Acts 2. And we've closed last Sunday
with verse 36. And as you recall, Peter had
just finished this simple yet straightforward
gospel message. There was nothing fancy about
it. He just stood up and told the truth. And now what we have is the Holy
Spirit taking the truth and that which was proclaimed by His servant
and makes it effectual to His chosen people. What the title,
I guess if we title a message, it would be, When God Pricks
the Heart. When God Pricks the Heart. We'll start in verse 37
and we'll read the whole rest of the chapter, and then we'll
go back and look at several points for us this morning. Now, when
they heard this, the gospel, they were pricked in their heart,
And they said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles,
men and brethren, what shall we do? Then Peter said unto them,
repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus
Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost for the promises unto you and to your children
and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our
God shall call. And with many other words did
Peter testify and exhort, saying, save yourself from this untoward
generation. Then they that gladly received
his word were baptized. And the same day there were added
unto them about 3,000 souls. And they continued steadfastly
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, and in breaking of
bread, and in prayers. And fear came upon every soul,
and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. And all
that believed were together and had all things common. They sold
their possessions and goods, part of them to all men, as every
man had need. And they, continuing daily with
one accord in the temple and breaking bread from house to
house, did eat their meat with gladness and singleness of heart. praising God and having favor
with all the people. And the Lord added to the church
daily, such as should be saved." First thing, we're just going
to look at this. We're not going to go verse by
verse. I'm not going to have statements on every verse because
there's a lot in here. But the first thought is in verse
37, when they heard this, now when they heard this, that is,
as I mentioned before, the plain and simple message of sovereign
free grace as it is in Jesus Christ. They heard of ruin by
the fall. Verse 23. They heard of redemption
by the blood. Verse 23. Regeneration by the
Spirit. Verse 16 through 18. And exaltation
of King Jesus. Verse 32 to 36. God uses the
preaching of His Word to reclaim His lost I'm not saying he doesn't
use the reading of the Word, but I'm saying very specifically
he uses the preaching of the Word. to save them that believe."
So, if you're going to a place where the gospel is not preached,
God is not going to use it. He doesn't use false means to
glorify Himself. He uses the truth. Turn to Romans
10. Romans 10. And we'll start in verse 13. For whosoever shall call upon
the name of the Lord shall be saved. And I'm not even going
to go into that because it's been much abused in our day and age
where the people just say, oh, you just got to say the name
of Jesus. No, there's something in that name. When you call somebody
by their name that's those things which represent Him, not just
a name, but what and who it represents. He's sovereign, He's majestic,
He's the Lord, He's the King, He does whatsoever He wills.
But it says, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord
shall be saved. And it's not just a blind, ignorant
call. It's a call with imparted, imputed
knowledge. How then shall they, those who
are calling, how can they call on Him, that is Christ, the name
of the Lord, in whom they've not believed? And how shall they
believe in Christ of whom they have not heard? Preaching about
Christ has got to be accurate. It's got to be according to the
truth. And how shall they hear without a preacher. And verse
15, and how shall they preach except they be sent? As it is
written, how beautiful are the feet of them that preach the
gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things. Back to our text in Acts. So
God uses the preaching of his word to reclaim his lost sheep,
just like he did here. This is written for our use and
edification. This is written for reasons to glorify and honor
Christ. It's written as it is for us to see exactly what's
going on. And it's no different today. He sends a man. He sends somebody to stand up
and preach the Word, like he did Peter. He sends his people
out into the world to what? Be a witness of me. We saw that
in the first chapter. Man, woman, it's a believer.
It doesn't matter if you're a man or a woman, young or old. If God has shown you the truth,
he's going to use you to outspeak the truth. He goes, how can they
hear? They don't know. How can they
call on him in whom they've not believed? Not a small Jesus, a small letter,
but Jesus Christ, the Son of God. So we see this situation
here where Peter stands up, he preaches the message we saw last
week, and when they heard this, when they heard this, Not somebody's
interpretation about what happened when they heard the message,
or not somebody's opinion, but we saw what Peter did. He used
the Scriptures. He went to Joel, he went to Psalm,
and he told them exactly what was going on, and he told them
about Jesus and Nazareth. Other illustrations were, when
they heard this, would be, he brought Philip to that Ethiopian
eunuch. Remember that story? He brought
Peter to Cornelius, Paul to Lydia, and Onesimus to Paul. God always
brings his people under the sound of the gospel, and there he does
something for them. In this setting historically,
the people were coming together for the Day of Pentecost, the
Feast of Pentecost. Old Testament Old Testament, one of the Old
Testament feast days, they were come together. But God will use,
you know, say, well, they weren't there for the motive to hear
the gospel. A lot of people come to church, they don't come, they
come for whatever reason, not to worship Christ and not for
His honor. They come for different reasons. But God can take that
motive and change it. These people, they were gathered
together. The multitude were there for
other reasons. Yet God used this time to open their hearts and
their ears to the truth. They came for ceremony. They came to observe feasts and
days and seasons. And they didn't know, but God
had his preacher there and he stood up. And he told them the
truth. He told them the truth. The truth
must be preached, not a false gospel or lies about God or Christ
or man. When they heard this, he uses
his truth. He uses his truth. Secondly,
look at verse 27. And when they heard this, They
were pricked in their heart. That's not something they did.
That's something God the Holy Spirit. God the Holy Spirit always
takes the Word, the truth, and gets in the heart. How does
your Bible read the same way, Nathan? Cut to the heart. Cut to the heart. You see, the
heart is the issue. You see, you can't legislate religion.
You can't legislate morality, though this country tries to
do and I'm thankful for some of it. And you can't, you know,
we're all legalists by nature. We all try to legislate ourselves
and we all try to keep those sins inside. But it's only until
God cuts the heart and pricks the heart and causes the truth
to get inside. Is there ever going to be any
real change? You know, there's a lot of people who reformed
their life. There's a lot of people who quit smoking. There's a lot of
people who made New Year's resolutions. And that's basically false religion
in a nutshell. Just a bunch of New Year's resolutions
with no power, no willpower to enact it. But when God threw,
when they heard this, the Holy Spirit then pricks or cuts the
heart Holy Spirit convincing or conviction is essential in
regeneration. Without it, there's no salvation. It's just reformation. It's just
you and me trying to look nice on the outside. But until there's
Holy Spirit conviction, there's no salvation. Turn to John chapter
16. John chapter 16 Christ says I've got to leave you because
if I don't when I leave I'm gonna send I'm not gonna leave you
comfortless I'm gonna send the comforter to you, but he's gonna
have some specific responsibilities Verse John Chapter 16, verses
7 and 8, Christ says, Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is expedient
for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the comfort,
that's another name for the Holy Spirit, will not come unto you,
but if I depart, I will send him unto you. And what's he going
to do? We don't have to guess. Verse
8, And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, of
righteousness, And of judgment. Of sin, because they believe
not on me. Of righteousness, because I go to my Father and
you see me no more. And of judgment, because the
prince of this world is judged. So, they were pricked in the
heart about sin. Our own sin. Not Johnny's, not
Steve's, not Alicia's. Our sin. When they heard this,
they were pricked in their heart. We can make people feel bad about
certain things, but only true Holy Spirit convincing and conviction
will ever really change a person, really change a person. The Holy
Spirit convinces or convicts of sin our own sin of righteousness
Christ righteousness or God's righteousness in Christ and the
fact that we don't have any righteousness all this stuff that we thought
we had that God would smile upon us Over we see relies. It's not he's frowning. He's
angry with the wicked every day. There's none righteous No, not
one. So he convinces us of Christ righteousness our need of his
righteousness and that we have none and Thirdly of judgment
that is God is just to condemn and he's just to forgive just
like we're saying in that him He's just to kill he's just to
make a life Basically that Christ holds all the terms of this contract
of salvation and regeneration and and glorification, justification,
all. He holds all the terms of the
contract and He has the keys. Pricked in their heart, Zechariah
chapter 12. Turn to Zechariah chapter 12. This is a real clear passage. We've looked at this before. Zechariah, which is after Zephaniah,
Zechariah chapter Look at, starting in verse 9,
Zechariah 12, verse 9, "...and it shall come to pass in that
day..." What day is that? When they heard this, when you
hear the Gospel. How come some people can sit
and hear the Gospel day in and day out and nothing ever happens? Because God hasn't done a work
in your heart yet But I'll tell you if you're sitting in a place
where there's no gospel being preached. It'll never happen Good God we established he uses
when they heard this the truth And it shall come to pass in
that day that I will seek to destroy all the nations that
come against Jerusalem and look at what he says verse 10 and
I will pour upon the house of David to specific people and
And upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplication,
and what happens when that happens, they shall look upon me, Christ,
not the preacher, not the doctrine, but Christ, whom they have pierced. and they shall mourn for Him,"
our sins put Him on the cross, "...as one that mourns for His
only Son, and shall be in bitterness," that's conviction, that's convincing
of sin, "...as one that is in bitterness for His firstborn. And in that day there shall be
a great mourning in Jerusalem." In verse 12, in the land shall
mourn every family apart. I can mourn with you, but I cannot
mourn over those things that only you know in your heart.
It's got to be specific revelation and specific conviction. Now, once that happens, look
at chapter 13, verse 1 every time. Every time it happens,
just like in our text in Acts, God is the same today, yesterday,
and forever. He doesn't save by one way in
the Old Testament and another way in the New. He saves the
same way. And in that day, when they heard it, when God pricked
them in the heart, There shall be a fountain open for those
same people, the house of David, the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
for sin and uncleanness." That's exciting. That's encouraging. That is grace, undeserved grace. Now, the third thing. Heart-rending
leads to repentance, faith, and obedience. It always does. Yeah,
I heard the gospel, but I didn't do... I come whenever I want
to come. I can do whatever I want to do.
No. No. Now, what the gospel says,
heart... When they were pricked in their heart, there's certain
things that took place. All by God's grace. Repentance, faith,
and obedience. Always. Always. God's people are different. They're
different. Maybe not on a given day, not
in a certain situation, but I'm not making any apologies. When
God the Spirit does something for His people, they're different. They used to hate Christ. They
love Christ. They didn't care whether they worshipped Him or
not. Now we want to worship Him. They didn't have a tune or a
desire to sing His praises, and now we do. We trusted in our
own flesh all the time, in our own power, our own merit. Now,
we're like, Lord, save me or I perish. I don't know how to
get out of this situation. I don't know how to deal with
this situation. There are praying people, there are worshiping
people. It was before. It might, they might have thought
that what they were doing was worship. They might have thought
what they were doing was praying. But when God comes in power and
grace, there's a difference. It's not just changing from one
pew to the next. It's not going from one church
to the next. It is true. heart conviction which leads
to repentance and faith and obedience." First things first, though, I'm
going to make a comment. In verse 37, when they heard this, they
were pricked in their hearts and they said to Peter and to
the rest of the apostles, what shall we do? Isn't that just
like man gets scared? We've had it happen in our midst
here years ago. Some situations happen. People
get a little scared. And they want to talk to the
preacher. Get a little nervous. They want
to join the church. What shall we do? Well, we always
want to try to do something to get over our guilt. We can't
do a thing. We'll wake up and it's there the next day. We are
all legalists by nature. We try to appease our conscience.
We try to ease our pain by staying busy, or getting more religious,
or doing something, whatever. But no, he must give repentance. And Peter says unto them in verse
38, he says, Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name
of Jesus Christ, for, which would better be interpreted because
of the remission of sins, is you don't repent and are baptized,
that doesn't give you salvation. Something's already taken place
in the heart, and that's what we desire to do for him. So it would be better rendered
not for the remission of sins, but because of the remission
of sins, and he shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost."
So we see repentance. Repentance simply means a change. It's just a change. A change. A change of lords, a change of
life, a change of mind, and it's actually repentance is a lifelong
coming and confessing of who we are to the One we now live. It's not a one-time act. Faith
is not a one-time act. Repentance is not a one-time
act. We continue. We're not going to continue to
get saved. I'm not saying that. But we continue to come to Christ.
When a believer is redeemed, he always comes to Christ. The
believer sins, he always confesses his sins. The believer does always
repent. But it's a change. A change of
the way we thought about Christ. And he shows us the truth. And
it's like, boy, that was... That was way off. Oh, that sounded
good. Or I was always taught that,
but it's a repentance. It's a change. It's not just
a feeling sorry or you getting your hand caught in the cookie
jar. You know, everybody feels bad about that. Oh, I shouldn't
have done that. But it's remorse over self and sin and disobedience. And it's a gift of God, because
look at Acts chapter 5. So people say, well, it looks
like He just told them what to do. No, the flesh says, what
should we do? And Peter just like doesn't even
answer that. He just says, repentance. faith, be baptized. But look
at Acts. You've got to take the whole
Scriptures in context. Acts chapter 5 and verse 30 and
31, For the God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you slew
and hung on a tree, Him that is Christ hath God exalted with
his right hand to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance
To Israel and forgiveness of sin he gives repentance. It's
not something that you can produce because the only thing we can
produce is That got we got caught or I feel sorry about something
I No, true godly repentance is when, through the gospel, through
the truth, the Spirit pricks the heart, and we see what we are in the
light of Scriptures, and we see what He is, and what He's done. Repentance as I said, it's not
a work for us to do in order to get life rather We have been
given light and life and now are made to change and confess
Over our sins. They were pricked to the heart
and he said Let all of us the house of Israel know verse 36
Assuredly that God hath made this same Jesus whom you crucified
both low both Lord and Christ He gave the spirit of grace and
supplications, and hearts were pierced, and they
looked at Christ. Now, not in contempt, but in
reverence, servitude, obedience. It's almost like, and I've had
this happen several times, when somebody comes up and tells you
that something that you did really hurt them or offended them, and
you were like, instead of justifying, well, I didn't mean it that way,
or I think you mistook it, it was just like, man, I'm sorry,
forgive me. There's no arguing. You just
bow down. And old Donnie Bell said, you
know, Ritter, take the hit instead of losing a friendship. I said,
oh no, no. It's all me. It's all me. That's what Job said. Job said
before, he was like, he's pointing. And then when God used that young
man to tell him the truth, Job says, I repent, he says, I abhor
myself, and I repent in dust and ashes. And remember Isaiah
in the first, I think it's Isaiah 6, verses chapters 1 through
5, and he's just going, yeah, woe is Israel, woe is you, and
woe is you, and you don't know this, and you don't know that.
And then it said, I believe it's Isaiah 6, chapter 6, and starting
in verse 1, he says, The year that King Uzziah died, he said,
I saw the Lord. And what's the first thing he
says? Woe is me. I'm a man of unclean lips. And I'll tell you what, a preacher
that doesn't know the gospel, and God shows him that, they
don't ever want to preach again. They say, you know, I've been
used and lie on God. I just shut my mouth and take
my place and hear the gospel. But, When God pricks the heart,
He's going to show you His Son. He's going to show you mercy.
He's going to tell you to repent. You're not going to have any
problem with that. And in faith, which is simply laying hold completely
of the Lord Christ as your eternal Redeemer and Savior. And again,
this is something we continue to grow in and desire all the
days of our life. So, repentance What happens when
God pricks us in the heart and gives us grace and he? Faith
to lay hold on Christ and let go of everything else and lay
hold upon Christ and in verse 41 He says in baptizing the day
that gladly received his this word were baptized You see that's
I've told you this time and time again, and I understand this
through experience The believe when God does something for the
believe they quit arguing and You ever notice that? It kind
of gets a hold of something. I get a hold of an ear. The person
just wants to, and I just so encouraged when I sit there,
because it hasn't always been this way. I can sit there and
I can preach and everybody just, you're like sponges. You're just
taken in. And I'm not saying everything I say you take without
question, but I'm saying when the gospel is preached and this
book is opened, Everybody's taking it, they're listening. Because
it hasn't always been that way. When I've preached, you have
people looking at you. Then when you get done, they
come right up and they start questioning. Now, you all have
come up and said, most of the time, you come and say, well,
I didn't see that. Or, look at this over here, did you see that?
Oh, I didn't see that. It's a time of fellowship. It's
around the Word. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about
times I've gotten done preaching And people see you, they're looking
at you, and then you get done, and they say, well, I don't know
about that. I think, I don't think you did,
I don't think that, I don't agree with that at all. It's an argumentative,
and it's a, I wasn't taught that, or I didn't, it wasn't, it's
not a humble, and they that gladly receive the Word. It's a joy. We can't live without it. So
they gladly receive the Word. There's no argumentative, there's
no, in your face. I preach in front of people that
you better dot your i's and cross your t's and most of the time
they're legalists and boy they understand they got they got
the five points of Calvinism down you can just see them counting
them on their toes and then all you know they've got it but if
you don't say exactly what they want you to say well I think
you missed you missed uh you didn't talk about uh this or
that or whatever again because And we'll see, doctrine is important
because they follow the apostles' doctrine. I'm not saying doctrine
is not important. It is very important. But you know as well as I do,
people most of the time will use doctrine as a wedge just to try
to cause some kind of scuffle or some kind of dissension or
division. But they that gladly received
His Word were baptized. It's water immersion in the story. There's no babies. I just, you
know, again, read Romans 6 sometime. The outward, and baptism is simply
an outward confession of what has already taken place in the
heart. Death, burial, and resurrection
with Christ. We're buried with Christ in the
water in Eurasia. This is in the story. There's no ceremony. They just
got done. The beautiful thing about this
context and acts is they just got done. All these people are
here for the feast day. They're still tied up with legalism. They're still tied up with ceremonialism. And he just says, believe Christ,
repent. They hold on him, baptize. They knew it wasn't going to
wash any sins away. It was simply being obedient
to the gospel command. End of story. And then, a fourth
thing that you always see when the gospel is preached and the
Spirit pricks us in the heart is obedience. Verse 41 through
the end of the chapter. The same, they were baptized.
The same day were added unto them about 3,000 souls. And here's
what they did. They continued steadfastly in
the apostles' doctrine. This is important. As many false
doctrines as false gospels are going around. They continued
in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, breaking of bread
and prayers. There's the Lord's Supper. And
fear came upon every soul and many wonders and signs were done
by the apostles and all that believed were together. and had all things common. They
weren't saying, this is mine. It was not lording over. They sold their possessions and
goods and parted them to all men as every man had need. Now,
Linda and I were talking about this last night because of where
we used to be. This is not being selling your
house, selling your cars, and then just, well, I guess I just
got to sit here and see what happens. I need to have faith.
It's not being ignorant. But what it is, is that we're
not about possessions. Take it or leave it. We must
have Christ. That's the thing. And everything
we do, everything that comes to our hands, whether it's cash,
whatever it might be, we know the first principle is it's used
for God's glory because it's His, He can give it, He can take
it away. The job, it's His, He can take it away. The place where
we're at, it's His, He can take it away. So all that we do, and
all that we have, we do the glory of God. And they continuing daily
with one accord. Did you notice I was looking
at that word, one accord, and united, and we're together? It just keeps on popping up.
We've only been in the second chapter, and it's popped up numerous
times. That's so important. One accord and in unity about
Christ. We differ on the best automobile
that's out on the road. And we differ as to what might
be the best for this country. We differ about all those things,
but we set all those things aside because our fellowship is around
Christ. That's where it's at. So there's
obedience. Doctrinal obedience? Absolutely.
Because he uses the truth to save his people. And it's a fraternal
fellowship. It's a doctrinal fellowship.
But it's a fraternal fellowship. We have all things in common.
Now, has anybody been in a fraternity or sorority in here? I thought
you'd been in a sorority. And it's, you know, like the
sisters. And some of them are stronger and weaker and whatever,
but I mean, like army personnel and marines and others, they
could start getting a little bit... They're brothers, they
wash their backs. But my point is, it's a fraternal fellowship. They're obedient, they fellowship.
Doctrinally, it's hard to fellowship if somebody comes in and talks
about their free will or man's works. It's not going to happen.
It's not the truth. But it's a fraternal fellowship.
We have things in common. I don't want to hear that about
the brethren. It's not true. Oh, did you hear
about... Because we watch out for one
another. It's a bond that's stronger than
family ties. Because we are family. So it's a fraternal. Not a cult. Will he like it if I buy this
or I don't buy that? It's none of my business. You call me anytime, whenever,
or email me, or whenever. But there's things I don't need
to know, there's things I don't want to know. You're free in
Christ. But we are family. We are family. So it's a fraternal
fellowship, but it's a continual fellowship. They continually,
verse 46, continuing daily with one accord in the temple, they
broke bread from house to house, they ate their meat with gladness
and singleness of heart. That's just it. When you got
single purpose, it's pretty hard to, you know, I'm pretty, I'm
pretty, I'm pretty, I'm not a genius. I have a high intellect. One
thing, You give me one thing to do, I can focus on that. You
know, in this world of multitasking, and usually what that means is
that people are pretty average about everything they do. It's
really nice to see an expert. We've got one at Z. He's an OSHA,
one of our OSHA trainers. He's the, our best OSHA trainer.
He's been doing it, Scotty, for about 28 years. And when he comes
to the meeting, Nobody everybody there's a lot of talking at these
meetings and joking when he stands up Nobody says anything. He commands our attention and
he's good Because he is an expert Single purpose And When we start getting on
other things, why when you come here and other people come here
and say, well, you're just preaching the same thing, or you talk about
the same thing, you don't talk about end-time things, or when
are you going to go into Revelations? I had people ask me that years
ago. I want to find out about what that white horse means and
all that. I'm going to have to go somewhere else. I'm not that
smart. Really, I don't care to be. I get people trying to draw
me out, especially legalists, especially reform legalists try
to draw me out into an argument. like the situation that happened
years ago. What do you think about that? What about that? I can just see
them, they're just setting traps everywhere, just snap, snap. So I just stood in one place.
That's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to preach
the gospel. Oh, I just aggravated them? Aggravated them? Well,
what about that? Well, I think, well, you're pretty
smart, you might be right, but it's not my responsibility. Christ. Christ. It's so beautiful. It's right here. Where do you
get that? In the Bible. Well, what about the Baptist?
Bible. Presbyterian? It's in the Bible. What's your creed? That was another
thing. What's your creed? What confession
of faith do you adhere to? I just love that. The same that Paul did and Moses
did. Yeah, but I mean, which one? Which one of the fathers?
Was it the London 16... The scripture... A guy from St. Louis emailed me. What do you
mean by this? Did you get it on a website?
Yeah. It doesn't tell me. What does it mean? It says you
preach Christ. But what about... How do you
feel about church discipline? Christ, it aggravates the legalist. They can't stand it. When God does something for us,
we're going to repent, have faith, desire to obey His Word and baptism,
and breaking of bread, and fellowship, and there's going to be obedience,
there's going to be fellowship, doctrinal fellowship, fraternal fellowship,
and continual fellowship. And you know what happens when
it happens? When we do according to what the Holy Spirit leads
and does, look at verse 47. First of all, there's gladness
and singleness of heart, praising God, and having favor with all
people, and the Lord added to the church daily, such as should
be saved. So I close with this. It's His Word, so it's His salvation. And those who believe are His
people. It's His church, it's His salvation, it's His word,
it's His people. Therefore, the church and its
welfare and its growth are all in His hands. The Lord added
daily, such as should be saved. And it's a good place to be.
It's a restful place to be. It's a place of peace. I know
because I've struggled with this a long time. Stand up, preach
the gospel, and the Lord will add, such as should be saved. Because it's His responsibility.
And it's in His hands. As is our life, our breath, and
our welfare. That will give you a tremendous
amount of peace when you lay your head on your pillow tonight.
This same Jesus. This same Jesus. Nathan, would
you close this please? Father, we see that you call
out your chief by simply having your story.