If you'll look here with me in
Acts chapter 2, the title of the message tonight is, Base
Things Confounding the Wise. Base Things Confounding the Wise. I've been enjoying the books
that you gave me at my ordination service, and especially John
Bunyan. In one of his books, Bunyan gives
eight reasons why God saves the worst of sinners. And I want
to share those with you. I know that you have read it
and this will be a reminder to those of you that have and to
those of you that haven't, I'd encourage you to read it. But
he gives eight things. I want to give these to you before
we begin. He says that God saves the biggest
sinners. Because first of all, they have
the most need of salvation. They have the most need of salvation.
Secondly, because when God saves the vilest sinner by free and
sovereign grace, it redounds most to the fame of his name. Such as Saul of Tarsus, for example. Thirdly, by saving the vilest,
God affectually and spiritually opens the hearts of other vile
sinners, or uses one vile sinner to show that the vilest aren't
beyond His ability to save. And so they too are encouraged
to come to Him for life. And then He says this, I like
the way He puts this, by saving the colonels in Satan's army,
as He puts it, God weakens his kingdom, Satan's kingdom, by
saving those that are doing the most good for the enemy. Fifthly,
he said God saves the vilest sinners who know most about temptations,
most about what it is to be feeble-minded, because they are usually the
biggest helps in the church against temptations and the fittest to
support those who are feeble-minded. In other words, if you've been
there, you know something about it. You know something about
it. God saves the vilest sinners because those to whom much has
been forgiven love Him most. They love Him most. The vilest
sinners shine forth great light. And then eighthly, He said, the
vilest sinners are saved by God's grace so that by that means the
impenitent that are left behind will be at the judgment the more
left without excuse. I read something where somebody
wrote, and I'm going to paraphrase this. I can't remember who wrote
it, but the essence of it is this. In the thief on the cross,
we see God saving a man in the very height of immorality. And
in Saul of Tarsus, we see God saving a man in the very height
of religion. And in both of them, we see our
Redeemer's ability to save them to the uttermost who come to
Him by faith. And so when I read this and I
think about this, the thought occurs, where does God find these
vile, tempted, feeble-minded colonels of Satan's army? Where
does he find them? Surely such ungodly sinners,
which certainly must be the dregs of society, must do the most
harm to society. Surely there to be found in the
gutters or passed out in some alley behind some did dim lit
tavern somewhere surely That's where they are these biggest
centers Not in this case in Acts 2 verse 5 it says there were
dwelling at Jerusalem Jerusalem in the very capital center of
true religion and Among this people to whom God had given
his oracles at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost come to call
upon God's name are some of the vilest sinners that God ever
saved right here. I don't have eight divisions
for you tonight. I only have three. And they're
this. First of all, I want us to consider
the description that the Spirit of God gives of these vilest
of sinners. Secondly, consider the description
given of those who the Holy Spirit used to declare the gospel of
Christ's salvation. And thirdly, consider the twofold
response from all who heard the gospel preached in their own
language. Now, my message is going to be from Acts 2, 5 through
13. And since Art read it, we'll
just go verse by verse here and look at this. Verse 5 says, There
were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men, out of every nation
under heaven. Now, first we're going to consider
the description given of those who are the worst of sinners. These men were devout men. Now you read that word devout.
And I know that there's some that
that word is used to describe who were given a knowledge and
understanding and faith of who Christ is. And they believed
on Christ. Simeon, Cornelius. And then there are some who that
word is used to describe who ran off Paul. because he preached
the gospel. They were stirred up by the Jews,
the devout Greeks, and the chief women, honorable women, were
stirred up. So the word not only applies
to those who are believers, but it applies to those who have
a zeal for God. A zeal for God is a good thing,
but a zeal for God without a knowledge of who Christ is, and what he
accomplished, and why he did it, and where he is now, what
he's doing now, is a vain zeal. It's a vain zeal. Some of these were Jews, natural
descendants, sons of Abraham. And they were devout, no doubt. They came there to worship, but
without a knowledge, a saving knowledge of Christ. And let
me make this statement, too, before I go on. We're going to
see here in a minute, some of these folks ask the question,
what meaneth this? And as we go on in Acts, we're
going to see the next question that they ask is going to be,
what must we do? And the first words out of Peter's
mouth is repent. Repent. So what I'm saying is,
devotion, zeal, without faith, without an understanding, trusting
of who Christ is and what He accomplished, is worthless. It's just not any good at all.
And there were some here, they were Jews, and they had great
confidence, great reason to have confidence in the flesh, as Paul
described himself. He was zealous. He was devoted. He was a devout man. He was circumcised
the eighth day. He was of the stock of Israel.
These folks, probably like him, could tell you exactly what tribe
they were born of. They were zealous, they were
sincere, they were law-keeping, devout Jews. And they had a zeal
for God, but not according to knowledge. And some were proselytes. And not just the proselytes of
the gate, those that turn from idolatry, but wouldn't be circumcised. These were devout proselytes,
Gentiles who had been persuaded by Jewish teachers to forsake
idolatry, to walk according to the law, to observe the ceremonies
and be circumcised. And these are the ones mentioned,
devout, regarded by the Jews as Israelites. But though they
were made proselytes, as the Lord said, without knowing Him,
When they've been made a proselyte, they've been made a two-fold
more child of hell than they were before, than those that
converted them. Then we see here, they were out
of every nation under heaven. Verse 9 and 11, the Spirit of
God records the names of over 15 civilized nations from which
these devout men came. They traveled a great distance.
They were motivated by God's law and by God's prophets. They
came to Jerusalem because God's law required them to come to
Jerusalem at this time. And they obeyed Him and came
here at this time. They came to Jerusalem because
they thought God's prophet Daniel said this would be the time that
God would restore the natural kingdom to that nation called
Israel. This is the end of the 70 weeks right here. And they
knew that. If they were devout and had an
understanding, at least a carnal understanding, they knew something
was going to happen right now. His disciples, who knew Him. They didn't understand that.
They didn't understand what was going to happen right here. Remember
they asked, will you at this time restore the kingdom? But the lesson is that these
foul wretches that need salvation most are men like those mentioned
here. Natural men. Born in Adam, religious
though unregenerate. Zealous though not according
to knowledge. Why? Why do they need it? When
we are such as these, we not only have to be saved from our
sin, but we have to be saved from our imagined righteousnesses. Righteousness such as crucifying
the Lord of Glory while calling on the name of God. Peter makes no distinction here
when he begins to preach the gospel a little later, when he
says, ye with wicked hands, taken and crucified. He's preaching
to everybody there. Everybody there. What is one way I can examine
myself to see if this is my state? If I'm devout, but I don't have
an understanding. What's one way? Well, I know
this, I know that natural man, though he may be devout, he improperly
uses the law and the prophets as a witness, not to Christ and
Him crucified, but as a witness to self, to find assurance in
the flesh. But that's not what the law and
the prophets were given for. The law, remember Philip found
Nathaniel, and he said, we found him of whom Moses and the law
and the prophets did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph.
Romans 3.21, now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested,
but it's witnessed, it's testified of by the law and the prophets. Everything the law and the prophets
speak of is Christ. Remember what Paul said when
he started out there in Romans? He said, I've separated unto
the gospel of God. which He had before promised
by the prophets concerning His Son." Everything that's spoken
in the Law and the Prophets points to Christ. We've been looking
at that all through Hebrew. I know that's one way that we
can do this, that we can be devout and be sincere about it. But if we look to the Law to
try to find some assurance here, We're looking to the law to give
a witness to something in us. If we look to the prophets and
like some who search the scriptures and in them thought they had
life because they understood something about the scriptures.
We're not hearing who the scriptures give witness of. When you go,
you see a courtroom. Somebody stands up as a witness
they're testifying of what they know what they've seen what they've
heard What they understand and they they're an eyewitness to
it They're an eyewitness. That's the law and the prophets.
It's given by God to glorify God That's what they're given
for and he's his word his law and his prophets testify of him.
They testify of him now so The first thing I want you to understand
here is that these men, these ones who were devout, who had
traveled a long way, who had come to worship at Jerusalem,
who sincerely had a zeal for God. Just like Paul said, I bear
them record. They have a zeal of God, but
it's not according to knowledge. Because going about to establish
their own righteousness, they've not submitted themselves to the
righteousness of God, which is, or who is, Christ our Lord. He's
the righteousness of God. And so we see here that just
because they were at Jerusalem, just because they were devout
men, just because they had traveled great distances, just because
they were obedient to God's law, in traveling this far to be there
for the day of Pentecost. Just because they searched the
prophets and heard the prophet Daniel and may have thought that
this would be the time that God would restore His kingdom. That didn't make them righteous. This
was the place where God sent His people to preach the Gospel
first. Right back to the very place
where He'd been crucified. Right back to the very place
where The very best that religion could do was nail him to a tree. Back to that place. And then
secondly, I want you to consider those whom God used to proclaim
the gospel of His wonderful works to these people, to this multitude. Were they anybody? Was there
anything about them? Look here with me at verse 6.
Now, when this was noised abroad, Mighty rushing wind came and
it filled all the house where they were sitting, and there
appeared cloven tongues like as of fire, and it set upon each
of them. They were filled with the Holy
Ghost, and they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit
gave them utterance." This got out. This was noise abroad. The multitude came together and
were confounded. They were troubled, perplexed. Confounded because that every
man heard them speak in his own language They all heard them
speak in his own language And they were all amazed and marveled
saying one to another behold are not all these which speak
Galileans How here we ever men in our own
tongue wherein we were born? And they list all the nations. And they say there at the end
of verse 11, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful
works of God. Those who spoke the wonderful
works of God here, who God used. And I think the key here is you
need to consider how the men to whom they preached were described,
devout men. And these men who were doing
the preaching were Galileans. Galileans knew nothing other
than their native language. They were looked down upon as
despicable people. Unwise, unlearned, and unable
to teach anything worth knowing. So why would God choose Galileans
to preach to such devout men at Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost? Look over at 1 Corinthians 1.26. For you see your calling, brethren,
verse 26, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many
mighty, not many noble, they're wise, they're mighty, and they're
noble according to the flesh. They may be devout according
to the law as it says in one place in Acts. But God hath chosen
the foolish things of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the weak
things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.
And base things of the world, and things which are despised,
hath God chosen. Yea, and things which are not,
to bring to nothing the things that are. These unlearned Galileans
are the base things. They're the foolish things of
the world. They're the weak things of the
world, the base things of the world, things despised. That's
what caused these men at Jerusalem to be so amazed and to marvel. First of all, you got these unlearned
Galileans and they're speaking in our own language? They're
speaking in a language where we grew up. They've been dispersed
into all these nations and learned these different languages. And
they come back here and they hear these men, these unlearned
Galileans each speaking in their own language. But not just that,
they hear them speaking of the wonderful works of God. They hear them explaining things
to them and declaring things to them about the law and the
prophets that they didn't even know, that they never understood. They heard something about redemption. They heard something about this
lamb. It's not just the bringing of
a lamb. It's the one that we nailed to
the cross. He's the Lamb. Our chief act of disobedience
was His chief act of obedience. Our chief act of rebellion was
His chief act of salvation in saving a people from themselves,
from their own sin. And they began to hear these
things. You reckon they had just walked with, the Lord had just
been with them for 40 days, off and on for 40 days, and He had
spoken to them and opened the Scriptures to them. From beginning
to end. If we just had the Scriptures
opened to us by the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, and sent fresh,
baptized in the Holy Ghost, to go in and preach His Word, Peter
stood up with a message. Peter stood up with a message,
speaking the wonderful works of God. So there, you see, there
was nothing about these men that commended them. There was nothing
about these men that would cause men to look on them and think
anything of them. But quite the contrary, there
was everything about them for men to look on them and just
be perplexed and say, how can this be? and the men to whom
they spake and preached the gospel of God's free grace, there was
nothing in them. Nothing. There was nothing in
them to commend them to God whatsoever. Because they were Jews, did that
make them any better? They had the oracles of God.
But that didn't make them any more likely to be the sons of
Abraham, the true sons of Abraham, the spiritual sons of Abraham.
For he's a Jew, not one outwardly, but which is in the heart, circumcisions
of the heart, not in the flesh. It's not of blood that we're
saved. It's not of pedigree that we're
saved. These proselytes who had forsaken
the Gentile, who had forsaken their country and their people
and come over, were they any better for having done that? No. They weren't any better for
having done that. Better off, maybe. But not any
better as far as the grace of God is concerned. We can't earn
salvation. Salvation is by grace. If it
becomes something that which commends us to God, it ceases
to be grace. And then it turns into a work
whereby we believe God owes us this. But see here, God's taking people
and using people and revealing himself in people here on the
day of Pentecost, none of which had anything in them good for
God to show any grace to whatsoever. Nothing. Not at all. And then
I want you to see here, consider the two-fold response of those
that heard the Gospel in their own language. Verse 12, And they
were all amazed, and were in doubt, or perplexed, and saying
one to another, What meaneth this? And then there was others
who mocked and said, These men are just full of new wine. There's
two different responses here. There's a response, an honest
inquiry of, what does this mean? This got their attention and
they realized something's going on here. These men can't do this
of themselves. We need to look into this. And
others just dismissed the whole thing and said, these men are
full of new wine. What did the Lord warn His apostles
of? He said, if they've called me
Beelzebub, they're going to call you that too. The servant's not
above his Lord. They called the Lord a winebibber.
That's what they're calling them. But you know something too? One
of the writers pointed this out. I thought it was really good
that those who had remained in Jerusalem and lived in Jerusalem,
stayed in Jerusalem, that had not dispersed out to other countries. They didn't have the opportunity
that God gave to those that he dispersed into other countries.
And it gives you an idea of why he dispersed them into other
countries. They went into another country and learned some other
languages. They still knew their native language, I'm sure, but
they learned some other languages. They came back and they were
able to tell. that these men were speaking
in their own individual languages. And to those that stayed, that
were in Jerusalem, that only knew their native tongue, to
them, all they heard was what I heard when I heard people speaking
Spanish in Mexico. It just sounded like gibberish
to me. But some of them heard it, and
they heard it in their own tongue, and they said, these men are
preaching the gospel. Now, why would God save some devout sinners
at Jerusalem, at this place. And why would He use unlearned
Galileans? And why would He pass by some
and leave them just mocking His ambassadors? Why would God do
that? Well, back over there in 1 Corinthians
1, in verse 29, It says that no flesh should
glory in His presence, but of Him are you in Christ Jesus. He put His people in Christ Jesus,
blessed them with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places,
in Christ, before He made the world. According as He chose
His people, elected them unto salvation in Christ Jesus. And
in time of God, Christ is made unto each of them wisdom. Christ is our wisdom. Without
Christ, we can't discern the things of God. Everything God
has to say is in Christ. So how are we going to understand
anything about God outside of Christ, other than just factual,
historical information. I'm talking about saving wisdom. And God makes Christ righteousness
to us. We see that in Christ Jesus,
there is where God, He's the one that God set forth. We're
justified freely by God's grace. Christ is the one God set forth
to be a propitiation through faith in His blood. He's the
mercy seat that the law pointed to the whole time. Think that
might be what they were speaking of when they spoke of the wonderful
works of God? This is the propitiation. This Christ Jesus is the mercy
seat. He's the one that's been typified
for years and years and years and years and years in our law
that God gave us. This is Him. He's come and we've
rejected Him. And of God is He made unto us
sanctification. Sanctification is to be set apart
and to be used by God for His holy use. To be set apart and
to be used by Him. To be made perfect for His use. He wouldn't use anything that's
not perfect. Not in eternity with Him. But Christ is all our separation. He's all our requirement. He's all that we need to come
into the presence of God. He's all of that to us. He's
our sanctification. And He's our redemption. He bought
us. He purchased His people with
His own blood. That according as it is written,
He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord. God takes nobody's
and saves nobodies who think themselves somebodies to teach
everybody involved that he's the only one worthy to be glorified.
Period. Period. That your faith should
not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God. In the
power of God. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3
18 let no man deceive himself if any man among you seemeth
to be wise in this world Let him become a fool that he may
be wise for the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God
For it is written. He taketh the wise in their own
craftiness And again, the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise
that they are vain just vain Who maketh thee to differ from
another? Who made the difference here? Who made the difference?
Who caused one people to go to say, what meaneth this? And who
caused the others to just, left the others alone just to mock
and say, they're just full of new wine. God made the difference. This is the beginning of the
work of grace in the hearts of the people. To say, what means
this? What is this about? You think about it. Man's pretended
wisdom and his power built a tower to God. Thinking he could build
a tower to God. We talked about this. Some of
the fellows did. And God separated men because
of our vain wisdom. Separated us. Gave us these various
languages and confounded us so we couldn't even communicate
with one another about the wonderful works of God. But it's by God's
wisdom and power that he brought his people out of every nation
and language to sit under the sound of his voice, and gave
them the means to hear it, and gave them the heart to hear it,
and the ears to hear it. He did that. It was by man's
pretended righteousness and faithfulness that we nailed the Lord of glory
to the cursed tree while we called on God's name, pretending to
be righteous and faithful. but it was by God's grace that
the Lord of all righteousness first sent the law of liberty
to the very city where he accomplished our redemption. Send his people
to the people who nailed him to the cross. That ought to be
great comfort for me and you, brethren. If his elect, there
was some of his elect in this multitude, and if Those of His
elect nailed Him to the cursed tree, spit in His face, ridiculed
Him, mocked Him, scourged Him. If there was some among that
crowd that He loved everlastingly and that couldn't change His
love for them, that ought to give us great hope, great encouragement. He's God. He does not change. Do you think that you and I would
have sent our brethren into a city where our dear son had just been
nailed to a tree to have mercy on those people, to be gracious
to those people? We're not God. And thank God,
God's not us. He does not change. Those that
he's loved everlastingly, he will love everlastingly. There's
nothing we can do to change it, to destroy that, to alter it. One iota. It was man's pretended
obedience to the law and the prophets that brought them to
Jerusalem on Pentecost. I say pretended obedience because
I don't doubt that they were devout. I don't doubt that they
had a zeal. I don't doubt that they were
sincere. But outside of Christ, that doesn't
help us. It doesn't help us. It was mercy and grace that brought
them to believe on Christ, their Lord and Savior. Did you hear
what I said now? It was the law and the prophets
that brought them to Jerusalem. but it was mercy and grace that
brought them to Christ. God's law and His prophets always
serve His purpose. They always bring His people
to where they're supposed to be, to Christ. You know, really, we don't come
to the doctrine of Christ, we come to the Christ of the doctrine. I know a little more now about
the doctrine of Christ than I did when, by His grace, He brought
me to Christ of the doctrine. You understand what I'm saying? So what can we say to these things?
Well, look at 2 Corinthians 2.14. I hope this has given you some
comfort and encouragement. I struggle with that word, devout.
I struggle with it. Because it is used to describe
some people. We'll see it in Acts. But even
where it's used to describe people who believed on the Lord, it's
used to show their devotion to God and obeying the law. These
men did that, no doubt about it. But without Christ, That's
zeal without true wisdom. That's zeal without salvation. Is that what saves me? Is God
going to look down and say, well, He was sincere about it. He meant
to obey me. He tried every way He could to
obey me. And as far as it looked outwardly, He obeyed me. God
knows the heart. That's what he told the Lord.
You know there when he said, a man can't serve God and man,
and the Pharisees ridiculed him? He said right after that, he
said, the law and the prophets were until John. And he said,
and after he came, the kingdom of God is preached and men press
to enter into it, to him, the kingdom of God. The Law and the Prophets brought
them to Jerusalem. Grace and mercy brought them
to Christ. Do you see that? And the whole of it was grace
and mercy through the Law and the Prophets. But here's what
we can say, 2 Corinthians 2.14. Now thanks be unto God, which
always causeth us to triumph in Christ. and maketh manifest
the savor of his knowledge by us in every place. For we are
unto God a sweet savor of Christ." Now mark this now, in them that
are saved and in them that perish. You mean this was a sweet savor
unto God of Christ in these that ask this question, what meaneth
this? And in them that mocked? Yeah, in both of them. For to
the one we are the saver of death unto death, and to the other
the saver of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these
things? For we are not as many which
corrupt the word of God, but as of sincerity, but as of God. In the sight of God speak we
in Christ. So whether we have a huge crowd
on one Sunday and the next we don't. Whether we have a large crowd
over a period of time, and then one day we don't. Or whether God adds to it in
abundance. Either way, you know what we
can say? Thanks be unto God. He's the
one that's doing all His good pleasure. And He does it towards
sinners, the vilest of sinners. And He uses the vilest of sinners
saved by grace to do it. And He passes by some so that
those that are saved by grace will go to their grave singing,
I'm saved by grace. All by grace. By free, sovereign
grace. That's how we're saved.