There in verse 45, it says this,
"...then opened he their understanding, that they might understand the
Scriptures." Understand the Scriptures. Now, the Lord Jesus had revealed
Himself to His disciples, and what happened was His walking
with these two disciples, began walking with them on the Emmaus
Road. He got to their house, and they had supper together,
and their eyes were opened. And they saw it was Christ, and
they turned around immediately. And he vanished out of their
sight, turned around immediately, and went back to Jerusalem. And
they were meeting with the disciples, and it says, Christ has appeared
indeed unto Simon. And while they were there, talking,
talking, That's what it says in verse 36. And as they spake,
Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them,
Peace be unto thee. Now the Lord Jesus had revealed
Himself to His disciples, but not all at one time. And He appeared
unto them in a body. He appeared unto them in a body.
Ain't that what He says? In verse 39, Behold My hands
and My feet, that it is I Myself. Handle Me and see. for a spirit
don't have flesh and bones as you see me have. And then they
gave him something to eat. So it appeared unto him a body,
a body that was able to eat. And knowing that could be seen,
that could be touched, that could eat, yet he could appear and
disappear just like that. Ain't that what it is? Look back up here in verse 31. And their eyes were opened, and
they knew Him, and He vanished out of their sight. And they
were behind closed doors there, and then He had just appeared
to them. There He was, standing in their midst. So our Lord Jesus
Christ gave many infallible proofs of His redirection. And in His
early days, before His ascension, He taught His disciples. And
what He used to teach them was the Scriptures, was the Scriptures.
And look here and start with me in verse 44. And he said unto them, These
are the words which I spake unto you while I was yet with you,
that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law
of Moses, and in the prophets, and the Psalms concerning me.
Then opened he their understanding. This is a precious gift our Lord
bestowed upon His disciples before He ascended. And this is a gift. This is a gift. This is something
that he must do. He opened their understanding,
and watch what it says. Not just their understanding,
but their understanding that they might understand the Scriptures. The Scriptures. Now, these disciples
knew much of the Old Testament. They studied the Old Testament
all their lives. Every Sabbath day from They would
go into the synagogues and somebody would open the scriptures and
begin to read the scriptures. And that's what they did. These
men knew a lot about the Old Testament. But they did not see
Christ in the Old Testament. They didn't see that everything
in the Old Testament and all the prophets, everything about
it pertained and pointed to our Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.
And that's why He was open in their understanding to understand
the scriptures. Now, the Old Testament was all
they had. So he started in Genesis, and he went all the way to Malachi.
He went through the Psalms, and he began to open the Scriptures
concerning himself. The Scriptures concerning the
things of himself. Ain't that what he says there
in verse 44? These words I spake unto you
while I was yet with you. How many times did he take the
Scriptures and open the Scriptures? And he said, it was written that
I must, the Son of Man, must go unto Jerusalem, that he must
suffer, that he must die, and that he must rise again from
the dead on the third day. And beloved, all things must
be fulfilled, which is what he said. First of all, he said,
all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the Law
of Moses. Now, the Law of Moses is the first five books of the
Bible, from Genesis to Deuteronomy. That's what's called the Law
of Moses. Not just the ceremonial law, not just the Ten Commandments,
and not just all the rituals, but all the first five books
of the Bible were called the Law of Moses. And so he says,
everything written in the Law of Moses is concerning me. Now
look with me over here in John 5, just a moment. John chapter
5 and verse 45. So everything written in the
Law of Moses. John 5.45. Look what our Lord said here.
Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father. I won't have
to accuse you. There's one that accuses you.
Well, who's going to accuse you? Even Moses, in whom you trust. That's what they told Him. Says,
we have Moses. For this fellow, we don't know
where he'll come. We're Moses' disciples. For has he believed
Moses? You would have believed me, for
he wrote of me. But you believe not his writings,
how shall you believe my word? So he even himself says Moses
is going to be the one you trusted. The very one that's going to
stand and accuse you before the Father. Everything in Moses,
in all the ceremonies, in all the rituals, in all the types,
in all the prophecies, all the pictures, all those things pointed
to me. When he says, Moses lifted up
a serpent in the wilderness, he said, even so, I must be lifted
up. Moses that smoked that rock, he says, I'm that rock. And then not only back over,
not only Moses, and we'll get to that in a minute, but in the
prophets. And in the prophets, back over in our text, in the
prophets, not only in Moses, but all the way from Isaiah,
all the way through Malachi. The prophets concerned me, and
Acts 10.43 says, to him all the prophets give witness. And then
in the Psalms, they say, you know, this is a Messianic psalm,
that's a Messianic psalm, this is another Messianic psalm. But
they're all about Christ. If we just have eyes to see,
blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord. What
did the Scripture say? He said, I delight to do thy
will. It is written of me, I come, O Lord, and I delight to do thy
will. Now, they couldn't be talking about us, though we delight in
the law of God, the Word of God. But, beloved, listen, who is
that perfect man? Who is that man that ascended
to heaven with his hands pure? That could only be Him. And,
oh, let me show you something. You keep looking. Look over here
with me at 1 Corinthians 2, just a moment. 1 Corinthians 2. You know, what a mercy, what a blessing
for Christ to open a man's understanding. And here are some fellas that
have been with Him for three years, and they needed their
understanding open. Now, they had understood a lot
of Scriptures, but they did not understand the Scriptures that
they pointed to Christ. They didn't understand those
things. And here He says in verse 14, 1 Corinthians 2.14 But the natural
man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, and yet
the Spirit of God is kept in life. I was born a natural man,
lived a natural man. These men were born natural men.
They lived as natural men. And they could not receive the
things of the Spirit of God. They said that Christ would be
speaking to them, and they said, what does He mean by that? What? I don't understand that. What
does he mean by that? He says he's going away. I don't understand
what that is. And now he's going to come again? I don't understand
that. What does he mean? And they would even set themselves
and say, what did he mean by that? What manner of man is this? And then what else he goes on
to say? For they're foolishness unto him. Foolishness unto him. The Bible
is a closed book to men and women who don't know Christ. I was
talking to a preacher here the other day, and he says, you know,
I recommended a book to him, and he's been reading through
it, and he says, you know, everything that I believe, I believe what
man taught me. And now when I find out that,
I never think that I was just believing traditions. I was just
believing what somebody else taught me. I just accepted it. Never questioned it. Now I see
how desperately wrong I was. He said, the key is Christ! Oh, and he goes on to say here,
neither can he know them. He can't know them. He can't
receive them. He can't understand them. He can't grasp them. Why? Because they're spiritually discerned.
A natural man can't receive spiritually judged things, spiritually discerned
things. And let me show you another one
over in Ephesians. In Ephesians. And I know exactly
what Paul meant there, you know, that the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God. And that's what happens
when you start hearing the gospel, when you start hearing the things
of God, the things of Christ. The first thing you start doing
says, well, how can that be? I don't understand that. I just
can't grasp that somebody says we do have a salvation that's
completely done. What is my part in it? The only
part you've got in is you're a sinner and Christ is the Savior.
The only thing you've got to contend with is sin. We're sin
abounded. Christianity is more abounded.
The only thing you've got to offer is nothing. You can't contend
with nothing. And that's contrary. And then
you've got this idea, you know, of premillennialism and dispensationalism. There's a message for the church,
there's a message for the Jew, and there's a message for the
Gentile. And they've got it all mixed up. There's only one message. One message. And that's why the
Lord said everything. He opened their understanding
in the things of the Law of Moses and in the Prophets and in the
Psalms concerning me. Look here in Ephesians 4.17, This I say therefore, and testify
in the Lord, that you henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk
in the vanity of their mind. It's a vain thing to think that
you can do something for you to commit yourself to God. It's
a vain thing to think that you've got a righteousness, you've got
strength of your own. Now watch it. Here's why they
walk in the vanity of their mind. Having the understanding darkened.
Being alienated from the life of God. Now watch this. Through
the ignorance that's in them. Why is there ignorance in them?
Because of the blindness, hardness of the heart. who, being past
feeling, had given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to
work uncleanness with all greediness." Now watch it now, "...but ye
have not so learned Christ." Oh, how do you learn Christ?
"...if so be that ye have heard Him." They heard Him. And watch this, "...and have
been taught." By who? By Him. What does He teach you
about Him? Ask the truth as it is in Jesus
Christ. You heard Him, taught by Him,
and He teaches you the truth about Himself. And all of it,
let me back over in our text. Ignorance of the Scriptures is
a damning thing. Ignorance of the Scriptures is
a damning thing. Paul stood on Mars Hill, and
when he looked on all those gods, and looked at all those people,
and all those idols, And that was an altar to the unknown God.
And he says, this unknown God, that's the one I'm going to declare
unto you. You ignorantly worship all these others. You ignorantly
worship. Our Lord Jesus told that woman
at the well. He says, you worship and you
have no idea what you worship or who you worship. You don't
know what you worship. And ignorance of the Scriptures
is a damning thing. Our Lord Jesus says, search the
Scriptures. For in them ye think ye have
eternal life. Why? Because they are they which
testify of me." And they came to him and started asking him
questions in Matthew 22, and he says, you know, he says, you
do err. You do err, neither knowing the
Scriptures nor the power of God. Oh, listen, ignorance of the
Scriptures is a damning thing. Most people you know, the places
you go, they don't even bring a Bible with them. Why wouldn't
you want a Bible? Why wouldn't you want to check
up on what somebody's saying? Why wouldn't you want to listen
to what somebody's saying? Why wouldn't you want to pay attention
to it? And there isn't a man born, there isn't a man born
who doesn't need his understanding opened. Opened. And to understand
the Scriptures. And I got a little note from
Henry this week, and he sent me a little thing that's anonymous.
He says, the greater the circumference of light, the greater light you
have, the greater the circumference of darkness around you. And the
more you know the truth and know the Scriptures, the more you
understand how little you do know. It just gets bigger and bigger
and bigger. Huh? And oh, only every man needs
his understanding open, not just to understand things, to understand
scriptures. You know how many times have
you said, oh, I see that. I see that now. That's what it
means to have your understanding open. I see it. I get it. I grasp it. I believe it. I rejoice in that. And you know
what happens? You know why we need it? Pride
keeps us from it. Oh, we need our prejudice. We have a prejudice. We have
our own pride. We have our prejudice. We have
the things that we've already believed, and we have our opinions,
and we have our own views, and pride, and prejudice, and love
of the world. All these things blind our minds.
In fact, in Scripture, Paul says that you still have a veil over
the heart. Where the Spirit of the Lord
is, there is liberty. What does that mean? That Christ sets the
mind free, sets the heart free to understand, to see. And oh,
beloved, we ought to pray every time, and I do, every time I
open scriptures, I say, Lord, open my understanding. And when
I just sit and read and read and read and it don't do me no
good, I just close it up. Just real close it up. You know, if you just want to
try and dissuade your conscience, say, well, I read so many chapters
of the Bible, and you don't get another thing in the world out
of it, you're just reading it, and you just have to stop every
few minutes, go back and read it again, just close it up. Go do something else, and then
the next time you open, say, Lord, open my understanding,
and maybe it will just stop. But never do it, for there's
no sense just trying to read the Scriptures, say, well, I
read so much of the Bible today. If you're just doing that to
keep your conscience assuaged, that's not the right thing to
do. It's not how much Scripture you read, it's do you understand
what you read. Is it doing anything for you
when you do read it? Listen, our Lord Jesus says there
in verse 45, Then opened he their understanding, that they might
open the Scriptures. Oh, the power, the right, To
open man's understanding and to understand the Scriptures
belong to the Lord Jesus exclusively. He has the key of David. Isaiah
22 says this, you know, it says he has the keys of David. He
opens, and ain't nobody can shut it. And he shuts it, and ain't
nobody can open it. And boy, once he opens your understanding, He's got the key. When you go
put that key in you today and click it over and say, there
it goes, I see it, I got it. And look back here with me then
in verse 46. And here's what our Lord teaches
in open understanding about. First thing He starts to it in
verse 46, and He said unto them, thus it is written. That's the
first thing He goes to, thus it is written. If he's got an
open understanding of the Scriptures, the first thing he says, it is
written. It is written. It is written. Where is it written
at? In the Old Testament. You look
down here when it talks about the open understanding. In my Bible, I'm telling you,
there's probably three or four inches of Old Testament Scriptures
that you can go to immediately to look at the things concerning
Christ. It is written. And what's one not only said,
thus it behooved Christ to suffer. It behooved Christ to suffer.
Now, Lord Jesus Christ didn't call it a misfortune. My life's
a misfortune. He didn't call it a marginal.
He didn't call it a pitiful happening. He didn't say the mob got out
of control. He didn't say, oh my, these folks
took me and done things to me that wasn't supposed to happen.
He said it behooved Christ to suffer. And to rise from the
dead on the third day, it said it behooved him. That means it
was necessary. Behooved means it's absolutely
necessary. And the Old Testament is full
of the sufferings of the Lord Jesus Christ. The first mention
you find of Christ in the Scriptures the prophecy of him, Genesis
3.15, the first thing it says, that the seed of the woman and
the seed of the serpent, that he would bruise his heel, but
of course, you see, the first thing it says about Christ having
a bruised heel. That's the first thing, suffering.
And then you look at Joseph. You look at Joseph, because you
know Joseph's the only person in the Old Testament that there's
no sin against him. Not one sin is mentioned against
him. Not one. He called himself a sinner. He
throws himself over the mercy of God. But I'm telling you,
he was the perfect obedient son. He went to prison and he
never murmured while he was in prison. He was a perfect servant
while he was in Potiphar's house. He was a perfect prisoner when
he was in jail, and he is a perfect servant when he sat on the throne. But you know he suffered? Oh,
how he suffered. Not for any cause of his own.
And Christ suffered, but not for any fault of his own. And
you take the ark, that ark, That ark represented the judgment
of God. He said, all flesh is the wickedness
of all flesh come before me. I'm going to destroy all flesh
upon the face of the earth. I'm just going to save eight
people. And they prepared that ark. And that ark, beloved, when
they got in it, it was the ark that bore the judgment of God.
And that's what Christ did as our Ark. He bore the judgment
of God. He suffered. The people in it
never suffered. The Ark was the one who bore
the judgment. And when he sat down under that
tree where Abraham saw him coming, you know what he speaks to pronounce
judgment on? He sat down under that tree. Why'd he sit down
under a tree? Because a tree represents what
he's going to be on. and the Passover lamb that was
slain, that was slaughtered, the blood put over the doors,
that was roasted with fire and eaten with bitter herbs. That
was our Lord Jesus, all of Isaiah 53. All of it. He was wounded for our transgressions,
bruised for our iniquity. The chastisement of our peace
was upon Him. It pleased the Lord to bruise
him. Daniel said he was cut off out
of the land of the living. He says his visage was marred
more than any man's. What does that mean? That means
that our Lord Jesus Christ was so beaten and broken and bloodied
that it was awful what they did to that man. And then he cried
out in lamentation, O behold, is it nothing to you that pass
by? Has any man's sorrow like unto my
sorrow, wherewith the Lord hath afflicted me in the day of his
fierce anger? O my, all the Old Testament's
full of his suffering, full of his suffering. Talked about,
awake, O sword against my fellow, and smite the shepherd. And He
told His disciples, I'm going to be smitten tonight. Smitten
with what? With the sword of God's justice.
And you all are going to be scattered. Oh, there's a fountain open.
Where's the fountain open? How'd it get open? Oh, beloved, it was necessary
for Him to suffer. It was a necessity for Him to
suffer down the cross. And this is what He opened our
understanding about. And whatever else you understand, People go to hear these prophecy
seminars, and they go to these seminars to learn about, you
know, they've got a Spurgeon conference, they've got a John
Bunyan conference. And I asked a fellow one time,
I said, why do you call it a John Bunyan conference? Why do you
call it a Spurgeon conference? Why do you do that? Well, because
they just, you know, represent, we want to talk about what those
men stood for. What did Christ stand for? Why
didn't Christ teach? I love John Bunyan, but I'll
tell you what, I'm not going to have no conference around
his name. I'm not going to have no conference around Charles
Spurgeon's name. If we're going to do anything,
we're going to gather around the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Paul said, God forbid that I should glory. Say then what? The cross
of Christ. He didn't say Spurgeon was crucified
for me, or Bunyan was crucified for me, though these men were
great preachers. But beloved, it's Christ that
we want to hear about. And if I've got anything to say
about Spurgeon, I'll tell you what Spurgeon said, but I'd rather,
much rather hear what Christ said. And that's why he said
it was necessary. Why was it necessary for him
to die on the cross? First of all, it says to fulfill
the Scriptures, thus it is written. How many times on the cross did
he, you know, and it says that after they gave him building,
right? He cried, he says thus, he said all, he's knowing that
all scriptures now were fulfilled concerning himself. Then he cried,
it is finished. All scriptures. How many times
did Christ say this scripture, this scripture's fulfilled in
me, this scripture. And oh beloved, he said to fulfill
the scripture. Secondly, necessary for the glory
of God. He said, Father, I've glorified
you on the earth and finished the work. I glorified you on the earth.
What did He glorify about God? Everything. All of His attributes,
all of His power, all of His majesty. He glorified His His
grace and His law when He honored Him and lived to His glory was
on this earth. Satisfied His justice when He
was on that earth. Just as the soul that sinneth
it shall die. Justice expended death on Christ. Manifested His grace. Oh, what
grace that God would give His Son to die for us! What grace
was in Christ that He would die for us! What grace! How could
we know anything about grace unless Christ had died? Huh? In all His love, He manifested
the love of God. Here in His love, not that we
loved Him, but that He loved us! Herein doeth my Father love me,
and herein do I love you." And His mercy, magnified His mercy. And, O beloved, and I tell you,
it's necessary for Him to suffer on the cross for our salvation.
For our salvation. We'd have no salvation without
Christ. That's why it just bothers me
to no end for people to bypass Christ. You can't bypass Christ. Our Lord Jesus says, No man cometh
unto the Father but by me. And, O beloved, why did Christ
die? He died because sin was found
on Him. He died because God's justice
demanded death. He died, beloved, that God's
law might be magnified. God said, Love me with all your
heart. Christ did. Love your neighbor
as yourself. Don't bear false witness. Honor
your father and your mother. Don't covet, don't commit adultery. Don't have no God before me.
And our Lord Jesus Christ from the day He was born until He
died on that cross, beloved, that's exactly what He did. And
Christ now, beloved, the righteousness of the Lord is fulfilled in us!
Amen. And oh, bless His holy name. He accomplished
our salvation. He done everything for us which
we could not do for ourselves. I still can't love God, but Christ
did. I'm not perfect in my flesh,
but I'm perfect in Christ. I have no righteousness in my
flesh, but I have Christ's righteousness. I've had the Lord come and accuse
me before God all my life. I dare you to charge me with
not loving you. I dare you to charge me with
not loving my neighbors, myself. I dare you to charge me with
adultery, with lying, with cubbishness, with not honoring my father and
my mother. I dare you to do it. Who shall lay anything to the
charge of God's elect? It's Christ that died. Yea, he
rather is risen again. It's God that justifies. Who
is he that can do it? That's how glorious a salvation
Christ gave us. That's how glorious a salvation
Christ brought out for us. In my hands, O Christ, I pray. O Lord Jesus, simply to me I
come. Oh, beloved, without death, God's
law could not be magnified. Sin could not be put away had
not Christ died. We could have never been justified
before God. There would have been no mercy,
no grace could have been shown to us. Oh, you're talking about
a knot untied. This is why Christ has to open
your understanding to this. Has to open your understanding.
I don't know how many times I've preached the gospel to people,
and I mean to Christ, Christ, Christ, God, how God can be just. How is He going to be just? How
can He save me? And me is centered from the top
of my head to the sole of my foot, from the inside of my soul
to the outside of my skin. I breathe it, I smell it, I see
it, I hear it, I am it. So how can He be just and righteous
and save a man like that? By taking Christ and making Him
to be me. Made Him to be sin. and taking
Christ's life in obedience and righteousness and giving that
to me. I died unto sin. Where at? On
the cross. My sin was put away. Where at? On the cross. Righteousness was established
for me. Where at? On the cross. And it was given
to me. And I've preached that to people,
and people say, that's just too good to be true. I just can't
believe it. I just cannot believe. I just can't believe that there's
something that I don't need to do. No, no, no. You know what our Lord Jesus
Christ says? Come unto me, and I will give you rest. What do you do when you have
rest? You just don't do anything but rest. Quit doing. Just rest. Rest. That's what He said. Come unto
me and I'll give you rest. So stop doing it and enter into
His rest. That's what it is. What rest? Just rest. Rest in what He's
done and who He is. You see, His death enables sinners
to come with boldness before the throne of grace. We can now
draw near to God. Why? We may be accepted in the
Beloved. Bless God. Bless the Lord Jesus
Christ. Bless the Holy Spirit for the
death of Christ. Bless their Holy Name for opening
our understanding to the necessity of the death of Christ. And then
he rose from the dead. I want to show you something
here in verse 7. Here in Luke 24 and verse 7. Look what our Lord said here. He says, The Son of Man You know,
they went down to the tomb and said, He's not here. Remember,
I speak unto you while He's yet in Galilee, saying, The Son of
Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified,
and the third day rise again. Now watch this. And they remembered
His words. He's down here in verse 26. Oh, thank God that He gave us
the understanding of this. Then He said unto them, O fool,
slow of heart, to believe all the prophets that have spoken,
ought not Christ, who hath suffered these things," God has suffered
these things, before He can enter His glory. And if He had not
suffered these things, He says, Father, glorify, I glorify Thee
on earth, I finish the work which You gave Me to do, glorify Thou
Me with the glory I had with You before the world was. And
had He not suffered, He couldn't have entered into that glory.
And had He not suffered, you and I couldn't enter into glory.
That's why we're going to enter into glory. And then look what
else He does for His disciples. Oh, what a gift He gave them.
He opened their understanding. What a blessed, blessed, and
how He spoke of His death, how necessary it was. It behooved
Him. It was necessary. And then look at the truths that
He tells His disciples to preach after He leaves this world. And
he says in verse 47, this is your message, this is what you've
got to do. In fact, repentance and remission of sins should
be preached in his name among all nations beginning at Jerusalem. Preach repentance and remission
of sins. You all ever get a bill in the
mailbox, get a bill from somebody that says remit this amount?
Remit this amount? Remit means to make a payment.
This is what's required. Well, Christ says, you know,
repentance and remission of sins should be preached in my name.
God gave him, God gave Christ a bill for the sins of all his
elect. Remit your life, remit your blood,
remit yourself, remit your suffering, remit your soul, and the debt
will be paid, paid in full. And all beloved, preach them.
And here's the thing about it, preach them in my name, not in
some denominations name, not in some churches name, not in
water, not in words, not in worth, not
in merit, but in my name. This is where you're going to
get your authority at. You know, when we're talking
about having authority to preach, we get it from Christ. I don't
need to go to some pope to get my authority. I don't need to
go to some denomination to get my authority. I don't got to
go to a synagogue to get my authority. I don't have to go to a bunch
of preachers and let them lay hands on my empty head to get
my authority. You know where I got it from?
And that's wherever a preacher gets it. And that's why we can
preach with authority. That's why we can preach with
it. in all beloved." And he says, in my authority as the one who
grants repentance, you preach in my name, I'm the only one
that can grant repentance. He granted repentance under the
Gentiles. He's the only one who can remit sins. I can't remit
sins. He's the only one that can remit
sins. And then he says repentance. You know what repentance is?
It's a change of mind. And you know what a change of
mind you've had? When He opened your understanding, was your
mind changed? Oh, did He change your mind?
He changed your mind, first of all, of what you thought about
God. Oh, what a dramatic change you had in your mind when repentance... Oh my God, I'm sorry, so sorry
that I ever thought that about you. So sorry I ever said those
things to you. And oh, what a change of mind
we have about ourselves. Oh, God, how could I have ever,
ever thought that I could... Oh, God, how could I have ever
possibly felt like I had a righteousness and a merit and a work that would
ever give me any hope before you? How could I have ever been
so foolish? Huh? Oh, and our mind changed
about Christ. What a dramatic change about
Christ. We used to think, you know, That
He does so much and then we need to do some. But oh, what a dramatic
change now. Oh, Lord. It's all of you. It's all of you. Don't never
let me look to anything I've ever thought, said, felt, or
done. Huh? And oh, it's a change of mind.
When He opens your understanding, your mind starts changing. Huh? And John preached repentance.
And the Lord Jesus preached repentance. And let me show you over here
in Acts. Let me show you in Acts chapter 2, just a moment. Verse
37. Acts 2.37. Peter preached here, spoke about
Christ, how that God raised him from the dead, and he sits now
at God's right hand. It says there in verse 36, "...let
all the house of Israel know assuredly that that God hath
made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and
Christ." Now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their
heart. God pricked you in the heart.
He said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, men and
brethren, what shall we do? That's a good question. You know
what Peter said? Repent. Change your mind. Turn. Be baptized, every one of you,
in what? The name of Jesus Christ. What
for? For the remission of sins, and
the Holy Ghost will come. Glory. Oh, beloved. That's why I said the Thessalonians,
they turned from their idols to serve the true and living
God. That's why we turn from these idols in our mind, these
idols that we make of ourselves, these idols that we make of God,
these idols that we make of our feelings, and turn to the living
God. And then look what he says back
over here in our text. I'll just be another few minutes.
It ain't been too long. He said here, Not only that repentance
and remission of sins, in verse 37, should be preached in his
name among all nations, but he says, started Jerusalem, beginning
at Jerusalem. Why did he say started Jerusalem?
Because this was the place he was despised. This is the place
he was rejected. This is the place he was crucified.
And you'd think, well, man alive, why would you want to start it
there? They said, they didn't crucify you there. Why don't
you just pronounce judgment on that generation and walk off
and leave them and send your preachers everywhere but there?
They started Jerusalem. Why? Because Jerusalem's full
of religion, full of pride, full of self-righteous, unbelieving,
and hardened of heart. But our Lord Jesus Christ is
full of love and mercy and pity and grace. And I heard Scott
Richardson say this one time, if I could find that man who
took that spear and pierced the side of Christ with it, I'd tell
him that the same blood that you shed by a murderous act could
cleanse you from all your sin and rebellion. Huh? Oh, my. Father, forgive them. They don't know what they do.
And I'll tell you another reason why he said go to Jerusalem,
because judgment must be sent. And then look quickly what he
gave the position he gave his people while they were in this
world. He says in verse 48, after he opened their understanding,
you are witnesses of these things. You're witnesses. You know what
a witness is? John said, we have seen with
our own eyes, handled with our own hands, tasted with our own
lips. Oh my, I put my hand on the Bible
when you go in. I swear to tell the truth, the
whole truth, nothing but the truth. What did you see? What did you hear with your own
ears? You can't witness something you
don't know nothing about. And that's why he says, you're
witnesses of these things. Witnesses of what things? Christ,
in the prophets, and in Moses, and in the Psalms, all the things
concerning him. Witness to the truth. Tell the
truth. Tell the truth of man's sins. Their sins must be remitted,
and I'm the only one that can do it. Preach repentance to them.
And tell them that, you know, Christ's gospel, priesthood gospel,
what Christ said, that he must suffer, that he must rise from
the dead, that he must be an ascended to the right hand of
God. Tell them that we love our master. We love our master's
gospel. Stop this. You know how many
times they tell Peter and John, stop this preaching. We're going
to beat him and all that. Them fellas who just beat and
put in jail, they're back over yonder temple. They're doing
just exactly what you told them not to do. Oh, we love not only our Master's
gospel, but we love our Master's service. We love His rule over
us. And look with me, and I'm through.
In John 18.37, we must always, always, by His
grace, bear witness to the truth. John 18.37, by His grace, must always bear
witness to the truth. Our Lord Jesus, now before Pilate,
says here in verse 37, you are witnesses of these things. Pilate
therefore said unto him, Art thou a king then? Jesus answered,
Thou sayest that I am a king. To this end was I born, and for
this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto
the truth. That's what I come here for.
I am the truth. I come to bear witness to the
truth. Everyone that is of the truth,
heareth my voice." Let's tell the truth. One thing I don't want to do,
I want to be a faithful witness. Christ was called a true and
faithful witness, to be a faithful witness of the truth of the gospel.