And again, as I said on Thursday
night, I'm here as a representative of our church in Australia and
they send their greetings and they want to be fondly remembered
to you. It's wonderful to have brothers and sisters around the
world. I get to experience things that I hope some of them might
experience and maybe some of you might experience if the Lord
ever draws you to Australia. When Clay asked me some time
ago, he said two things. Could I speak, and could I speak
for 30 minutes and 30 minutes alone? So do I have a time to
finish? We Australians are a rebellious
crew. We need to be kept in line. So I'm very happy if I have a...
So anyway, I've limited... I've tried to limit my thoughts
to just... 30 minutes, but I wanted us,
as you are approaching your conference and 10 years of being gathered
together by the Lord, you have much to celebrate. The Lord's
people always have much to celebrate for His grace and His providence,
and our little fellowship in Australia is fast approaching
the same time, and Clay's visit to us six years ago. Now, Clay,
it's too long. six years ago was a wonderful
time in the affirmation of the Gospel that the Lord had brought
to us and the Lord had sealed to our hearts. And so I wanted
to read with you this morning Peter's sermons in Acts. I was
going to read the one in Acts chapter 2 beginning at verse
14 and I wanted to read briefly his sermon in Acts 13. We'll skip over the healing of
the man. I just wanted to, one of the
wonderful things about the scriptures is they keep drawing us back
to foundations. They keep steering us back in
a right way. I've been trying to negotiate
the roads of New Jersey and New York in the last little while
and I took my rental car back a couple of days ago because
I just couldn't cope. You come to those cloverleaf
roundabout things and the thing's talking to me and telling me
what to do and it's sending me in wrong directions. But the
Scriptures send us back, don't they? Like a compass, they point
directly to where we have to go. And these sermons are foundational. They're remarkable sermons. They're
remarkable in their simplicity. They're remarkable in their clarity
of declaration of who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And they're
remarkable in their power. These two sermons led to the
saving of 5,000 souls. And this, at this time, there
was just this remarkable outpouring of the Spirit upon the preachers
of the Gospel. And for a season, just for this
tiny season, there were no false teachers in the church. There
were no harassments to the church. It happens very soon on. If you
turn over to Acts chapter 4, they begin immediately to start
having problems. But for this very brief season,
there is the gospel preached in the power of the Holy Spirit.
as promised by the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, you shall receive
in verse 8 of chapter 1, he said, but you shall receive power after
that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses
unto me both in Jerusalem and in Judea and in Samaria and unto
the uttermost part of the earth. This is God's promise fulfilled
with power and fulfilled with purpose. So I thought I'd read
them and then we'll just look briefly at some fundamental points
in them. Acts 2.14 But Peter, standing
up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them,
Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known
unto you, and hearken to my words. For these are not drunken, 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, saith God. I will pour out My
Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall
prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old
men shall dream dreams. And on My servants and on My
handmaidens I will pour out in those days of My Spirit, and
they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven
above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapour
of smoke. The sun shall be turned into
darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable
day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. And now Peter comes to give a
description of who the Lord is. 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 you yourselves also know him being delivered by the
determinant counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain whom God hath raised up having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should
be holden of it. 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. 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. 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 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. 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 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 at my right hand, until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom
ye crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now when they heard this, they
were pricked in their heart and said unto Peter and to the rest
of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter
said unto them, repent and be baptized every one of you in
the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you
shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is
unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many
other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves
from this untoward generation. and this is the impact of it,
isn't it? Then they that gladly received his word were baptized,
and the same day were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in the breaking
of bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul,
and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all
that believed were together, and had all things common. and
sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all men as
every man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart,
praising God and having favour with all the people. And the
Lord added to the church daily, such as should be saved. I might just, if you allow me,
just read Peter's response. Having healed the lame man at
the gate beautiful, he then speaks to the people who were amazed
at what's happened. They were looking at a lame man
and Peter says to them, you're looking in the wrong place. You
need to look way from the lame man, you need to look way, way,
way beyond that, you need to look you need to look to heaven
to see what God has done this is the work of the Lord Jesus
the God of Abraham verse 13 chapter 3 the God of Abraham and of Isaac
and of Jacob the God of our fathers have glorified his son Jesus
whom ye delivered up and denied him in the presence of Pilate
when he was determined to let him go But ye denied the Holy
One and the just, and desired a murderer to be granted unto
you, and killed the Prince of life, whom God hath raised from
the dead, whereof we are witnesses. and his name, through faith in
his name, hath made this man strong, whom ye see and know. Yea, the faith which is by him
hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. now
brethren I what I know that through ignorance you did it as did also
your rulers but those things which God before had showed by
the mouth of all of his prophets that Christ should suffer he
has so fulfilled repent ye therefore and be converted that your sins
may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from
the presence of the Lord. It's a great description of the
gospel preaching, isn't it? Times of refreshing from the
presence of the Lord. As you can see, they are simple
sermons. They are simple, simple messages. They just give the
history. They give the scriptures. They
give the testimony that is there before them. And they simply
declare who our God is. And in very, very simple terms,
they declare who we are. You've got to remember this is
an extraordinarily devout religious crowd. They say the numbers of
people were extraordinary. Some estimates are that there
were a million people in Jerusalem at the time of Passover. And this was just six weeks later.
So here we have this enormous religious crowd. God says in
chapter 2 verse 5 that they were devout. This crowd of devout
people and there speaking to them is a Galilean. Galilean,
bit like an Australian in America. Ignorant and unlearned is what
they describe Galileans as. ignorant and unlearned. There
was a nobody, a nobody, a Galilean fisherman preaching to this crowd. They were religious, weren't
they? They were upright, they were moral, they were devout,
they had an ancestry they could trace back to all the patriarchs
and all the way back to God himself. They were missionary people.
They were zealous. They'd been out evangelising,
as it were, to all the nations. Around 15 different nations were
gathered there. They'd gathered them there in
this religious crowd. And there they were, gathered
according to the Word of God. These people who knew the Bible
in a way which would cause us embarrassment, so many of us.
Our lives are filled up with so much of this world, we have
so little time for the things of God. Their lives are not so
busy, and these were zealous people. And to this great religious
crowd, this great religious crowd, when Peter looked out on that
crowd, brothers and sisters, there wasn't a single believer
there. I'm not saying there wasn't a
child of God there, there wasn't a single believer there until
he preached this message of salvation by the Lord Jesus Christ. To
all of them, to all of them, he says, that their religion,
their generation, it's an untoward generation. It's a crooked, bent
and twisted. He says to them, repent and be
baptized, turn around everything that you think you know about
God, everything you think that you've earned in your presence
before God because of all your religious activities, all of
it is rubbish, all of it is meaningless. We live in a religious world,
brothers and sisters, and it's absolutely no different to the
one that Peter was speaking to. So what have they done? He deals
with man very quickly, doesn't he? In verse 33, you have taken
and by wicked hands you have crucified and slain. You've crucified
him. And he keeps saying, you killed,
in chapter 3 verse 13, he says, you killed the prince of life.
You desired a murderer to be granted to you. You delivered him up. Isn't that remarkable? That is
what religion at its best does. That is what religion at its
best does. No wonder the cry of scriptures
all the time is that all flesh is grass. We keep proclaiming,
don't we? Because God's children know it
from their own hearts in a way that can't be taught by men.
We know the depravity of our heart. We know, brothers and
sisters in Christ, that all we are is sin. All we do is sin. All we have is sin. All that
we have that we think merits us of anything before God is
absolutely and utterly worthless. You have no money, all flesh
is grass, and the goodness thereof is as the flower of the field,
but the word of our God shall stand forever. You come, he says
in Isaiah 55, you come, he that has no money, come and buy and
eat, buy wine and milk without money, without price. You have
nothing to barter with God. See the proof of total depravity.
And I'm sure it's crossed your minds as you've contemplated
the scriptures, or at least I can confess, how often have we read
the story of the crucifixion of the Lord Jesus Christ? And
then we've said, well, if I wasn't there, I wouldn't have done that. You see, the total depravity
of man is more revealed in man at his best religious state than
man at his worst state. He's worse off here than the
people in the gutter. We keep thinking, don't we? We
keep thinking. Our Adam flesh keeps saying to
us, I'm better. I'm not quite as bad as that
person there. We are. We are. personally responsible, brothers
and sisters. We are personally responsible
for the sin that we committed in our father, Adam. And we are
personally responsible. for what has happened to the
Lord Jesus Christ. And until God brings that to
your heart, you will have something else to cling to. You will have
some sense of worth and some sense of goodness. And religion
polishes that. It loves taking. It loves taking
what's in the flesh of man and polishing it up and making it
look better. Religion is continually trying
to make people look like Christians. act like Christians, put on a
pretense, a show, they would not submit to the righteousness
of God, they went about to establish their own. So how does this wounding,
God has to deal with the heart of man. He wounds the hearts
of these people. He wounds the hearts of these
people with his word. He brings a word from God, doesn't
he? A word spoken by an ordinary
Galilean fisherman. and it cuts the hearts of these
people as God empowers those simple words, a simple quoting
of history and a simple quoting of who the Lord Jesus Christ
is. So let's just look at what is said about our extraordinary
Savior in all of this. The Lord Jesus Christ is glorified
in heaven. The Lord Jesus Christ came as
God, came as man. But he's now, having finished
his work, he's now in heaven. Just back a few pages, you'll
see what he prayed in that last hour in John 17. He said, Father, the hour has
come. glorify thy son, John 17 1, that
thy son may also glorify thee. As thou has given him power over
all flesh that he should give eternal life to as many as thou
has given him. And this is eternal life, that
they might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom
Thou hast sent. I have glorified Thee on the
earth. I have finished the work which Thou gavest me to do. And now, Father, glorify Thou
me with Thine own self, with the glory which I had with Thee
before the world was. It's one of the great declarations
of these messages, isn't it? Our God reigns. The Lord Jesus
Christ rules everything in this universe, rules over everything
and everyone. Our God reigns, our God reigns. He shall not fail nor be discouraged
till he has set judgment in the earth. He's magnified the law
and he's made it honorable and now where is he? Acts 2.33, Peter
wants to leave these people in no doubt that the Lord Jesus
Christ, therefore, verse 33 of Acts chapter 2, 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. It's His work, isn't it? He now
in heaven is directing all the affairs. It's His church. It's
His gospel. He sends it. and he sends it
with power and conviction. He has shed forth this which
you now see and hear. God has made this same Jesus,
that same Jesus, both Lord and Christ. He is God's Christ and
he is God. Pentecostal preaching, The preaching
of Pentecost is just a declaration, isn't it? Of free salvation through
the merits of Christ. It's a declaration of the glorious
sovereignty of God. It's a declaration of the desperate
wickedness of man, the utter depravity of man. and the utter
depravity of man in his religion. And it speaks clearly and boldly
of the crucifixion and the death of the Lord Jesus Christ and
his exaltation to glory. And now repentance and remission
of sins is proclaimed by the gift of God. 221 is a great promise,
brothers and sisters. Let's go back to Acts 221. And
it shall come to pass The older I get and the more scripture
I read and the more I experience, the more I love the wills and
shalls of God. I rest, I rest my head on my
pillow on the wills and shalls of God. Our God reigns. Whosoever, I love that, isn't
it? Whosoever, there are lots of
Angus Fishers, it's a common name. And when I Googled to find
a new account for my, email I had to go down to 25 before, there's
at least 25 other Angus Fishers, I have 3 or 4 cousins who are
Angus Fishers, this is so much better isn't it, it's whosoever
brothers and sisters, if it said Angus Fisher I'd be thinking
it was all of that other lot, but it's whosoever, whosoever
shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. As Peter goes through, he's actually
quoting out of Joel, and he stops that verse in Joel 2.23, and
he stops there to give us a description of the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ. It is much more than just the words, brothers and
sisters, because every church around the world is talking about
the Lord Jesus Christ. The name of the Lord Jesus Christ
is his character, his being. It defines him. It defines him
according to the Scriptures. It defines him as he is in the
Scriptures and as he was as he walked in this world. It defines
him as he was on Calvary's tree. It defines him in the tomb. It
defines him exalted. It defines him right now reigning. It defines him returning. The
name is much, much more than just words. It defines his character. There was a time, I'm not sure
if it still exists, there was a time when a person's name was
so important because it was their character. I live with, my grandfather
was born in the previous century to the previous century and in
those days a person's name was so vital to them. They protected
the honour of their name. It means much more than his words.
It's just a declaration of who he is. That's why he says, you'll
be witnesses unto me. When the Holy Ghost comes upon
you, you'll be witnesses unto me. And this is what it is in
this sermon, this great sermon of Peter's to bear witness to
the Lord Jesus. In verse 22, he describes him
as Jesus of Nazareth. A man, he really was a man. In every regard he was a man
but without sin. It's a glorious thing, isn't
it, that he took on humanity, that he could be united as one
to his bride. Touched, my brothers and sisters,
touched with the feelings of our infirmities. There is not
a thing that we struggle with and suffer in this world that
our Lord Jesus is not deeply and personally aware of. That's
why He can comfort us, because He knows. You can't ever say
He doesn't know. You can't ever say He doesn't
feel. He was a man, a real man, but
He was a man approved of God by miracles, signs and wonders.
And who did the miracles, signs and wonders? It's remarkable
what Peter says, this is what God's witness of his son was,
wasn't it? Which God did by him in the midst
of you. Nicodemus confessed it, didn't
he? He confessed it, he needled much more. But he did confess,
he said, we know, we Pharisees know that you are a man sent
from God because no one, no one who is not Not sent from God
can do the things that you can do. We know, they said. They
did know. His miracles were testimony. But all of his miracles were
testimony to his deity. All of his miracles were testimony
to his love for his people, his care for them. He's lifting them
up. He's coming to them always in
a place where they had no ability of their own and doing things
for them which God alone could do. He was a man approved of
God. He was a man who they had witnessed
doing remarkable things. He could say at the end of his
life to these Pharisees, can you accuse me of any sin? There was no sin in the Lord
Jesus Christ, and there was no sin evident even to them. He was killed because he claimed
to be God. He simply told the truth. But
yet, there it is. He's called, as Peter calls him
in Acts chapter 3, the Holy One and the Just One. And yet, and
yet, verse 23, Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God." Lord Jesus Christ gave himself
into the hands of those people. But he was delivered over by
the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. All that happened to
the Lord Jesus Christ is by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge
of God. And all that happens to all of
us, brothers and sisters, is by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. God reigns over all things. But particularly here, We must
keep coming back to the great question of the Gospel. Here
was this man approved of God, this man of Nazareth, this man
who is called by God the Holy One and the Just One. And yet God, God delivered him
over. by His determinant counsel and
foreknowledge. The Christ should suffer. The Christ must suffer. You see, as you go through this
and if you have time at your leisure, if you go back and read
these sermons, you will see that Peter is continually referring
his readers and continually referring the listeners and us back to
the eternal counsels of God. The great issue about the cross
of the Lord Jesus Christ, the great issue of salvation is the
eternal covenant between God the Father, God the Son and God
the Holy Spirit. And that's the question, isn't
it? That's the remarkable question about which our salvation hangs
and the glory of God hangs. How could a holy and just God
hand over his Son and slay him, a holy and just Son, at the very
apex of his faith and at the very depth of his suffering,
God the Father drew his sword of holy righteous justice and
he slew his son." I don't know about Brother Clay,
but we are We are so often, as we look to the Lord Jesus Christ
and look to that transaction between God the Father and God
the Son, and look what happened on Calvary's tree, and look at
the agonies of Gethsemane, we're treading on ground, on holy ground,
and we need to take our shoes off. It is way, way beyond us,
isn't it? It is way, way beyond our understanding. It pleased, Isaiah 53.10, it
pleased the Lord to bruise him, literally to crush him. He has put him to grief, and
thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin. It is the glory of the
gospel, isn't it, that the Lord Jesus Christ became sin for us. He was made sin for us. He was made a curse for us. He bear the sin of many. And
I know that your pastor has taken you through Psalms 40 and 69
and 18 and many places in the scripture where the Lord Jesus
Christ just plainly owns the sins of his people as his own. He was the surety of that Eternal
Covenant before the foundation of the world. Those that the
Father gave to Him, He in that Eternal Covenant took absolute
full responsibility for them, for all of their sin, for all
of their righteousness, for all of their standing before God.
It is a remarkable transaction, which is why in the Declaration
of the Gospel we want to proclaim again an exalted, risen Saviour. He's done His work and now He
sits exalted at God's right hand. He is both the Lord and Christ. God has made Him Lord and Christ,
brothers and sisters. We do not make Him Lord and Christ.
God has made Him Lord and Christ. You'll either bow, you'll either
bow now or you will bow. God has made him Lord and Christ.
He was made sin and he finished the transgression. He was made
a curse and he justified the ungodly. He reconciled sinners
to God. He's perfected forever them that
are sanctified. He's put away sin by the sacrifice
of himself. That is the great transaction
of the cross, brothers and sisters. My sin, the sin of all of His
people, is put away forever. A holy and just God can slay
a holy and just Savior and then raise Him gloriously to resurrection,
raise Him gloriously to heaven. The heavens, as chapter 3 says,
the heavens must receive Him. He must. It is His rightful place
to take up His throne in heaven. our holy, holy Savior. No wonder Peter goes on to speak
how gloriously he has been raised up and how gloriously in his
resurrection he is now doing these things. He is pouring forth
his Spirit. He's sending forth his Gospel. He is working in the hearts of
his people. He is actually cutting to the
heart. God, through his gospel and through
his word, can cut to a heart, can reach a part of you that
no human being can ever reach. He can touch your hearts. These
people were cut in the heart. They weren't cut to the heart. They had a heart wounding, a
heart wounding by the gospel, by a heart wounding in in honouring
all the promises of God that the Lord Jesus Christ would see
the travail of his soul, the Father would see the travail
of his soul and he will be satisfied for the joy set before him, our
great Saviour reigns. It is a remarkable thing that
in this religious world the one thing that is attacked so often
is the success of the Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. on Calvary's
tree, a just God and a Saviour. There is absolutely no way in
the world the Lord Jesus Christ did anything other than perfectly
fulfil what the Father had given Him. There is no way in the world
that He did anything other than perfectly put away all the sins
of all of God's people. There is no way in the world
that we can stand this notion that you see so often and hear
so often that the Lord Jesus Christ attempted to do something
and he's failed. Peter wouldn't have it on the
day of Pentecost and nor would anyone there who gladly received
the word. They gladly received, verse 41,
they gladly received his word. and were baptized. They gladly
received the word of their utter depravity. They gladly received
the word of their culpability in the murder, the wicked, wicked
murder of the Lord Jesus Christ. They gladly received the word
that all of their religion all of their religion, rather than
leading them to God, had actually led them to crucify the Son of
God. Even when Pilate wanted to let
Him go, they gladly received the word of the Lord Jesus Christ. They gladly received the word
that salvation is in Him and salvation is by free and sovereign
grace. The God had nothing in them. that would cause them to call
them to him. What did they have? Blood-stained
hands. What did the preacher have? A
cowardly denial in front of a little girl. Nothing. Nothing, brothers
and sisters. The glory of the Gospel is that
it's all of grace. Salvation is by free and sovereign
grace. Salvation is by free and sovereign
grace and it's sure and unchangeable and it's not in what we do. What
do they have to offer God? What do we have to offer God?
Salvation comes as a gift. As you celebrate your 10 years,
brothers and sisters, you need to be very, very thankful to
the Lord for sending the gospel to you for a declaration of this
Jesus. Again and again in Acts, it says
this same Jesus. Peter wants to define Jesus with
great clarity so that no one will be mistaken about who he
is. All the other Jesuses of this world who came and tried
and do their best and are walking around heaven wringing their
hands trying to find out how on earth they're going to get
these people saved is not the Jesus of this book. It's not
the Jesus Peter proclaimed. Our God reigns. They will look on Him and mourn
for Him. They will come. Our great God
lives. His cause can never die. His church is secure now as he
is in heaven. He gave himself. He came. And our acceptance before
God is as secure as our Lord Jesus Christ's death and glorious
resurrection and exaltation. It's a remarkable gift of God
that we can proclaim Him in this world. Treasure, treasure His
gifts to you, brothers and sisters. Treasure His Son. My time is
up, Claude. Do you want me to pray or we
go?