second chapter of the book of
Acts and uh... lest I forget we'll uh... baptize our sister this coming
Sunday morning if it's alright you are told it is if it's not
storming or something okay uh... the twenty uh... The 22nd
verse of that 2nd chapter. I think Peter is the spokesman
here. Peter is the preacher here. 14th
verse says, And Peter, standing up with the leaven, lifted up
his voice, and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that
dwell in Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words. So Peter is the spokesman here.
Now he says, Ye men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth
a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs,
which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourself also know."
Here I think he is insisting that they were not ignorant as
to his authority. They seen the miracles and the
signs that God had given him, and he's telling them, You're
not ignorant. You were not ignorant of who
he was. So you went into this thing with
your eyes wide open. I think one of the brethren here
said over the weekend as he was preaching that the Apostle Paul,
being such a terrible sinner, in that he had some people killed
and locked up who disagreed with his religious views, yet he said,
ìI did these things ignorantly.î He says, ìI was ignorant of it,
just downright ignorant of it. I couldnít see them.î But thatís
not the position that Peter says these fellows are in. He says
theyíre not ignorant. They're not ignorant of it. And
I guess judgment will be terrible for those who are exposed to
the truth of the gospel, you know, week after week or day
after day, throughout a lifetime, and yet maybe adopt some particular
religious or some particular creed and trust in it and go
out into eternity really not knowing Him whom to know is life
eternal. I guess judgment will be terrible
for the individual who hears and turns his back on the message. You men of Israel hear these
words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by
miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst
of you, as ye yourself also know." You know it. You know who he
was. "...him being delivered by the
determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God." That is, God planned
and purposed. the death of Christ in eternity past, no denying
that. But these people that Peter is
preaching to didn't know anything about God's determination, his
foreordination. They didn't know anything about
that. They were tools and guilty ones
at that. Anyhow, listen to the charge
that Peter makes against these people. He says, the Lord Jesus
was delivered by God, but he says, you, the people he's talking
to, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and have
slain him. So, you're responsible. you're responsible for the death
of Christ. And I guess, as I told you here
a week or so ago, the charge, one charge anyhow that God will
make against the man that's out of Christ that goes out into
eternity not knowing Christ as his Lord, one specific charge
God will make against him is that you have crucified my son. of all the other charges, all
of the other sins, everything the scriptures say which is done
in secret shall be revealed, shall be made known even on the
house tops. But this is one specific sin
and charge that God will make and take wrathful vengeance upon
all of those that have no wedding garment, or have no covering
for their sins, have no one to stand them in good stead with
God, says ye have taken, see? And that ye includes every one
of us, every one of us. We're just as guilty in the death
of Christ as we were in our rebellion in our first Father in the Garden
of Eden. We were in the loins of Adam
then, and we were in These were our representatives. These Jews here, we would have
done just like they would have had we been there. So the charge
that he makes is going to stick, and God's going to say, Now,
I've got something against you fellows. You've killed my son,
my only beloved son, my only son, the only true man that ever
lived. The only true man, the only perfect
man, the only man that really God has anything to do with is
the man Christ Jesus. God doesn't have anything to
do with anybody else apart from his Son. Every blessing under
the sun is in Christ. Did you know that? Every blessing
that you receive or have received is on the account of or through
and by the Lord Jesus Christ. God does not bless apart from
Jesus Christ. He is the true man, the perfect
man, the God-man. And here the charge is against
you and I that we have killed him. We have killed the Son of
God. Pat sang a hymn here the other
night. It was going to Who Killed Jesus? You and I have killed him. You
and I, we have to answer for that. Remember I told you, I
remember telling you that if you broke one of God's laws,
man, that will damn you. Just one, just one of the laws
of God, a man is guilty of breaking them all, but that breaking of
that one law would damn a man. And if you broke a thousand of
God's laws, a thousand different times, would not be near as bad,
you see? The breaking of a thousand laws
would not be near as bad, nor would it stand you in the awful
stead before God that this will stand a man in with God of killing
his son. I don't know how God forgives
him. Our Father must be full of love
and full of mercy to forgive humankind for killing his son. But listen now, you have taken
it by wicked hands. See, you did it with wicked hands,
with meanness and contempt and all that in your heart. You crucified
him. You killed him. The 24th verse
says, "...whom God hath raised up." God raised him up. You killed him, but God raised
him up. "...loosed the pains of death, because it was not
possible that he should behold another." God raised him from
the dead, and he's alive forevermore. He who was dead is alive forevermore,
the Lord Jesus, on the throne now. He's on the throne. king
eternal, interceding for his people, pleading our case and
our cause. One day he'll put this whole
thing under his feet and he'll come back and we'll receive him
and he'll usher in that glorious kingdom. There we shall ever
be with him, the scriptures say. God raised him from the dead.
He's alive. Death couldn't hold him, for
David speaketh concerning him. I foresaw the Lord always before
my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved."
Well, before we read on there, let me go over to that 36th verse
and remind you that the 36th verse is likened unto the 23rd
verse. where Peter concludes, it says,
Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God
hath made the same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord
and Christ. Again, the charge is made that
you killed the Son of God. Ye, you killed him. But he said, let everybody know
now, let everybody know assuredly that this Jesus whom ye killed,
God hath made him Lord and Christ. That's the reason that we've
said many times and many preachers have years before that you can't
make Jesus anything. People say, make him Lord. So
that's the trouble. You know, you hear this business
of you can be a Christian, you can be a Christian, The Lord Jesus might not be your
Lord. You come to Him and receive Him
as your Savior, but He's not your Lord. And sometime at a
later date, in a revival meeting or something like that, you'll
come around to acknowledging that He is your Lord. You'll
make Him your Lord. Now, that's the popular preaching
among fundamental Baptists. what is known as the fundamental
Baptist church, believes that you can be saved, but Christ
is not your Lord. But that's not true. That's not
true. If a man's ever saved, he is
Lord, and a man can't make the Lord Jesus Christ anything. You
can't make Christ anything. Only God can make Christ. You
can't make him do anything, and you can't make him anything by
way of conferring any title upon him. God hath made him both Lord
and Christ. God hath made him Lord. All right? For David, verse 26, Therefore did my heart
rejoice, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, also my flesh shall
rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither
wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to seek corruption. Thou hast
made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full
of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely
speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and
buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore,
being a prophet, and knowing that God has sworn with an oath
to him that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh,
he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, He, seeing this
before, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was
not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This
Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses." That is,
David wasn't talking about himself, talking about his Lord. Therefore,
being by the right hand of God exalted, that's where Christ
is. Now, Jesus, God hath raised him
up. And now he is at the right hand
of God, exalted. And 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 ascended into
the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
thou on my right hand, till I make thy foes thy footstool. And of course, when that's done,
this thing will be over with. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God hath made the same Jesus whom
ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now, when they heard
this, when they heard this charge against them, this was the charge,
the two verses that I read to you that specifically makes the
charge, and I think that At least in this case, and maybe in most
cases, the sin that the Holy Spirit convicts and brings about
a deliverance for the poor soul is this sin of crucifying the
Lord Jesus. When it's revealed to a man that by way of identity, that he is
such a rebellious, hateful, and terrible sinner before God that
he'd go to this length. It's about that time when the
Lord speaks to him and brings about repentance and faith in
his heart. Anyhow, when they heard this,
When they heard, what did they hear? God had raised Jesus from
the dead, whom you've crucified. You've crucified Him. God raised
Him from the dead. He's exalted. He's on the right
hand of God right now, exalted. And there He'll be till He makes
this whole, all of His enemies, His footstool. When they heard
this, they were pricked in their hearts. They were pricked in
their hearts by the Holy Spirit of God. And they felt themselves
undone, and they felt that they were in such a miserable condition,
and there had to be a way of escape. And they cried out, like every
sinner will cry out, What can I do? What must I do? They said unto Peter and the
rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? Is
there anything that can be done to rectify this terrible crime
that has been committed by us that we've crucified God's own
Son? What can we do? Repent. What does it mean to repent? It means a change of your mind. You've got to change your mind
about yourself and you've got to change your mind about God.
It implies also an acknowledgment to the authority of God's law
and confesses that God's law ought to be fulfilled. So I said,
repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ. for the remission of sins, and
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." Well, there's
where the Church of Christ people stand or fall right there. If
that's taken out of the Scriptures, they're finished. They haven't
got anything else that they can hang their hats on. They hang
their hats on this 38th verse, and they say that repentance and faith are things that can
be conjured up by the natural man. They say that you can do
that. You can change your mind and
you can exercise faith, that is, you can believe. And they
go to this book of Acts where Philip said to the Ethiopian
Union to answer his question when he said, See, here's water. What doth hinder me from being
baptized? And Philip told him. Philip said,
Listen, do you believe with all your heart? And he said, I do.
And so the Camelites, they take that to mean that an intellectual
ascent is all that's necessary. And so they hang all their doctrine
and theology on the 38th verse where it says, "...repent and
be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ."
That's by the authority. The name of Jesus Christ is authority. That's what that means. For the
remission of sins. It means because of. It can't mean for the remission
of sins. Because if that means further
remission of sins, there is no such thing as regeneration, you
see. We are not regenerated in the
water. That doesn't do anything for
a man's soul. If we're saved, if a man can
be saved by giving an intellectual assent to the sacred trinity,
to a belief in God the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost,
and go down in the water, and that's salvation. Then everybody
that ever believed in the sovereign free grace and free mercy of
God, everybody that ever believed that salvation is by the grace
of God's laws, See, because they're not saved that way. They're saved
because repentance and faith are inseparable graces or gifts
of God that he gives to the poor sinner. They're not works. You can't
work it up or work it down. God's got to give you repentance.
He's got to give you faith. He's got to grant unto us faith
that we might believe the gospel. So it's an impossibility for
that to mean the word for. It's got to be a mistranslation. Because it throws the whole scheme
of redemption from Genesis to Revelation out of kilter. And
just, it makes it salvation by works. And if it's salvation
by works, brethren, there's no hope for anybody. Now, that's
the honest to God's truth. If it's salvation by works, we
just, well, I'd be willing to be the first to leave if it's
salvation by works because there's no hope. There's no hope because
God's demands are too great. that we might comply with them.
I said the other day, if you can find any man who is not guilty
of breaking the law of God in any respect, if you can find
that man, he doesn't need a Savior. He'll find his way into the kingdom
some other way apart from Christ, but he'll get there if you can
find a man that can meet the absolute demands of God's law. But there will never be a man
found. except Jesus Christ, and that's the reason, brethren,
that this salvation by water is dead wrong. Well, anyhow,
it says that this promise is unto you and to your children
and to all that are far off, even as many as our Lord God
shall call. That kind of gives some indication
there to what we've said. The Lord must call people. He
must call them. He must call them. I can call
them, but they won't come. They may change their opinions
about some things, and they may go down into the creek and be
baptized, and they may consent to the articles of faith. And they may be religious and
all of that, but unless God calls them, they'll never embrace the
gospel of God's dear Son. They may embrace some gospel,
a perversion of the true gospel, and they may believe in something,
but they'll never embrace him whom to know is life eternal.
But anyhow, and with many other words did he testify, that's
Peter, and exhorts saying, save yourselves. Now, I've heard Canaanites
preach this. They say, the Bible says, save
yourselves. And they've used this. Save yourselves. That's taken it entirely out
of its context. Save yourselves from this untold
generation. Separate yourself from this generation. God's going to bring judgment
upon it. And He did. God did bring judgment upon that
generation and destroyed the Temple and destroyed all Jerusalem. Buried it. Save yourself. Get out from it. That's what
it means. It doesn't mean you can save
yourself. Now listen here. Then they that gladly received
His Word They gladly received his word. They were baptized
in obedience. And the same day, they were added
unto them about three thousand souls. This is what they did. This is what they did. This is what Christian people
did then. This is not what Christian people
do now, so-called. This is what they did then. And I'm persuaded, brethren,
if we don't do this now, there's something wrong with our Christianity.
Listen. It says, "...and they continued
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine." They continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and in fellowship and in breaking
of bread and in prayers. That indicates in church capacity,
I believe, too. I believe they did that in church
capacity. They might have met every night, but it was in church
capacity. And, of course, not just confined
to church capacity. They did that all the time. And
fear came upon every soul. Fear. And many wonders and signs were
done by the apostles. and all that believed were together
and had all things common. And they sold their possessions
and goods and imparted them to all men as every man had need. It doesn't necessarily teach
communism there. Some would have us to believe,
but they seen the need. There were some there because
of the famine and because of the time of persecution that
that needed help. This was a pretty big group.
This is a pretty big church right now. They had 3,000 souls was
added under their membership in one day. And out of those
3,000, there were some people that was in dire need of help.
And the only way that their distress could be relieved was some that
had some substance, this world's goods, sell what they had and
get some money quick and relieve the situation there. It doesn't
mean that everybody sold everything they had and brought it into
one common greenery, and somebody dispensed it all out to them
in the form of Communism. I don't think it means that.
I think it was because necessity demanded that this take place. Now, verse 46 says, And they
continued daily with one accord in the temple. Daily they continued. the breaking of bread from house
to house, and they did eat their meat with gladness and singleness
of heart." That's happy. I tell you, I'd be happy, too.
I'd be happy, too, if someone, a preacher, would point his finger
at my face and charge me with killing God's Son, and then come
along and tell me that God would forgive me on the basis of He
who I killed, and guarantee me that. I said, I guarantee you
that He who you killed is the means whereby you might receive
forgiveness for your terrible crime. And I have the witness
of his Spirit in my soul that I have been forgiven. I believe
I would be happy like that too, don't you? I believe I would
be happy. I would hate to go through this
life and when this thing is all over, God charge me with that
and say, Well, you killed my son. You killed my son. You haven't got no cover. Remember
I read to you the parable of the king making the wedding a
feast for his son to come down and say, ìHow come youíre in
here? How come youíre in here? You havenít got no wedding garment
on. Is that an accident or was that by design? Why are you here?
Answer me. Why are you here?î And he said,
ìThe man was speechless. He didnít have anything to say.î
ìWhy?î ìHe didnít have a wedding garment on. No covering for his
sins.î What happened to him? He said, bind him, bind him,
bind his hands and bind his feet and thrust him into outer darkness.
And that's what's going to happen to every soul, every soul rather,
that has not the wedding garment of the Lord Jesus. Oh, this is
the way it was back then. Those people were happy. Christ
meant something to them, meant something to them. They embraced
Him, cried out to Him. It wasn't a Wednesday and Sunday
morning, Sunday night thing like it is with most of us. It was daily. It was every day.
Their lives were in jeopardy and they had nowhere to go. They
were crowded into the corner and the only place they could... could find any relief or help
or any hope was in God. And they cried out and they joined
together for fellowship and comfort because they all believed alike.
It says that they went from house to house breaking bread, from
house to house. And I think that that's a common
meal there. I don't necessarily believe that's
the Lord's supper. I think that's a common meal.
They just met from time to time and they ate right there. They
ate their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, and
they were praising God, having favor with all the people,
praising God. And the Lord added to the church
daily, such as should be saved, God help us. We might be imitators
of those Christians in the second chapter of the book of Acts. If it ever dawned on our hearts
that we're guilty of killing God's Son, And God spoke to us,
and we can find some relief and forgiveness in Christ whom we've
killed. Why? We'll praise God, too. We'll praise him. I don't necessarily
mean to jump up and holler and shout and all that. Of course,
that wouldn't hurt if we wanted to do it. But we'll praise him. We'll not forget him. We'll turn
to him. God help us. God help us.