When the Holy Spirit fell upon
the disciples on the day of Pentecost, we spoke a little bit about this
last week, the disciples began to speak in tongues. They began
to speak in foreign languages, languages that the visitors to
Jerusalem, who had all come for the feast that was taking place
at Jerusalem at that time, they could all hear the disciples
speaking in their own tongues, in their own languages. And they
heard, we're told, the wonderful works of God. These disciples
had been told by the Lord Jesus to wait at Jerusalem until the
Holy Spirit came upon them. We read last week how that occurred
as they were all together in an upper room that they Holy
Spirit came, it sounded like a great wind filling the house,
and there were, as it was, cloven tongues of fire resting upon
the heads of the apostles. But when they started to preach,
when they became so excited, so enthusiastic, when they began
to preach and speak in these new languages, the languages
of the foreign visitors to Jerusalem, We're told that some people mocked,
some people laughed at them and said, these men are drunk. Listen,
listen to the babbling, listen to the incoherent talk that these
men are spouting forth. And when we come to Acts chapter
two and verse 14, we discover how Peter reacted to those accusations. So let's just read a few verses
from chapter 2, verse 14. Standing up with the 11, and
that shows us that Matthias was now one of the apostles because
Judas Iscariot was dead and here is Matthias now, so he is recognised
as one of the apostles, both by all the rest of the apostles
and by Luke, the writer of this book. So here is Peter standing
up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them,
Ye men of Judea and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known
unto you and hearken to my words. For these are not drunken, as
ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. It
was still early in the day. But this is that which was spoken
by the prophet Joel. And it shall come to pass in
the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all
flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and
your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream
dreams. And on my servants and on my
handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and
they shall prophesy. and I will show wonders in heaven
above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapour
of smoke. The sun shall be turned into
darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable
day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass that
whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. So here's the first thing that
I want to point out here, that Peter spoke. He stood up in the
midst of the apostles, in the midst of the disciples, and he
spoke. boldly. He spoke out with an
authority. And this was one of the characteristics
that the Holy Spirit brought to these disciples. You know,
these men had been frightened before. They had been hiding
away from the authorities. They had been uncertain and doubtful
about what was going to happen to them. And now that the Lord
Jesus Christ had gone away, one might have thought that they
would just have broken up and disappeared. But the Holy Spirit
came with a power, a power and an authority which caused these
men to be bold, Not in their own strength, but in the strength
of the Lord Jesus Christ. They knew that God was with them. They knew that the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of the Lord, had come upon them. Last week we were
thinking a little bit about one of the Old Testament characters
called Samson. And we discovered in the life
of Samson that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he
became very strong. Well, that was a picture of what
was going to happen when the Spirit of the Lord, the Holy
Ghost, fell upon the apostles at Pentecost. And we see that
there was strength there, not strength that they could carry
great gates or do mighty acts of strength. and power, but that
they could speak boldly because that was the weapon that the
Lord had given for the salvation of men and women, the preaching
of the gospel. And not only did he speak boldly,
but he spoke with an urgency. He spoke about a judgment that
was about to come. And so it was that in a very
few years after this, the Romans would come and they would destroy
Jerusalem. And that's what Peter was prophesying.
He was being shown now that these times of trial and judgment and
destruction would come upon Jerusalem. So he stands up and he speaks
to the people of Jerusalem and he says that there is a great
and notable day of the Lord coming in which people will need to
be saved. They will need to be saved from
the judgment that is to come. And that was an immediate judgment
of the Roman legions against Jerusalem and also a spiritual
judgment. and the last time. So Peter was
already beginning to fulfil that role of leadership and apostleship
of bringing the message of God to his generation. Let's read
on verse 22. Ye men of Israel, hear these
words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved
of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God
did by him in the midst of you all, as ye yourselves also know. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God ye have taken, and by wicked
hands have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should
beholden of it. So here's the second thing that
Peter was able to say. He continues to show who this
Lord is. He says that there is a great
and notable day of the Lord coming and now he introduces to them
that one who is the Lord. And they might have been a bit
surprised because he wasn't talking here about God, Yahweh as the
unknowable God, the eternal God, the awesome God that inhabits
the eternity of heaven. He was speaking about a man.
He was speaking about the man, Jesus of Nazareth, someone that
they knew, someone they had seen, someone who had evidenced his
power amongst them with the miracles that he had performed. They all
knew who he was talking about because Jesus had performed these
miracles in Jerusalem at the feast when these people were
all there in the city. and he is very explicit. He says
you killed him. You killed the one who is God. You killed the one who is the
Lord. You by your wicked hands took and crucified and slew the
Lord Jesus Christ. But he says Don't think that
that wasn't according to the plan of God, because the determinate
counsel of God, the foreknowledge of God knew that that's exactly
what you would do. And this is the unfolding of
a great plan. You did wickedly, but God was
accomplishing by your wickedness the salvation of his church and
people. Furthermore, he says, this Jesus
who you slew is no longer dead. This Jesus whom you crucified
is now alive. He is risen from the dead. And
Peter proves this also from the Old Testament Scriptures. Not
only had he shown that the apostolic gift of the Holy Spirit was from
the Old Testament Scriptures in Joel, but now he speaks also
of David. And it shows us the way in which
the apostles were being equipped by the Holy Spirit to take the
Old Testament scriptures and unfold them and interpret them
and preach them and bring the doctrines of the Lord Jesus Christ
to life on the basis and authority of the Old Testament teachings. And he goes on to prove from
the Scriptures that the Lord Jesus Christ was foretold by
David, the king, the greatest king that Israel had had until
that time. So let's read on, verse 25. For
David speaketh concerning him, that is, concerning the Lord
Jesus. I foresaw the Lord always before
my face, for he is 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, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither
wilt thou 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. Men and brethren, let me freely
speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and
buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. What Peter
is saying here is that, look, This isn't speaking about David
in the Old Testament. David is speaking about the Lord
Jesus, one who was yet to come. One who has come, whom you crucified,
but now is risen again. So he goes on in verse 30, therefore
being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to
him that of the fruit of his loins, remember that the Lord
Jesus Christ was the son of David, according to the flesh, he would
raise up Christ to sit on his throne. He seeing this before,
speak of 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 all are witnesses. The disciples,
the apostles, those who are now preaching the gospel in these
foreign languages, we are all the witnesses of the resurrection
of the Lord Jesus. 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. For David is not ascended into
the heavens, but he saith himself, the Lord said unto my Lord, the
Lord Jesus Christ, sit thou on my right hand until I make thy
foes thy footstool. David wasn't speaking of himself,
Peter is referring here to Psalm 16, but he spoke of the Lord
Jesus Christ. This Jesus had been raised from
the dead by God and he is alive today. And Peter is using the
testimony of the Old Testament to prove that the Jews had had
had they had eyes to see, would have known that this was Jesus
the Messiah. Not only has he ascended up into
heaven, but there he has been placed in that position of majesty
and glory, and he is now in heaven glorified by the Father. So in verse 36 we read, Can you
imagine what these men must have been thinking in Jerusalem when
they heard this message given to them? The one that we crucified
is God. The one that we crucified and
slew, the one that we killed, is the one who is going to come
in judgment again against us. Jesus, the crucified one, was
made Lord and Christ. The only one who could save you
was the one that you had mocked and killed, was the one that
you had treated so terribly, the one that you had said, away
with this man. We will not have this man to
reign, to rule over us. And now what? He is ruling over
you. He is reigning over you. And
he is holding you accountable for the things that you have
done to him. The apostles were bold. The apostles
were knowledgeable about the Bible. The Old Testament scriptures
suddenly became alive to them because they realized these were
all speaking about Jesus. And at once, when Peter stood
up amongst the Jews of his day, the first message he had for
them was the Lord Jesus Christ, crucified, resurrected, ascended
into glory and coming again in judgment. And they proved from
the scripture that this Jesus had to die and had to rise again
because David had prophesied it all those years before. And
they showed the guilt of those who had sinned against God, those
who had crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. He showed that they were
sinners before the holiness of God. And you know, all that Peter
did there that day when he stood up in Jerusalem, in this sermon
that he preached, is what all real preachers do. They come
with the power of the Holy Spirit, with a boldness and a knowledge
of the gospel, to declare to men the Lord Jesus Christ, as
the only saviour of sinners. To prove from scripture that
the Lord Jesus Christ had to die and had to rise again. And to show the guilt of those
who are sinners before a holy God who must give account of
their sin and who will only ever find salvation in Jesus Christ. So I trust that we'll be able
to think about the message of Peter and the sermon from the
second chapter of Acts and realise that this is the same pattern
that all true preachers use today in preaching the gospel of Jesus
Christ. Amen.