If you turn in your scriptures
to Acts chapter 2, we have spent some little time in Acts
chapter 2. And the reason that I'd like
to spend this week and next week and possibly the following week
in this particular sermon is because The foundations that
God lays for his church are foundations upon which the church is built
and the church thrives, and they are the foundations upon which
whether you know that the church that you're going to, you young
people here, will be going to other places in years to come,
this sermon of Peter's, led by the Holy Spirit, guided by the
Holy Spirit, is the foundation sermon for all of this gospel
age. everywhere where God has blessed
the preaching of His Gospel, He has blessed a Gospel which
is in accord with Acts chapter 2, with this sermon. All the
other sermons are encapsulated in this sermon. It is a masterpiece
of preaching. And I love the fact that the
Lord promises. He makes a remarkable promise.
In Philippians 1.6 he says, Paul says he's confident. As an apostle
he's confident. He's confident of this very thing. He's confident because, in verse
5, of their fellowship in the Gospel from the first day until
now, he's confident He's confident because he thanks God for them
in every remembrance of them. And he's confident because he
prays for them in every prayer of mine, making and making his
requests with joy. What's he confident in? What
is the confidence? that the apostle Paul has, the
apostle to the Gentiles, he's confident of this very thing. He's confident of one thing,
isn't he? That he, that he which hath begun
a good work in you, and the word you there is plural. It's a good
work in the church, it's a good work in individuals, but it's
a good work in individuals gathered together, which is what we see
on this day of Pentecost. The good work in you. There is
one good in this world, and that is God. There is one good work
in this world, and that is the good work of God. The good work
of God on behalf of His people, and then the good work of God
in His people. It's the good work of God. that
He has begun the good work in you will perform it. It's a good work that's begun
by God, isn't it? It's not a good work begun by
men. It's a good work begun by God, and it's a good work that
He will perform until the day of Jesus Christ. Until that day. Until that day when you must
meet Him. When you meet him, you will meet
him as he is described in this sermon before us. You will meet
him as he is described in the passages of scripture that Peter
quotes. There is a necessary beginning
of the Christian life. and it's begun in God's people
by Him and it's performed by Him. And I love what Colossians
2.6 says. It's a remarkable verse, just
over a couple of pages in your Bibles. He says, As you have
therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord. And I love how the
blessed apostles almost universally in the New Testament, they always
give the Lord Jesus Christ His titles. Christ is not a surname. It is a title. It's a title that
belongs to Him, as does Lord. He is God. How did you receive
Him? How did you receive Him? If you have ever received Him,
you have received Him by the powerful operations of God. You have received Him by hearing
the Gospel. You cannot receive Him without
hearing the Gospel. Romans 10 makes it abundantly
clear. How can you believe? You cannot
believe unless you hear, and you cannot hear unless someone
is sent. As you've begun, as you began,
so you walk in Him." These 3,000 people on this extraordinary
day of Pentecost began. on that extraordinary day began,
we want to acknowledge that the Church has always existed in
the mind of God. All of the members of Christ's
body were given to Him by the Father in all eternity. They were always His. They were
always the object of His love. They were always the object of
His redemption. Before Adam ever fell, there
was a Saviour. Before you and I ever sinned,
there was a solution to our sin. There was a saviour. Our salvation
predates our sin. It goes before. It's glorious. But on this day, on this day,
there are some necessary things that come into the lives of these
people. I have no embarrassment in reading
it one more time to you, so we might just start in Acts 2, verse
12. They'd heard this crowd, they'd
heard the preaching of the Gospel. It's called in verse 11, the
wonderful works of the Lord. And they were all amazed, and
some were in doubt, some asked a serious question, didn't they?
What does all this mean? That's the question, isn't it? That's a great question to ask.
What is God doing here? What is God saying here? What does this mean? Others mocking. And they said, these men are
full of new wine. It's impossible for there to
be new wine. At that time of the year you had to wait another
six months for the grape harvest. It's impossible for this Jewish
religious crowd to have new wine. It was before the morning sacrifice. And anyone who was caught drinking
was cut off from his people. It was a grave, grave sin. So
their mockery, like all mockery of the Lord's people, is wrong
on so many, many counts. Wrong and dangerous. And then
Peter spoke up, didn't he? He said, but Peter, and just
notice carefully, brothers and sisters, he stood up with the
eleven. They who were representative
of that 12, the foundation of God's church is built on the
apostles and the prophets, isn't it? With one cornerstone, the
Lord Jesus Christ, the chief cornerstone. He stood up with
the 11. They were there standing up representing
the church. There were another 110 behind
them. But they were there, standing
up as the church. He lifted up his voice and he
said to them, you men of Judea and all that dwell at Jerusalem,
be this known unto you and hearken to my words. He's calling upon
this crowd, this vast crowd that's gathered on this high feast day,
hundreds of thousands possibly, he's calling on them to listen,
to listen. It's a remarkable gift of God
when people are actually made to listen. When it comes to religion,
people are very prone to talk. and very, very seldom listen. These men are not drunk, as you
suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day, but this
is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel, and it shall come
to pass in the last days, says God. I will pour out my Spirit
on all flesh, and your sons and daughters shall prophesy, your
young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream
dreams. and on my servants and on my
handmaids will I pour out in those days of my spirit, and
they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in the
heaven above and signs on the earth beneath, blood and fire
and vapour of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness,
it was at the death of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the moon to
blood, before the great and notable day of the Lord come, And it
shall come to pass, he's quoting Joel here, and we looked at it
a couple of weeks ago. And it shall come to pass, a
promise from God, that whosoever shall call on the name of the
Lord shall be saved. What a glorious promise. Whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord We'll hear and learn today,
Lord willing, what it is to call on the name of the Lord. You
men of Israel, hear these words. And I just love the simplicity
of Peter's sermon. It's just simple declaration
of scripture and a simple declaration of history that's laid out before
them. This is a fisherman from Galilee speaking, not some fancy
theologian dressed in all sorts of finery, just a fisherman.
looking like a fisherman, speaking like a fisherman, speaking the
words of God. You men of Israel, and again
he says, will you hear these words? Will you just listen for
a little while? Just listen. 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 you yourselves know,
for three and a half years they had witnessed the most extraordinary
miracles. They had seen men raised from
the dead. Just outside of Jerusalem, just
a few miles from where Peter was speaking these words, Lazarus
was raised from the dead. A dead man heard the voice of
God. Lazarus, come out, says the Lord
Jesus Christ. And out of the tomb, a dead man
who was rotting in his flesh came out and stood before them.
And they knew it. What was the response of the
religious leaders? It is remarkable, isn't it, how
religion blinds people. These self-righteous religious
people, their response, you can read about it in John's Gospel,
can't you? Their response was, well, let's
now kill Jesus, and then let's now kill Lazarus again, as if
somehow killing him another time is going to achieve anything.
Dear oh dear, unbelief, unbelief wrapped up in religion is extraordinarily
dangerous and extraordinarily hard in our hearts. A man approved
of God among you by wonders and signs which God did by him in
the midst of you, as you yourselves know. You know it. Him, being
delivered by the determinate counsel and full knowledge of
God, you have taken and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. whom God raised up, having loosed
the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should
be holden of it. For David speaking concerning
him, and here he quotes the Psalms, I foresaw the Lord always before
my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should be not moved. 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 see corruption. Thou hast
made known to me the ways of life. Thou shalt make me full
of joy with Thy countenance." The fullness of joy is seeing
God face to face. And then he speaks, Men and brethren,
let me speak freely unto you of the patriarch David. His tomb
is right here with us. He is dead and buried, and his
sepulcher, his tomb, is with us unto this day. Therefore,
being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to
him that the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would
raise up Christ to sit on his throne. And he seeing this before
spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not
left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus
has God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore,
being at the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He has shed forth
this which you now see and hear." He shed forth this, the proclamation
of the wonderful works of God. He has shed forth this. This
has come from heaven. For David is not ascended into
the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit
thou on my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. And this is the conclusion in
verse 36, isn't it? The only conclusion that history
and scripture can justify. and the very witness that these
people have experienced can justify. Therefore, let all the House
of Israel know assurably that God has made this same Jesus,
whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. God has made Him Lord of all. God has made Him the Christ of
God. All of the promises that God
ever made to humanity, all the promises that God ever made about
His Son are yes and amen and perfectly completed in Him. He's
Lord and Christ. He is God. He is God, He is God's
Christ, and now He sits on the throne of this universe and He
rules all things. He rules over all people, wondrously
ruling our sovereign God. And this is what I want to look
at this morning. Now when they heard this. So there was, amongst
that crowd, there was a group of people, as there always will
be when the Gospel is proclaimed, there will be those who hear,
and there will sadly be those who mock. When they heard this, those that
hear, Peter called on them again and again, he said, hear, hear,
hear, listen to what I'm saying, let me speak to you. They were
pricked. Those that heard were pricked
in the heart. It means literally to be stabbed. To be stabbed in the heart. To have a pain come into your
mind sharply. It's to agitate your mind vehemently. It is, as a result of what you
have heard, to be greatly troubled, to be distressed, to be distressed by the piercing,
to be stunned sharply. It is to be stunned to be smitten. That's the question, isn't it,
that the Gospel raises. Have you heard of your personal
participation in the murder of the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you See, I can't speak. I can't speak
to people's hearts. I can plead with the Lord to
speak to your hearts. I can plead with Him to do as He's promised, to take
away that heart of stone, the heart of stone that you were
born with by your father Adam's birth, by your natural birth
in this world. And natural response, isn't it,
the natural response of every sinner when they're pushed into
a corner is that they will run to a refuge, a refuge of their
own righteousness. They will say, other bad people might have done
that, but if I was there, I wouldn't have done it. Other people are
bad sinners, but I'm basically a good person. What is the testimony
of God about you? What's the testimony of God about
me? We are sinners. Romans is a remarkable
book of the scriptures, isn't it? Romans gives a description
of me. and it gives a description of
sinners. It gives a remarkable description
of sinners. We are, we do live in a world
And you young people see more and hear more of it than ever
before where the best thing we can do is to raise someone's
self-esteem and tell them how special they are and tell them
how good they are. And that sort of perverted way
of thinking has infiltrated the church and we want to tell people
how wonderfully made you are and how special you are in God's
sight and how special God's love for you is. His love is so special
for you that Jesus died for you. His love is so special for you
that He won't violate your wonderful free will, that you can come
to Him whenever you like, that the offer of salvation sits on
the table like a beautiful Christmas present and all you have to do
is go and unwrap it and take it for yourself. You really aren't
very bad at all. As it is written, Romans 3, there
is none righteous, no, not one. He says that they're all under
sin, Romans 3.10. There is none righteous, no,
not one. There is none that understandeth.
There is none that seeketh after God. They're all gone out of
the way they are, together become unprofitable. There is none that
doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre,
with their tongues they have used to seek. The poison of asps
is under their lips, whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.
Their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery
are in their ways. The way of peace they have not
known. The summary of it isn't it? There is no fear of God before
their eyes. The reality Brothers and sisters, we are sinners by nature and
we are sinners by practice. And the only thing that can expose
it for what it is, is God doing a work in your heart. and he'll
do it through the Gospel. And two things are revealed in
the Gospel as we've read through that sermon and looked at it
again and again. We see God exalted and we see man as he really is. We were made sinners. We were
made sinners by the sin of our father Adam. We were made sinners. You say,
have you heard? Have you heard of this Saviour? If you've heard this Saviour
speak, you've been pricked in the heart. You've been wounded
in the heart. And you see personally your responsibility
for the murder of the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you really believe that? It's interesting to trace his
journey, isn't it, to the cross. He had done no wrong and done
all things well. What did men do? They plotted
to destroy him. They gathered together with other
men to find a way to destroy him. And they joined with those
who did. I'm speaking about the activities
of this crowd that Peter was speaking to. They had joined
with others who did. They had been, as there are today,
multitudes who betray him with a kiss. Betray him into evil
hands with a kiss. There are multitudes who place
a purple robe on him and mockingly put a reed, a staff, a scepter
in his hand and they bow down before him and at the same time
mock him. I'm talking about religious people
and religion. There are those who put a crown
of thorns on his head. There are those multitudes, countless
multitudes, who walk by as he hung and hangs on that cross,
and they just walk by, don't they? It seems, as he promised
in Lamentations chapter one, does it seem as if it's nothing
to you? People walk by, and it seems
as if it's nothing. to you." Is he buried? People were happy, weren't they?
I'm sure those Pharisees and the others went home and prepared
their sermons and said their family prayers, rejoicing that
now he was put away. So many people, don't they, find
that the Lord Jesus Christ is an embarrassment and that life
is so much easier when He's in a tomb and He's dead and He's
out of the way. And when He's raised up and presented
before people, He's a very uncomfortable presence. It's a lot more comfortable
if He's dead and buried and hidden away. There is, there is in the hearts
of God's people, there is. Why don't we turn to Psalm 51. I wanted to spend a little bit
of time looking at what it is to be pricked in the heart. And
here is one of those amazing psalms of a man who is pricked
in the heart. As I said in Colossians 2, as
you have received Christ Jesus as Lord, if you have received
Him, you have received Him by being wounded and slain in your
heart. And if you've been wounded and
slain in your heart, and your heart has been circumcised, and
a heart of stone has been removed, and a heart of flesh has been
put there, it will be something that feels and is able to be
wounded again and again and again. As you began, as you've received
Him, you'll walk in Him. Here's David. This is to the
chief musician, the psalm of David, when Nathan the prophet
came unto him after he had gone into Bathsheba. This is Nathan
the prophet speaking to him and declaring, remarkably declaring
the gospel to David. And David makes this cry. Have mercy upon me, O God, according
to Thy lovingkindness, according to the multitude of Thy tender
mercies. Blot out my transgressions, wash
me thoroughly from mine iniquities, and cleanse me from my sin. For
I acknowledge my transgression, and my sin is ever before me. He's been wounded in the heart,
isn't it? Against thee, and thee only have
I sinned. Do you see the sins that you
commit? Do you see them as against God?
Only by the Gospel, only by the Spirit's work will you see that
sin is against God. David sinned against Bathsheba,
sinned against her husband, sinned against their families, sinned
against his nation. All of that right, and he says,
but against you. and you only have I sinned and
done this evil." So he doesn't want to hide from it, does he? He wants to call what he's done
evil. that thou mightest be justified
when thou speakest and be clear when thou judgest. Behold, he
speaks of his life, doesn't he, as a child of Adam, he was shaped
in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. He's not
talking about the act that caused his conception, he's talking
about the reality of what he is as a child of Adam. Behold,
thou desirest truth in the inward parts, and in the hidden part
thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall
be clean. Wash me, and I shall be whiter
than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness,
that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy
face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in
me a clean heart, O God, and restore and renew a right spirit
within me. Cast me not away from Thy presence,
and take not Thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the
joy of Thy salvation, and uphold me with Thy free spirit." Then,
you having done this, this remarkable act of grace, in the midst of
my remarkable act of sin. Then will I teach transgressors
thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee. Deliver
me from blood-guiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation, and
my tongue shall sing aloud of thy righteousness." David has
none, not a single deed ever. Not one. you speak of thy righteousness. He'll sing aloud of the righteousness
of God. The Lord Jesus Christ, O Lord,
open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise. Only when God opens the lips
of his people will they show forth his praise. For thou desirest
not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt
offering, the sacrifices of God. Listen to this, brothers and
sisters. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken
and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. A broken and
contrite heart, he won't despise. They're the sacrifices of God.
Oh, if the Jews had ever read that through spiritual eyes,
how much of their religion would have been thrown away. Do good
in thy pleasure unto Zion. Build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then thou shalt be pleased with
the sacrifices of righteousness, with the burnt offering and the
whole burnt offering. Then shall I offer bullocks on
thine altar. They will return to God the sacrifices
that He brings. All of the sacrifices are about
one sacrifice. All of the sacrifices mean just
one thing, Jesus Christ and Him crucified. The glorious Gospel. What did Nathan say to David?
It's remarkable, isn't it? He said, God hath taken away
thy sin. What a remarkable statement.
Taken it away, he said. Taken it away. Where did he take
it? He took it to one place, brothers
and sisters. He took it to his son. And he
laid it on his son. And he hung his son on a cross. naked before men, under the curse
of the law of God. And he poured out the fury of
his wrath on his son, until the justice of God says, I'm satisfied. There is now no sin. There is
no sin on David. No sin on David, no sin on any
of David's brothers and sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ. It's
a remarkable gospel, brothers and sisters. That's why when the Spirit comes,
There will be this calling out, there will be this owning of
sin, there will be this declaration. As these people did, they owned
the fact that they had murdered God. They were responsible for
the murder of God in human flesh. They were responsible and they
were answerable to Him. He is now alive. He is their
judge. He is their God and He rules
over them. That's the predicament, brothers
and sisters, that the real Gospel puts people in. And what happens? He says in Zechariah 12.10, and
I will pour upon the house of David and upon the inhabitants
of Jerusalem the spirit of grace and supplications. I will pour
out a spirit of grace and a spirit of pleading, a spirit of crying
out to the Lord from a broken heart. And they shall look upon
me whom they have pierced and they shall mourn. They shall
mourn for him as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be
in bitterness for him that is in bitterness for his firstborn. In that day, the day that we're
speaking about here in Acts chapter 2, there shall be great mourning
in Jerusalem as the mourning of Hadrim-mon in the valley of
Megiddon. And the land shall mourn in every
family apart, the family of the house of David apart and their
wives apart, the family of the house of Nathan apart and their
wives apart, the family of the house of Levi. All the families,
all of them, will cry out that day. It's a great promise of
our God, isn't it? That there will be a day after
His death, after His resurrection, when the Spirit is poured out,
they'll cry out, they'll say, what must I do to be saved? How do I escape from this predicament
that I have put myself in? Unless you are wounded in the
heart by God the Holy Spirit, by the preaching of his Gospel,
by the declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ is, and what
happened when he was crucified, and where he is now, The glories
of that. The glories of the fact that
He is God and you with all of your sin are in His hands. They
stood in judgment over Him as multitudes have done ever since. They stand in judgment of the
Lord Jesus Christ. They stand in judgment of His
gospel. They stand in judgment of His
preachers. And yet, the reality is, and
it's a reality that the Gospel alone can bring, and it's a reality
that the Holy Spirit alone can bring, is the reality is that
you are not the judge. He's the judge. You are in His
hands. And He can do with you as He
wills. And what He wills to do is right. Always perfectly right. There are some simple points
I'd like us to take note of on this journey to being pricked
in the heart. And some of them are just so
obvious, but I think the obvious things are so fundamentally important,
so vital. Isn't it? That this great foundation
of the Church, this great Gospel message that won the hearts of
3,000 people. Isn't it wonderful that Isaiah
53 promised that he would see the travail of his soul. It probably
means God the Father saw the travail of the Son as he hung
on Calvary's tree. The Son was turned to darkness. As heaven turned its back on
him and he made those extraordinary cries, that he will see the travail
of his soul and be satisfied. There was in the death and resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ a purpose. Our God is a God of sovereign
control and sovereign purpose. And those whom God purposes to
save, He puts in a place where they will hear the Gospel. This
vast crowd was drawn there that day. by a sovereign hand of God."
Those 3,000 and the multitudes of others were all drawn there
by a sovereign hand of God. Whenever the Gospel is preached,
it is preached by the sovereign hand of God. It is impossible
for the Gospel to be preached. without God coming and speaking
to people, without His Spirit taking the things of the Lord
Jesus and revealing them to people. There is a gathering. There must
be a gathered people to hear the Gospel preached. It might
be two or three, but the Gospel will be preached. The other thing
which is so vital to notice that here on this great day, when
God who rules all things and has the most extraordinary means
at His disposal, chooses to preach the Gospel by the Church. This is the Church that preaches
the Gospel. The Church will be honoured. in the declaration of the Gospel.
The Church will be honoured in those who are pricked to the
heart. God is a God of order. The Church is the place where
God has promised to make known the riches of His glory. Paul
says in Ephesians 3, he says, unto me who am the least, less
than the least of all things. This grace is given, that I should
preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ,
and to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery,
which from the beginning of the world has been hidden God, who
created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent..." This is his
purpose, isn't it? "...that now, under principalities
and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the Church
the manifold wisdom of God. And as Paul goes on to pray for
these Ephesians, he wants them to know the love of Christ, verse
19, which passes knowledge that you might be filled with all
the fullness of God. And he speaks of the sovereignty
of our great God and Christ. Now unto him that is able to
do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according
to the power that worketh in us, unto him be glory. Where is the glory? in the Church,
by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. The Church is his body, the fullness
of him who fills all things. He will, in the preaching of
the Gospel, gather people together. He will, in the preaching of
the Gospel, cause the Church to be the ones that sound out
this glorious, glorious message of salvation by a sovereign God,
salvation by a successful substitute, salvation by a sacrifice that
satisfies our goal. Only He can bring people to Himself. And when He brings people to
Himself, He brings people together, which is why the gathering is
a gathering which is there witnessed to by the Church, as it always
will be throughout all ages. He describes what we were, weren't
we? We were without Christ. Aliens
from the commonwealth of Israel, strangers from the covenants
of promise, having no hope in without God in the world, verses
13 of chapter 2, but now in Christ Jesus you who sometimes were
far off are made nigh, are made near by the blood of Christ.
For He is our peace who has made both one, and has broken down
the middle wall of petition between us, that law, having abolished
in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments contained
in ordinance, for to make in himself of two one new man, so
making peace, and that he might reconcile both unto God in one
body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby." And listen
to what verse 17 says. It is a remarkable verse, a remarkable
description of what happens when the Gospel is preached by the
power of the Holy Spirit. It says, He came, He came and
He preached peace to you. who were far off, and to them
that were near. For through Him we both have
access by one Spirit unto the Father." When the Holy Spirit
speaks, when God's ministers empowered by the Spirit speak,
it is God who is speaking to people. That's what Peter says,
isn't it? When any man speaks, let him
speak as if he's speaking the very oracles of God, the word
of God. Which is why, when the church
gets up to speak, Peter speaks in the greatest plainness of
language and he quotes scripture and scripture and scripture and
scripture. When the church is preaching
Jesus Christ, the church is preaching scripture again and again and
again. The Church will be honoured and
you can gauge people's response to the Gospel by their response
to Church. It is as simple as that. The
Church will be honoured. There will be a gathered people.
They will, as the Lord Jesus promised in John 10, they will
hear the Shepherd's voice. He'll come and he'll speak. They'll
hear the shepherd's voice. They will come and they won't
hear the voice of a stranger. And this work of the Holy Spirit
comes directly from this preaching of the Gospel. This wounding,
this pricking to the heart is a divine activity. and it's not
brought about by the intelligence and the wisdom and all the emotional
appeals and other activities. This was a simple sermon by a
Galilean fisherman reading scripture and declaring who the Lord Jesus
Christ is. It is this simple declaration
that cuts to the heart of God's people. Hebrews 4 describes what
the Word of God does. The Word of God, led by the Holy
Spirit and empowered by the Holy Spirit, for the Word of God is
quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing
even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit and of the
joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of
the heart. I can't see into the hearts of
people. No preacher ever pretends to,
but God does. God sees and in the preaching
of the Word of God the intents and the thoughts of your heart
and mine are exposed and they are laid open as they always
are before God. There is no place to hide, brothers
and sisters. There is no refuge. other than
Jesus Christ. You must hide in that smitten
rock that Moses hid in as the glory of God passed by. It is the Holy Spirit that cuts
and wounds in the heart. As I said earlier, it is possible
for people to be led by emotion to great heights of feeling and
to act on those feelings in extraordinary ways. that man can do is touch
the flesh and the outside, which is why the religion of today
is continually wanting to see people, as they say up the road,
to be remastered, to be made to look different.
The work of the Church so often in our day is to get a whole
bunch of people to act as best as they can like they're Christians
with genuineness and sincerity. But God is speaking of a different
activity here, isn't he? He's talking about an activity
that reaches to the very heart of man and reaches down into
the inner being of man. And when it's there, and when
that work is done, and that new creation and that new man is
there, you see it's always called new, isn't it? It's a new birth,
it's a new creation, it's a new nature, it's a new heart, it's
Christ in you, the hope of glory. It's not being remastered, it's
having a new master living in you altogether, not just a transformation
of the outside. This crowd that he was talking
to were radically transformed. A whole crowd of Gentiles had
had themselves circumcised as adult males and had travelled
across continents to be there in Jerusalem, thinking that they
were worshipping God. And yet they were joined with
those who murdered God. So far from real worship was
their supposed worship. It's a new creation, isn't it? It's a regeneration. There is
something sown in the hearts of God's children that was never
there. It's a new life, a new beginning. The Spirit in you. If the Spirit
is not in you, Christ is not in you, and Romans 8 makes it
very clear, doesn't it? If the Spirit of Christ. If he's not in you, you are none
of his. But if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life. There
must be a divine, sovereign activity from on high." The Word of God is just ink on
pages until God takes it. As Jeremiah says, it's not my
word as a fire, says the Lord, like a hammer that breaketh the
rock into pieces. These people were pricked in
the heart by the word of God. They were pricked in the heart
by a simple declaration of Jesus Christ and Him crucified. He
says, doesn't he, He says, O Ephraim, Isaiah chapter 6, O Ephraim,
what shall I do unto thee? O Judah, what shall I do unto
thee? For your goodness is as a morning cloud. All your goodness,
Jesus, disappears as a vapour. As the early dew, it goes away.
Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets. I have slain them
by the words of my mouth. And thy judgment are as light
that goes forth. For I desired mercy, not sacrifice,
and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings." To be
cut to the heart is to be gathered, is to hear the Church preach
the Gospel. It is the Word of God, the Word
of God empowered by the Holy Spirit which reveals Christ.
reveals Christ in His glory. It is the Word of God which is,
as Jeremiah 20 verse 9 says, a fire in the hearts of God's
people, a fire that they cannot shut up. It is in the sovereign
hand of God to use this Word of God to bring His people to
Himself at a time of His choosing. Three thousand were saved that
day. Peter didn't change a word of
his Gospel message ever. And thousands more were added.
Day after day they were added by God to his church. Even a large number of priests
were added by God to His Church. This Word is powerful, brothers
and sisters. The Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. We don't have to modify it, adjust
it, be ashamed of it, water it down to pacify the feelings of
people. We just simply declare it and
wait. Wait for God to work. The other thing, of course, is
that those who have been so wounded by the word of God will have
no source than a word from God. Their comfort will be in the
same place that their distress is. Their comfort will come from
God. What do they do? they, in verse
41, they gladly received His word. He says, repent and be
baptised, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for
the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the
Holy Spirit. It's a promise, isn't it? It's
a promise. It's a promise to you and your
children and all that are far off, even as many as the Lord
our God shall call. When he calls, he calls them
to that gospel, he calls them to that church, he calls them
to that gathering, he calls them to that Word, he calls them to
see his Son. And having seen his Son, they
hear his Son say to them, come follow me. Come follow me. As David said in Psalm 51, The
wounded, he says, the bones which you have broken, restore them. You have created the wound that
stripped me of all of my righteousness. You have created the wound that
exposed me for the sin, not just that I do, but the sin that I
am. If sin was just a doing thing,
then more doing and change doing can fix it. But if sin is what
you are, and that's how the scriptures describe it, then you can't fix
it by moral reformation. You can't fix it. You have to
have a new creation. There must be, as this preaching
of the Gospel comes from shed blood, there is now this blood
applied to the hearts of God's people by the Holy Spirit. This blood that says, your sins
are put away, your sins are forgiven. The very act of the most heinous
crime you have ever committed was God's means of saving your
eternal soul by the death and resurrection of His Son. This is the work of the Holy
Spirit. It must reach deep. It's got to go beyond the flesh.
It's got to go beyond the intellect. It goes to the very heart of
man and only he who made the heart and only he who knows the
thoughts and intent of the heart knows what the heart is and knows
what the balm that the heart wounded needs. To be cut in the
heart is like these people, it's to be a listener. They heard
from God. That's what the verse says. Now
when they heard, it's to hear God speaking. It is a revelation of the real
state of man. It's a revelation of the real
state of man and his religion. It's a real state that causes
man to cry out. We looked at it last week out
of Joel, didn't we? To cry out to the Lord is to
look out from yourself. because no longer is there any
hope of anything being fixed by looking to any of your works. They've been laid before you,
before God and this world, and they are, as he described them,
wicked works, wicked hands. We saw in Joel, didn't we, that
the people who are wounded by God, they mourn and they howl,
they lament, they cry unto the Lord. And he tells them, he calls
on them, to turn to me with all your heart. Turn to me with all
your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. He says
in Joel 2.13, he says, rend your heart, tear your heart, not your
garments. It's not an external thing. The
problem's inside. The problem is the very core
of your being. The problem I have is the very
core of my being. My heart needs to be pricked. To be cut in half is to cry unto
the Lord. It is to cry because you have
suffered a wound in your inner being. It's personal, it's deep,
and it's a matter that goes to the very core of who you are. And therefore the only balm that
reaches, the only satisfaction is the satisfaction that comes
from God and reaches to the very place where he has been wounded. That's why David in Psalm 51,
he cries out to the Lord again and again. He says, restore unto
me the joy of thy salvation. Create a clean heart in me. He
sees that his heart, his heart is the problem. creating me a
clean heart." See there is no rest, there is no rest for a
wounded soul in returning to religion. None of those 3,000
souls had received anything from Jewish religion as it was called
in those days and none of them could go back to it. but one who gathers his people
out of it all. They will, those who have received
this balm of Gilead as the scriptures describe it. these flowing waters
from this fountain of grace that flows and flows and flows to
wounded sinners, to the thirsty, to the hungry, to the weary and
heavy laden. The Lord Jesus says, come unto
me, all you that labour and are heavy laden, and you will find
rest for your souls. rest that goes much deeper than
the rest and the comforts of this world. See, religion gets
people to be busy, to do things, but very, very few find it a
labour and a heavy laden. Only God makes all of that religious
activity a burden to you, a burden because you cannot do it You
cannot do it well enough and you cannot keep up the pretense
of doing it. And he says, come to me, you've
been wounded, come to me and I will give you rest. Take my
yoke upon me and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly. Look
at his calling. The one who's calling is meek
and lowly in heart and you shall find rest unto your souls. There is a hearing, a particular
hearing that goes to the very heart. There is a cry that comes
from those who are stabbed in their heart. What shall we do? What shall we do? There is a
desperate need. Peter says to them, save yourselves
from this crooked generation, this untoward generation. And
they that gladly received his word were baptized and at the
same day there were added unto them about three thousand souls. They were added unto the church. Those that are wounded will find
their comfort and their solace in the gathering of God's people,
in the hearing of the Gospel again and again. There will be in those who are
pricked in the heart, as verse 42 says, there will be a continuing
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship. They
will continue in what Peter has just preached to them about the
Lord Jesus Christ. They will continue with the church
in the breaking of bread and prayers. They will continue there
in the church. There will be, those who are
pricked in the heart, there will be in their lives a place for
church which will be esteemed. all others, there will be repentance
and baptism, there will be an open declaration of turning from
all of that old religion, there will be an open declaration of
union with the Lord Jesus Christ in baptism. And remarkably, something
that comes upon those who are pricked in the heart, verse 43,
just look at it with me in Acts chapter 2, and fear came upon
every soul. No longer was God and His Word
something to be trifled with. There will be a reverential awe
that comes upon those who have been pricked in the heart, who
have been wounded, There will be adjoining. There will be an open confession
of faith. I'd like us just to turn to Hebrews
chapter 9, to one of my favourite passages in the scripture. For
those who are wounded in the heart, their consciences Their
wounds are there. To circumcise a heart means to
cut around and so from every direction a circumcised heart
can be wounded. And our Lord Jesus Christ, our
Lord Jesus Christ is the only balm. And it's His blood, His
blood applied to your conscience by the blessed Holy Spirit. that
gives the healing and gives the comfort. He says, for his own,
verse 12, by his own blood he entered once into the holy place,
having obtained eternal redemption. He has it in his hand, eternal
redemption for us, for a particular people. For if the blood of bulls
and goats and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling on the unclean sanctified
to the purifying of the flesh, how much more shall the blood
of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
spot to God, I love what this says, purge your conscience,
purge your conscience from dead works. All thou works in the
flesh are dead works to serve the living God. Purge your conscience. You see, my problem is much deeper
than what you see. You look at other people and
you think that they're reasonably moral, decent people. Those who
have been pricked in the heart know something far more serious
is going on. They need to have their consciences
dealt with. And the blood of Christ applied
does that. He says, our covenant keeping
God. This is a covenant I will make
with them after those days, says the Lord. I will put my laws
into their hearts and in their minds will I write them. And
their sins and iniquities will I remember no more. This is Hebrews
10, 17. And I love what he says. Where
there is remission of these, where they have been put away,
there is no more offering for sin. I can't offer anything for
sin. You can't offer anything for
sin. God has an offering and those
wounded in the heart find their comfort in the same place that
God our Father finds satisfaction in the death and the resurrection
and the exaltation of his precious son. Let's pray.