I think he came up here years
ago, and he wrote several songs. James remembers that, I'm sure,
back here. And he was such a humble, spirited
man, and very gifted. Wrote a lot of good songs, and
he wrote that one. That's right out of Job chapter
33, a ransom was found. So that was quite good. Appreciate
that. Let's go to the book of Acts
this morning, the second chapter of Acts, that portion Ron read
to us, and of course I've been preaching from various pieces
of furniture and things about the tabernacle. I'm going to
break away from that just this morning, and we'll go back to
it next Lord's Day, God willing. But since we've had the baptisms
this morning, And we're going to have the Lord's Supper here
in just a little bit after the message. I thought this would
be a good portion of Scripture too. address this morning and
try to break it open if God the Spirit would enable me. It's
precious. It's like an alabaster box full
of delightful ointment. As it sets forth, our Lord Jesus,
Peter is preaching, of course, on the day of Pentecost. And
this is the same guy who just 50, 51, 52 days before this, showed himself
to be kind of cowardly. And he even denied the Lord Jesus. But things are different now. And he's seen the resurrected
Savior. And he is bold by the grace of
the Spirit of God. And he brings this message, Peter's
message and its results. That's the subject for this morning.
Peter's message and its results. Let's ask God, if He would, to
bless as the Word goes forth. We do thank You, our Father,
for the privilege we have to sit under the Gospel of Your
grace, witness the public profession
of faith by these four individuals of their confidence in Christ
Jesus and his sacrifice for all of their salvation and righteousness. And we rejoice that you are still
in the business of saving sinners. and revealing to folks just like
us our neediness and that Christ Jesus came into the world to
save sinners. And we're so thankful that He
did. And now as we open up the Word
of God to go into the message this morning, we ask that the
Spirit of Grace would be with us. We understand that nothing
of any lasting value will be accomplished this morning unless,
Lord, You're with us. So, make bare Your mighty arm
of grace and speak to us in the power of the Spirit May those
of us who have been washed in the blood of the Lord Jesus and
robed in His righteousness, may we be again made to rejoice in
this wonderful Savior and this marvelous salvation. And then,
Lord, we ask that if it be Your will that You'd reveal this Gospel
to those who don't know You. It's a very serious time as we
gather together. We understand that because we're
dealing with issues of an eternity of eternal value. And we sit
here, Lord, this morning in Your view, a needy group of people. Thou art the mighty God. Thou
art the blesser of men. You're the only one who can do
for us that which we need, which is to be given a new heart of
faith and to be purged of all of our sinfulness through the
sacrifice of the Savior. We look, O God, to Thee alone. Give to young and old a very
serious approach to these next several minutes, and may we listen
as we've never listened before, because none of us know but what
this might not be the last message that we'll ever hear, and it
might be the last message that I'll ever preach. And with these
serious things in mind, we go forward with full dependence,
Lord, upon Thee. We ask You to glorify Your Son
even as He has glorified Thee. For Jesus' sake I pray. Amen. This is, of course, the book
that deals with, or the chapter that deals with Pentecost, the
things that happen on Pentecost. It would be very helpful if we
all understood there were three annual feasts that every Jew
had to attend, every Jewish male. Most of the time the whole family
went. And of course that was the first one was the Passover. And we've talked about the Passover
and you're very familiar with the Passover when the lambs were
killed and the blood put outside for the eye of God. God said,
when I see the blood, I'll pass over you. And of course, that
Passover lamb, every Passover lamb, pictured our Lord Jesus. And we know that our Lord Himself
on Thursday evening had partaken of the Passover supper, and He
and His disciples, and He had eaten roasted lamb that He knew
pictured Himself. Because as John the Baptist said,
Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world. And
so every Jew had to attend, every male Jew had to attend the Passover
in Jerusalem. And there's an interesting passage
of Scripture, and I'm not going to ask you to take the time to
turn to it now, but it's in Exodus chapter 34, verses 22 and 23,
where the Lord gives instructions to all the males that you've
got to go to Jerusalem to attend these feasts. But after that
he said, in essence, I'll paraphrase, he said, but don't worry about
your possessions. I'll protect the borders of Israel. He said, I'm going to take away
the desire for anybody to come in and loot your homes and rob
you and that sort of thing. He said, it's not going to happen
because I'm going to protect your possessions. And isn't it
wonderful for us who know the Lord Jesus to be assured that
our God is always watching over us and protecting us. We must
not be filled with fear. I worry about things because
our God rules. Our God sovereignly controls
all things. And if we lose some of our possessions,
Well, they're just temporary anyway. And if we lose our lives,
well, we'll be with the Lord forever. So, like what Brother
Scott Richardson said years ago, I haven't heard any bad news
since I heard the good news. We've heard the good news of
salvation in the Lord Jesus by His bloody death upon the cross
of Calvary. And we're His, He's ours, We're
going to be with Him forever. One of these days we'll lay aside
this body of sin and we'll be perfected, we'll see our Savior
and be in His likeness and we'll be with Him forever and ever.
Everything is good. Everything is wonderful because
our God does govern all things. So the Lord said, okay, you attend,
all the males must attend the Passover, and usually the whole
family would go. And then 50 days after Passover,
there was the Feast of First Fruits. And the Old Testament
is not called Pentecost because Pentecost is a Greek word. So
you won't find the word Pentecost in the Old Testament. You'll
find the Feast of Firstfruits. But in the New Testament here
in the book of Acts, the second chapter, the second chapter begins
when the day of Pentecost was fully come. And that's 50 days
after Passover. So we know now it's been 50 days
since our Lord Jesus laid down His life for us, gave His life
a ransom, for all of His people to redeem us, to pay our indebtedness
to God, to bring in for us everlasting righteousness, and to pay our
sin debt in full. Now, 40 days after His resurrection,
He ascended back to heaven, and He told His disciples before
He ascended, He said, now just wait for the promise of the Father. which was the gift of the Holy
Spirit. And so they've been waiting. 120 people waiting. I'm sure they were anxious to
go forth and preach and get about the business of spreading the
gospel of God's grace, but the Lord Jesus said, wait for the
gift of the Holy Spirit. So they waited. And on the day
of Pentecost, that's when the Spirit was given in the fullness
of His power. 50 days after Passover. It's also, by the way, called
the Feast of Weeks because it was seven weeks after Passover
plus one day. So there we get 50. And then
the third one that they all had to attend was the Feast of Tabernacles.
But let me tell you about the Feast of Pentecost just a little
bit. It was the Feast of, as I already said, first fruits.
It was the beginning of the harvest. And it's only fitting that the
Spirit of God was given, and as Ron read to us, 3,000 were
converted then and brought into the local church there in Jerusalem
because it was the firstfruits that the Lord was gathering then. He began to gather in His elect. in the Feast of Pentecost, in
the Old Testament Feast of Firstfruits. That was the beginning of the
harvest. It's when they rejoiced, they gave thanks to God for all
of the blessings, the mercies they had given in the barley
harvest as it began in earnest. And so here in Acts chapter 2,
after our Lord, based on His substitutionary death and resurrection,
There is a harvest, a beginning of a wonderful harvest that will
go on until the last of our Lord's people are brought into the fold
of salvation. And it's very interesting, you
know, that mandatory feast or feast day that they had to observe
and go to Jerusalem, the Feast of Tabernacles or the Feast of
Booths. And that commemorated the 40
years that they spent in the wilderness, the Jews did. That
was the end of the harvest. Now, the Lord is still harvesting
souls. He's still saving sinners. But
there is going to come a day when the last of the harvest, crop, we might say, is brought
in, the last of the Lord's sheep. And then, that's when I believe
time will be no more. That will wind things up. But
we're now in this period of time between Pentecost, spiritually
speaking now, and the Feast of Tabernacles. And the Lord is
still gathering His people. these four individuals that I
baptized this morning, brought by effectual grace to the Savior,
and then brought to confess their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
So I want us to look at this message. It begins in earnest
in verse 22. I have five things I want to
give you. First of all, let me direct your
attention to the purpose of God. To the purpose of God. Acts chapter
2, look at 22 and 23. Ye men of Israel. He says, hear
these words. This is Simon Peter. Jesus of
Nazareth. And they knew immediately who
he was talking about. Everybody knew Jesus of Nazareth. That is, they knew who he was,
his personal identity as a man, and they knew he had been crucified. And one of the things that Peter
is going to insist upon, and he emphasizes this not only in
the second chapter, but throughout his messages, and this is an
emphasis of the Spirit of God throughout the book of Acts,
is that this Jesus whom men crucified, He's been raised from the dead. He's the resurrected Savior.
He's not dead anymore. In fact, as Ron read to you,
I'm sure you noted he talked about David dying and his sepulcher. People could go visit the sepulchers,
the graves of the king of Israel, because most of them were buried
on Mount Zion. And he said that's where his
dust is. David's still dead. His body
anyway. David's with the Lord. But he
said this Jesus, this Jesus, God raised Him from the dead.
And we know the reason God raised Him from the dead was because
He did the work that God gave Him to do. He finished the work
of redemption. He finished the work of our salvation. He saved us. He justified us
by His blood. And so Peter begins with announcing
who he is going to speak about. We speak about somebody. He's
Jesus. What does his name mean? He shall
save his people from their sins. That's what Jesus means. Maybe he'll save his people.
He'll endeavor to save his people. No, he will save his people from
their sins, and he'll do it by substitutionary death. When he
died, he sealed our salvation with his blood. He washed our
sins away. He brought in for us and established
for us everlasting righteousness when he died. So he announces
Jesus. He's the one I'm talking about.
Which Jesus? Jesus of Nazareth. Now Nazareth
was where he was educated and that's where he grew up. Yes,
he was born in Bethlehem, but he was educated and he grew up
in Nazareth, which was in Galilee. So he's identifying immediately
his subject. We preach Jesus Christ the Lord. That's who we preach. Our message
is somebody and what He did. And the reason that he did it,
and we preach where he is now, he's exalted in heaven. And Peter
does the same thing. Those old questions that Brother
Mahan kind of rehearsed into our ears over and over again,
who he is and what he did and why he did it and where he is
now. Well, that comes right out of Peter's message. This is who
he's preaching. He says, Jesus of Nazareth, a
man approved of God among you, God attested to his deity by
giving him unusual gifts, which he did, by the way, by the power
of the Spirit. Scripture says that. Miracles
and wonders and signs. Miracles means he exerted his
power. The word here, miracles, could
be translated power, as in Romans 1 in verse 16. For I'm not ashamed
of the gospel of Christ, for it's the pout of God unto salvage,
the dunamis of God. This is what this word right
here, miracles, means. He demonstrated unusual power. Why, even one of their own, Nicodemus,
said, no man can do the things that thou doest except God be
with him. He recognized there was something
very unusual about Jesus of Nazareth. He could do things that nobody
else could do. Well, God was attesting to the
fact He is divine. Yes, He's the man Jesus of Nazareth,
but He is the Son of God. He is divine. And then He goes
on and He says in the second verse, He says that He was delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. He was
delivered by God the Father. This is God's purpose being brought
to pass. Now we know that God has purposed
all things. The Bible says all things are
of God, 2 Corinthians chapter 5. Romans chapter 11, For of
him, and through him, and to him are all things, to whom be
glory forever. Amen. All things are of God. All things in creation, all things
in what we typically call providence, and all things in grace. All
things in salvation. But we know that God has Himself
purposed all things in this salvation of sinners. And He purposed salvation
from before the foundation of the world. I've had people say
to me, do you preach that primitive doctrine? And I say it's very
primitive. In fact, it's as primitive as
God Himself. That's how primitive it is. We're
talking about eternal issues now. We're talking about eternal
justification. We're talking about eternal election.
We're talking about eternal acceptance of us in the Beloved who is Christ
Jesus the Lord. And so he says, he was delivered. He was delivered up to die. The scripture says in Romans
chapter 8 that God spared not his son, but he delivered him
up for us all, for all the people of God. And how shall he not
with him? freely give us all things. He'll give us all things.
If He gave us His Son and gave us all things in Him, gave us
salvation and gave us redemption, gave us forgiveness, if He gave
His only begotten Son to us and for us, then He'll withhold nothing
from us that He deems necessary. He'll take care of His people.
He always does. He always does. One of the things,
and I mentioned this before, one of the things I think today
that a lot of people want to do is keep us in fear. They want
to keep us fearful because then they can keep us under control,
so they think. You who are the people of God,
oh, would you hear me? Would you hear the Lord Himself?
He says, fear not. Fear not. Do you not believe,
as we read here, Ron read to us, that this Jesus, whom men
crucified, God's made Him Lord and Christ? He's the Lord. He governs all things. If He
governs all things, what is the reason that we're fearful of
anything? Why should we be afraid? We're
the king's children. We're royalty. We're blood-bought
saints of God. And our Lord governs all things
to fulfill the Father's eternal purpose and to work all things
together for the good of His elect. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid. When the Lord
was with His disciples out on the Sea of Galilee and the storm
came up, He said, Why are you so fearful? Why are you so fearful? I'm in the boat with you. And I say to the children of
God, to all of you, to all of you who are watching, who are
the people of God, why are you fearful? Are you in the good ship of grace? The Lord, He said, I'll never
leave you and I'll never forsake you. He's the God of determinate counsel,
of purpose. And Peter is especially laboring
the point that all that happened to Jesus of Nazareth was according
to God's purpose, to his determinate counsel, to his will and purpose,
and the foreknowledge of God. That is, foreordination is the
word. It's all unfolding according
to God's purpose, according to God's foreordination. There are
no unseen difficulties that will arise to cause God to fail to
fulfill His purpose. It can't be. It can't be. He will bring to fruition everything
that He has ordained. And that's everything that He's
ordained for your life. You're in His hands. You're in
His heart. You're on his mind. As though
there was nobody else for him to be concerned about, that's
how much attention God gives to each of his children. He's
the infinite God. He has an infinite knowledge
of you, an infinite love for you, an infinite interest in
you. And he'll make certain. that
all things in your life will fulfill His purpose and they'll
all work together for good. Somebody said, well, you know,
there's a song that says, we'll understand it all by and by.
Well, by and by, when we're with the Lord, we won't need to understand
anything then. He won't need to explain anything
to us. Perhaps He will. But it's enough
for us to know now, as we walk by faith, that the Lord, His
purpose is being fulfilled. And it was fulfilled in the hands
of Christ, or in the life of our Lord Jesus. Because Peter
goes on to say that you took Him. You took Him. And with wicked
hands, evil hands, hands that were Very corrupt and hateful. They crucified Him and they killed
Him. But it's all according to the purpose of God. If our Savior
hadn't died, there'd be no salvation for us. In fact, there wasn't
any way that he could wind up any other way except hanging
on the cross. It was just ordained to be. That's
the way it had to be. It's the way God ordained it. And though wicked men did all
that they could against our beloved Savior, yet all that happened to him
was according to God's will and purpose. every blow of the hammer, putting
the nails into his hands and feet. Those nails were mined
from the ore in God's mines. And those soldiers that drove
the nails in did so by the power that God gave to them. And all
the awful things that they did to him in addition to that, the
crown of thorns, the purple rag they put on him,
the reed that they shoved in his hands, all of that mockery.
I know they were guilty and they cannot be relieved of their responsibility. He said, with wicked hands you
crucified him. But God was behind all of it. You've got to understand that.
You've got to believe that. Understand it fully, we can't.
But if this Bible is indeed the Word of God, and it is, this
Bible says all things are of God. It doesn't matter whether
you understand it or I understand it. That's the way it is, brother.
Isn't that right? That's just the way it is. And
we rejoice that this is our God. This is our God who governs. So He died according to the will
and purpose of God. So here's the purpose of God.
Secondly, here's the proclamation of the Gospel. And this picks
up at the end of verse 23 and goes down to verse 31. Peter
tells these hearers that Jesus of Nazareth was more than a great
miracle worker. You see, most of the world will
acknowledge that he was a great miracle worker anyway. And indeed,
God approved of him by the miracles and the signs and the wonders
that he wrought. But he did more than that. He did more than that. He did
more than healing the blind and the lame and curing leprosy and
all of those things. Indeed, He did those things,
but He came here to die. He was born to die. And that's
what Peter goes into here beginning at the end of verse 23. You with
wicked hands, you've crucified, you've slain Him. And then he
goes into the Old Testament in verse 25. He draws from the Old
Testament. Now I remind you of this. These
people to whom he was preaching, Jewish people, they didn't have
any of the New Testament then. We've got the whole Word of God,
but they didn't have the New Testament. All that they had
was the Old Testament. And so Peter, just like our Lord
Jesus, goes back into the Old Testament and he draws forth
from the book of the Psalms. And he shows us that even in
the Psalms, there's the death and the burial and the resurrection
of our Lord Jesus Christ. Here's a proclamation of the
Gospel. And he talks about this God-man facing the greatest,
very greatest trial of his life, full of confidence that God would
raise him from the dead. and he died. He really died. This man died. He's God and he's
man. God made for him a soul and a
body. Christ said, a body thou hast
prepared me. He had to have a human soul and
a human body because the first Adam was like us and he's the
one that got us in the mess to begin with. Got to be another
man to come. Another representative man. A
mighty man. A holy man. A righteous man.
The man who is also God. That's Christ Jesus. And He came
to die. Because that's the penalty of
death. Or that's the penalty of sin. For the wages of sin
is what? Death. Death. The Scripture says
in sin, when it's finished, it bringeth forth what? Death! Our Lord came to suffer, bleed,
and die. Years ago, there was a kind of
a halfway famous evangelist, I guess. He was from Ohio. And
he went over to visit where Golgotha's supposed to be. And he said,
I'll tell you, if I had been here... It was at Easter. He
said, if I had been here, I'd have put a stop to the whole
thing. Well, that shows us that he knows
nothing about the Gospel. If somehow or another somebody
had put a stop to it, that nobody could ever be saved. You see,
this man Jesus of Nazareth, who is God manifest in the flesh,
as He died upon the cross of Calvary, and as He was transacting
business with the Father, He was paying our sin debt. He was
bringing in for us everlasting righteousness. If He doesn't
die, then we'll die forever. You remember the Jews as they
watched Him, they said, If Thou be the Christ, come down from
the cross and save us. Save yourself. Save yourself,
they said. He saved others, they went on
to say. Himself He cannot save. That's
right. If He's going to save Himself,
He can't save us. And the one thing, here's the
one thing that modern religion is missing. They don't know really
who He is and they don't know why He died. That God might be
just and justified. They don't know that. They talk
about Him being a good example. Well, He certainly is a wonderful
example. He's a great miracle worker.
There's no question about that. But He's the Savior, and how's
He going to save? By His sacrifice on the cross. That Passover lamb over there
in the Old Testament. All those Passover lambs that
died, they were beautiful. Males of the first year. Nothing
wrong with them. Beautiful lambs. God said, kill
the lamb. catches blood in a basin. And here's the Son of God, He
comes into this world. There's no question of what He
lived, a beautiful life, a perfect life. But that's not enough. He must be the sacrifice to God. I've said it a hundred times
or more than that. I'm sure that before God could
do anything for us, He had to do something for Himself. Satisfy
His own justice. He had to get death. He had to
get blood. And He had to get it from His
only begotten Son. Because He's the only one who
could satisfy justice and save His people. And so Peter goes
into this and he talks about his death. Then he talks about
his resurrection. His resurrection, a couple of
times here, he even makes mention, quoting out of the Psalms, that
thou wilt not leave my soul in hell. Now let me clear up a little
bit of possible confusion in somebody's mind, because there
are some denominations who say when Jesus died, his soul went
to hell and he suffered, he suffered for our sins there. No. He didn't suffer for our sins,
he went to the place of death. All of His sufferings was upon
the cross. And all of His dealings with
the Holy God happened during those three hours from twelve
till three. That's when the great transaction
was taking place. That's when our debt was being
paid. That's when our sins were being put away. And it was all
done under the cloak of darkness. So man couldn't even see what
was going on. God punishing God. Can you imagine? Martin Luther, after studying
these words, my God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? It
said he laid his Bible down on his desk and he walked out and
his secretary said he just walked out saying, how can God forsake
God? How can God forsake God? I don't
understand this. Well, I don't either. But it
happened. And because He was forsaken,
He looks at us and says, I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake
you. That we may with boldness say,
the Lord is my Helper. I'm not going to be afraid of
anything or anybody. Oh, He's proclaiming the Gospel
of Christ. Proclaiming His death. He died
that God might be just and justifier. And then he gets into verses
33 and 34. Here's the preeminence of Christ. First of all, there's the purpose
of God, then the proclamation of the gospel, and then the preeminence
of Christ Jesus. And he says in verse 33, therefore,
in verse 32, he talked about God raised Him. Therefore, being
by the right hand of God exalted and having received of the Father
the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has shed forth this which
you now see and hear." The people said, well, what's going on here?
Here are people speaking in foreign languages and they never studied
them before. People are being healed. What's
happening? What's happening all around?
And Peter says, you see all this that's going on? I'll tell you
who's doing it. Jesus of Nazareth. He's the one
behind all of it. And then he says, he shed forth
this, verse 33. Verse 34, he says, but David's
not ascended to the heavens, that is, not in his body. But
he himself said, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my
right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool. Until they're all submissive
to you, till everybody bows the knee and confesses that he's
Lord. And then he says in verse 36,
oh, here's the preeminence of Christ. Now when they heard this,
verse 36, sorry. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God hath made this same Jesus. And again, he kind of, he keeps
sticking the knife in. Isn't he afraid he'll offend
somebody? If truth offends you, you need
to be offended. He reminds them of their great
evil. Whom ye crucified. God's made Him both Lord and
Christ. He's Lord of lords and King of kings. These four individuals I baptized
just a little bit ago. When the Lord did a work of grace
in their hearts, they didn't make Jesus Lord. They didn't
say, I'm going to let Jesus be the Lord of my life. You can't
let the Lord do anything. He's the Lord of everybody's
life. He's the Lord of the world. Right? Isn't that right, Russell? He's
always been the Lord. He's the Lord of all lords and
He's the King of all kings. Well, what happens in conversion?
You willingly bow to Him. and you submit to Him. And Peter
says, you need to know this now. And I tell all of you, you need
to know this. You who are watching by way of
the Internet, you need to know this. This same Jesus who was
crucified, God made Him both Lord and Christ. And then, here's
the fourth thing. Here's the power of the Word. Verses 37-40. Now when they heard the Word
of God proclaimed, they were pricked in their hearts,
cut deep in their hearts. And they said unto Peter and
to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall
we do? We've killed the Son of God.
What shall we do? Our hands drip with His blood. What shall we do? I'm guilty. What shall I do? I've sinned
against God. What shall I do? What shall I
do? And Peter says in verse 38, repent. Change of mind, change of heart.
And on this occasion, specifically with regards to Jesus of Nazareth,
you thought He was a blasphemer. You thought He was a fake. You
thought He was a phony Messiah. You better have a change of heart
and mind about Him. He's not who you thought He was.
He's God over all blessed forever. He says, repent and be baptized
on account of, would be a better translation, the remission of
sins. He says, you'll receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. You'll receive the gifts of love,
joy, peace, long-suffering, etc. And then he says this, drop down
to verse 39. 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. I'm calling all of you to come
to Christ this morning. I call you to come to Him. Believe
on the Lord Jesus Christ. We're guilty of everything God
has accused us of. We're guilty. There's no question
about that. Believe on the Son of God. I
call you to come to Christ. He's the Lord. He's the Savior. He's the only refuge to whom
we can go for everlasting safety. Come to the Lord Jesus. But my
voice is not going to make the difference. I can't call anybody
effectually. Preacher was effectually mean.
Gets the job done. But I'll tell you whose call
gets the job done. The call of God. Oh God. If you call, I'll hear you. I'll hear you. See, I've called
you and you may go out those doors or go back this way and
eat first. But I'll call you and then you
forget. You may forget most everything
I've said. But I'll tell you if God calls
you, you won't forget. That's the reason we don't give
a sad sob story and try to get people to come down the aisle
like they taught us in Bible college. Strike while the iron's
hot. We don't believe that. This is the work God's got to
do in you. If He doesn't do it, it's not going to be done. Isn't
that right, Jack? That's just the way it is. Oh God, do something for me.
That's what all of us ought to be praying. Lord, do something
for me. I certainly want the Lord to
do something for all of you, but I want Him to do something
for me. You can call that selfish, Joe, if you want to, but hey,
I don't want to perish. After preaching all these years,
I want to know God. I want to be sure that I know
Him and that Christ is my Savior. Lord, like Newton said, if I
hadn't loved you before, help me to love you now. That's what
I want. Oh, here's the power of the Word
of God. God called these people. In verse
40, He says, with many other words, did He testify and exhort
saying, save yourselves from this untoward generation, from
this crooked religious generation. And if he lived in the midst
of a crooked, perverse, religious generation, well, I guarantee
we do too. The word here, this untoward,
I'm not big on giving out Greek words because I'm not a Greek
scholar, don't know much about Greek. But I do know this, from
this original word, we get our word, scoliosis, crooked. Some have scoliosis, a curvature
of the back. Very painful. One of my grandmothers did. Peter said, deliver yourselves. You better separate yourselves
from this crooked, perverse, religious generation that doesn't
know God. They don't know the Gospel. They
don't know how God can be just and justified. You've got to
separate yourself from them. That's the power of the Word.
And then lastly, here's the proofs of the Spirit's work. Verse 41,
Then they that gladly receive the Word. Do you gladly receive
the Word? I hope you do. I hope God makes
you willing in the day of His power. If He does, you'll gladly
receive the Word. They were baptized. They were
baptized. The same day there were added
unto them about 3,000 souls. If you read at the end of chapter
1, there were 120 of them. Now all of a sudden there are
3,120. Who can do that but God? It is
not a high-pressure altar call to this. There's nothing like
that. What happened? God smoked their
hearts. That's what we need. We need
the work of the Spirit of God. That's the cry from the hearts
of God's people. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine. What's that? Salvation by grace. Salvation all in Christ Jesus.
Through His person, His doing and His dying. And fellowship. Breaking of bread, Lord's Supper,
prayers. Fear came upon every soul. They
feared God. A reverential respect for God
in reverence. And many wonders and signs were
done by the apostles and all that believed were together.
They had all things in common. They said, you know what? We're
family. We're family. If somebody of
the family is in need, hey, the rest of the family comes to the
rescue. That's the way it works. And here we are this morning,
all of us who are genuine believers, We're family. I know sometimes
we don't act like it. But wait a minute, there are
squabbles that arise in earthly families. And sometimes, unfortunately
and sadly, they arise even among the spiritual family. But we're
united together. Here in this body of believers.
We're family. We're family. God's our Father. Christ is our elder brother.
The Spirit of God is our guide and our comforter. And we love
each other. We don't love each other like
we ought to, but we do love one another. We pray for one another.
Joe reminds us of that nearly every week. We need to pray for
one another. That's because we pray for our family. I pray for
others too, but I pray for my immediate family here first.
And they continued in one accord. Oh, God help us to do that. One accord. breaking bread from
house to house, eating their meat with gladness and singleness
of heart, praising God. When we come together, we're
here to praise the Lord, to thank Him, to bless Him. And it says
the Lord added to the church such as should be saved. He adds. We don't. We don't. We're thankful that the Lord
has added to our church this local assembly. And we rejoice
in His goodness and His grace. And now we're going to have the
Lord's Supper. These men are ready to wait upon
you. They're going to serve you the
bread. And we'll all wait till we're served. If you're a believer
in the Lord Jesus, if He's your Savior, if He's your You honor
Him and you worship Him and you love Him, then this is for you. We won't eat until we're all
served. And they'll first of all start
with the bread. Okay.