
all eternity. I'm telling you, brethren, that
God has commanded! He didn't say it would be a good
thing for you to do if you would. But He commanded you to repent. And He said He's going to judge
you. If you don't repent, he's going
to judge you by the perfect righteousness of that man whom you've killed
and whom God has raised from the dead, and now he's at his
right hand. So you see, when I think about
this, I say, my soul, I don't want to come into that judgment
and have to deal who use a measuring stick of that righteousness of
the Lord Jesus Christ. I don't want to be judged in
my own strength. No sir, if we could only see
how great our need is of a mediator, to stand between us and a holy
God, if we could see it. I believe the seeing would be
the effect of the stabbing of the Spirit of God with the Word
in our hearts and rendering us helpless and hopeless and guilty
before God. Oh, you've got to become guilty
before you'll ever be saved. You've got to become guilty and
only the Spirit of God by taking the Word and stabbing you in
the heart can render you to the place that you'll bow before
Him and say, I know, I killed the Son of God. I'm a sinner
against God. I've been a sinner against God
from my first consciousness in this life. I've been in steel
rebellion against God, and you don't have to do a thing for
me. You're not obligated to do anything for me. You're not obligated. And if you do, it'll be an act
of grace, it'll be an act of mercy. But I beg of you, oh,
I beg of you in the name of Him who was murdered by my hands,
who was buried and who got raised from the dead, who's sitting
on thy right hand, I beg of you in His name, save me for Jesus. Oh, if we could only see how
great our need is of a mediator, someone to stand between us and
God. Listen to me, we don't need a
shove in the right direction. I don't need some encouragement. I've got to have a mediator to
stand with one hand on God and one hand on me and get rid of
that which would keep us apart. What keeps us apart? My rebellion
and my sin. That keeps me and God apart.
We once were great friends in Adam. Something separated great
friends. God came down in the cool of
the day and had fellowship with his creation. They got along fine. God spoke to Adam as a friend. But he came down one day and
Adam had hid out in the trees. He hid. And God came down and
he said, Adam, where art thou? And he said, I'm over here. He
said, I'm naked. He said, who told you? Who told
you? Oh, he said, we ate of the fruit. Sin separated great bands. Man's been separated ever since.
So we need someone then. Don't need a shovel in the right
direction. Need more arms and encouragement. Got to have a
mediator. And there's only one mediator
between God and man. I don't care what other religions
say. Only one mediator between God and man. And that's the man. That's the man. Christ Jesus. And I need Him to have Him put
one hand on God and one hand on me. And bring us together. I'm telling you, as I told you
before, God's in earnest about this repentance business. He sure is. And He's going to
judge us. And He says here, as I read to
you, He says that He's given some evidence, something to put
your teeth in. He's going to judge us, not in
the courts of modern-day opinion, no sir, but against the white
light of the perfect righteousness of the Lord Jesus. And this assurance
He has given is that of His own power, by His own act, by His
own will, without any help from men. He raised the Lord Jesus
Christ from the dead. And He said, just as sure as
I raised Him from the dead without any help from anybody, He said,
I'm going to bring men into judgment, and they're going to be judged,
by the righteousness of that man Christ Jesus that you crucified. And if you're good enough, one
said, well, how good do you have to be? Well, you have to be as
good as the Lord Jesus. You have to be as perfect as
Jesus Christ himself to escape judgment. You've got to have
that perfection. That's what God requires. God
requires absolute perfection. He will not accept anything short
of absolute perfection. Now, if you can muster up a perfection
just like the perfection of the Lord Jesus Christ, you're going
to be all right. You'll be okay. But don't you deceive yourself,
and let anybody else deceive you. You haven't got it. And
there's no way under God's heavens you're going to get it. You haven't
got it. You've already sinned ten billion
times. And if God permits you to live,
you'll probably sin ten billion more times. And so don't be deceived
into believing that somehow, some way, that you can conjure
up some righteousness that would stand you in good stead in the
day of judgment. You haven't got it. You haven't
got it. You'll never get it. It can only be found in one place. That's all. There's only one.
The righteousness that God requires. Listen to me now. The righteousness
that God requires, God provides. God freely gives to any man that
wants it. He'll give it to any man that
wants it. But you've got to want it. You
say, where's the want come from? He's got to make you want it.
It'll be all of it when God gets through with it now. When God
gets through with it, and you stand back and look at it, and
you'll see. Unto Him be glory and honor. Unto Him, because He did it all.
He sent the Lord Jesus Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ lived the
life that I ought to have lived. Died the death that I ought to
have died. Paid all of my dues. And the
Holy Spirit came along and stabbed me in the heart and brought about
a sense of guilt against God and brought about repentance
in my heart that I changed my attitude toward God and toward
His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And I bowed to Him and I said,
Lord, I believe, help Thou my uncle. I'm trusting in Thee and
Thee alone. My righteousness? I have none,
Lord. My righteousness is the Lord
Jesus Christ. He's my righteousness. God will
accept you on that basis. We're made, the Bible says, accepted
in the Beloved, in the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to this verse
of Scripture. 2 Corinthians chapter 4 says this,
for him, that's Christ, who knew no sin in knowing, you know a
lot of it, for him who knew no sin, but became sin, that we
might become the righteousness of God in him. Well, I said brethren,
We're dying a slow death. I'm just kind of a hop, skip and jump method here
this morning, but I want you to see these things. Turn with
me to John chapter 3, I mean Acts chapter 3, one more time.
And I'm going to show you here, brethren, where I believe we're
dying a slow death, because there's nobody that I know of that is
mad at the Lord Jesus Christ. They're not mad at Him. In Acts
chapter 3, this fellow Peter and John, they was in the middle
of a big fight. Why? Because people was mad at
Jesus. They was mad at Him. Listen,
over here in John chapter 3, it says, and it comes, well you
can read the first part of it there, there's a fellow A certain
man, in the second verse, laying from his mother's womb, and he
is being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate
of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them
that entered into the temple. They carried him there every
day so he could beg. They laid him down there in front
of this gate in order that he might be able to beg from people
that come by every day. As he looked up, he seen Peter
and John, verse 3, about to go into the temple, and he asked
of Peter and John alms. Asked of them for help. He asked
for money. And Peter, fastening his eyes
upon him with John, said, I want to get your attention here for
a minute. He said, Look upon us! And that fellow, He said,
well, I'll look at it. He got my attention. Verse 5. And he gave heed unto them, expecting
to receive something of them. Expecting to receive some gifts
or some money. Then Peter said this. He said,
silver and gold have I none. Don't have any of that. I have
people stop there just to have a whip stitch and say, where
is the pastor of the church? Would you point him out to me?
Someone said, that's him over there. And he said, you got any
money? I said, I haven't got no money. Well, don't you have
any money there in your desk? No, I don't have any money there.
Well, I need this and I need that. Peter said, I haven't got any
money. Still, I don't know how the Pope, I don't know what the
Pope would, I don't know how he'd interpret this. You know,
the Roman Catholics, and I'm not being smart or anything,
but the Roman Catholics say that Peter was the first Pope. And
right now, the Pope has private jets, and he has golden crowns,
and they have billions of dollars in the banks that roam and own
multiple properties here in the United States of America. Well,
anyhow, this is the first Pope. This is what he said. He said,
I'm busted. He said, I'm busted. Silver and
gold have I none, but He said, I have got something. I have
got something. But such as I have, I've got
something. The Spirit of the living God
was with this man. And such as I have, give I unto
thee. Now notice, in the name, in the
name of who? In the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. That one that you crucified,
that one that was buried, that one that God raised from the
dead, that one that's sitting on God's right hand, it's in
His name. Rise up and walk. And they took
him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet
and ankle bones received strength And brother, he began to leap,
and he stood, and he walked, and he entered into the temple,
walking and leaping and jumping and praising God. And the people
saw him walking, they praised God. Oh, listen. And the whole congregation of
them was filled with wonder and amazement at that which had happened
to him. And the lame man which was healed
held Peter and John, and all the people ran together unto
them in the porch that is called Solomon's Greatly Wondering.
And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, You men of Israel,
why marvel ye at this, or why look ye so earnestly on us, as
though by our power or holiness we made this man to walk? He
said, The God, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the
God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus, listen to this,
Whom ye delivered up, ye crucified him, and ye denied him in the
presence of Pilate, when Pilate was determined to let him go. Ye denied the Holy One, and the
just, and desired a murder to be granted unto you. And ye killed
the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof
we are witnesses. And in His name, through faith
in His name, hath made this man strong." It was in His name,
that hated name. Oh, listen to me, brethren, this
morning and I'll quit. There's in the middle of a fight
here, a middle of a fight. Now, there's one thing that the
religious people of that day couldn't bear. And they couldn't
bear to be told about or reminded of that name. No sir, the name
of Jesus. Now these were religious people.
They were religious and they were conscientious. And I believe
they'd fight you for freedom of worship. But the mention,
but the very mention of the name of the Lord Jesus Christ made
them mad. How mad? Why they tried to put
Peter in jail, they stoned Paul to death. Just read the book
of Acts. It's just a book that depicts
one great fight. It's the demonstration of the
depravity and hatred of natural men towards the Son of God. They hated the name of Jesus. Ah, the Jesus that the early
church preached. was not universally respected
and admired. He was bitterly hated, bitterly
hated. When this lame man was healed,
you see, nobody could object to a lame man being healed. He'd been lame since his child,
maybe born that way, in his ankles and in his feet, and he couldn't
walk. And these religious people, they didn't object. No one would
have objected to him being healed. They didn't object to that. They
thought that that would be fine. Be fine, here's a fella that's
got cancer, tuberculosis, he's about to die, and all at once
he's healed. They didn't object to that. But
this lame man, when he was healed now, and I said nobody would
object, but they added fuel to the fire was this, when Peter
said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I unto
thee in the name of Jesus Christ." Get up and walk, and he did,
in his name, in his authority, in the power of the living Christ. Only the power of a living God
could heal this lame man. He leaps up and praises God and
Now Peter gets a chance to preach here a little bit, and he tells
them about the Lord Jesus Christ, who he was and what they did.
Brethren, in the book of Acts here, from start to finish, I
said at the outset that he wasn't liked and he wasn't loved. That
he is not the enthroned Jesus, not the enthroned. Now the Jesus
that's loved, in our generation is not the enthroned Jesus, not
the Jesus that's on a throne. That's not the Jesus that's loved. The Jesus that's loved in our
day is the Jesus that men can manipulate. They can either make
Him do something or help Him to do something, but He can't
do anything without their cooperation. That's the Jesus that is loved
and admired and respected in our day. A Jesus that you can
manipulate. Someone said, I decided for Jesus. I'm going to help Jesus out.
Listen, if Jesus Christ, and I say this reverently, if Jesus
Christ is so weak, so helpless, and so little that you and I
could help Him, then He ain't much to begin with. Now, the Jesus of the book of
Acts, the Jesus of the Bible, was an enthroned Christ. God
set him on a throne, and listen to me now, God turned over this
whole world, and everybody that's in it, lock, stock, and barrel,
into the hands of Jesus Christ. Your destiny does not rest with
your decision. Your destiny rests with what
God will do for you and what God will do to you. You rest
in His hands. I'm in His hands. He can do to
me whatever pleases Him. I don't know where we get this
idea that God owes us something. He doesn't owe us anything. All
He owes us is to punish us for our rebellion. Anything else,
we get the grace of God. You say, well, I'm not in hell.
It's only by the grace of God that you're not in hell, and
I'm not in hell, and hadn't been in hell years ago. It's God's
grace. Listen to me. Anything short of hell is grace. It's God's goodness to us. Well,
that's what they preached. In the New Testament, here they
preached a crucified Jesus and an enthroned Jesus, a Jesus that
was on a throne. And I'll tell you, look here
at the, and I'll quit after this verse, look here at the 4th chapter
of the book of Acts and the 26th verse. Now, I want to point out
something there to you. It says that the kings of the
earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered
together against the Lord and against His Christ. I'm telling
you that in the Bible here, and particularly the book of Acts,
the Lord Jesus Christ wasn't universally admired and respected. The kings of the earth and the
rulers, they gathered together against the Lord and against
His Christ, as against Him. Everybody's for Jesus now. Everybody
loves Jesus. What Jesus? What Jesus are you
talking about? A little Jesus that you can manipulate? That's the Jesus that this generation
is universally in love with. They love this little baby Jesus.
They get their Christmas tree out in December and put that
little doll baby out. They take him, put him out there
in the rain and the cold and the snow, put the little candles
out there. That's their little Jesus. They
manipulate Him. They patronize Him. What I'm
saying is, brethren, He will not be patronized. He'll be hated
and He'll be loved, but He won't be patronized. Listen, it wasn't
to that kind of a Christ that the kings of the earth came to
here a few years back when they came to the funeral of the President
of the United States, when some nut ambushed the President and
shot the life right out of him. And they had his funeral. in
the capital of the United States of America, the respected city
of power and freedom that men looked to all over the world,
Washington, D.C., had his funeral there. But the Lord Jesus Christ,
when all the presidents and princes and rulers from all over the
world came down to that funeral, But the Lord Jesus Christ was
ignored at the burial of the president. Well, there was some
kind of a God patronized there. There was a gospel acted out
that an atheist, the vice premier of Russia, could attend that
funeral and never bat an eye. I'm telling you, brethren, under
God, the Lord Jesus Christ must be presented as the Bible depicts
Him, as a crucified Christ, as an enthroned Christ. And unless
the Spirit of the living God comes in our presence and presents
Him as only He can present Him to our hearts, we are finished.
God help us. Read this book of Acts, will
you, sometime? Read it and just Just kind of
underscore the scriptures, and you'll be amazed to find how
many scriptures there are here that depicts the hatred of the
Jews and Gentiles alike of this man Jesus. They didn't like him.
They didn't admire him. They didn't respect him. They
hated him. They hated him. You say, well,
that was just kind of riff-raff. No, not riff-raff. These were
chief priests. These were rabbis. These were
men who had a background of religion. These were the most religious
people of their day. They hated him. They hated him
to the extent that when the council of the Sanhedrin met there, why,
it says that that fellow said, well, he blasphemed. He's a blasphemer. And that chief priest, he just
grabbed his tunic or his shirt, and he just tore it off of him
and threw it to the ground. and walked up to the Lord Jesus
after he'd been tortured and all. Walked up to him and spit
right in his face. The chief priest did that. It
wasn't a fellow from Skid Row somewhere. It wasn't a murderer
from some penitentiary. This was the chief priest of
all Israel's religion. He tore his clothes off of him.
He got down in the dust. And he said, there's no need
to talk! This fella's a blasphemer! And he walked up to Jesus Christ
and looked him right in the eye and cleared his throat and spit
in his face. And all the others there said,
let me have a turn at it too. I won't do that. I won't spit
in this man's face too. He is hated in the Bible. The
Jesus of the Bible was not universally admired, respected, and loved,
but He was hated by the majority. Hated. It was a hated Christ.
They hated Him. That name. That very name. Don't
mention that name. They came to Peter and John.
They said, listen, we heard about that lame man being healed. We
heard about that. We're going to forget about that.
But now listen. Here's what we decided to do. We're going to
leave you all Pretty good. Now, we don't want you fellas
to preach in that name anymore. We don't want you to have anything
to say in that name anymore! Or we're going to put you in
jail. And Peter and John said, well,
there's nothing much else we can do. That's what they said. They said, there's nothing much
else we can do. So we can't do anything else. We can't do anything
else! And they began to preach in that
hated name. And they got him and put him
in jail. Well, all right. Lord bless you.