Good evening. We always have some kind of music
going on, I guess. When we start the service, that
call to worship, three minutes before we start, it's we've come
into this house and gathered in his name to worship him. I
heard my brothers around this nation today pray, yesterday,
that we may be gathered together to honor Christ. I pray we've come into this house
to gather in his name, not for personal benefit, not for routine
tradition, that we're here to honor Christ. If so, children
of God will be happy about that. They'll be pleased. They will
be. They'll be captivated. My brother Gabe just got through
preaching. He had one point you can say in a sentence, and he
had a real short illustration as to what that point meant.
And he said it about 18 different ways, and had 18 different ways
of saying it, and showed you 18 different scriptures. You
could have summed up that whole message in 14 seconds. And I thought that was wonderful.
I loved it. I wish he'd have said it 180
ways instead of 18 ways. I thought it was wonderful. Acts
chapter 5. I pray we seek first the kingdom of God tonight. Acts chapter 5. The message is all the words of this
life. All the words of this life. Verse
11. We remember the things that's
been taking place here. It says, and great fear came upon all
the church. This is the first type of fear
we'll see tonight. The first type of fear. After
these things that happened and Ananias and Sapphira were struck
dead, people thought that could be me. And they honored God,
who's the source of grace and the source of mercy. They worship
with fear and trembling. They honored God. They respected
Him. All the church did. And upon
us many has heard these things. On verse 12, it begins and says, where many signs and wonders
wrought among the people." Remember what the people prayed for? They
prayed, they began praising God, and they said, He's holy and
He's on His throne, and everything happens by your good pleasure
and will, and we're thankful for that, Lord. And then they
asked for something, they petitioned something, that these men who've
been told to shut up and stop doing what they're doing, their
means, their message, and their methods, and they said, give
them boldness. Let them turn it up to 11. That
Christ may be honored and your people may be called out. What's
the result of that type of prayer? That's praying, Lord, your will
be done and meaning it. What's the result of that? By
the apostles' hands were many signs and wonders wrought among
the people. Now, there's a parenthetical
text here. I had to go back to English class this week. Thankfully,
I'm married to someone that's a master of education. I can
ask questions. I have at my disposal. She ain't
work. We use a parentheses, those rounded brackets, to set off
an explanation or to give some supplemental information from
that surrounding text. It gives us some insight to what
we're looking at. Still in verse 11, here's the
beginning of this parenthetical text. Speaking of the church,
and many heard these things, and they were all with one accord
in Solomon's porch, period. That's a complete thought. It's
still in verse 12. That's a complete thought. Who
is this speaking about? Luke's clearing this up for us.
And I thought, this is important. The Lord gave this to Luke to
write this way for us. And there's times that we have
checklists in our heads and we think, well, we ought to hear
this and we ought to hear this and we ought to hear this. What if the Lord
sent a prophet and said 40 days and none of us is going to be
overthrown? He gave us this, didn't he? For
us to learn, to teach us something. It's on purpose. It said they
were with one accord in Solomon's porch, period. It's complete
thought. Who is that? That's all the church. That's
all that local assembly right there in Jerusalem. All of those
that were of one accord. All those that had one Lord,
one baptism, one faith, one birth. All of those that were together
as one. That were assembled together,
because they had to be. There wasn't no other place they
could worship God. They were together. So in verse 12, it's
speaking of those people. Now in verse 13, we're still
in that parentheses, that parenthetical text that's describing this gathering. And the rest, well, what was
it talking about? Well, it's talking about the
church, all that's one accord. Now what else? The rest of them.
The rest of them, everybody else. No man joined himself to them,
to the apostles. Now everybody else, they didn't
join themselves to the apostles and to those brethren. They were
apart from them. They weren't joined with them.
They weren't together. There's a colon there. There's
part two of our English lesson. I learned how to write essays.
I got through English because my pastor, he sat down, he said,
you're going to tell them what you're going to tell them, then
tell them, then tell them what you told them and try to keep
it to three points. And that's a five paragraph essay, right?
Introduction, a body and a conclusion, right? Culmination. I got through
it. I got it. It clicked. I had a
good pastor. There's a colon there. Colon
introduces a list. It's going to list some things.
Or it gives us an explanation or elaborates on what was just
said. And so what needs to elaborate on? The rest of them, there's
no man joined himself to them, but the people magnified them.
Now this is the same verse 13. This is still talking about those
that didn't join themselves together, but they magnified the apostles.
What people? Those that ain't with the apostles,
but they magnified them. Can you believe that? Can you
believe that? Can you believe that would happen?
Why would that happen? I'll be brief, but I'll be brutal.
Self-preservation. We can't get entangled with them
apostles. They just put them in the drunk tank, and they're
about to put them in general population, and they're about
to give them a cat and nine tails, and they're going to end up killing
these boys. We've seen them kill others in the past. So we can't associate
them as two costs. Too much cost for me. It's self-preservation.
Pride. Pride. If they beat them apostles,
that's embarrassing and I'll be embarrassed. I ain't suffering
with them. And will worship. Stay with me now. Will worship.
They wanted to do things their way. There was a way that seemed
right to them. And they said, well, we was just
doing the best we knew how. They worship themselves. I've
heard this my whole life. Ain't a lot of deer hunting out
here, I don't think, but they say, I can worship God from a
tree stand. Every Sunday morning, I get up and go turkey hunting
or deer hunting, and I can worship God from a turkey blind or a
tree stand. Or I can worship to my car on
the way to work. You know what? I worship God in my home. We
should. We should, we should think of
his kingdom all day long while we're at work, while we're to
our given occupations and while we're with our families and while
we're driving down the road. Before we go cutting somebody
off and throwing our fingers out the windows, we ought to
think, well, hold on now, who am I and whose am I? Faithful
pastor told me that too. Remember who you are and who
you are. Well, think about those things. But the prescribed means
of worship for God's people is public worship. The Lord said,
I'm gonna meet with my people. We'll gather together in public,
in a public place. I'm gonna send just one of them,
a broken vessel, a jawbone of an ass, the head harlot, to stand
up and tell them what I said. He said, I'll meet with them,
and they'll be happy about it. I'll bless it. I'll bless it.
Brother David Pledger had an article. Somebody asked him one
time, they said, couldn't the Lord save somebody in their living
room? Couldn't the Lord save somebody through cassette tape? Couldn't
the Lord save somebody in a deer stand or something? And they
said, this ain't a discussion about what the Lord's able to
do. It's about bowing to what he said he was going to do. And
he said, I'm going to save through the preaching of the gospel. People fight it tooth and toe
now. And then they'll praise the one that they're fighting.
It's amazing. The Lord told us in Hebrews 10,
it says, let us consider one another to provoke unto love
and to good works. And there's a colon there. That
means there's going to be some explanation. What's that? Not forsaking the
assembly of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but
exhorting one another and so much the more as you see the
day approaching. And we normally stop there. The
next verse says, for if we sin willfully after that we've received
the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more remission for
sins. That's as serious as it gets. You think we ought to warn people
and say, hey, how's it going? Hey, no, you're doing fine. And
be effeminate and off-putting. Or should we say, hey, I'm praying
for you. The Lord needs to save you. He needs to bring you to
his people and put you underneath the sound of the gospel and bless
you and save your soul and give you a new creation in you. Don told me years ago, he was
up in Alaska, he said, I could fill a stadium with people who
said they believe what we believe, but they won't come. They won't
come. I believed him. I did. But I
hadn't experienced it. I earnestly, I didn't think he's
lying to me. I believed every word he told
me. He looked after me. He's like a family member to
me. But I hadn't experienced it. Now I have. No less than
five times in that office back there, I've had somebody sit
down and tell me that, well, it's obvious you're a synagogue.
It's obvious that the spirits in this place and the Holy Ghost
are strong with these people. It's obvious that the true and
living God's being preached. It's obvious that you're strong
in the scriptures and you really know what this Bible says. but
fill in the blank. Something else that's more important
than the one thing that's needed. That's will worship. That's Burger
King. I'll have it my way. I think
I know better than God. That's what it boils down to. People get mad, and they'll take
all their excuses away. They'll grit their teeth, and
they'll bite into you if they get a chance. But that's what's
speaking of here. There's a church there, and everybody else. Now,
they were bragging to them apostles. All them boys, I tell you what,
they're preaching the gospel down there, and it's obvious there's
miracles. You gonna sit down there with them? Well, no. I
know, man, it's critical of my buddy Todd, and he lives closer
to this church house than I do. I never met him. And Todd said,
you know him? I said, I know of him. I never
met him. I'm on the symbol with the saints. There's a superstitious
fear. There's a fear that the God's
saints have and they say, oh, let's honor Christ in this. He's
worthy of praise. He's worthy of honor. Look what
he's done. We're great sinners. That's me. He died for that. He's for that grief and that
shame. And then there's another kind of fear. That's a superstitious
fear, an overly religious fear. If somebody, I'll be talking
with somebody, and they'll be talking to me like a normal person.
And they may tell a joke. I like jokes. They may cuss a
little bit. I don't get too offended. They
find out I'm a preacher. Normally they apologize. Oh,
I'm sorry. And then they tell me about how great their faith
is and what charity they give to or something that I don't
care about. Everything changes. You've experienced
this too. If I came with a preacher's wife, boy, everything changes.
That's a superstitious fear. That's not honoring the blood
of Christ that he bought his people with. That's wildly different. And they're hedging up their
bets just like those on Mars Hill. They're praying to a God
that they don't even know, just in case. Here's that other type
of fear, verse 14. This is the covenant the Lord
gives to his people. were the more added to the Lord,
multitudes, both of men and women. With all this going on and all
this good praise and bad praise and hypocrisy and wheat in the
tares and madness, all this going on, the Lord's grace was not
frustrated. Mankind can try to undo it as
hard as they can and put their input and get inside somebody's
ear. But if the Lord sends somebody
in a message, that message is going to accomplish what he sent
it to accomplish. It can't be undone. Multitudes were at it. That parenthetical text is important.
The Lord moved Luke to put that there for the children of God
to be taught something. May we absorb the lesson. May God teach us this, and make
us important to us, and make us committed to Christ and His
gospel. Now, let's take out that parentheses. When you have a word in italics,
that means it was added by the translators. Point three of our
English lesson. You see a word in italics, the
translator's added that. Sometimes we read it with it,
and it makes good sense. And sometimes I'll read it with
it, and I'll read it without it. See what the Lord's saying there.
Sometimes we need to take it out. Sometimes it's really good
to be there. It's handy. I'm thankful for it. But this parenthetical
text, it explains something, and then you can lift that out
and do no harm to the text and keep going. So verse 12, And
by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought
among the people. Verse 15, And so much that they
brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds
and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by
might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out
of the city's roundabout into Jerusalem, bringing sick folks,
and them which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were
healed every one." In your own time, I got too many notes. In
your own time, you can look at Lamentations 4, verses 17 through
20. This is a prophecy of what this
was going to happen. Their enemies are against them.
And they said, your shadow's with us. And I thought a lot
could be expounded on that in apostolic gifts, but those people
coming, just the shadow of Peter passing over them healed their
sicknesses. Healed their sicknesses. And
you know what I thought of? It's a benefit. to unbelievers
being in the proximity of believers. When you say, well, the rain
falls on the just and the unjust. You just imagine. A couple of y'all may be working
here soon. Imagine if you had a boss, an
employer that was a believer, an established, mature, grown
in grace believer. Imagine that. How would you like
to go work in the morning? I'd be a good place to work, wouldn't
I? I have. I've worked for a couple different
believers. It's a good job. It really is. Now you imagine
owning a business. You had a gas station you had
to run, and it's hard to get people to show up on time. Seriously. Insanely hard. And get people
to do a good job and sweep the floors. Imagine if you owned
a gas station and you had believers working for you. They ought to
be the absolute best employee in the whole company. Shouldn't they? We're working
unto the Lord. But these people came, they got
close to Peter. And I don't need to tell you,
where did that power that Peter had in his shadow come from?
Lord gave that. Who would Peter tell you? Peter,
how come your shadow goes, I don't know. I'm just going to the tabernacle. I'm just going to preach. And
Lord's healing, folks. I don't know. I'll tell you later
if he tells me. We'll go on. Verse 17. Here's where the apostles
get arrested and freed again. And the high priest rose up,
and all they that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees,
there was the Pharisees and the high priest, and the Sadducees
were with them. We'll touch on this at the end.
And they were filled with indignation, and grit their teeth, and was
mad. Verse 18. And they laid their hands on
the apostles, and they put them in the common prison. Remember
the last time they put them in like a holding tank overnight.
Well, now they're in general population. But the angel of
the Lord by night opened the prison doors and brought them
forth and said, go. They were freed first. You get
that? Angel of God freedom. They're freed. Go, stand and
speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life. You get that? Did that grab a
hold of your heart when I read that? When you read it today?
Did it? Tell them all the words of this life. This life. This is a command. This is a
command. The Lord gave that too. That's
our command. He's assembled us together. We
preach Christ and Him crucified. We all have different parts of
the body and have different functions or roles, but we preach Christ.
This is us. He said, go in all the world
and preach gospel to every creature. This is a command that says,
go. Stand on your hind two legs. Go stand. And I thought, you
know, it's in Luke 4, the Lord read the scriptures and he sat
down. He stood up. He read the scriptures. And he sat down in a chair, and
then they were amazed at the gracious words that came out
of his mouth. You know why? Because back then, all the people
stood, and the preacher sat down. He's doing a heavy lift. He needed
a break. And the preacher would sit down,
and all the people would stand, and he would preach from a seated
position. I wonder if people pay attention good then, huh?
If they fell asleep, they'd hit their head on something, wouldn't
they? Might fall over. That got a hold of me today,
right before we come out here. And I thought, the Spirit of
God said, you go do the opposite of everything they're doing.
You tell them to sit down. You sit down, I want something
to tell you. And you stand up. This is flip-flop. Take everything
out of their comfort zone. You go stand. Behind two legs. What else does that mean? Stand.
You stand on Christ, the chief cornerstone. That's your feeding,
the footing. That's your foundation. That's
the providence that's taking you there. That's what's commanding
you right now to do it. And I tell you what, that's night
and day from everything everybody's used to too. There's a mess of
churches around this place. They may say Jesus. They may
say Christ. They may have some doctrine that's
correct. But they don't preach Christ.
They may preach a whole bunch of sermons about him. They don't
preach him. They said, go preach him. Go
preach him. His people are here. Go, stand
on your hind two legs. You preach Christ. Where? In
the temple. To whom? To the people. What? All the words of this life. This life. What's this life?
We're commanded to do something. Better know what we're commanded
to do. Turn to 1 John. 1 John. John was there. He learned a whole bunch. And
he explains it a little better to us as he's aged. Look here
in 1 John 1. You can read the rest of that
chapter when you get home. You'll see it throughout. We'll
look at the first four verses. First John 1.1. That which was
from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen
with our eyes, which we've looked upon and our hands have handled
of the word of life. That's capital W. Word of life. Well, who's that, John? We need
some expounding. I need some explanation on that.
Well, we got a parenthetical text right after that. We already
know what that is, don't we? Let's look at it. For the life,
sit back and ask for you to preach this life. Well, this is the
word of life. And it says here, he's going
to explain it to us. For the life was manifested. And we have seen and bear witness
and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the father
and was manifest unto us. He said, this life, you go preach
this life, all the words of this life. What's that life? This
is the word of life. This is the eternal life. And
this life was manifested. It was with the father. And now
all of a sudden it's with us. That's Christ. Go stand on Christ,
trust in Him, and preach Him. Preach Him. That which we have
seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship
with us. We stand up and preach in person
because that's how God saves sinners. He said so. And we've done that, that way
He may save some folks and put a new creation in them, and we'd
have fellowship with you. We couldn't before, you's dead.
We couldn't have a conversation with somebody that can't talk,
right? Now you got new ears and a new tongue and cause a new
heart and out of that new heart comes Christ alive. We say what
good things he's done. And truly our fellowship is with
the father and with his son, Jesus Christ. And these things
we write unto you, that your joy, who's talking to you, your
joy might be full. Might be full. He'll preach this life, this
life. You remember in John six, we
looked at a little while back, Lord fed 5,000 people and he
had a, that was a big congregation wasn't it? It was 5,012. That
was just the men I guess, bigger than that. And those that are
assembling with the Lord, when you talk about assembling with
the Lord, they was there with him. There was no question if they
was in the right church house or not, There was God preaching
to him. And they left him because he
had some hard things to say. You know what he said? He said,
therefore, I said unto you that no man can come to me except
it were given to you and my father. He said, I'm not lost, you are.
You didn't find me, I found you. You're the sinner, I'm the savior
of sinners. You ain't nothing but sin, I
came to be made sin. And it says, from that time,
many of the disciples went back and walked no more with him.
They left. 5,000 people up and turned around and left that local
assembly on the hillside. Oh, did the Lord chase them out
in the parking lot and say, please, I'm sorry, I'll go? No. He looked
at the 12 standing there left, said, will you go away also?
You leaving too? That representative, Peter, which
is here in Acts preaching, he's learning about that life so he
can preach that life. He said, Simon Peter said, Lord, to whom,
not what, not where, not some other assembly, who are we gonna
go to? Thou hast the words of eternal
life. This life, that's you. You say it, it's done. We're
gonna be where you are. I'm gonna be where you are. I
love that woman. And if I ain't seen her, I went
a year without seeing her one time. Well, for a little bit
in the middle, but for most of the year, I didn't see her. If
she was on the other side of that door. And they said, hey,
your wife's over there. And I said, oh, really? I got
time. I'll go home and get a steak real quick. And I'll probably
do some shopping. And I might take a nap. I'd kick
that door in. I just got through kicking in
doors. I'm real good at it. I'd kick that door in and get to
her. And that's just my wife. This relationship will end one
day. I said, Lord. And Peter said, you got the word.
You have your life. This life, you have the words
of eternal life. Whom shall we go to? I have to
have you. That's not they durst join themselves
together, but they talk a good game. They yap a good game. No, ain't no talking needed.
You just show up. There will be no, this is the
words of eternal life, this is the words of truth, Christ the
truth. There will be no new creation,
there will be no new birth, there will be no eternal life without
Christ the life being preached. Scriptures say so. You can't
be saved under a false gospel. It's as plain as it can be. And
people can get as mad as they want to be until that word changes. God said so and he changes not.
He said it won't profit my people at all. That's the only way that
they're going to save people in that temple in Jerusalem is
to preach this life. Go stand up on your hind two
legs. You have some courage with you and some boldness to speak
plainly and you tell them who they are and who Christ is and
where he is now and what he's done and what he's doing and
what he will do. Go tell him. Not what you think, what he said.
Also this life. I had to add this. This is eternal
life. This ain't in the scriptures,
this is from your pastor, God gave us this. This is eternal
life, this is the words of life, this is Christ. I'll tell you what, this is this
life, right now. This ain't for tomorrow, this
ain't for next week. Now's the time of salvation.
Right now, go preach now and believe now. Come to Christ now. If you haven't believed on him
before, I don't care. Believe on him now. If you've never professed
it, profess it. Can't profess somebody you've
never met. Can't be married to a man. You can't Zoom a wedding
in, I don't think. Probably legal nowadays. There's
no message of grace. There's no message of the war
being over. There's no message of mercy to
be found after this life. That's so. What happened to that
rich man Lazarus? He lifted up his eyes from hell,
he was tormented, and he saw Abraham afar off, and that poor
beggar Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried out, and he said,
have mercy on me, send Lazarus down. I got five brothers, go
have him go tell them. And Abraham said, you had all
the good things you wanted in life. You adhered to the ones
you wanted to adhere to. You did exactly what you wanted,
and you got exactly what you wanted. You wanted fame, and
you wanted money, and you wanted power, and you wanted titles,
and you wanted position, and you wanted phylacteries, and
you wanted to be recognized in the markets. You got it. There's
a gulf between us now. It's fixed. I can't do nothing
about it. He said, Sen Lazarus talked to my bros all. He said,
no, they got Moses and the prophets. He said, but one came from the
dead. He said, as a matter of fact, it's come one from the
dead. He said, if they hear not Moses and the prophets, if they don't
hear what this word has to say and what those preachers have
to say, neither will they be persuaded though one rose from
the dead. That's terrifying to me. We'll
see two responses to that. People either cry out for mercy
or they get mad. They'll grit their teeth and
they'll feel with indignation. And I said, let's figure out
how we can kill that one. So, here's the obedience to the
command. They were given a command back
in Acts 5. Look at verse 20. Verse 20. Here's the command, go, stand,
and speak in the temple to the people all the words, all of
them, of this life. And when they heard that, they
entered into the temple early in the morning and taught. Let's
get up before the sun comes up, boys. We need to get there. Start walking now. Get up early. And they taught. You know, most
of the time when people get busted out of jail, you see a movie,
read a book, whatever. What do they do? They go as far away
from there as they possibly can. Don't they? You get bust out
of jail, just get away from that jail. Get away from people. You
can. Peter and John were commanded to go right back to the police
station. That's where these law men, these men of law were. That's
where they heard them. That's where they worked every
day. And they said, you go right back there. Those ones that's
already put you in jail for preaching and preach to them again. What did they teach? All the
words of this life, all the words of Christ. He said, you go and
you make disciples and you teach them everything I told you. Teach
them all about me, everything. You heard it, you teach them.
And so whatever come to mind, whatever the Lord put in their
mind that day for them hearts, a message for the hour is what
we say, right? That sounds good. Dynamite's about to land in our
lap. And they gave it. That's what they had. Verse 21.
And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early
in the morning and taught. But the high priest came, and
they that were with him, and they called the council together,
and all the Senate of the children of Israel, and they sent to the
prison to have them brought. They came in the other way. And
they said, all right, we got a good night's sleep in. We had
a good supper last night. Get everybody together, and then
go get those two that was preaching and bring them back up here to
the temple. But when the officers came, they found them not in
the prison, and they returned untold, saying the prison truly
was found shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without
before the doors. But when we had opened, we found
no man within. We went down there, and all the
guards were there. They were awake. They were doing their jobs. The
walls ain't busted down, but there ain't nobody in there.
Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and
the chief priest heard these things, they doubted of them
whereunto this would grow. They heard this and they thought,
oh no, I wonder this story's gonna get out and I wonder how
fast this story's gonna grow and I wonder how many people's
gonna start believing more and more of what these men say and
here soon, they're gonna upend our life. They ain't there to
go listen to the life being preached. I got my own thing going. How
fast will this grow? They did not say, oh, I wonder
how fast this will grow. I wonder how fast Christ will
be glorified in this, that the Lord's on his throne and he'll
make that known to people and they'll rejoice because he does
all things well and he did this too and he does everything. Now
looking out for number one, that's what it was, verse 25. Then came
one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in a prison
are standing in the temple. They ain't even sitting down.
They're standing and teaching. That's your job. You're the boss. You know everything. You're the
one that's got three decades of experience. And you got elected
to this position. All the people that are smart,
they put you in that position. And that's your job to teach,
not these commercial fishermen. They don't know nothing. And
they're standing up. This guy's flustered. If we understand
these things, does that make us flustered? That somebody be
standing up, teaching these things? Verse 26. Then went the captain
with the officers and brought them without violence. There's a colon there, what's
that mean? It's gonna explain it to us. For they feared the
people, lest they should have been stoned. They went in there
and they said, well, we could just tackle them and handcuff
them and yank them out of there and beat them up right here.
I could knock them out. There's 5,000 people the other day believed
this fella preaching. And there's 3,000 the week before
heard these two preaching. And there's about 8,000 people
here that believe, plus 120 that's already there. They'll kill us. For that time, that was their
pastor. They'll knock us in the head,
so we better go in and coerce them out of there. Verse 27.
When they had brought them, they set them before the council,
and the high priest asked them, saying, Did not we straightly
command you that you should not teach in this name? They wouldn't even say it. What
name? Remember that? The name that's above every name? Jehovah
Sikhenu, the Lord our righteousness. Jehovah M. Kadesh, the Lord that
sanctifies you, Jehovah Shalom, the Lord our peace, Jehovah Nisi,
the Lord our banner, the one that's lifted up, this life that's
lifted up, the Lord our shepherd that leads us and commands all
these things and protects us. Didn't we tell you to stop that?
And behold, you filled Jerusalem with your doctrine. That ain't our doctrine. And
that's right. Paul said, this is my gospel.
It's God's gospel. He gave it to me. I'm gonna preach
it. It's mine. I thought of the Lord. He said, listen, how'd he learn
shape letters? How does he know how to read?
He didn't go to our schools. He said in John 7, he goes, my
doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me. And if any man
will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine. If you believe
on Christ, you'll get your doctrine straight. That's no problem.
Whether it be of God or whether I speak of myself. He that speaketh
of himself seeketh his own glory. But he that seeketh his glory
that sent him, the same is true, and no unrighteousness is any."
And I said, we ain't never heard a doctrine like this. You're
giving all the glory. You're saying man's grass, and you're
giving all the glory to this Jesus that was hung on a cross
55 days ago. That's your doctrine, that ain't mine. Pray for them
Pharisees and Sadducees, shouldn't we? Verse 28, saying, did not
we straightly command you that you should not teach in this
name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem
with your doctrine and intend to bring this man's blood upon
us. You're trying your best to tell
me I'm a sinner. You're saying this is my fault. You're saying
that I killed God Almighty and I didn't want nothing to do with
it. You're saying I'm at war with God? I'm a high priest. This is my profession. As Lord
told the Pharisees in John eight, he said, you do the deeds of
your father. And they said to him, we're not born of fornication.
Oh, we're not sinners. We didn't come in this world
sinning. His blood ain't on us. No, uh-uh. I don't have nothing
to do with that. Or whatever it is that day trying
to get out of trouble, right? So we have one Father God. He
said, if you's Abraham, see, you do the works of Abraham,
you believe on me. Not try to kill me. They're commanding these
guys again, Peter and John, don't you talk about the Savior. Because
if there's a Savior, we had to be saved from something. And
you're saying that we're sin. We don't want to hear that. and
we ain't got nothing to do with it, that means there's gonna
be a resurrection. That means that judgment's gonna take place
if we ain't in this one, this name that you're preaching. Sounds like he was paying good
attention, wasn't he? They wouldn't sleep through them services.
They knew what they were saying. They knew what Peter and John
was saying. They heard every word of it, and they hated it.
They said, knock it off. Verse 30. I'm sorry, verse 29. Peter and the other apostles
answered and said, we ought to obey God rather than men. We
ain't listening to you. I ain't conferring with flesh.
I'm gonna keep preaching. And so they did. Real short message
too, verse 30. The God of our fathers raised
up Jesus, whom he slew and hanged on a cross. He put him on a tree.
Him hath God exalted. with his right hand to be a prince
and a savior. Four, to give repentance. How's somebody gonna repent?
God's gotta give it. He's going to. Give repentance
to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses
of these things. We watched it happen. It happened
in me. I had first hand account. It happened inside of this body
of death. And I saw it in my brethren.
And so also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey
him. God gave the Holy Ghost to them.
I tried looking this up and I got a couple of people I could probably
call and ask. I know there's a lot of people, they won't,
if they come to Holy Ghost in the scriptures, they say Holy
Spirit, they won't say Holy Ghost. And throughout the scriptures,
90 times the Holy Ghost is mentioned and four times the Holy Spirit
is mentioned. So if the Lord called it the Holy Ghost, that's
fine by me. And he sends it. to his people, his spirit, his
ghost, to be with his people and makes them obey. This is
a three verse message, but boy, I mean, there's throwing haymakers
is what they're doing. There's two types of people there.
There's the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The Pharisees believed
in righteousness. But it was according to the Jewish
law and traditions, and they thought they were the ones that
were righteous. They could do something about it. They believed
in the resurrection, the Pharisees did. The resurrection of the
dead, and they anticipated a life after death. They said, well,
we're going to die, and then something's good coming because we're so
righteous, it's going to be great. And they believed in divine involvement. They acknowledged that God Almighty
had a limited amount of sovereignty, which is conflicting words. It's
oxymoron. They believed those things. Now
with them, the Sadducees, normally they didn't get along, but for
this case, they'll band together. They'll say, well, that's our,
we're the same house. This is an in-house argument.
But these Sadducees, they were very literal. They only observed
the written law, and they rejected any oral tradition or anything
other than the exact dead letter of the law. And they denied the
resurrection. They said, after this life, that's
it. We're worm food. There's no life after death. And they believed in human independence.
They didn't think that the Lord would dare violate man's will,
in any way, intercede, in anything, in the events of this world,
or on this ball that we're living in. That's exactly what Peter
just got both of them on one go, didn't he? I really thought
y'all would like this. You remember Barnard used to
go to a town, we've heard these, old Rolf Barnard, he would go
into a town and he'd listen for a day or two, wouldn't he? He
would listen. And he had a pretty tuned ear.
The Lord trained him up real well. And because what's in people's
heart comes out their mouth. And if they have a ear problem,
they have a speech impediment. And he would listen to them for
a few days, and he'd find those issues. And he would take the
gospel, that dynamite, anissimo, and he would throw it right in
their sore spots, wouldn't he? It'd blow that town to pieces,
and he'd move on next town, wouldn't he? Doesn't that get you excited? Doesn't that get you just riled
up? It did me. Now, what happens
when that dynamite lands in our lap? Got an illustration for you.
Old Bobby talked to his friend Billy, and he said, Billy, if
you had $2 million, would you give me $1 million? And Bobby
said, Billy, I love you. We grew up together. We're family.
Yes, if I had $2 million, of course I'd give you $1 million.
Are you kidding me? I'd give you anything I had,
buddy. Whatever I have is yours. Take half and go. Yes, my brother.
I love you. Yes, I'd give you $1 million.
And Bob said, Billy, would you give me a hog? He goes, that
ain't fair. You know I got two hogs. It's
all fun and games till the rubber hits the road in our laps, isn't
it? Ah, well, hold on now, this affects us. We're not watching
from afar. I'm not watching on TV. I ain't
affected by something that's 2,000 miles away. This hitting
my living room. I pray to God that he'd hit us everyone in
the heart. Bring it right to our living rooms. Deal with us. Peter looked him square in the
eye and he said, righteousness, Pharisees, is a person. That ain't you. He's resurrected. We are sin. And he died for his
people because they're sin. He was made sin. We're made his
righteousness. And the Lord accepted that. That
tomb's empty. He's raised it. And you know
it because you paid a bunch of people to lie about it. Them
guards. Let's not remember. Let's not
forget what we said eight weeks ago. I bet Peter had a head on
him like a house guy. We remember everything. And he
said, he's on his throne right now, ruling and reigning, and
he's coming again and you hate him and he's going to judge you
and you better bow to him right now. Live. He's looking at dried, whited
bones, though they're talking and walking and about to hit
him with a cat of nine tails. And he says, live. Live. And he's praying God would make
it effectual. Praying he would. Wouldn't that just melt your
heart? God sent two. It wasn't one. It wasn't just
that he sent a pickup truck, two boats, and a helicopter for
you. He sent two apostles to preach to them. And he hit them
right in every sore spot they had. He shot as many arrows as
he could right in their faces. And he said, God's on his throne.
Quit messing around with this and trifle them with the gospel
and bow. Most loving thing he could have
done. What if he went and washed their car? Then they went and
died and went to hell. What if he bought them a house and they
died and went to hell? What if he raised their children for
them and gave them all a college education and they died and went to hell?
The best thing Peter and John could have done for them was
preach the gospel to them this life as they were commanded to do
so. That's tender. That's God providing
mercy, space for mercy and room for grace. Verse 33, and when
they heard that, they were cut to the heart and took counsel
to slay him. Same words, same words, same
message. Peter didn't have no other outline.
He preached this outline all the time. He was commanded by
God to. Back in chapter two, it says, when they heard this,
they were pricked in their hearts, they were cut in their hearts.
And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and
brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said, repent, be baptized, every
one of you, in the name of Christ, for remission of sins. Believe
God. Turn from yourself, turn to God.
He's gonna do it. He gives repentance, but I gotta
tell you, we'll ask him to repent. These were cutting their hearts,
and they said, how can we kill them? How can we kill them? I went
over. I took too much of your time
tonight, but we'll look next time at Gamaliel. Here's a, Here,
there was one, but he's got some, he said some good things. Like
a high priest. What's going to happen is Peter
and John are going to go back to jail again. They're going
to get beat with a cat of nine tails, 40 stripes, save one.
And I thought, you know how hard it'd be to walk? Like, I threw
my back out a little bit last week, and I was just having a
hard time getting around. You got trouble walking? Let's beat you with
cat and nine tails 39 times. And it says they walked all the
way back to the people of God happy. Happy that they could
suffer for the gospel's sake. Wouldn't that be something? Let's
pray together. Father, thank you for your word. Lord, teach
us. Teach us of this life. This Christ,
our King, Lord, and make us bow to him. Make us obedient servants
and make us go in your power and stand on Christ's a solid
rock and teach these things to all that'll listen. Lord, we
pray for those. We have loved ones and friends
and Lord, we have enemies we pray for. But you might be pleased to save
them. Lord, give us the strength to do that. Be with us as you
promised you will. And thank you for our brethren
you've already called out. Lord, those you've knit together
in this location and that we know of throughout this world.
Lord, they're precious to us. We're of one accord. Thank you.
Thank you for your providence. Lord, make us thankful for your
providence. Whatever comes, if it's a hurt toe or a pay raise,
Lord, make us thankful. Remember, this is your will.
It's for our good, and it's for the glory of our Lord. Make His
kingdom preeminent in our minds and our hearts, Lord. Forgive
us for what we are. Forgive us our unbelief. It's
because of Christ, because of the payment of His blood that
we ask these things. Amen.