fathers, he was revealing to
them that one who's the seed of the woman who would come into
the world. He was quickening people. They had to be quickened just
like we have to be quickened. They had to be instructed in
the things of God just like we have to be instructed in the
things of God. They were dead just like we're
dead. His work was being done in the
Old Testament, but as we get to this chapter, we see the Spirit
of God coming in a greater way and a more powerful way to these
folks here. You remember the words of our
Lord Jesus, go back in to John chapter 16, if you would, go
back into John chapter 16. This is what the Savior said,
John chapter 16 in verse five. He says, but now I go. Now we've been preaching through,
I've been preaching through the book of John and we're coming
up on beginning chapter 14. We'll finish up chapter 13, beginning
chapter 14 this coming Wednesday night. And we've noted this,
The master would say to his disciples, I go, I go. Where are you going? He's going
to die. He's going to give his life a
ransom for many. And then he's going to the father.
And so once again, he tells these disciples in verse five of chapter
16, now I go my way to him that sent me. And none of you asketh
me, whither goest thou? But because I've said these things
unto you, you're very sorrowful. Sorrow has filled your heart.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. Listen up now, he says. It is expedient. It is necessary
for you that I go. Listen, there won't be any redemption
if he doesn't go. And they didn't want him to go.
They begged him not to go to Jerusalem, but he said, it's
absolutely necessary that I go. It's necessary that I go away,
for look at the rest of that verse, verse seven, for if I
go not away, the comforter, well, who is the comforter? That's
the Spirit of God. He's not gonna come to you. But
if I depart, if I go, if I go and lay down my life a ransom,
if I go forth to deal with the justice of God on your behalf,
if I go forth to bear your iniquities in my own body on the tree, if
I go forth to meet the wrath of God and endure it in your
stead, I'll then send him unto you. I will send him unto you. You see, if the Lord Jesus hadn't
died, there would be no need for the Spirit of God to come.
There wouldn't be a gospel to reveal. We need to understand
this, the Spirit of God, the work that he did and the work
he's doing is not an extension of the work of the Lord Jesus.
The work of redemption is finished now. It's accomplished. The work of the removal of all
of the guilt and all of the transgressions of God's people, that's finished. The work of bringing in everlasting
righteousness, that's done. That's absolutely fully accomplished. And the Spirit of God, He doesn't
come to add anything to what the Lord Jesus did. This is what
the Savior said when he hung on the cross. He said, it is
finished in Iran. That's exactly what he said.
It is finished. What's finished? All the Old
Testament pictures and types of his death, God's eternal purpose
of redemption and reconciliation, the removal of all of the sins
of all of his people, that's finished. The Spirit of God doesn't
come to put a PS to it. No, he comes to reveal to the
people of God that the work is done and who did it. That's what
he does. And the Lord Jesus says, if I
don't go away, if I don't go do this work, well, that comforter,
he's not coming because there won't be a message to teach you. There won't be a gospel to enlighten
you about. That's what the Savior says.
The Spirit of God has come. So when I read over here in Acts
chapter two about Pentecost, here's the first thing I think
about, the giving of the Holy Spirit. I'm so thankful for the
giving of the Holy Spirit. He quickened me when I was dead
in trespasses and sins. He taught me the gospel. He opened
my understanding. He opened my eyes. He gave me
life. He gave me light. He guides me. He indwells me. He is one who
is my comforter. He walks, as it were, alongside
of me. And He guides me. He guides me
into the truth. So, when I think of Pentecost,
I think, first of all, of the giving of the Holy Spirit. Secondly,
I think of the gift of tongues, the ability to preach the gospel
in another language God gave to these men, these men who had
no knowledge of those languages before the Spirit of God came
upon them. Years ago, Nancy and I were visiting
in Japan, And David, our son, and he'll be here, by the way,
at the end of the month, the Lord willing. He and his daughter,
Ellen, are coming over to visit with us for a few days. So we
look forward to that. But we were over there visiting
with them, and he was teaching an English class to some of the
Japanese. And he said, Dad, I want you
to preach to them in English. He said, this will kind of help
them with their English. And he said, try to use elementary
words, but preach to them in English. And he said, that way
they'll know the truth of God. And I looked at those Japanese
people, and I'll tell you, I said, Lord, I wish I had the gift of
tongues. I wish that all of a sudden I
could preach this glorious gospel in Japanese. You see, that's
what this gift was. It wasn't the spirit of God giving
to these men some imaginary language, some heavenly gibberish that
nobody could understand. The amazing thing to these people
was that they understood the message of God in their own language. And they'd never studied that
language, probably 14, 15 different languages that various preachers
of the gospel, they went out and they got with, one got with
this group, another with that group, another with that group,
and all around, here are little pockets of people. And these
men gifted of the Spirit of God as the Spirit gave them utterance. That's what it says. In other
words, they couldn't turn it on and turn it off. is up to
the spirit. The spirit of God gave him this
gift of languages to preach the gospel. You know, God gave these unusual
and extraordinary gifts to certain men in order that their message
would be validated. You think about this. Go to Hebrews
chapter two. You think about this, the Lord
Jesus, he told these men to wait for the giving of the Spirit
of God and then to go out and preach the gospel to every creature. These men have a message that
is absolutely unique. Here they are going forth preaching
a man who is God. He's the God-man. Here He is. He's the Son of God. He's the
Son of Man. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest in the flesh. That's their message. And they
said this man lived a life of perfection. He wasn't contaminated
by sin and guilt and corruption like all of us are. He's a man
from above, sent from God. And this man died, this man died. He died a real death after suffering
the agonies of crucifixion. And he died in the room of, in
the stead of the people God gave him in covenant grace. And he
redeemed them by his blood. He really died, they buried him. But God raised him and God exalted
him. And people would have said, what
kind of message is that? Did you make that up? Well, you know what validated
and verified that they were indeed sent of God and commissioned
by God? The gifts that God gave them,
the ability to work these miracles. Look here in Hebrews chapter
two, are you there? Look at verse three. How shall
we escape if we neglect so great salvation, which at the first
began to be spoken by the Lord and then was confirmed unto us
by them that heard it? God also bearing them witness,
God verifying their ministry, both with signs and wonders and
with divers miracles and gifts of the Holy Ghost according to
his own will. The Lord validated their ministry. It's God's stamp of approval.
These men are preaching the right message. Look at the gifts I've
given them. But they didn't use these gifts,
you know, arbitrarily. They didn't, now these men, they
had the ability to heal. In fact, you can go back to Acts
chapter two, but in Acts chapter three, you know, Peter and John
went to the temple and there was a man laying there. Peter
didn't, and John, they didn't say, now we're gonna have a healing
service over the temple today. They didn't do that. They never
advertised that. These gifts were exercised as
a means of drawing people in and then the gospel being proclaimed. That's what happened in Acts
chapter three and these other miracles as well. They never
said we're gonna have a healing service. They never rented an
amphitheater. They never rented some kind of
auditorium or a sports arena or something like that. No, they
used these opportunities to open the door to set forth Jesus Christ
and him crucified. And you look at these men today,
they say they got the gift to heal. We're gonna have a healing
crusade. And we've rented a great big
auditorium. Bring all you sick folk. And
if you've got enough faith, I can heal them by the power of God. Well, I'll tell you, there are
a lot of sick people in this world. You'll find a lot of them
down in the hospital. And you ask them, they'd say,
I'd love to be healed. You got the gift to heal? Go
to the hospital. What kind of person are you to
say you've got the power to heal and you won't go where sick people
are? These are a bunch of phonies.
They rob widow's houses. They're liars, none of them preach
anywhere near the gospel. These men, these men, they had
these unusual gifts, but they were given by God to verify and
validate that they had the right message. We say, well, how are
we gonna, how are we gonna certify that a man's got the right message
today? Oh, we can do that. This right
here. Taking the scriptures in their
context, right? In the context. And if they speak
not according to this word, I tell you the reason. There's no light
in them. There's no light in them. And
we must be, we must be like the Bereans. Search the scriptures
daily. When you hear a man preach, you
hear this man preach, you hear this man preach, you hear this
man preach. Search the scriptures daily,
see if these things are so. You look at the word of God,
is God sovereign? We say he is, well, what does
the book say? We just said what the book says.
His salvation, all of the Lord, that's what the book says. We
dare not say anything that isn't found in this book consistent
with the message of salvation by grace. So, when I think about Acts chapter
two, I think about the giving of the Holy Spirit. I think about
the gift of tongues. And then I think about a great
preacher. Simon Peter, who 50 days before
this, just embarrassed himself something
awful. For he denied the Lord Jesus
Christ. And if we had observed him then,
we would have said, he's not a saved man. He's not a Christian. He's as bad as Judas. We'd have
written him off. We'd have voted him out. We'd
have got, I tell you, most Baptist churches would have got the disciplinary
committee together that very night and say, he's out of here.
We don't want such a man on our church roll. But he's God's man. Now he messed up, there's no
question about that, and we're not gonna excuse that. But he's
the Lord's. Learn this. You know what a Christian
will do? Anything a non-Christian will
do except for the grace of God. You're capable of doing anything
any other son or daughter of Adam has ever done, thought,
or wanted to do. unless God keeps you on the short
leash. I think about a preacher who
preached a powerful message. And then I think about a great
revival. You get over here toward the
end of this and you look at verse 41. Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized, Acts 2 41. The same day, there were
added unto them about 3,000 souls. You know, I look through church
history and you read about various preachers and maybe thousands
of people that they preached to, and I don't know whether
they were genuine conversions or not, but these were genuine. This is a real thing right here.
3,000 souls. that God was pleased to call
out of darkness into the light. 3,000 of the Lord's lost sheep. And this was the day when he
found them. He went forth to find them. With his word, I tell
you, the voice of the Lord, the gospel of Christ, it'll seek
out and find his lost sheep. Just preach the gospel. to turn
the word loose. I got enough confidence in the
gospel, the message of redemption, the message of this awesome full
salvation in, through and by Christ Jesus that I can preach
this and then just leave it with the Holy Spirit to either do
the work in somebody's heart or if he's not pleased to do
it, then he won't do it. But, you know, we don't have
to feel like we've got to strike while the iron's hot. Let's get
them down to the front. Let's get people to make a decision. And I don't want you to leave
till you make a decision for Jesus. Let me tell you something.
If the Spirit of God's on your trail, he'll get you. He will
track you down. And if he's not, I don't want
to talk you into something. I don't want to twist your arm. So I think about this preacher,
and then I think about this great revival, and all of these things
happen. But at the end of the day, at the end of the day, when the
day of Pentecost was winding down, and all these people converted,
by God's free and sovereign grace. I don't believe that anybody
went away bragging on the Spirit of God's come. And I don't think anybody went
away saying, man, I tell you, that speaking in tongues really
was something, wasn't it? Sure was glad I was there to
hear that. And I don't think anybody was
talking about the preacher. And I don't think anybody was
talking about the numbers. Boy, religion is a numbers game. But they wouldn't, man, they
didn't say, woo, we had a service, like 3,000 people walked the
aisle. Nobody said that. I'll tell you
what they were talking about. They were talking about the subject
of the message of Simon Peter, and here was the subject, Jesus
Christ, who he is, and what he did, why he did it, and where
he was then, where he was now. This was his message. This is
what people were talking about, what God did, what God did. Now, I read this morning that
when these men began to speak in these other languages, and
look at verse 12, and I'll kind of pick up. They were all amazed,
and they said to one another, Acts 2.12, they said to one another,
what does this mean? Others were mocking. They were
mocking, and they said, these men are full of new wine. Now,
they should have known better than to say that because this
was a Sabbath day. It was a day of Pentecost, a
Sabbath day, and the Jews were forbidden to take any strong
drink on that day. And this is what Peter said in
verse 14. He stood up with the 11. He lifted
up his voice. He said, you men of Judea and
all you that dwell in Jerusalem, be it known unto you and hearken
to my words. These men aren't drunken. as
you say, because it's just the third hour of the day. It's just
nine o'clock in the morning, which was by the way, the time
of the morning sacrifice, which was no longer needed. God's sacrifice
had died. He says in verse 16, he says,
all that's happened, and I won't read these next several verses.
He said, it's what Joel talked about. He says it's written in
the Old Testament. And then look down in verse 22. Verse number 22. He said this,
you men of Israel, hear these words. Words. Hear this message. Hear this
preaching. You know what it is that God
uses. He uses the preaching of the
gospel to save them that believe. Just what I'm doing right now.
I know men think they can improve on the methods that God has laid
forth in his word. Let's have sharing times. Had a man left our church, in
Michigan, he and his wife, he took his wife and children with
him, because he said, we don't have enough sharing times. He
said, we need to have a service where we can all share, and we
can all speak of the things of God. And I said, well, in this
church, we have one who shares the message, and that's me. And
he said, well, if you don't open it up to where we can all say
something, He said, we'll leave. And I said, I sure hate to see
you go. But God uses one method, the
preaching of the word of God. I get emails of gospel groups
that want to come in and sing. Let's have a gospel singing.
Well, I'm all for singing gospel songs. But we're not going to
have a quartet come in here and give them some money and let
them entertain us with foot stomping music and us get to clapping
and get wild and spiritual. That's just not going to happen.
That's not going to happen here. Because that's not what God uses.
Now God's going to use that which will, number one, glorify Him. Number two, put us in the dust.
Number three, exalt Jesus Christ and Him crucified. Number four,
show us salvations of the Lord. And I'll tell you what'll do
that, preaching of the word. That's what God uses. That's
what God uses. And here Peter says, ye men of
Israel, hear these words, listen to me. Will you listen to me,
he says. And then he began to preach.
Number one, the life and the person and the life of Jesus
Christ. 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 ye yourselves also know. He introduces his message. His
message is Jesus of Nazareth. I'm preaching about a person,
a glorious person. And he says, and you know him.
You know who I'm talking about. That's what Peter's saying. And
then he says, a man approved of God. God approved
of him. There's only been one man God
ever approved of. That's the God man. And He don't
approve of you unless you're in Him. That's the only place
of approval with God. You won't be accepted by God,
welcomed by God, embraced by God. It's in Christ Jesus. There's no acceptance anywhere
else. As He begins to speak up, person and the life of Christ
Jesus. And then he goes on, secondly,
he sets forth the death of Christ. Look at verse 23, him. He's our subject. Our subject
is him. Our subject is not you. Our subject
is not me. Our subject is him. The Bible
is a hymn book, right? We know that. It says hymn. Peter is directing the attention
of these thousands of people to a person. That's what we got
to do. I remember back in the early
70s, I was assistant pastor of the Rosemont Baptist Church in
Winston-Salem, North Carolina. And a preacher from Ashland,
Kentucky came to preach for us. And I'd always thought salvation's
in a plan. Plan of salvation. There was
even a tract like that. God's simple plan of salvation. And this man got up, Brother
Mahan got up and he preached. He said, you think salvation's
in a plan? But this man read my mind. You
think salvation's in a plan? It's not in a plan. And I can
hear him now. He said, it's in a person and
his work. And that's what Peter is saying.
I'm preaching somebody to you. We're not preaching Baptist denomination. We're not preaching Calvinism. We're preaching him. That's who
we're preaching and what he did. He says, him. being delivered by the determinate counsel and
foreknowledge of God. Christ Jesus was delivered. He
was delivered by Judas to the chief priests. He was delivered
by the chief priests to Pilate. He was delivered by Pilate to
the will of the people. He was delivered by the will
of the people to the soldiers who crucified him. But ultimately,
he was delivered by God. God delivered him. Delivered
by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge, loving for the
nation of God. He said all that happened And
these people knew, they knew what happened. Many of them were
right there when it happened and they watched. They're in
Jerusalem. And he was crucified outside
the gates of the city of Jerusalem. They knew exactly who he was
talking about. They knew exactly the event that
he was preaching about. And he says, I want you to know
who brought it all to pass. God did. over in Acts chapter four. Look
at this, Acts 4.27, for of a truth, against thy holy child Jesus,
whom thou hast anointed, both the Herod and Pontius Pilate,
with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, were gathered together
for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined, decreed,
predestinated before to be done. Peter lets them know, listen,
all that happened to this man, God ordained it. But he also reminds them of their
guilt. He says, you have taken and by
wicked hands have crucified and you slaughtered him, you killed
him, you murdered. He will say in the next chapter,
you murdered the just one. You did it. He sets forth the death of the
Lord Jesus Christ. Death which we know was absolutely
necessary in order to put away all of the sins of all of God's
people. And then thirdly, he gets to
the resurrection of Christ. He talks about the person, of
Jesus Christ, the person of Christ and the life of Christ. He was
approved of God. And then he talked about the
death of Christ. And then thirdly, he talked about
the resurrection of Christ, verses 24 through 32. Look at this,
whom God raised up. You killed him, but God raised
him up. having loosed the pains of death,
that travail that he went through, by which he redeemed his people,
the travail of his soul. God raised him up and he loosed
the travail, the pains of death, because it wasn't possible that
he should be holding of death. How can death hold life? Him who is the life of God, He
says, for David speaketh. And boy, when he mentioned David,
they all perked up on that because David was, he's their hero. For David speaketh concerning
him. He did, oh yeah, back in the
Old Testament, back in the Psalms. I foresaw the Lord always before
my face, for he's on my right hand that I should not be moved.
Therefore did my heart rejoice and my tongue was glad. Moreover
also my flesh shall rest in hope. This comes right out of Psalm
16, eight through 11. Because thou wilt not leave my
soul in hell, not talking about the place of punishment, but
the place of death. Thou wilt not suffer thine holy
one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the
ways of life. Thou shalt make me full of joy
with thy countenance. He says in verse 29, men and
brethren, let me speak Let me speak to you freely, without
reservation. It's kind of like a preacher
today saying, I'm just gonna be absolutely honest with you
now. I'm gonna talk straight to you. He says, let me tell you about
the patriarch David. He's dead and buried. And his sepulcher is with us
unto this day. It's on Mount Zion. where the
other kings of Judah were buried. We can go right out to his grave.
He said, there's a grave marker out there somewhere. He's dead
and buried. But he said, I'm only talking
about the one that David wrote about. Verse 30, therefore being
a prophet and knowing that God has sworn with an oath to him
that of the fruit of his loins According to the flesh, he would
raise up Christ to sit on his throne. He, David, seeing this
before, he spake the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was
not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This
Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we're all witnesses. And you
can read in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, there were many people who
saw the resurrected Christ on one occasion, over 500 people
at one time. He's talking about the resurrection
of Christ Jesus. Now fourthly, now it gets to
the exaltation of Christ. Verse 33, therefore, therefore,
being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed
forth this which ye now see and hear. All of this that's going
on, all this preaching, and the giving of the Spirit, and these
men preaching the gospel of God, the gospel of Christ Jesus, the
gospel of the blood and righteousness of the great Savior of sinners,
all of this, that one who lived and died, and was buried, and
arose, and is ascended. He's the one bringing all this
to pass. He's the one behind all this. He hath shed forth this which
you now see and hear. For David is not ascended to
the heavens, but David saith himself, the Lord said unto my
Lord, sit thou on my right hand. until I make thy foes thy footstool. Therefore, here comes his conclusion. Therefore, he says, let all the
house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same
Jesus, here's a little reminder, whom you crucified. He doesn't
let them off the hook. God ordained it, but they did
exactly what their ungodly, wicked hearts wanted to do. Let all the house of Israel know
without a doubt, assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus,
whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ, the same one
who made him to be the Messiah, that is the Christ, has made
him to be the Lord, and given to him all authority over all
flesh, that he should give eternal life to his many as the Father
gave him. Now, the reaction. Verse 37,
now, when they heard, when they heard this, When they heard this message, something happened. They were
pricked in their heart. They said to Peter and to the
rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what should we do? What should we do? We've killed
the Lord of glory. What should we do? We've rebelled
against the only one who can save us. What should we do? We're
guilty of his death. Our hands drip with his blood.
What shall we do? Tell us, what shall we do? We're
in a mess. We're going out into eternity
to meet a holy God. What shall we do? What shall
we do? And Peter said unto them, repent
and be baptized every one of you. In the name of Jesus Christ,
for or because of the remission of sins, and you'll receive the
gift of the Holy Ghost. He says repent. Repent, you gotta
have a turnabout face. You gotta change your attitude
toward Jesus of Nazareth. You've mocked Him. You've spit
in His face. You've crucified Him. You watched
as though you were being entertained by that gory death of the Son
of God. Repent! That's what He said. You had low thoughts about Him.
You better have high thoughts about Him. You thought you were
good in your self-righteousness. You better repent of that. You're
just a bunch of ungodly people. Repent and confess that you've
been wrong in the waters of baptism. Be baptized in the name that
you once despised. You will now, if you're mean
business with God, you will identify with the Lord Jesus Christ. And you won't be ashamed of Him.
And I'll tell you this, that would cost them. Because they'd
be put out of the Church of Israel. They'd be put out of Judaism.
Some of their family members would just write them off and
say, you're as good as dead to me. but they're gonna show they
mean business. We're not playing games. We're
not dilly dallying around with a little dab of religion here. We're talking about honoring
Christ Jesus. Mean business? That's what Peter
said. You mean business? Confess him
in baptism. Identify with his people, his
gospel, his preacher. Don't tell me you love this message
and you won't identify with the people who honor this message
and proclaim this message. Don't believe it. I don't believe
you mean business if you won't identify with the people of God. He says this in verse 39, for
the promise is unto you and to your children and all that are
afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And
with many other words did he testify and exhort. He said,
save yourself, deliver yourselves from this untoward generation. The word is scolios, crooked,
got a crooked spine. I know one of my grandmothers
had scoliosis. She had a crooked spine. It just
hurt me to look at her. bent over and just awful. That's what this word is here.
This religious but crooked generation. And I'll tell you, you better
separate yourself from this crooked religious generation too. And
identify with those who love the gospel of grace. In verse
41, then they that gladly received the word, Gladly. I was glad to receive it, wasn't
you? Made willing in the day of God's power. They were baptized,
and the same day they were added to them, about 3,000 souls, and
they continued. Oh, you know who'll continue?
The people that God saves. They'll continue. If we talk
them into something, they'll fizzle out. A buddy of mine told
Tim James, a guy who was drunk, he said, isn't he one of your
converts? Tim said, probably. Probably. I'll tell you, I don't want to
be a man's convert. I'm appreciative of the man who
preached the truth to me, but I'm not one of his converts.
If that's all I got, I don't have anything. But if God's done something for
me, if he allows me to live another year, I'll still be here. Another
five years, I'll still be here believing this message. Another
10 years to the day I die. If he's done the work, we'll
stick, right? We'll stay with it. We'll stay
with it. And they continued steadfastly
in what? The apostle's doctrine. Oh, I love the doctrine of the
apostles. And people say, I don't like
doctrine. Just preach Jesus to me. Doctrine is the teachings of
the Lord Jesus Christ. And the teachings of those men
that he anointed to sound forth the message. They continued steadfastly
in the apostles doctrine and fellowship. And in breaking of
bread and in prayers, they continued. Oh God, we need your preserving
grace so that we'll continue. And I'll tell you, when the day
was over, they wasn't talking about, boy, I tell you, never
had Pentecost like that before. Hope we'll have a Pentecostal
revival. That's what I hear people say
today. Pentecostal revival. There'll never be another Pentecost,
because the Spirit of God's given one time. And they didn't go
out and say, boy, I'll tell you. Man, them gifts that them preachers
had, wasn't that something? Woo! Made the hair stand up on
my neck when I heard them speak in them life. No, they wasn't
talking about that. They went and said, boy, that preacher,
he's something else, wasn't he? Nobody's bragging on the preacher.
Wasn't even bragging on 3,000 souls being saved. They walked
out and said, what a Savior. What a Savior. What a friend
of sinners. Oh, how gracious and wonderful
God is to us. They left praising God, thanking
Him, to the gift of His Son. And that's what we do, isn't
it? We don't brag on anything. We just praise the Lord for Christ
Jesus. Let's get our psalm books turned