If you will now turn back with
me to Acts chapter 2. We'll be looking at verses 36
through 41. Acts 2, 36 through 41 is the
climax or summation of the first sermon preached in this gospel
age. Peter stood up on that morning
of Pentecost, and beginning at that verse in Joel, began to
preach the Lord Jesus Christ. Pentecost had fully come. The
prophecy of Joel had been fulfilled as the Spirit of the living God
was poured out upon His church. how wonderful those first revelations
of Christ must have been. You know, I can just imagine
as I read through the Old Testament, and much of it hangs as a mystery
to me. And yet on this day, those mysteries
to those men were made known. And they were able to look at
those strange things. I mean, they had these Scriptures
in their heads and upon their hearts. They knew the writers
and they knew what they had written. But they didn't understand the
full meaning of it. They didn't have the full impact
about what was going on. And then on this day, the Spirit
of God having been poured out, Peter said, This is what Joel
was talking about. Now Peter, 15 minutes before
that, didn't have a clue what Joel was talking about. But now
he did. Now he did. And I can just imagine
how wonderful those first revelations must have been as the Spirit
began to show to His apostles the truth concerning those old
feast days and ceremonies and showing to them their fulfillment
in Christ. I read through that chapter and
I see there where hearts were both broken and filled. Broken and filled. Removed, hearts
removed and replaced. Men were brought down, but not
left down, lifted up. Men were condemned. All the condemnation
that must have come on them when Peter preached this message about
Christ that they had crucified. These men were actually the men
who stood around there and said, give us Barabbas. Crucify him. Crucify him. They were condemned, yet they
were justified. Wonderful and glorious things
were taking place, the like of which man had never seen. Never
in the history of the Jews had there been anything like this.
The Spirit of God coming upon His servants in cloven tones
of fire and they were speaking so that everybody understood
what was going on. Everybody understood what they
were saying. Now Pentecost means fiftieth. It begins with the
Feast of the Passover in seven weeks. And seven times seven
is forty-nine, and on the fiftieth day was Pentecost. And that's
what that word means, fiftieth. And Pentecost was about the end-gathering
of the harvest. And so it is as it's fulfilled
that Christ being ascended into glory, now sends forth the Sovereign
Spirit upon His servants for a great ingathering of souls."
And so it begins. And it's still going on today. Still going on today. The Holy Spirit gathering in
His elect from all over the world. And having stated clearly the
person and work of Christ and the pouring out of the Spirit, Preaches this first sermon, and
3,000 souls are called to repentance and faith in Christ, and all
of them baptized according to the commandment of their Lord. I don't know that the significance
of that first gospel message has changed very much. I think
it's pretty much the same. I know it's the same spirit.
And I know that that same spirit is accomplishing the same work.
And I know that the Word of God being revealed to the hearts
of men by the Holy Spirit is what brings about conversion,
making them to understand how these things apply to their Lord. So I don't see that the significance
of this first gospel message has changed much. Now, mine is
not attended with supernatural gifts and speaking of foreign
languages and raising the dead and giving sight to the blind. But then I'm not trying to write
scripture. Peter was. I'm not trying to declare the
beginning of the gospel age. These men were. And so God attended them with
supernatural gifts to accomplish a supernatural work. And they
spake as the Spirit of God gave them utterance. They spoke and
they wrote, and I'm thankful that they did. The miracle which
attends our preaching is a miracle performed in hearts. It's one
you can't see. You just see the effects of it.
Isn't that what he said about the new birth? It's like the
wind. You can hear it. You don't know
where it came from. I was sitting on my front porch
yesterday. The weather was just, we haven't
had anything like this in a long time. And the weather just looked
like everything was going to explode at any minute. And I
was sitting there on the front porch, and the neighbor lady
across the street pulled in. And just as she started to pull
in her driveway, this wind come down the road. And it just got
louder and harder and blowing and began to shake those trees
and twist those. And she just froze. She didn't
know what to do. And finally it stopped. And then it was gone.
And it was perfectly still. Now he said that's how the Spirit
of God is. You don't know where He comes
from. You don't know where He's going next. You just see the
effects of His presence when He does come. And that's the
miracle that attends the preaching of the Gospel. It's in the hearts
of men. It's an inward conviction of
sin. I stand up here every week, and
I talk about sin, and I talk about the nature of sin, and
I talk about the ugliness of sin, and I talk about the sin
in the world, and men just stand there like, what on earth is
he talking about? When the Holy Spirit comes, you'll
understand what I'm talking about. You'll understand what I'm talking
about. All of a sudden, that sin will become your sin. And
you'll see that this sin is in you. It's in you. It's an inward conviction of
sin and of righteousness and of judgment. And it is as much
a miracle as the raising of the dead and giving sight to the
blind, and that's exactly what it is in a spiritual sense. And
you have to quicken, Paul said, who were dead. Who were dead. They weren't dead physically,
they were dead spiritually. They were dead in their heart
and dead in their mind and dead in their sins. Dead in their
understanding. You know, I sometimes wonder
if those who hear me outside this congregation understand
what I'm preaching. If they really understand what
I'm preaching and why it's so contrary to the average religious
message. The Word of God describes this
whole world as being in darkness. In darkness. In 1 Peter 2, verse
9, the Apostle tells us this. He said, You are a chosen generation,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a peculiar people that you should
show forth the praises of Him, now listen to this, who hath
called you out of Darkness. Ain't that what that says? Darkness. Into His marvelous light. In Colossians chapter 1 verse
12, Paul gives thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet
to be partakers of the inheritance of enlightened saints, and who
hath delivered us from the power of darkness. Not only do we dwell
in darkness, but we are under the power of darkness. It has
translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. And then when
our Lord began His ministry in this world, He came to Capernaum
by the way of the sea, fulfilling another prophecy concerning Him
that the people which sat in darkness saw great light. And to them which sat in the
region and shadow of death, light is sprung up." Men and women
living today in this world live in spiritual darkness. Our Lord
described it this way. He said, if the light that be
in you is darkness. In other words, what you think
you know. That brain with which you think and these eyes with
which you see. These ears with which you hear.
If the light that be in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? How great is a darkness that
takes everything and twists it and turns it and distorts it?
How great is that darkness? This is what I'm saying. This
is why I'm misunderstood out here in the world because the
world is in darkness. I don't assume because a man
comes through the door and comes in here and sits down that he
has light. I assume that he's in darkness.
And I want to bring light to him. I want this light to shine
to him. We live in a day of great discoveries
and automobiles and trains and planes and vehicles able to travel
into outer space and return again to the earth. All kinds of advancements
in the field of science and medicine. All these discoveries at an all-time
high. But spiritually, this world lives
in darkness. Men are ignorant of God, the
God of creation. You go to school, you can't get
a diploma in school unless you take a test saying that evolution
is right. Did you know that? You can't
get a college degree and you can't even graduate high school.
You'll flunk the test if you don't put on there what they
tell you is the answer. They're ignorant of the God of
creation. They're ignorant of the eternal
triune God. They're ignorant of the attributes
of God. And they're especially ignorant
of the purpose and will of God. Everything God has to say to
men and women is concerning his purpose and will. He has nothing
else to say. That's why you were created.
You were created according to the purpose of God. There's a purpose behind creation. There's a purpose behind the
preservation and maintenance of creation and civilization.
And there's a purpose in all things spiritual, salvation,
the savior, the word of God, the preaching of the gospel,
the church, the gathering of its members. There's a purpose
in these things. But the world's in darkness.
They don't know that. This world, for the most part,
they live out their days in total ignorance of these things. Did you know that the final destruction
of men, when God judges this world as a whole, did you know that the final destruction
of natural men, what that's called? Outer darkness. That's what it
is. Darkness. Go on in eternity in
their ignorance. Well, how'd this world in general
get that way? Well, it got this way by the
sin of their father Adam. That's how it all began. By one
man, sin entered into the world. That's the source. That's how
it came. And death by sin. And so death passed upon how
many men? All men. How do I know that? Because all have sinned. All
have sinned. Adam was the federal head and
representative of all mankind, and as the grass, herbs, and
trees yielded their seed to produce after their kind, so in the seed
of man his children were born after his kind. Wheat don't produce
corn. Corn produces corn. Adam produces
Adam. Evolution is a lie. Now you may
have put it on your test to get your diploma, but know it in
your heart, it's a lie. Any mixture of evolution and
creation is a lie. Man did not come from outer space
as a frozen paramecium and then landed in the ocean near a volcano
and that That hot ash and salt water come together and developed
a little tiny body and it crawled out on the sand and eventually
become a man. You mean you can believe that
instead of believing that God created a man? Man was created by God. He tells
us that in Genesis 127. He was created upright and in
the image of God, and that man sinned in the garden, and his
nature was ruined by the fall. In Romans 5.18 it says, therefore,
as by the offense of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation. By one man's disobedience, the
many were made sinners, and this sin reigned in men unto death. And our spiritual death is a
reason for our spiritual ignorance and darkness. Ephesians 4, speaking
of the world, says, having their understanding darkened, being
alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that's
in them because of the blindness of their heart. Satan and his
demon spirits are called in the Scripture the rulers of the darkness
of this world. How easy it is for Satan and
his demons to fool you, to lie to you, to deceive you. How easy
it is because their lies appeal to your nature. Oh, it's so easy
to believe a lie, isn't it? Huh? It wasn't an easy thing for me
to believe in election. You mean God, before He ever
created a man, before He ever formed the earth, before He ever
hung a star in heaven, chose a people in Christ? That was
hard for me to swallow until He gave me some understanding. But it was easy to believe that
man evolved. Huh? It's easy to believe a lie
isn't it? That causes you nature's darkness.
That's why. It's by their influence and those
influenced by them that men and women are brought into the comfortable
state of a false peace and a false concept of God and of man and
of sin and of holiness. They just bring you into a comfortable
state. Oh, you're just comfortable.
He's comfortable. And most especially the person
and work of Christ, our Savior. The Jews who had some history
of the presence of God among them, some people of their kindred
being used of God in the past, were confident that they themselves
were in fellowship with God, able to teach others the way.
In Romans 2, 19, Paul said that thou art confident, that thou
art thyself a guide of the blind and a light of them which are
in darkness. Of these men, our Lord said to
His disciples, leave them alone, for they be blind leaders of
the blind. And if the blind lead the blind,
they'll both fall in the ditch. The real history of the Jews
is not that of Abraham and Moses and David and the prophets. That's
the history of God's elect in Israel. Stephen gives the history of
natural Israel over in the book of Acts in chapter 7. He summarizes
what he had to say to them with these words, Acts 7.51. Now you
go through there and he'll show you exactly what he summarizes
in these verses. And he said, you stiff-necked
and uncircumcised in heart and ears, you do always resist the
Holy Ghost. As your fathers did, so do you. Which of the prophets have not
your fathers persecuted, and have slain them which showed
before the coming of the just one, of whom ye now have been
the betrayers and murderers? That's the history of the Jews. And the natural Jew is a picture
of the natural church or the professing church of our day.
Back in the past, God was pleased to use some men, to teach some
men the truth and call out his elect. And if they were alive
today, they'd be hated and despised by those who now wear their name.
You think that the Lutherans of our day believe what Martin
Luther preached? My sister and brother-in-law
are Lutherans. They don't believe anything Martin Luther preached. I think some of Brian's family
were Lutherans. They don't believe what Martin
Luther preached. Not at all. You think that the Baptists of
our day preach what John the Baptist preached? No way. I can't even imagine John the
Baptist out there in the wilderness, dressed in those skins, eating
honey and locusts. And I can't even picture him
giving an altar call. Can you try and get somebody
to lead him down the Roman road? Nearly every denomination of
longstanding has had men in their past who were used of God. They
honor the dead prophets. and they persecute the living
ones. It was the same then as it is now. The world and its
religions all walk in darkness. The whole world, John said, lies
in wickedness. Well, preacher, I just believe
if a person is sincere in what they do, it will be accepted
of God. Cain was sincere. He was as sincere
as he could be. He brought those big carrots
and those big beets and all that stuff and laid them down on that
altar and God spit on them. He was sincere as he could be,
but God rejected his sacrifice and cast him out of His presence
forever. Judas was sincere. Judas got
to thinking about what he did, and he went back in there before
those scribes and before those priests, and he took that blood
money, and when they wouldn't take it back, he'd throw it down
on the floor. He said, I don't want any part
of it. He was sincere as he could be.
And he was just as damned as he ever was. Sarah was sincere when she offered
her handmaid to Abraham to help bring the promise of this promised
son to pass. She was sincere. She could be.
But God didn't have any respect to her ways and He didn't have
any respect to the son. What are you trying to say? I'm
trying to say sincerity without truth is meaningless. That's
what I'm saying. I don't care how sincere you
are. Well, I just believe if a person
does the best they can, it'll be enough. Do you really believe that? My
mother did. My mother did. I'll never forget
her telling me that. Paul said, I do not frustrate
the grace of God. If righteousness come by the
law, then Christ is dead in vain. A preacher, I don't believe in
literal hell. I just believe in degrees of
heaven and the blessings of God. Well, I think if you'll read
Matthew 25, 46 and Revelation 20, verses 12 through 15, it
will clear up that error. And then there is what is almost
universally accepted today accepting Jesus as your personal Savior.
To my knowledge, no convert or child of God anywhere in the
history of the world has ever been quoted by the Holy Ghost
as having accepted Jesus as their personal Savior. And yet it's
almost universally accepted today. You'd think God would have preserved
at least one, wouldn't you? But the Scriptures does tell
us that the God who chose us and predestinated us unto the
adoption of children by Jesus Christ to Himself, according
to the good pleasure of His will, made us accept. And in the Beloved,
it tells us that. Ephesians 1, 3 through 6, it
does say in Galatians 2, verse 6, that God accepteth no man's
person. Salvation is not about your accepting
Jesus, it's about Him making you acceptable to God. Salvation
is not dependent on your acceptance of Him, but on God's acceptance
of Christ. Did you know it's on the basis
of His acceptance that your faith, that gift of faith is given to
you? It's on the basis of His acceptance,
not on yours. And if Christ came and died in
your sin and justified you in His resurrection, He will most
certainly send the good news to you, and by virtue of His
offices, accomplishments, and His reign and glory, make you
willing to receive it. He is our guarantor. Our text says, for the promise
is unto you. Oh, my soul, how that must have
took them by. The promise is unto you and to your children and to all
them that are far off, as many as the Lord thy God shall call. The effectual calling of God's
elect comes through gospel preaching attended by the presence and
power of the Holy Ghost. And the work of the Spirit enables
us to submit. Do you know how hard it is to
submit? It's impossible. With men, it is impossible. Our Lord showed that with the
rich young ruler. Oh, He said, I've kept the law
from my youth up. All these things. I've done this
from the time I was a baby. Well, you won't have no trouble
with this. Take everything you've got and sell it and give it to
the poor. Take up your cross and follow Me." Ooh, I can't
do that. That's why I'm saying it's impossible
to submit. That submissiveness comes by
the power of the Holy Ghost. And He makes us submissive. Paul
told those Thessalonians, I know your election of God because
you've become followers of us and the Lord. Ain't that something? Followers. Can you do that? That's what
disciples are. They're followers, aren't they?
They're followers. Submit yourselves, Peter said,
under the mighty hand of God. I know we won't talk about that
first work being a work of light, and it is, and I know all those
things, but I'm going to tell you something. The very first
work of the Holy Spirit is to bring you down. And you're going
to bow at His feet. You're going to bow. Now or later,
but you're going to bow. The effectual calling of God's
elect comes through gospel preaching. that's attended by the presence
and power of the Holy Ghost. And He enables us to submit. He enables us to believe. He
enables us to be convinced and rest our eternal souls in the
hands of our sovereign Savior. And when He does, you will believe,
you will submit, you will find assurance just as though He didn't. Does that make sense? You will have reasoned it out
in your mind and in your heart, and you will have been willing,
and you will have done it just as though he didn't. But I tell
you, apart from his power in you, you'll never do it. And you'll never rest your soul
in his hands until you're convinced of three things. First of all,
that you're totally unfit to determine anything for yourself. That's when you'll start reading
the Word of God and listening to God. When He convinces you
that you're your worst enemy, what does He tell you comes out
of your heart? Evil thoughts. Isn't that the first thing? Evil
thoughts. Well, I don't want to listen
to myself then. I better listen to Him. totally unfit to determine anything
for yourself or merit anything from God. Secondly, that Jesus
Christ is sufficient Himself to save you from your sins. One
hundred percent totally sufficient in Himself. And thirdly, that
God's eternal justice has been satisfied in Christ and there
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus
who walk in the spirit of faith in Christ and not after the flesh. Now listen to what Peter tells
these Orthodox Jews here in Acts 2 verse 40. And with many other words did
he testify and exhort saying, save yourselves from this untoward
generation. Everything in worldly religion
is going a different direction. That's what that word untoward
means. You're going south, it's going
north. Untoward. Salvation is of the Lord. Religion
is looking to men. Salvation is by the grace of
God. Men are preaching salvation by
works. Salvation is an eternal work. They're all trying to make
it work in time. Talking about, I got saved. You
didn't do any such thing. You know what Paul said? He said,
God saved me. God saved us and called us with
a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to
His own purpose and grace which was given us in Christ Jesus
before the world began. Salvation is by the will of God.
Religion makes it according to the free will of man. Salvation is a new creation.
Religion makes it a work of resolution. Salvation is knowledge and understanding. Religion makes it an emotional
experience. This religious world is untoward. They're going the wrong direction
and traveling the wrong road, seeking the wrong destination. They're on the broad road that
leads to destruction. Well, how does a man save himself
from this untoward generation? By taking heed to the Word of
God. Take heed to it. You read it, you believe that's
God's Word, then obey it. Receive it. Act on it. Let God
be true in every man a liar. When God says that any man who
preaches another gospel is a curse, listen to him. He means it. When God said He chose us in
Christ and made us accepted in Him and justified us freely by
His grace through the redemption that's in Christ Jesus, believe
Him. When God said that Christ is
the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes, believe
it. You can save yourself from this
untoward generation by taking heed to the Word of God. And
secondly, you can save yourselves from this untoward generation
by believing the truth. Somebody's telling the truth
and somebody's lying. The scripture says the carnal mind is enmity against
God, hostility toward Him, and to be carnally minded is death.
The mind of Christ, on the other hand, is submissive, willing,
ready to hear. He said, my people shall be willing
in the day of my power. Take advantage of every opportunity
you have to hear the gospel. Gather if you can with God's
saints. Gather together. And then thirdly,
hearing the glorious name of Christ proclaimed in the gospel,
you can call on Him to do for you what you cannot do for yourselves. Leopard didn't fall down at Christ's
feet and said, Lord, give me a hand. That's not what he said. He fell down on his feet, and
he said, if you will, you can make me whole. I will. Does that sound like
anything you're hearing preached today? All right, let me give you this,
and I'll quit. Acts 2, verse 41. Then they that gladly received
His Word were baptized. And the same day there were added
unto them about three thousand souls." There are three general commands
that accompany the preaching of the Gospel. The first is to
repent. Turn. Turn. Whatever direction you're headed,
turn. Turn to Him. God commandeth all men everywhere
to repent. Turn from your sinful ways and
turn from yourself and turn from the religion of this world to
Christ. The second command in the gospel is this. Believe. The gospels preach to all nations
for the obedience of faith according to the commandment of the everlasting
God. Romans 16, 26. The gospel is not one of many
options, not a suggestion or an invitation. It's the commandment
of God. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ
or perish. And then thirdly, we're commanded
to be baptized. He that believeth and is baptized
shall be saved. Now, I hear preachers all the
time and they're trying to take baptism out of this and trying
to make baptism this and something else. I'm just not going to go
where the Word of God don't go. But I'm going to tell you this,
you can't find a profession of faith in the book of Acts where
they weren't baptized. And they weren't baptized three
years from then. They were baptized that day.
At midnight. At midnight. God shook that place,
and the prisoners took off out of that jail. But Paul and Silas
didn't. They stayed put. And that jailer
come in because he'd been given a charge and would be put to
death if these men escaped. And they said, don't do yourself
any harm. We're right here. And he sat down and listened
to them, and he preached the gospel to them. And do you know
what it says? Now, the doors were shook at midnight. And then
he preached for two or three hours to them. And that night,
at 3 in the morning, he took that man and his whole house
and baptized them. That's what it says. And here
at Pentecost, 3,000 souls were called out of darkness into this
marvelous light of Christ, and it said they were all baptized.
All 3,000 souls. Now, you either believe Christ
or you don't. There's no middle ground. You
either do or you don't. Now, we're not called. Here's
the problem I'm seeing in my day. Men and women are trying
to come up to some expectation of faith. They're trying to,
well, if I can just get up here about 95%, then I'm going to
make a profession. Peter said, we believe, help
thou our unbelief. When he calls you to faith, he's
not calling you to perfect faith. He's calling you to believe what
you hear and what you know. You'll never have perfect faith.
I don't care how much you read and study. I don't care how much
you attain in this world. You don't have perfect faith.
It's an imperfect faith. But the perfection of faith is
its object. It's Christ. And all faith rests
in him. Just some knows a little more
about him than others. We confess Christ and believers'
baptism. I would say to you this morning
what Peter said to his hearers. Repent and be baptized. Listen
to this. Every one of you. Every one of you. In the name
of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. or to confess the remission
of our sins. And you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. He'll take up permanent residence
in your heart. Oh, what a promise. I'll never
leave you nor forsake you. But I'll go with you always.