Alright brethren, Acts chapter
3. For most of this world, most, the
bulk, 99.9 with a line over the top of it. This will be a very
unique message. This will be a message that most
people have never heard. And I'm just going to preach
the same thing that Peter preached. People know about the Apostle
Peter, they have no clue the message that he preached. What's
going on here? We just read for our scripture
reading, but Peter and John, they healed a lame man by that
gate called Beautiful. And you remember what that word
Beautiful means? What means nice? No. It means
it's the appointed time. The right time. That's right
now. It's the right hour. That's the name of that gate.
Today is the day of salvation. God be with us and reveal Christ
to us today and give eternal life to your people. If we've
never believed on him, I pray he would work in somebody's heart
tonight and make us believe on him now. Working every heart
here. I'm going to go into that temple tonight. We're not going
to sit outside and not go in. We're going to go in. I want
you to come with me, okay? Read along in your Bibles. Follow
with me. And all those people around, they saw the event that
took place and their jaws dropped. They were astounded. So what's
the scene that's set here for us? This took place, this act
of grace, this miracle that's performed to this man at this
gate called Beautiful, right on the time. And this miracle
occurred, so this miracle took place, look at me, this miracle
took place so Peter could preach the gospel. This man was healed
physically, so people's jaws would drop and Peter could preach
the gospel to them. Okay? These miracles, they were
given to the apostles and them only to prove who they were and
that people would listen to them and then whenever they had their
attention, then the gospel was preached. It never was focused
on the miracles. It never was focused on the people that perform
the miracles. It was focused on the Lord that works in and
on men and women and children and people of this world and
this world. It was to preach the gospel. Those apostolic gifts
are gone. I don't need them. I'm thankful
I don't have them. Don't fall asleep on me. I can't
raise you from a dead if you fall over like Paul did. We'll
get to that in Acts in a little while. Going to the midnight hour, you
may kill over dead. Don't do that. But I can't perform
those miracles and I don't need to because this happened right
here. And Peter done did it. And I can say this is what it
is. And this is the opportunity to hear the gospel preached.
Not to make people's ankles better. and not to heal our bodies, but
to heal souls. And sometimes the Lord's gracious
and He's kind to His people and He gives us what we would call,
in our language, a good thing. A good thing like this man. He's
healed. He's probably pretty happy about that. So it provides
people an opportunity to hear the Word preached. Or, the Lord
will give us something very bad. that we would call very bad in
His providence. And that gives us opportunity
to proclaim the gospel in that thing we would call very bad.
Remember this, please. Both of those scenarios, whether
the Lord sends something in providence that's really good, or He sends
something in providence that's very bad, it's a grace of God
to His people. And it's glorifying His Son.
So that ought to change our attitude on everything. It will change
our attitude on everything, if we know that. What did Peter
preach? It healed this man, and these
people were wondering, their mouths were gaped open. They
were shocked at the event. He scolded them a little bit.
He said, don't be amazed at this, and don't be amazed at us that
did it. And he's going to preach to them. He's going to preach
something called the depravity of man. That's how bad we are. That's
our true condition. God help us pay attention. Let's
look at the end of verse 11. Remember those people that were
astonished? It says, "...greatly wondering." End of verse 11.
"...greatly wondering. And when Peter saw it, he answered
unto the people, Ye men of Israel, why marvel ye at this, at what's
going on? Or why look ye so earnestly on
us, on me and John, as though by our own power or holiness,
by something good we did, We had made this man to walk. Why
are you looking at that? I'll tell you what to look at.
Look at verse 13. God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob. That's
the covenant God. The God of Abraham. That's what
the Lord promised His seeds will come through. That's the God
of power. Because it wasn't through Ishmael,
it was through Isaac. It wasn't by man's doing. And
that's the God of Jacob. Sinners. Hill catchers. That's us. We haven't done anything in this,
have we? It's His covenant. It's His power. And it's His
grace on sinners. The God of our fathers, verse
13, hath glorified His Son, Jesus Christ. What happened when that
man's ankles were healed and he was walking for the first
time in his entire life? Nobody ever taught him how to
walk. He just walked. For 40 years. He's in his early 40s.
What was taking place there? What really happened? Well, he
got his ankles fixed and his tendons were okay. Christ was
glorified now. That change our attitude about
everything? The Lord's glorified in it. That
ought to make us content with whatever our situation is, isn't
it? He hath glorified his Son. Now here's the depravity. This
is Christ the Son, whom ye delivered up. and denied him in the presence
of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. Pilate said, I
ain't got nothing against him. I'm going to let him go. And Peter's standing there looking
at the very ones that physically were there. I thought, boy, that's
like a prophet telling that head general to go wash in the Jordan
seven times. I ain't walking outside. Beat
it, buddy. I ain't got time for that. I got to study for this
weekend. He said, you killed him. You
wanted his blood and you want to barab us instead. That was
for those people that were physically there. And let me tell you something,
ain't nothing changed. We think we're holy rollers and we've
been going to church ever since we was born. We've been saved
since before we was born and all this other stuff. We're just
so holy and good. If we were there, we'd have killed him too.
If God take his hand off of us. A man don't commit murder and
then becomes a murderer. You're a murderer in your heart
because you don't like your brother. And then you kill them physically,
don't you? He said, you've delivered them up. Verse 14, but you denied
the holy one and the just one and desired a murderer to be
granted unto you and killed the prince of life whom God hath
raised from the dead, whereof we're a witness. Lord willingly
laid down his life for the sheep and that sacrifice for his people,
he said, I lay down my life for the sheep. I don't pray for the
whole world, I pray for them. And that's the ones I'm gonna
lay my life down for. And when he laid it down, he went in that
tomb, and he arose again the third day. That sacrifice for
his people, that blood atonement, the propitiation, has been accepted. And Peter said, I've seen it,
I know it, and I'm telling you. You ain't going to know unless
somebody tells you. I'm telling you. Verse 16, And his name,
through faith in his name, hath made this man, this lame man,
strong, whom ye see and know. You know him. You grew up with
him. He's a member of your community. Yea, the faith which is by him,
by the Lord Jesus Christ, has given him this perfect soundness
in the presence of you all." What's this message that Peter's
preaching? All of mankind is sin. Not that
we commit sins. That's the acts of the nature.
Our instinct is what we would call it nowadays. Our nature.
Everybody, the sweetest person you ever met in your life. Little
bitty babies. They come from the womb speaking
lies. Ain't nobody teach a child how to lie. It's in us from Adam
with a noun. Sin. A feminine noun. We're sin.
What's that? All flesh is grass. If we're wrong on the fall, we're
wrong on it all. That's you. I know it's you because
it's me and I'm born Adam just as you are. That's how I came
into this world. We talked last week, what is
sin? Philosophy, let's catch up here.
I'm going to ask you a question. What is sin? Some people will
say that sins, there are sins of omission and commission. Right? And some may explain, and they'll
labor the points that, well, there's transgressions, and there's
iniquities, and there's sins, and they'll argue online or in
public or wherever that's comfortable for them until the cows come
home. I want to ask you, would it do you any good to know When
you broke God's holy law, and when you warred against His Son,
and you cursed His name, even if it was under the ruse of religion,
would it do you any good to know what category that that sin fell
in? You spit in His face. Would it do you any good to know
which cheek it lands on? Do you need to know that? You
need to know who you spit in the face of. If God don't reveal
to us that we're spitting in his face, we'll go on about our
happy little lives thinking everything's okay and everything's rosy peach
and plum and we'll go straight into the gates of hell. I mean it. That's why Peter's
preaching this. If they don't get tapped, they've
missed it all, ain't they? And all that sin, the sins, the
transgressions, the omission, co-omission, and the inequities,
and the yuck, and list all the words man has for it. The wrongness
we are all falls under a singular fault in Adam, and a singular
fault in everybody that's born of him. That one race. You know how many races there
are on earth? One. Adam's race. We're guilty before God, we need
to preach to him. We're all brethren in that, ain't we? You know what
the problem is? You didn't believe God. Because
Adam didn't believe God. He said, Adam, you ate of that
fruit. No, that's not what he said. That's not what we got
booted out of the garden and God took his presence away from
us and those Seraphims are out there holding up flaming swords.
There's no way back for us and ourselves. What'd he say? He
said, Adam, because thou hast hearkened, you've listened. You
gave heed to the voice of your wife instead of me. I told you
don't eat it. You listen to her and you ate
it. That's the problem. You didn't believe God. You didn't
believe God. The Lord said, Kevin, maybe I'm
reaching too far, huh? Am I stretching it out too far?
The Lord said the Holy Ghost is going to come and He's going
to convict the world of sin. Of sin because, here's the sin,
singular, the noun, they believe not on me. That's the problem. All through my young teenage
years, I debated Calvinism as hard as I could, you couldn't
whoop me. My doctrine was as straight as a gun barrel and
just as empty. It was cold, dead letter doctrine. Facts were correct. There's no love in it and there's
no life in it. Total depravity is a fact that people can agree
on, but not everybody experiences it. Mankind to sinners. We point
somewhere else. I'm the degenerate. That's what
starts hitting home. Hits this home. Is this true
on a deserted island? And I'm the only man left on
earth? I'm the evil one. I am lost. Everybody says they... I've heard other people say it
throughout this world. They say, well, you know, I got
this doctrine. I was reading the Bible and I finally found
a man that preaches the way I believe. Ain't no good. God has convinced
us we're the lost ones. He found us. He wasn't the one
that was lost. I'm the guilty one. And that
guilt of sin, it takes a whole new shape when
it goes from us getting caught Do you remember that? Anybody
been a teenager before? And you ever get caught and then
you're just mad because you got caught? You ain't mad that what
you did was wrong. You ain't sad you're not repentant
of all your sins because you destroyed the hearts of your
mother and father or the community and you brought reproach on the
gospel. You're just mad you got caught. We're all caught. All mankind's caught. Demons
know they're caught. They said the hour ain't yet. Why you gonna
kill them? It changes drastically when it
goes from we got caught till it goes to, we're offending one
that we love. When the love of Christ is shed
abroad in our hearts and we love him now, we see that he's the
one we're abusing. He's the one we've sinned against.
Against thee and thee only have I sinned, is what King David
said, wasn't it? I'll give you an illustration.
I had them experiments years ago, Pavlov's dog and all those
things. But you think, if I had somebody on the other side of
a glass window, you'd see them. And every time you breathed out,
in and out, you had a complete breath cycle, a stranger gets
electrocuted for three seconds. And they just keep turning it
up a little bit each time. And they get electrocuted. They
get tased for three seconds. You may feel bad about that. You
may. You may shed some tears about
that. And you may be very sincere. And you just really have a heart
that's wounded for that stranger. And I would assume most certainly
you'd want to hold your breath as long as you could, wouldn't
you? I'll just breathe every now and then, try to help my
buddy out. But if that was somebody you
loved on the other side of that glass, if that was your spouse,
if that was your parent, if that was your child, if that was your
best friend, if it was somebody you loved, and every time you
breathed in and out, that one that you loved was tortured and
smitten and railed against and spit in their face and their
beard plucked out and mocked then you're hurting the very
one that you love and that loves you. You'd want to hold your
breath till you died. And you'd try to. And it ain't
humanly possible to do that. I went back to thinking about
little children. You ever seen a little child hold their breath? I'm going to quit
breathing. We don't lose our minds as parents. Why? You'll
breathe. You'll be alright. It's instinct. That's what happens
whenever the Lord starts working in somebody and He loved us first
and we start loving Him. Instead of talking about loving
Him, we start loving Him. And we see that all of our sin, though
He saved us from it, is what nailed Him to the cross. We're
the ones that killed Him. I don't want to sin no more.
You take a child of God. I'll tell you those things. Keep the law. You want to. It's
beautiful. I want to be like Him. I want
to be a light in this community. But I don't want to break it. You
tell people that, Kevin, that there ain't no rule of law or
anything. They'll go out and do anything they want. Exactly.
They'll do anything they want. I want to serve the Lord. I want
to bring reproach on this gospel. I want people to know Him. I
want people to stop fighting Him and stop acting like they know Him.
And I want them to know Him. Total depravity is a doctrine
in light of a person. Us that are the offenders and
him that's the offended. That's it. Peter says, you look
at me. You look me in the eye. You are enemies of God. But you
didn't know that. I don't know what I don't know.
And you didn't know what you didn't know. So a man's got to
tell you. Not talk about this as some type
of theological event we give mental assent to. It's got to
hit home. A man's going to have to say
it, look you in the eye, in person, and then the Spirit's going to
work through that and make it effectual if the Lord is so pleased. If
that's the beautiful gate and it's the right hour. I don't
know when the hour is, so I'm swinging for the fences every
chance I get. Peter says, look at me, I've got to tell you some
things. He said, but you didn't know this was happening. You
knew what his claims was, but you'd never met him. You'd never
met God. Verse 17, and now brethren, I
what? That means I see. I know. Brethren, I know that through
your ignorance, you did it. You were ignorant. That sounds
sweet all of a sudden. It used to be an insult when
people didn't know what words were. There's a difference between
stupid and ignorant. Ignorance, you never know. You didn't know what you
didn't know. I saw a major one time dressed down a lieutenant.
And he said, you know what? He goes, you're useless to me.
And that guy got off. And he said, no, no, I didn't say he
was worthless. I don't know if he had worth or not. But there's nothing of skills
you have that I can use. And I started laughing as hard
as I got. I got kicked out of there. He saw me laugh and winked at
me. But words mean things. We were ignorant. That means
we hadn't been taught something and then willfully giving against
it. They just didn't know. Nobody told you. As did also your rulers. Because the Lord saved a bunch
of people. That's what Peter's preaching at Pentecost. And he's
preaching here. He says, brethren, didn't he?
He says, if I didn't get you in Christ, I got you in Adam.
And I have a heart for you. And I want you to get these things,
brethren. You didn't know the God, man. He said, but listen
close. I'm telling you about Him. Take heed how you hear.
I'm telling you about Him. And maybe, just maybe, He'll
reveal Himself to you right now. Stephen preached to those and
they refused that message. They refused to hear the truth.
The truth was being preached. People got so mad about this,
Stony Paul was there. He said, you stiff-necked and uncircumcised
in heart and ears, you do always resist the Holy Ghost. That's
not resisting just the preaching. If it's a man sent from God,
you're not just saying, well, I don't think he knows what he's
talking about. You're saying God doesn't know what he's talking
about and the Spirit's coming and you're resisting the Holy
Ghost. That's what you're doing. The Lord warned about that, didn't
He? In Matthew 12, He said, whosoever speaketh a word against the Son
of Man, He said, if somebody's fighting me, if they hang me
on a cross, He said, it should be forgiven him. But whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, those that did it in ignorance,
they didn't know. He said, if they beg for mercy,
be forgiven. But whenever that message comes,
woe unto you if you don't believe it. Woe unto me if I don't preach
it. Woe unto you if you don't believe it. He said, but whosoever
speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him.
neither in this world nor in the world to come." That's terrifying. Don't that send chills down your
spine? This isn't life and death, this is eternal life and death.
This is the most serious thing that we're going to hear today,
or this week, or in our lives. If it's the gospel, it's the
same all the time. The Lord said, take heed what you hear. And
with what measure you meet, It will be measured to you. If you
hear that gospel and you need it, you're going to get it. I
need mercy. Mercy is going to be found. There you go. And unto
you that hear shall more be given. You hear that and say, I want
to know more about the Lord. Done. He's going to grow you in grace.
He said so. For he that hath, to him shall
be given. But he that hath not, from him shall be taken even
that which he hath. There's people that are just
flipping and disregard and right now that door of the ark is open
but someday it's going to shut. Right now the gospel is here.
Someday it may be taken away. I ain't going to live forever. Sixty years from now I'm going
to be dead and gone. We better appreciate and thank God while
we have it because it just might be taken away from us the next
day. But this was done in ignorance. It's a terrible thing isn't it?
They cried out, they said, the blood of Christ is on our hands.
Why? We didn't believe on him. We
didn't believe on him. And he said, you remember, this
is the promised Messiah. He's the one that's ruling and
reigning over all things. You didn't sneak one over on
him. Look at verse 18. Those things which God did before
hath showed by the mouth of all his prophets that Christ should
suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Now you've done this thing. It's
your hands. That's what it said over in Acts 2. He said, you've
taken, you've done this. He said, but this had to happen.
The prophets and the Psalms and all the Old Testament, it's pointed
to the one that's coming. And this is what's going to happen.
Like a sheep before his shearers is done, he opened not his mouth.
Guilt was on him. Our guilt. The whole Old Testament,
Christ is coming. And then we got the Gospels.
He's here. Here's what he said. Here's what
he did. And then we have the epistles. He's coming again.
It's a hymn book. It's all about him. So what's Peter's message? All
flesh is grass. And what's verse 18 start? Behold
your God. I'm going to tell you about the
one that gives mercy because you need mercy because I needed mercy.
I'm going to tell you one that forgives sins because you ain't
nothing but sin because I ain't nothing but sin. I'm telling
you from experience. I've had bread and you're hungry
and I'm telling you where bread can be found. All these things that happen,
Peter's telling them according to the scriptures. Paul told
the same thing to the church at Corinth. He said, I deliver
unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ
died for our sins according to the scriptures. And that he was
buried and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures. If they speak not according to
this book, it's because there ain't no life in it. Paul told him that, and Peter
said in Acts 2, he said, 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 yourself also know. You saw these things. Him being
delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of
God. put on that cross. It pleased the father to bruise
him out of foreknowledge. That's loved before because he
loved his son and the people he put in that son. Why? Because
he wanted to. That's sons of Jacob. He said
this one, ye have taken him by wicked hands of crucified and
slain. He said this very one, this same Jesus, this is Emmanuel,
this is God with us. He's saying believe on him and
be ye saved. Because of this. Because of this. Because of this gospel. This
good news. This one that was supposed to
come that's here. Because of this God man. Because of this
redeemer. Our kinsman redeemer. Y'all read
Ruth? Here he was. You spit in his
face, but mercy still be found. There's still hope. Because of
his person and because of his work. Look at verse 19. Repent
ye therefore. You see a therefore, what's it
there for? Everything Peter just said. He said, you ain't nothing
but grass. The Lord's on His throne. He
does anything He wants. That's His name. He's God. He's
the sovereign. He reigns. He rules and reigns.
And He's holy. And He's wise. And His counsel
shall stand. Nobody can say, what you doing? Nobody can stop His hand. You
can't get a prayer group together and bend His arm. He's God. He
said, because of all that, and he delights to show mercy, he
says, repent. Repent. Repent. What does that
word mean? I wrote down in my notes today.
I said, remember? And then I thought, you know
what? I don't remember. Go look it up. I told you. October 21st,
2018. Come up on six years ago. I knew about half of them, but
I had to go look at my old notes and look it up again. There's
five meanings in the scriptures of the word repent. You read
the word repent, or repentance, it means one of five things.
The first one's revoking. The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance. It won't be revoked. It's irrevocable.
Retreat. Those armies of old, whenever
they would back down from the battles, hey, we gotta move to
the rear. We gotta fall back. They would repent. They'd retreat.
Another meaning is regret. You do something and you have
care about what you did. You care about it afterwards.
And you say, oh, I wish I would have done that. You repent of
what you did. And other meanings, breathe strongly
or sigh, console oneself through breath. It repented God that
he made man. Our Lord is not reactive. He
is proactive. And he was speaking a language
we could understand. He said, I'm soothing myself
over what's about to happen. I planned all this. He knew it
would be rough on Noah and his family. And finally, the fifth
meaning of repentance, and it's what it is here in our text,
is to think differently, to have a different mind. I traced it
all the way back to Princeton University and their first headmaster,
and it's a little bit older than that. He was quoting somebody
else, but he didn't give a name. It's one of the wonderful quotes of
how we experience it, this changing of the mind. Repentance is the
pilgrimage from the mind of the flesh to the mind of Christ.
It don't happen in one day, but it's a pilgrimage. It takes a
lifetime until we're made lucky. What's Peter saying? Stop thinking
about your way. Stop thinking about your experience.
Stop thinking about your wisdom. Stop thinking about what mommy
and daddy said and how we've always done it. And he said,
you believe what God says. You stop thinking the way you
think and you start thinking the way he thinks. That's what Proverbs
14, 12 says. There's a way that seems right
unto man. Well, it sort of just seems right. I think that's heresy. It's opinion. It don't matter
what I think. I have opinions on a whole mess
of things, but I don't say that to nobody because it don't matter.
It matters what God says. There's a way that seems right
unto man, but the end thereof is the ways of death. You're
going to die doing what you think is right. We have to do it the
Lord's way. That's it. It's the only way it's going
to happen. Turn over to Isaiah 55 and you can leave a marker
there if you like. Isaiah 55. Well this is the way we've always
done it. This is the way my family's always done it. This is the way
the church's always done it. And this is what I think. Peter says, knock that
off. Knock it off. He's warning them. He cares for them. He's called
them brethren. He's warning them for their good. Peter don't get
nothing out of this. Other than maybe gain some brethren. That'd be good. But he's just
telling them what God says. Isaiah wouldn't get nothing.
He was warning them. Look here in verse 7. Isaiah 55-7, let the wicked forsake
his way and let the unrighteous man's his thoughts. Change the
way of thinking. Repent. And let him return unto
the Lord and he will have mercy upon him and to our God for he
will abundantly pardon. Not barely pardon, abundantly
pardon. For my thoughts are not your
thoughts. Neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. You
don't think like I do. And so Peter's preaching, it's
a command. Change your mind. Change your mind. Have this new
thoughts. Have this new mind as a command.
As a command. That's what Paul was preaching
or writing to Philippi, wasn't he? And he said, let this mind
be in you. That's the whole of me. Let this
mind be in you, which is also in Christ Jesus, who being in
the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God,
but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of
a servant, was made in likeness of men. You notice He ain't talking
about us no more. And being found in the fashion
of man, He humbled Himself and became obedient unto death, even
the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly
exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that
at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, and things in heaven,
and things of earth, and things under the earth, and that every
tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father. Let that be your way of thinking.
It's a command. Let this mind be in you. Who
can do that? There's a certain truck brand
of commercial vehicles I like. I bought a bunch of them. Well,
stop liking that and like something else. I can't. Stop loving the
ones you love and stop doing it your way and want to do it
somebody else's way and think the way they think. I can't. Who's sufficient
for that thing? Nobody can do that but God. Who
can give life? Hannah's prayed that, didn't
she? The Lord kills, the Lord makes alive. I'm responsible
to go to them dry bones. We are, collectively. The Lord's
put that in our hands, not just mine. Us, we preach the gospel
and say, live dry bones. He's got to do it. Repent. Believe
on Christ. Come to Him right now. I can't
make you do that. You can't make you do that. He's
got to do it. We inquire of Him, don't we? In Acts chapter 2, Peter said,
repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of the
Lord Jesus Christ for remission of sins. If there's a new mind
put in them, if the Lord has a new creation that comes with
a new mind too. You got a new heart? Well, you got a whole
new system in you, don't you? You got a new way of thinking.
They will willingly profess Christ and believers baptism in public
in front of people. A public profession of faith.
They'll be like, yeah, that's what the Lord said. I want to
do it. That's his ordinance. You got it. There's a whole new
way of thinking. Well, I think what I did before
was good enough. You didn't know God. You couldn't profess to
Him. He says, profess me. Get in that water. And you'll take His table. Why? He said to. He said, remember
Him. I like remembering Him. I'll
take that table. Sure. Back in our text. You can leave
a marker there in Isaiah 55. I'll come right back to it. In
our text in Acts 3 it says, repent ye therefore and be converted. Converted means turn around.
Remember repentance there, it means a different way of thinking,
a change of thoughts. Converted means turned around.
You was facing one way and now you face another way. You got
a 180 degree turn. Isaiah 55 verse 7. Let the wicked
forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts. and let him
return. You know what that means? Turned
around. It means converted. Isn't that
amazing to you? To what? What are we going to
be turned around to? To who? Well, I'm going to start
walking right and doing right. I'm going to quit drinking, smoking,
chewing, and running with those that do. Turn to a person. Look, verse 7. Let the wicked
forsake his way and the unrighteous man his thoughts and let him
return. Let him be converted unto the Lord. Is that what it
says? How can we be turned around from facing the way that we thought
was right and turn to facing the Lord Jesus Christ? We have
to be turned around to face Him. How can that be? The wisest man,
born Adam, Solomon, Here's what he said. The Lord said he's wise. We ought to listen to him. And
the Lord used him to pin his word. We really ought to listen
to him. He said, turn us unto thee, O Lord, and we shall be
turned. I want to turn to him. I don't
want to look at the world. I don't want to look at me. I
don't want to look at my sin. I don't want to look at everything
else underneath the sun. I want to look at Christ. And how's
that going to have to happen? He's going to have to turn us
to look to him and I'll look at him. Come to Christ. How? The scriptures
say, no man can come to me. Okay, well, if it's a bility
that we will charge God with folly. He cleared it up. He said, no
man will come unto me. You will not believe on me that
you may have everlasting life. Well, how are we going to come
to Him? He said, no man can come to me except the Father draw
him. So what do we do? Lord, draw us. I can't. I need to turn. Turn me, Lord,
and I'll be turned. That's what we're doing. In that,
He gets all the glory because there's a new heart and a new
mind, a way of thinking. And then we say, in our right
mind, in our pure mind, Lord turn us. We haven't been saying
that before because we didn't have a new mind. We thought our
way was fine. You get that? And Jeremiah, you can look here
real quick if you want to. Jeremiah 31, to the right one,
Luke. Jeremiah 31 verse 16. Thus saith the Lord, refrain
thy voice from weeping, and thy eyes from tears, for thy work
shall be rewarded, saith the Lord. And they shall come again
from the land of the enemy. And there is hope in thine end,
saith the Lord, that thy children shall come again to their own
border. I have surely heard Ephraim the moaning himself. Thou hast
chastened me, and I was chastened, as a bullock unaccustomed to
the yoke. Turn thou me, and I shall be turned, for thou art the Lord
my God. Surely after that I was turned.
The Lord turned me. I repented." Well, which one's
that one, Kevin? That's when he sighs. After that
heart's been turned and I see him, holy, holy, holy, this man's
dust. And you think everything you
thought did... I've said that before about false preachers
and then the Lord saves them. I was handling hand grenades,
buddy. I was telling everybody about doctrines, instead of the
one that the doctrines point to. And I just sigh. And I... Oh, it hurts. It hurts. Surely, after that
I was turned, I repented. And after that I was instructed,
I smote upon my thigh. I was taught some things. The
Lord said, go, preach to them, make disciples. That means you
just preach and I'll do the disciple making. And then you baptize
them and then you teach them. And here the Lord turns us and
we sigh and we're instructed and you know what we smite upon?
I just thought that was precious. My thigh. Somebody else had a
leg problem and a hip, didn't they? Jacob. Jacob. Oh, that hip's starting to hurt.
And a day goes by and my right hip don't hurt, I don't think
about Jacob. I was ashamed, yeah, even confounded because I did
bear the reproach of my youth. Lord made me show that everything
was vanity before He revealed Himself to me. And the only thing
that ain't vanity is Him, and now I see. The one thing to agree with is
it's another thing to experience. And I pray God make us experience
it. And put that junk away. Because
it's idles, it's dung, and someday I'll get the nerve to say it
in our modern vernacular as to what Paul meant by that. It's
junk. All of it. Until we see Him. He's all. Acts 3 says, repent ye therefore,
verse 19. Acts 3, 19. I'll hurry. Repent ye therefore. Change your way of thinking.
Right now. My dad used to say, stop it. Right now. Right now. Change your way of thinking and
be converted. Turn. Stop looking at everything else
in the world. Look to Him. Why? That your sins may be blotted
out. The literal translation of that
is, well, if I turn, that's what mankind says, right? If I turn
and I change my way of thinking, then, if then, right? then my
sin is going to be blotted out. The literal translation there
is that you, sin, are blotted out. Are blotted out. The blotted
out means smeared out, obliterated. Everything about me, I want it
gone. I don't want my name. I want His name. I don't want
my smell. I want His smell. I don't want my works and my
decisions and my praying and my faith and this and that. I
want His faith and His work. Just blot all of me out. That's literally what it means.
It's going to blot you out. You're going to get smeared out.
Because I'm sin. Obliterated. That also is literally
translated, the blotted out, erasing tears. Wipe away. If we read over in Revelation
21, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. He shall smear
them right off. And there shall be no more death,
no more sorrow, no more crying, neither shall there be any more
pain. That means it's applied and you can't get rid of it.
Just like that blood that's on us. The blood of Christ is on
His people and you can rub until the cows come home and you're
just going to move it around. It ain't going to go away. That's
a terribly hard thing to clean up. And He's using this to show
us. When? When's that going to happen?
To those that have a new mind and a new heart, and they're
turning to see Christ for the first time ever, and that's who
we want to see from now on, there is therefore now, right now,
no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Now we've got a new
Spirit in us. Now we worship the Spirit and truth. We finally
know the truth. Finally! Ain't nothing to be embarrassed
about, something to be thankful about. Repent ye therefore, be converted
that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord. I want a refreshing
time. Where's that coming from? From the Lord. The Lord is going
to send it. What times? It says when the times, that's
the set appointed times of refreshing, the recovery of breath. Just
a big, deep breath. That's what people say all the
time. Oh, that's just a breath of fresh air. Well, that sure
is way better than that. The Lord sent a breath of refreshing.
That's now. The Lord works in us. That's
tomorrow. And that's in that final day.
Either whenever I go to Him or He comes to us. That'll be that
day of refreshing at a point in time. Just like in the Scriptures
it talks about we have been saved, we are being saved, and we shall
be saved. That new creation in us, it has
lived. It's living right now and it
shall live eternally in Christ. It says, when the times of refreshing
shall come from the presence of the Lord. Aren't you thankful
for that? Then we rejoice. I'm happy. Well, that's amazing, isn't it?
This is great! This is great news! It gets better! It does. Verse 20, and he shall
send Jesus Christ, which before was preached unto you. This one
I've been talking to you about this whole time. And this one
that Peter was talking about the whole time. And this one
that the prophets of old have been talking about this whole time. And this
one that was typified in Adam and Eve being covered in that
lamb skin. He's coming. He's coming. Whom heaven must receive. He's
holy until the times of restitution of all things. Until the Lord
wraps this whole thing up. He's coming. The Lord's going
to send Christ to people. That's magnificent. That's what His
people want. I don't need programs. I don't
need basketball teams. I don't need fish fries. I don't need
a social event to talk about all my medical problems all the
time. I don't need a support group so I can go golfing with
everybody. I need Him. And His people need Him. And
then once we got that, now it would be great to go golfing
and go out to eat and have a real good time. You want to go swimming?
That's fellowship. That's normal. It's okay. It's
good. I went over, we'll pick up the rest of it next week,
but if you get time, go read Ephesians 1, verses 3-14, and
it'll sum all that up, because the gospel don't change. It's
the same, always has been, because the Lord's the same, yesterday,
today, and forever. And I'm thankful for that. Let's
pray together. Father, bless this message. That
message that Peter preached, that message your saints of old
preached, that message your servants in our day preach, and however
long you're pleased to sustain it, Lord, that all flesh is grass. Not just that we've sinned and
got caught, Lord, but we've sinned against our Redeemer, our King,
who loved us and was gracious to us. We were enemies. of him,
and he's been merciful to us, Lord. He's on his throne, interceding
for his people, and he will lose none. Turn us to see him. Make our
mind be as his mind, and make us like him. Conform us to the
image of your Son, Lord. Thank you for this hour. Thank
you for our brethren. Thank you for those that rejoice in this
message throughout time and in our day. Lord, make us rejoice. It's because of Christ we ask.
Amen.