Okay, let's turn in our Bibles
to Acts chapter 5. We are looking at this section
of Acts because it's now coming up next year will be the 10th
year that our church has been meeting. And so we're looking
at Acts, we want to try and spend some time in Acts and we're looking
at it on the basis of foundations. The foundations laid for the
Church of God, foundations in terms of the declaration of the
Gospel, the foundations in terms of the way that the Gospel is
received amongst people in this world, the foundations of so
many things are here in these chapters and so when you, if
we come to be led of the Lord to see what's written here. We
will then, when we come to other issues, we can go back to that
foundation and see those things laid. One of the wonderful things
about the story of Acts, of course, is that it's in this city which
had a million people in it. and the events of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus, the events of the crucifixion, the events
of the Lord Jesus reigning on high and sending forth the Holy
Spirit and causing these things to happen, the healing miracles
and the other things, they are all the work of a living God. They are all the work of a living
and reigning God. They are all the work of a living
and reigning God who operates always in perfect accordance
with what He has promised. So all of what is happening here
is exactly what was promised. Promised in the Old Testament
Scriptures, promised by the Lord Jesus Christ, promised to His
people, promised and written down as one of the great Comforts
of our faith, isn't it? That it was actually there. If
you were there 2000 years ago, you would have borne witness
to these things. That's what the early church
is and that's what the church is in the rest of its days. That
is a body of people raised up by God himself to bear witness. to bear witness to historic events,
to bear witness to historic events as the scriptures are unfolded
before our eyes. And the wonder of the Christian
life is that nothing has changed. God's people in this world are
continuing to bear witness to the Lord Jesus Christ and they
are continuing to bear witness to His saving grace and His mercy
in the lives of all His people. History, as we serve, is the
history of God unfolding exactly what He has purposed and He has
promised. And so nothing, nothing happens in this universe outside
of His sovereign control. Nothing happens in this universe
outside of what He has written. And so we find great comfort
in the Word of God, but we also find great comfort in the fact
that these are historic realities. And one of these realities, of
course, is that the opposition, the Lord Jesus led his people
back into Jerusalem, into the very place where just weeks earlier
the Lord Jesus had been tried in that fake trial, the fake
trial of Pilate, the fake trial of Herod, the fake trial of the
of the religious leaders, and the Lord Jesus takes these people,
these apostles, these fishermen from Galilee, who just weeks
before had been cowardly hiding in rooms, people denying and
swearing as He denied the Lord Jesus in the face of a little
servant girl. These men stand before the very
people who had just put the Lord Jesus Christ to death, and they
stand there as bold as lions. And in chapter 5 we have them
being arrested. They're arrested and they're
put in a common prison with all the common felons and the angel
comes in verse 19 and he opened the prison doors and he sent
them out and he said, go and speak in the temple to the people
all the words of this life. And the apostles went to the
temple and The Sadducees and that great Sanhedrin had all
gathered together and there they were gathered to have a trial
of these men that they had put in prison and that they can't
find them in the prison. They're out preaching in the
temple. Rather than running away, they actually went back to the
very place where they had been arrested. And then they are brought,
finally they are brought the next morning before this group
of religious leaders. no different from the religious
leaders of this world today. And in verse 28 they say, didn't
we straightly command you that you should not preach in this
name? Behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine
and intend to bring this man's blood upon us. Then Peter and
the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather
than men. The God of our fathers raised
up Jesus whom you slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted
with his right hand to be a prince and a saviour, for to give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses of
these things, and so also is the Holy Ghost. and God hath
given to them that obey Him." Now there are several things
in these verses, aren't there? There is a simple description
of how Christians are to live in this world. There's a simple,
simple summary of the Gospel. If someone wants you to give
them a summary of the Gospel, here it is in these verses. And
then there is the extraordinary gifts the gifts of the Lord Jesus
Christ, the gifts of repentance and the gifts of forgiveness
of sins. I'm interested in those gifts.
I'm also interested in the fact that the Holy Ghost is given
to them that obey Him. I want to know about those things.
I want to know what that repentance is like. I want to know what
it is to be forgiven of sins. I want to know the Gospel. I
want to know and I want to have the blessed Holy Spirit as a
gift from God. And I trust you might be interested
in them as well. It is. It is a great history
that we have before us. So let's just look firstly at
what Peter and the other apostles answered and said in verse 29. They said, Quite simply, we ought
to obey God rather than men. It's a simple instruction, isn't
it? For all of life decisions, it's a simple instruction, a
simple word for all of God's children. It's a simple word
for all of God's preachers. We ought to obey God rather than
men. We ought to obey God rather than
the wisdom of our own thinking. We just simply have childlike
trust. in the Lord Jesus Christ. It
is. There is in the Scriptures this
remarkable thing called the obedience of faith. Obedience of faith. At the bookends of that great
book of Romans is the obedience of faith. It's simply trusting
Him, isn't it? It's simply looking away from
ourselves and looking to Him. There is a Gospel to be obeyed. There is a Lord to be lived before. There is a Lord to be obeyed. The Lord Jesus said to them in
Luke 6.46, why do you call me Lord, Lord? Why do you call me
Lord, Lord and do not do the things that I say? So what does disobedience look
like? It is just obeying God rather than men, and it's simply
to believe the Gospel, isn't it? It's a simple God-given gift
of simple believing the Gospel, a simple childlike trust in the
One whom you know and love. You cannot trust Him if you don't
know Him. And if you know Him, you'll trust
Him because He'll reveal Himself. He reveals Himself to us, to
His children as the faithful one. And here we have a simple
summary in these next verses of the Gospel. It is remarkable,
isn't it? There were these religious leaders
thinking as they crucified the Lord of Glory that they were
doing God's service. They will, at the end of this
meeting, they will flog the 12 apostles with 39 lashes. It means to flay their back.
It means literally to skin them. They were these religious leaders
and they were thinking that they were doing God's service. And
so Peter confronts them directly and he says, the God of our fathers,
they're speaking of Jews to other Jews, aren't they? The God of
our fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the one God,
the God that you are claiming to worship, the one God, that
is above all other gods, the God who made covenant promises
to our fathers and those fathers walked by faith in Him, the God
that they all attached their physical lineage to. They all
saw themselves as descendants of Abraham and descendants of
Isaac and descendants of Jacob and the 12 patriarchs. So they
claimed to worship this God, and Peter is declaring to them
that this God, this God, the God of our fathers, has raised
up Jesus. The God of our fathers has raised
from the dead this man Jesus of Nazareth. this man who was
born of a virgin and born under the law, this man who lived 33
and a half years before them, this man who had 3 and a half
years of public ministry before them, declaring himself at the
beginning of his ministry to these religious leaders, he simply
said to them in terms that they understood with absolute clarity,
he said, I am God. I am God and you have 3 years
to examine me. I am the Lamb of God and you
have three years to find any fault in me. I am God. I reign and rule over all things."
And in that earthly ministry he showed himself to be the creator. He showed himself to be the one
who owned and controlled life. He showed himself to be the one
that ruled over demons. He ruled over disease. He ruled
over everything in this world. And he ruled over it for a purpose,
didn't he? He ruled over it for a purpose.
that he would reveal himself to his own as a merciful God
and a great high priest. And he ruled over them in such
a way that they were caused by the simple work of his Holy Spirit
to see and to bow to the fact that he is God. and He is raised
up. The resurrection is promised
in the Old Testament throughout the Psalms, throughout all of
the writings of the Old Testament. The resurrection of the Lord
Jesus is declared again and again and again. The Psalms declare
Him coming, declare Him being treated as He was by men and
then being dead and buried and raised to life. It was just the
fulfilment of the Old Testament Scriptures. Together with my
dead body shall they rise. He was there as this lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. He was raised up. He was raised
up to Heaven's glory. And all of what happened in Acts,
all of what was poured out is just the outworking of the Lord
Jesus Christ from His throne in Heaven. He was raised up.
He's raised up. He's raised up by His Father.
They put Him to death, but He was raised up to reign. You put
Him to death by your wicked hands, and God has raised Him to reign. He's raised up because death
could not hold Him. He's raised up because the curse
of the law is consumed and put away. He was raised up because
the sin of His people is put away. That's the only reason
He died. He died because He was made sin for His people and He
was raised up by God because those sins are gone and they
are gone forever. He's raised up to show that all
these people are now justified, redeemed and justified. He's raised up to reveal the
fact that He is the Holy One and just. He is raised up to
be Lord and Christ. He's raised up to be Prince and
Saviour. He's raised up to reveal all
the glorious attributes of our God. But He's raised up to reign
and to rule. And that's exactly what he does.
He reigns and rules over everything in this universe. He reigns and
rules over the thoughts of men. He reigns and rules over the
actions of men. Our God reigns. He reigns in such a way that
his people His people find His reign and His rule the delight
of their lives. Don't you love, brothers and
sisters in Christ, that He is sovereign and we are not? Don't
you love, don't you look back on your life and you love the
way He has reigned and ruled? Just think of the life of us
here and the life of this church and the way He has, in remarkable
providence, reigned and ruled over all things. And He's reigned
and ruled over our enemies. He's reigned and ruled over our
sin. He's reigned and ruled in such
a way that those that stood opposed to the Gospel have actually been
our servants. The enemies of God are the servants
of God's people. That's how absolutely he reigns. He works all things for the good
of those who love him and are called according to his purpose. That's what he's raised up for,
isn't it? He's raised up not as a defeated king, but he's
raised up to reveal the fact that he is a king. And he sends
forth this Holy Spirit that they see, he has been raised up. You
slew him and you hanged him on a tree. That's what men did. That's what men did when they
had the one opportunity that all of history would ever provide
them. The one opportunity to do what
you want to do with God. You'll sloot-slay him and you'll
hang him on a tree." You see, it's very fascinating, isn't
it? In these Gospel declarations, Peter and the other apostles
always make sure that sin is personal. One of the things that
we are so prone to do, and we do it all the time, is to look
at the sins of others and look at the problems in this world
and say, look at all those wicked things that are happening. And
all of it is, sadly, it's true and it should grieve us, and
rivers of water should flow down our cheeks as we see this world
in its state. But so often, it's just a cloak
for our self-righteousness, isn't it? If I can see someone who
I think is a bigger sinner than me, then I'll feel pretty comfortable,
because I'm not quite as bad. And I'll be thankful that there
are people like Pol Pot and Hitler in history, because I'm not quite
as bad as them. And I'm certainly, when I look
at me, I'm not quite as bad as you lot. That's how we operate
all the time. You see, when the Holy Spirit
comes and brings conviction of sin, we will, like the publican
at the temple, cry out before God and say, I am the sinner. The only sinner that matters
to me should be me. The only sin that should ever
matter to me is my sin. Don't be caught spending your
time looking at a cloak of your own righteousness. Those thick
leaves of your self-righteous morality will be stripped away. They'll be stripped away in your
meeting with God. So you and I are personally responsible. we are personally responsible
for the death of the Lord Jesus Christ. And if we can't see that,
we won't see the salvation that's in Him unless we see that it's
our particular sins that put Him to death on Calvary's tree
and that our sins in rejecting Him and our sins in scoffing
at Him and mocking Him. It is extraordinary, isn't it?
It's extraordinary how people can proclaim their own morality
and then walk by the cross of the Lord Jesus and think that
it's nothing. Is there any pain, he says, is
there anything like my pain? And yet men walk by. He was slain by wicked hands
of wicked men and he was also slain by the determinate counsel
and full knowledge of God. This was no accident of history.
This was God's determinate purpose. And unless, and I keep saying
it, unless we see the transaction of the cross in terms of a transaction
between God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
we will not understand what it means if we just think As so
many people do, that the Lord Jesus was a victim of justice
perverted. We will misunderstand exactly
what it's about. It was, He was put to death,
again and again they declare it, He was put to death by the
determined counsel and full knowledge of God. God the Father God the
Father was pleased to bruise his son. God the Father found
sin on his son. He was made sin. He owned the
sins of his people as his own and God the Father crushed him. God the Father took out the sword
of his justice and he plunged the sword of his justice into
the heart of his son. until holy justice declares,
enough, it is finished. That's the great transaction
of the cross. That is the work which the Lord Jesus Christ did
before God, from which all of the blessings will flow to us. Him, this Lord Jesus that was
slain, God has exalted. He's exalted Him with His right
hand. He's exalted Him with His right
hand of power. He's raised up by God the Father. to be exalted, is exalted in
heaven, is exalted by God, is exalted by the angels of heaven,
is exalted by the Church. We see Him high and lifted up
and we love the fact that He now reigns. Our God is King and
we rest in the fact that God the Father has exalted Him. The
right hand is a description of the power of God. The greatest
declaration of the power of God in all the scriptures is not
creating a universe. He spoke a word and the universe
came to be. But raising the Lord Jesus Christ
according to Ephesians 1 is the greatest exhibition of the power
of God in this world. To raise Him from the dead. He
is exalted. He is exalted right now and God's
people love to see Him exalted. He is exalted to be a Prince
and a Saviour. He is exalted. That word Prince
means He is the beginning, the first cause, the one who has
the preeminence in all things. Norm has taken us through Colossians
chapter 1. That's just a declaration of
the fact that this Lord Jesus Christ has not only honour but
he has actual power. His is not a pathetic kingdom,
brothers and sisters. He says his people shall be willing
in the day of his power. All of his people throughout
all of time and all of history are made willing by the power
of the Lord Jesus Christ. And people look at this thing
called the church and they look at this thing called Christianity
and they can't see it. They can't see it. Where is the
power? Where is this authority? Where
is this ruler? and God's people have absolutely
no doubt that He rules. He rules over the rebellion of
people against Him. He is exalted as Prince and Saviour. We see Him reigning. We see Him
reigning exactly as the scriptures declare Him to be reigning. There
is nothing that's happening in time and there's nothing that
seems to oppose the Church or to provide a masquerade for the
Church which is not outside of His absolute sovereign control. We just read the Book of God
and we find it just being unfolded before our eyes. He has a kingdom. The government
shall be upon his shoulders. His name shall be called Wonderful
Councillor, Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. He's
Prince of the House of David. What he opens, no man shuts. What he shuts, no man opens.
And there is no limit to the power of Christ. See, all of
his people are made willing. All of his servants speak see
eye to eye and they speak the same things. We have brothers
and sisters around the world who see exactly the same things
in the scriptures and see exactly the same things happening in
the lives of them and those around them. They see the opposition
is exactly the same. They see the Lord reigning in
exactly the same way. He is reigning and ruling. We see this world unfolding exactly
as He described it to be. And our only problem Our only
problem with understanding what is happening in this world is
our lack of understanding of what the scriptures say, clearly
say about it. He will be called Wonderful Counselor,
Mighty God, the Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace. Of the increase
of his government and peace, there shall be no end. Upon the
throne of David and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish
it with judgment and justice from henceforth even forever. And then he says, the zeal of
the Lord of hosts will perform it. He is a Prince and a Saviour. Let's not mix up the titles.
Let's see them put together as the scriptures put them together.
To be saved is to acknowledge that He is a Prince and to bow
to Him as a Prince and to trust Him as a Saviour. We must as God allows us, look
to Him as ruling all things. We must look to Him as a saviour
and we trust Him for all of our righteousness, for all of our
redemption, for all that is needed to save us. To be a saviour is
to be a deliverer, but not just a deliverer, it means to be a
preserver. We are kept by the power of God
through faith. We are preserved in Christ Jesus. To know Him is to know Him in
this category, isn't it? To know Him, this is eternal
life, is knowing Him, and to know Him is to know Him as a
King, as a Prince, to know Him as a Saviour. To know the Lord,
for they shall, this is the promise of the Eternal Covenant, to know
the Lord, for they shall all know Me from the least of them
to the greatest of them, saith the Lord. And how do you come
to know Him? You know Him as the Lord. But
you'll know Him as a Saviour and a forgiver of sins. You'll
know the Lord, for I will forgive their iniquity and I will remember
their sin no more. And this great King, this great
risen Lord Jesus is exalted. And I love what this verse says,
the latter part of verse 31. It says, for to give repentance to Israel. To give repentance to Israel
and forgiveness of sins. Repentance is a gift of God,
isn't it? To give repentance. It is His. He holds it, doesn't
He? And He gives it. I love the fact
that our Lord Jesus Christ says that he doesn't give as the world
gives. The world gives us that it might
take something from us. The world gives us things that
we think we own, and then we find out that we don't actually
own them, that they own us, and we long in some ways to be free
of them. We collect toys and we collect
reputation and we collect other things and we find that we think
are liberating are actually things that tie us. To give repentance. What's repentance? Simply it
means to turn. It means to have a changed mind. To give repentance is to have
a changed mind. How do you know that you've been
given this gift? There he is, he's been exalted
on high to give gifts to men. What's it look like? How do I
know if I've been given that gift? If he's giving that gift
from his own hand and by his own will, I've got to know. I don't like missing out on gifts.
How do I know? We have in the scriptures on
every page, we have a picture of the lost and a picture of
the saved. We have out of Adam's rose two
pictures presented to us always, Cain and Abel, Esau and Isaac,
Esau and Jacob, Isaac and Ishmael, What are the unrepentant like?
We can see what the unrepentant are like in these verses, can't
we? This Sanhedrin, this Jewish religious
group, they were completely unmoved. To be unrepentant is to be left
with a hard heart that is unmoved. It's a heart of stone, says the
scriptures, a heart of stone that's completely unfeeling.
Absolutely no feeling about who the Lord Jesus Christ is and
absolutely no feeling about who they are, no feeling about God. completely unmoved. These people
who knew their Bible off by heart were completely unmoved by what
the Scripture said. They had heard these sermons
preached and they had heard the Lord Jesus declare Scripture
again and again to them and they knew it off by heart and were
dead to it. They were dead. They were dead
to the scriptures. They were dead to the evidence.
They were dead to warnings. They were dead to their own breaking
of the law. They were dead to any conscience.
They had so calloused their hearts that nothing seemed to trouble
them. They were dead to the miracles. They had standing before them
a guy who had been crippled for 40 years, and they were dead.
to all that. They were dead to the example
of all the believers. The church at this stage had
grown to 8,000 in a matter of days and weeks. 8,000 people
in the temple worshipping God, dead. Dead to the fact that these
apostles had gone from cowards to this boldness. Dead to the
fact that there they were standing boldly before these people who
had the right of life and death over them and they were completely
unmoved by them. So that's what man is, without
this repentance, without this gift of God, without this real
heart, you're dead, dead, dead as a stone. It's like the dry
bones in Ezekiel 37, isn't it? How dead are the bones? They
are dry, lo, they were very dry, those bones. They were white
and bleached. And how do you make dead bones
live? You preach the Gospel. You do
something which all the world would see as foolishness. Preach
the Gospel. Nothing, I love what my friend
Joseph Hart said, nothing but by blood, O Jesus, can to sinners
peace impart. Nothing else from guilt releases. Nothing else can melt the heart.
Law and terror do but harden. All the while they work alone,
but a sense of blood-bought pardon soon dissolves a heart of stone."
Repentance and the forgiveness of sin go hand in hand, don't
they? Our sins have separated you,
separated us from our God. And when God removes those sins,
there is repentance. The men think that they have
life. They think that they have wisdom. They think that they
are able, as these men did, to stand in judgment of God. They
have the right, so they say, to declare whether God even exists
these days, whether He is right or just. But there is a repentance that
the Lord Jesus Christ gives. One of the great wonders of the
Gospel is that everything that God requires of me, He gives. Everything that God requires,
He gives. He gives me in the Lord Jesus Christ. Does God require
righteousness? The Lord Jesus Christ is my righteousness. Does God require that we be wise? The Lord Jesus is my wisdom.
Does God require that we be perfectly holy to enter into Heaven's glory?
The Lord Jesus is my sanctification. The Lord Jesus Christ gives repentance. And when He gives repentance,
He is giving a repentance which is perfect repentance. The repentance
that God accepts comes from God. That's the verse, isn't it? It's
the gift of God. It's the wondrous gift of God. God saw the travail of the soul
of the Lord Jesus Christ and was satisfied. God's people find
themselves satisfied with the very things that God the Father
is satisfied with. He gives, He gives by grace and
He gives freely. By Thy blood, by the blood of
Thy covenant I have sent forth Thy prisoners out of the pit
where there is no water. So He gives repentance. Should
you be repentant? Of course you should be repentant.
You've got so much in your life that you ought to be repentant
of. You know something of your own
heart, better than most of us do, and there's so much that
goes on in our lives that ought to be repented of, but only repentance
that matters is the repentance that comes from God, from Him. So how sorrowful for sin do you
have to be? How good does your repentance
have to be, in other words? It is in religion, we are told
again and again, isn't it, that we have to have a sense of sin. We have to have sorrow for sin
and we have to have a separation from sin. Like everything else
that people in religion tell us we have to do, there are two
questions whenever it comes to anything being done. I want to
know two things. Of what quality? how much and
of what quality. So the repentance that He gives
is His repentance, isn't it? How sorrowful for sinning you
have to be. There was only one person who
was ever truly sorrowful for sin and that's the Lord Jesus
Christ. He's the only one who ever saw
sin as it really was. How must you turn from it in
disgust? He's the only one that recoiled
when that cup was given him. What was the cup that he had
in the garden? What was the cup the Father gave
to him? There's no question about what that cup is, brothers and
sisters. It was the sin of all of God's people. And it broke
his heart. It broke his heart to have that
sin owned as his. Sin's never broken your heart,
has it? I don't think it's ever broken mine. It's brought me
to tears and it's brought me to anguish and it's brought me
to guilt and all sorts of other things, but it's never broken
my heart." He was repented. His heart was wounded. He says
in Psalm 69, he says, reproach has broken my heart. There is
a repentance. There is a fear of God in repentance,
isn't there? There is an acknowledgement of
who God is in His holiness. But how much fear, how much fear
do you have? How much do you cry out in repentance? Listen to Him, who in the days
of this flesh, Hebrews 5.7, and who in the days of this flesh,
when He had offered up prayers and supplications with strong
crying and tears unto Him, who was able to save Him from death,
He was heard in that He feared. Though He were a son, yet He
learned obedience by the things which He suffered, and being
made perfect, He became the author of eternal salvation unto all
them that obey Him. He's the only person, the only
person who was ever repentant. He's the only person who owns
sin for what it is. He says, my iniquities have taken
hold of me so that I'm not able to look up. They are more than
the hairs of my head, therefore my heart faileth me. He knew what sin is in a way
that you and I will never ever know. That's why the repentance
that he gives, it has all of those elements in it, but they
all ultimately, the repentance that God requires is the repentance
of the Lord Jesus Christ, because it's His gift. He has something
that He gives to people. It's His repentance and He causes
His people to walk before Him with repentant hearts. So when
those people in Acts were cut to the heart, And they heard
that they now were liable before God for the murder of His Christ,
for the murder of the Son of God. They had wicked hands. They were cut to the heart in
Acts chapter 2. They had a wound to the heart
like the Lord Jesus had a wound to His heart. And when they were
called upon to repent and be converted that your sins may
be blotted out, The ones that were called upon to repent had
already repented, hadn't they? They'd already earned the fact
that they were there guilty before God. They were the recipients
of this gift of God. He will, our Lord Jesus, as He
promised. He will pour out on the house
of David and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem the spirit of grace
and supplication, and they will look upon Me whom they have teased,
and shall mourn for Him as one mourns for his only Son, and
shall be in bitterness to Him as one that is in bitterness
of his firstborn. And there will be great mourning
in Jerusalem. There was mourning in Jerusalem. There were repentant hearts as
the Lord brought repentance to them. God has granted repentance,
he says in Acts 11. It's a gift of God. See, what
happened to these people? What were the repentants? We
know what the unrepentant were like, but the repentant, they
were wounded in the heart and a wounded heart cries out, what
shall we do to be saved? Look what I've done. What shall
I do? It's a good start, isn't it,
to repentance. And now they see, they are called
upon to repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for
the remission of sin. They see what sin really is. Sin is the murder of the Son
of God. They are turned. They are turned. They are turned from their religion,
they are turned from their righteousness, they are turned from their judgment
of God, they are turned from their wicked deeds and they are
turned in repentance to Him. Repent and be converted. that your sins may be blotted
out. And repentance and the forgiveness of sins go hand in hand. We read in Jeremiah that to be
repentant, to be called upon to know God as He is, is because
He has forgiven your sins. It is the declaration of the
Gospel, isn't it? To open their eyes and to turn
them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan unto
God that they may receive the forgiveness of sins and the inheritance
among them which are sanctified by the faith which is in me. Ultimately only those who are
made aware of sin, what sin really is, can see forgiveness as a
great gift. Only those who are real sinners
can know that forgiveness is a gift. If you can do anything,
anything at all, to earn or merit your forgiveness, you won't cherish
a gift. If you can do some religious
activity, something, you won't treasure a gift. What did the
leper? The leper had nothing. The leper
was incurable. The leper was full of leprosy. And what did he say? He said,
Lord, if you be willing, you can make me whole. And the Lord
Jesus reached out his hand. He said, I am. He's been raised
as a Prince and a Saviour for to give repentance to Israel
and the forgiveness of sin. Those who have nothing, love
the gift. Love the gift. Those who are
moved to see the Lord Jesus and Calvary's tree, in something
of what it was for him to be made a curse, for something of
what it was for him to be made sin. Repentance and forgiveness
is a precious, dearly bought gift. No wonder the scriptures
talk about the joy and peace of believing. And we are His
witnesses. We are His witnesses. We stand
and declare His great victory. We declare Him. We are witnesses
to the fact that He is the Prince and the Saviour. We are witnesses
to the fact that He has given us repentance. We are witnesses
to the fact that He has given us eternal life, the forgiveness
of sins. We are witnesses alongside the
Holy Spirit. We are witnesses to what the
Holy Spirit has written. We are witnesses to the fact
that the Holy Spirit has done what He's promised. He does exactly
as He promised. He declares the Word of God and
makes it life to us, but also He glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. There is very little said about
the Holy Spirit in Acts, and yet the Holy Spirit is powerfully
there, isn't He? He moves that building. He moves
those people to preach. He gives them those extraordinary
gifts of speaking in tongues. He does these remarkable things
and yet, in all the declarations of the Gospel, he's hidden away. Why? Because he's doing exactly
what he promised to do. He shall glorify me, says the
Lord Jesus, he shall receive of mine and he will show it to
you. That's what he's doing, isn't
it? Right now, he's receiving of what the Lord Jesus Christ
has done. What's his? absolute sovereignty
over all things, absolute deity, absolute success, a prince and
a saviour, absolutely able to give to His people repentance
and so He shall receive of mine all of the glories of Him as
God and He will show it to you. He reveals it to His people.
All things that the Father has are Mine, therefore said I, He
shall take it Mine and He will show it to you." He gives this
Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit you are
none of His. The gift of the Holy Spirit is
essential to eternal life. Romans 8 says, If any man have
not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. The Holy Spirit is given to them
that obey Him. There's a great danger, isn't
there, in letting our theology get in the way of simple childlike
faith. is given to them that obey Him.
He works the obedience of faith. His obedience is His power in
the lives of His people. He says, I'll make them willing
in the day of my power. Willing to what? Willing to repent,
willing to believe, willing to obey Him. It's all His work that
the Holy Spirit is given to them that obey Him. I love what Ralph
Barnard said, he said, if you walk in the light that God gives
you, he will give you more light. If you walk in the light, whatever
light he's given you, walk in that light and he'll give you
more light. It's almost what Psalm 37 verse
4 says, it says, delight thyself also in the Lord and he shall
give thee the desires of thy heart. Delight yourself in the
Lord and do as you please. delight yourself in Him and continue
to see that He gives you the desires of your heart. To obey Him is to call on His
name. Whosoever shall call on the name
of the Lord shall be saved. To obey Him is to gladly receive
His words. In that first Gospel message
they gladly received the words. What words did they gladly receive?
They gladly received the words that they had wicked hands and
they had put an innocent man to death. They had crucified
God's Christ. They gladly received the fact
this one that they had crucified was now sitting on the throne
of heaven. They gladly received his words. What else did they do? They continued
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship and in
the breaking of bread and in prayers. to abide is to have that fear
that came upon every soul, and it's to be joined with the children
of God, isn't it? They all believed They were together
and they had all things common. They continued with one accord
in the temple, breaking bread from house to house, and they
did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart, praising
God and having favour with all the people. And they saw this
exalted Lord Jesus adding, the Lord added to the church, daily
such as should be subject. It is wonderful, isn't it, that
these are gifts of our God, the gift of repentance, the gift
of forgiveness of sins. They come as a gift. It's wonderful,
isn't it, that they're not earned by us, they're earned by Him. And it's precious to know, isn't
it, that the giver loves to give to his own. He doesn't give as
a stingy husband. He gives because he delights
in his bride and he can't but wait to bestow more blessings
upon her. In that Psalm 68 he loads the
little cart with bounty all the time. That's what he's doing
with all of his people throughout this world. And he can give He
can give all of Himself to every one of His children and not be
diminished out of His fullness. From His fullness have we all
received. We receive out of His fullness.
He can give all of Himself to John Newell and still have all
of Himself to give to Bethany and all of Himself to give to
anyone else. So full is our Redeemer. he gives. I'll just quote another verse
from my friend Mr Hart. Softly to thy garden lead us,
to behold thy bloody sweat. Though thou from curse hast freed
us, let us not the cost forget. Be thy groans and cries rehearsed
by thy Spirit in our ears, till we, viewing whom we pierced,
melt in sympathetic tears. O, to be given the gift of repentance,
and the gift of faith, and the gift of the forgiveness of sins.
What happens to those who aren't given those gifts? Just read
the next verse with me, verse 33. When they heard that, This Jewish council heard these
words. They were cut to the heart. The repentant people were cut
in the heart. They had a wounded heart. These
were cut to the heart and they took council to slay them. That's exactly what the unrepentant
are doing throughout this world today, aren't they? They took
counsel to slay them. They'll slay his words. They'll
slay his reputation. They'll slay the reputation of
his servants. They will declare, we will not
have this man rule over us. Let us break his bans. Let us
break his rulership. And let's live our own way, establishing
our own righteousness. Let us live, man says, as judges
of good and evil. Man, unmoved by the gift of God,
will do exactly as Satan declared in the Garden. He declared to
all mankind that for the rest of your days in this Garden is
your home. You will be as God. You will be as God. May God give us repentant hearts
that we might see that we are not God and there is a God, a
God for the Lord Jesus Christ who gives the gifts of repentance
and faith. And they're all blood-bought
gifts, brothers and sisters. No gift ever comes to us except
from the blood that's shed on Calvary's tree. Let's pray.