Acts chapter 2. Acts begins with
the disciples waiting on the Lord. We have the Lord's last
words to the disciples, telling them to wait in Jerusalem. Wednesday
night, we looked at that very passage and the message was titled,
Wait on the Lord. I find it interesting, or even
we could use the word ironic. That's exactly what we do, isn't
it? We wait on the Lord. We wait on Him when we come here.
We're begging Him. We're waiting to see if He'll
reveal His face, to see if He'll cause us to rest. uh, to see
if he'll allow us to worship. And all that we're really begging
for is what he's already promised. What he's already promised that
we're two or three are gathered together in my name. There I am in the
midst. He's given us the desire to see him. Uh, he said, I will
in no wise cast you out coming to me, coming to me. I'll in
no wise cast you out. Chapter two begins by saying
when the day of Pentecost was fully calm. This was the chosen
appointed time when the Lord purposed to send his spirit,
to send the comforter. You remember the disciples begged
the Lord, said, Lord, don't leave us, don't leave us. He said,
it's expedient for me to go away. If I go not away, the comforter,
the comforter cannot come. And the comforter, we know his
responsibility is the calling of the Lord's people. That's
the comforter's responsibility. That's the spirit's job. That's
what he does, revealing Christ Christ didn't go away, the Comforter
could not come. Now the time has come. Now the
appointed time, the purposed time for the Lord Spirit to come.
We know that the disciples waited 10 days. We saw that on Wednesday
night. They prayed for 10 days waiting, and now that time has
finally come. Now the disciples were only praying for that which
the Lord has promised, but many people will often do things because
they think that it's going to force God to respond, or it makes
them better than others, or it causes them to sit a little bit
higher so the Lord will take notice of them. Not the believer,
not the child of God. We don't want the Lord to notice
anything about us, do we? Or don't look at me, look at
my substitute, look at Christ. That's our hope, isn't it? And
in the meantime, we just wait on him to order and provide.
The Lord reveals his truth. The Lord reveals his truth to
his people that anything spiritual. Anything spiritual must come
from him. Grace comes from him alone. Mercy comes from him alone. Righteousness
comes from him alone. Salvation is of the Lord. It
comes from him alone. Faith. Faith is by his grace
alone. It's all by him, isn't it? It's
all completely. completely by God's grace alone. Understanding, wisdom, righteousness,
sanctification, those are things that we can't produce or things
that we can't acquire or merit based upon what we do. Those
are all things that come from Him. The disciples knew this,
so they were waiting until the Lord's appointed time. That's
what you and I do. We wait until the Lord's appointed time. We
beg for His promises and we wait until is a point of time. We
don't brag that we know something that someone else doesn't know.
I was talking to somebody recently and they were, he was an intellectual
man. I could, if I can put it that
way, he, his righteousness was based upon what he knew. The
knowledge that he had gained about doctrines, not a person,
but doctrines. And he was bragging about how
much he knew about theology and different things, made my head
spin. I didn't even, I didn't enjoy the conversation. It wasn't
impressing me. And it was just annoying. I didn't get any peace
out of it whatsoever. It was just complicated. You
know, it was just, uh, I used the term before, uh, you, you
take a race car and put it in a mud hole. It's not going to
go very fast. It's going to make a big mess, but it's just, you
know, going, speedometer says it's going fast, but it's doing
nothing. And that's kind of what this guy was doing, talking and
I was exhausted with it, but. The Lord's people don't brag
about what they know. They brag about who they know,
not because they are the ones that knew Him, but because He
first knew them. We brag about our Savior, don't
we? We don't brag about ourself, not about what we know. We brag
about His grace. We brag about Him, His finished
work. That's our focal point of righteousness. That's all we have is Him. And
when we're made to see that he gets all the glory, we say with
Paul, where is boasting then? Where is boasting then? We see
he gets all the glory and everything spiritual comes from him. And
I mean everything spiritual. We can't produce anything spiritual.
When we see that, where's boasting then? It's excluded. It's excluded. We rejoice in the Lord. We hear
in chapter two, the fullness of God's time had come for him
to send his spirit. And I like the thought of Everyone
that was meant to be there, they were there. I love that. Everybody
that was meant to be here this morning, guess what? You're here. Nobody else is supposed to be
here, but we don't make excuses. Well, if I'm supposed to be there,
God will get me there. Well, that's a foolish thing to say,
isn't it? No, we purpose to be here and the Lord honors. He
chooses to put us here or prevent us, but that being said, Everyone
that was purposed to be there was there, and they were in one
mind and one accord, and God gave them the gifts of tongues
that day. Now, that's a very controversial
subject in religion, but it is not controversial with the Lord's
people. What is tongues, you might ask? Well, look in verse
four of chapter two. It says, and they were all filled
with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as
the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem
Jews, devout men, out of every nation under heaven. Don't miss
that. Every nation under heaven. Now, when this was noised abroad,
the multitude came together and were confounded, because that
every man heard them speak in his own language. And they were
all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not
these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in
our own tongue wherein we were born? And then they list all
the nations that at that time were on the face of the earth.
All the nations were represented there. Tongues is when everybody could
hear in their own language. The Lord caused these disciples
to be able to speak in different languages, but the miracle was
everyone heard in their own language. Every language was spoken that
day and everyone heard the gospel that day. It's the work of the
Holy Spirit, isn't it? Again, again, it's spiritual. It has to come from him. It's
not something that we conjure up. It's not something we work
up. It's not gibberish. It's not gibberish, rubbish, whatever
you want to call it. It's not that at all. It's not that at
all. It's not something that draws
attention to the flesh. Everyone understood perfectly
clear what was being spoken. Every word was understood in
their own language. Men talk about, I've been to
churches, Pentecostals, apostolic churches. I've been to many different
churches, but I told you last time, if you say tie my bow tie
and tie my bow tie really fast, it'll sound like speaking in
tongues. Another one is I bought a Kawasaki, should have bought
a Honda. And you can sit up there and you can say that over and
over again and somebody will get stirred up and they'll start
waving their hands. They'll get excited. It's a stirring.
That's not of the spirit. The spirit does not draw attention
to himself. No, the spirit speaks of Christ. And that's what these men heard.
That's what these women heard. They heard the gospel clear as
crystal in their own language. That's what tongues is. That's
the gift that the Lord gave to these men that day. They could
speak the word and those men heard in their own language.
They could speak the same language of the people they were speaking
to. You and I would have to study to learn a new language, not
these men. It was the gift of the Spirit. Do we see that? That's
what this tongues is. It's not complicated, and it's
certainly not confusing. This gift was given so that men
and women could hear in their own language. That day God called
his preachers to speak the gospel in every language. And I love
this thought, and I keep saying that when I'm preaching of late,
I love this, I love it, all of it, but the Lord showed me this
thought. Their message is the exact same
message that we declare now. It's the exact same gospel. It
hasn't changed since the day of Pentecost. It hasn't changed
since the foundation of the world, has it? Not one thing's been
added to the gospel and not one thing's been taken away from
it. There's only one thing that saves sinners. That's Christ
Jesus himself. That's the blood of the lamb.
It's his choosing. It's his saving. It's his calling.
It's his keeping. He's the one that does it. Now
when they heard, and understand every man heard in their own
language, but we have two different responses, two different responses
to the hearing. Look with me in verse 12. These
are the same men. They just told all the nations
that were present there. All of them said, look at verse
11, and that's the last two that he mentions. The Cretans and
the Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful
works of God. And they were all amazed and
were in doubt, saying one to another, what meanest these?
Others mocked, said these men are full of new wine. That's
one response, isn't it? When a man hears. When a man
hears or a woman hears the gospel, men and women by nature do not
like this gospel. They mock. They say, no, no,
we will not have that man reign over us. No, I've made a choice.
I have a choice to make. And they make it about themselves,
don't they? That's what men and women do by nature. And that's
what the picture here is. Every time the gospel goes forth,
they saw these men speaking in their own language and they said,
well, they're just drunk. You know, they're out of their
mind. Isn't that what men do by nature? They just mock the
Lord and his truth. We can't believe, can we, unless
he causes us to. Lord, give us your faith. Calls
us not to think that we believe. Calls us to believe. Calls us
to believe. Every single one of these individuals,
it says, they were all amazed. In verse 12, all amazed. Every
single one were amazed. Some of them believed, as we're
going to hear in the next few verses, and some of them mocked.
And that's the two responses. God's gospel has not been popular
since the Garden of Eden. Remember? What happened in the
garden of that was the lie that Eve could fix it. Eve could be
God herself. Well, the gospel is that he's
God, he's all sovereign, and he must choose to do in order
for us to be saved. Well, the lie came in and Eve
said, well, I can be like God myself. I can make a choice.
Who was offering men a choice in the garden? It wasn't God.
He said, don't eat of that. God didn't give Eve and Adam
a choice. He said, don't do it. And who did give him a choice?
Well, it was Satan, wasn't it? He said, go ahead and take that.
You will not surely die. God's a liar. That's what he
said. That's what he was saying. And she did. And she did. She
took that forbidden fruit. God's gospel has not been popular
then. It wasn't popular here in Acts
chapter two, and it's not popular today. It's just not popular. Only those that God has purposed
will hear this gospel, will rejoice in this gospel. Those that have
been ordained to eternal life will hear. Look in verse 47 with
me. The end of the chapter, last verse. We'll look at this again
later, but only those that can hear will hear. These were all
at the ends, praising God and having favor with all the people
and the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved. I love that wording, don't you?
Those that were ordained to eternal life, those that should be saved,
they were saved. They were saved. Those whom the
Lord purposed to save, he saved them. And those he did not purpose,
he passed by. Everyone else will mock and hate
it. And we find out in chapter three that Peter and John, they
go up to a temple and we're gonna stay in chapter two and we're
gonna turn one other place here in just a few minutes. But later
on, Peter and John, after this takes place, they go up to the
temple to pray. They met a lame man who was begging for alms
And he says, silver and gold have I none, but such as I have,
give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and
walk. And immediately he gained strength. He lifted him up. He
walked. Well, the Pharisees and the high priest had a problem,
but it wasn't with the fact that they had healed the lame man.
They didn't mind that at all. Oh yeah. If you do that, do that
in the name of Jehovah. Do that in the name of I am.
Do that in the name of God. Don't do it in the name of Jesus
Christ. and they threatened to kill them because of that name.
They threatened to kill them. And Peter and John, whenever
they gave their testimony, then they said, what can we speak
other than what God has told us to speak? Should we, and they
asked the perfect question to them, said, should we obey your
voice or the voice of God? That was their question. Well,
that's an obvious answer, isn't it? The voice of God. But even
then they didn't hear. They said, no, don't preach in
the name of Jesus or we will kill you. And they let him go.
That's the same problem that men and women have today. It's
not baby Jesus. It's the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the problem that men have. All that these men were doing
was just preaching Christ and his gospel. And they hated him for it. They
hated him for it. Paul, the apostle, I would remind
us. He was stoned to death. He died. He went up to the third heaven,
the scripture says, and he heard things that was not lawful for
men to other. Why was he stoned to death for preaching the gospel? That was it. That was it. God
brought him back to life. His work was not done yet, but
he was stoned to death. How many times we see imprisonment?
God's people, God's preachers being beaten, beheaded, being
stoned, all the prophets of old. And what was it for every time?
The truth. The truth, that's all they were
declaring. The truth. Just faithfully declaring God's
gospel to elected sinners. And they say, away with this
man, away with this man. And we won't have this man reign
over us. And just because the times have changed and say, well,
we're getting better. No, we're not. Not when it comes
to the things of the Lord, evil men and seducers shall wax worse
and worse. Time has not, from then till
now, time has not made our hearts grow better, but worse and worse. Evil men and seducers shall wax
worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. What is the method
of deceit used? you can do something to fix your
sin problem. That's the method of deceit,
isn't it? There's something you can do to help God out, to fix
your sin problem. Now, it's not true, is it? Because
it's not true, men have had to not only fabricate that lie,
but also fabricate an imaginary Jesus they think he's real. By
choosing him, by making him Lord, by allowing him to do something,
by letting him be God, And if you tell men and women that Christ
Jesus is both Christ and Lord, that's what I've titled this,
Lord and Christ. If you tell them he's Lord and Christ, they
get angry because that makes him seated. That makes him successful. That makes the work of salvation
completely undependent of you and I in any way. Men will take God and make him
puny and weak. and unable to do anything unless
they let him. How many people do you know that get offended
at baby Jesus? Not very many. I'm sure there's,
uh, other religions and things, but in the, then the churches
and the, in the so-called Baptist realm, the, the, even the Pentecostal,
whatever, how many people get angry at baby Jesus? Very few,
very few. They say, God gave the world
a gift. All we have to do is choose to accept it. But as soon
as you tell them the truth, that it's not your choosing, it's
not your acceptance, it's his. And the only thing he accepts
is Jesus Christ. And the only thing that he has
a purpose to save is those whom he chose. You tell people that,
they hate you. They'll hate you for it. It's
just evident here, evident all throughout the scripture. Everyone except the Lord's people
get offended. The moment we say Christ is God,
He's sovereignly seated, successful Redeemer, you use those terms,
people just don't want to hear that. Tell men that He doesn't
love everybody, that He didn't die for everybody, that it's
salvation all by grace. That's our only hope, isn't it?
It's all by grace. That is the only hope that we
have. And yet men will use terms like
grace and don't even know what grace is. Grace is not something
we acquire by our merits or our works, it's by a gift, the gift
of God. This is the same message that
Peter and John declared to the lame man, the same message Paul
declared, the same message the apostles, the disciples were
declaring on the day of Pentecost. That's what I hope to declare
to you this morning. The same exact message. Unchanged,
we mustn't take the offense of the gospel out. If we do, we're
failing to preach the gospel. Peter stands up on this day,
and I love that. I love how he's it says you can
look right here, verse 14, but Peter standing up with the 11
lifted up his voice. So Peter hears these these murmurings,
these doubters, these nonbelievers talking. Oh, they're just drunk
men. And Peter stands up. He didn't back down this time,
did he? He didn't run away and hide whenever he was brought
into question, did he? Why? Well, he wasn't confident
in his flesh. And that was the point. First
time he was confident in the flesh. That's why he, he denied
the Lord because obviously the Lord told him he's going to,
and it was necessary. We see that very clearly, but he didn't
deny the Lord this time. Why? Because he was confident
in the Lord, confident in his spirit, not confident in Peter. He knew what he was talking about.
He knew whom he believed at this point. Do we see that? That's
the difference, isn't it? Where's our confidence lie? If
it's in ourself, in our doing, we're gonna be like Peter and
deny him in the end, ultimately. But if our confidence in what
he's done, oh, there's rest, there's hope, confidence in what
he has done. Now look with me. Verse 22, for the sake of time,
we're not gonna read the entire sermon that Peter preaches, but
I wanna read a few verses here. Verse 22, he stood up, now he's
speaking, and he says, you men of Israel, hear these words.
Jesus of Nazareth, the man approved of God among you by miracles
and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you
as you yourself also know. Him being delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God you 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. Now look with me in verse 32.
This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses. 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 saith unto my Lord sit
thou here on my right hand until I make thine enemy, until I make
thy foes thy footstool. Therefore, let all the house
of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus
whom ye have crucified both Lord and Christ. That's the title
of the message, Lord and Christ. God made him Lord and Christ. He was the God man. He was the
God-man. He wasn't just a man. He was
Lord and Christ. He was appointed by God. He was ordained of the Father.
He was approved. Isn't that what he said? A man
approved of God? He was approved of God. He was
the only one that had God's approval. That made him Christ. His blood made him. Who he was
made him Christ. Who his father was made him Christ. And he tells them, by our wicked
hands we've taken and slain him. Now that's what Cain did, wasn't
it, to Abel? And Abel's blood cried out for vengeance, didn't
it? What about our brother, Lord Jesus Christ? What about our
Savior? Whenever our hands, our sin, nailed him to the cross.
Does vengeance come forth from that by justice demanding it? No. No, justice was satisfied,
wasn't it? He satisfied justice for his
people. He put away our sin. He was bearing
those sins in His own body. He's the Lord and Christ. God
did that. God had highly exalted Him because
He was successful on the cross. God exalted His Son. The very
hate that we had in our heart towards God and Christ, He bore
that sin. He bore that hate. If we had no sin, Our sin was
the cause of his death, wasn't it? If we had no sin, Christ
would never had to die, would he? If we had had no sin, our
sin was the reason he had to die, to pay the debt we could
not owe, to redeem us back to God, to fulfill the covenant
of grace. And if he doesn't do it as God's Christ, as our Christ,
we have no hope. He's got to do it himself. He's
the only one qualified. Scripture says clearly without
the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sin. And every
single sin of God's elect was placed upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
It says he nailed them to his cross and he put them away. He
put them all away. Think about this, even the murder,
even the murder of God's son in our heart, Christ bore that
sin. The murder that we have by the
flesh saying away with this man, crucify him. That's what our
flesh would do. Somebody said one time to me, if I was there,
I would have tried to help him. No, we wouldn't. Now, if we were
in the flesh, we would, we would hate him just like everyone else,
crucify him. And he must, we know that he must die. We know
that that was purposed, but in the flesh, that's what Peter's
problem. He had confidence in the flesh. Not anymore. Not when
he's preaching this, he says, no, it's Christ. He's Lord and
Christ. It's all about him. It's all about his finished work.
God has exalted him. And the very sin that we are,
the very sin that we do, Christ took every bit of it. Even the
sin. in our hearts against Him, the
murder in our hearts towards Him, towards Him being God. Because His sacrifice was accepted,
because His offering was sufficient. Every single sin was put away.
God was satisfied. God raised him up. He loosed
the pains of death. I love it. It says it wasn't
possible. It was impossible for death to hold him. He couldn't
be holding of it. It was impossible. Why? Because he's Lord and Christ.
Because he's Lord and Christ. You and I die, we're neither.
Our only hope is to be found in him. Isn't that right? Our
only hope is to be buried with him and resurrected with him,
to have died with him. And he, as our surety, stands
in our stead, that he as our substitute is our righteousness
before God. Philippians 2.9 tells us, God
hath highly exalted him and given him a name, which is above every
name, that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow of things
in heaven, things in earth of things under the earth and every
tongue should confess what Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of
God the Father Jesus Christ is Lord men don't have any problem
preaching Jesus everyone has a problem except the Lord's elect
with the Lord Jesus Christ he's totally sovereign in his lordship
he is seated he is successful he is the Redeemer that's why
Some mocked and some didn't believe. That's why the high priest had
a problem with him. He's God. Men will not have God
reign over them. They want to be their own God.
That's by design. That's just how we are, isn't
it? If we ever separate the Lord
from the Christ, one from the other, we fail to preach the
gospel. We must preach both. We must, if a man is preaching
the gospel, he will preach Christ as both Lord and Christ. He won't
just talk about a story about the Lord healing someone. He'll
tell you how he did it, why he did it, and for whom he did it.
He'll tell you about how God elected a people and Christ redeemed
a people and the spirit regenerates those people in time. That's
his Lordship. That's who he is. He's Christ
and that's all, the only one that was qualified to do all
that, to do the redemptive work. Paul said, woe is me, for though
I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory in. For necessity is
laid upon me. Woe is me if I preach not the
gospel. If I divide Christ from Lord, I'm failing. We must declare
it clearly and plainly. The gospel never declares man's
goodness. It shows the lack thereof, doesn't
it? It shows his goodness. So it makes us need him. It doesn't
point to us in any way of what we've done or what we can do.
It points to him. Gospel never says do, does it?
It says done. Gospel doesn't say work. It says
it's finished. Isn't that right? Gospel never gives glory to anyone
or anything but God. God. If a man is to preach the gospel,
he must preach with clarity, giving God all the glory. Preaching
a partial truth is a lie. Did we know that? preaching a
partial truth. It's easy to have friends. They're not brothers. They're
my friends. They're preachers. And I'll talk to them every once
in a while. And I'll say you believe then we'll have conversation
about the Oh, yeah, I believe that 100%. I was like, Why don't
you preach it? One man told me so if I preach that I'd lose
my congregation. That's what he said. He's not telling the
truth to me. And this is this is life and
death, isn't it? This is serious. Someone else
says, yeah, well, I kind of preach it, but I don't really preach
it like you preach it. I was like, well, how do you preach it? He says, well,
it's not as harsh the way that I say, well, how do you say it?
He's preaching the lie. He's not, he's not preaching
it. He waters it down. Lord said, don't water it down. Don't let
it be sodden. Don't put water on it. No, eat
it, roast it with fire and eat it whole. Don't, don't change
the lamb. That's the only hope that we
have of salvation. Don't water it down whatsoever.
Take it as is. Take him as he is. That's the
only way he can be taken. And if you can, you will, because
he's caused us to have that. He caused the ability. And we
must be totally clear. Must be totally clear. Must preach
him as Lord and Christ. Lord over all. Lord over the
living. Lord over the dead. Lord over
heaven. Lord over the earth, Lord over
the universe, Lord over hell, Lord over all. That's how we
declare Jesus Christ. He's the creator of all things.
He created everything for his glory and purpose. He alone inhabits
eternity of Lord of all. Everything is for him and by
him and through him and to him. Period. It's all about him, isn't
it? It's all about the Lord Jesus
Christ and his finished work. Everything which was, which is,
and which is to come, He's Lord of. Not used to be, not going
to be, not if we let Him. No, He's Lord right now. Whether
I let Him or not, I can't let Him. And we know that, don't
we? We can't let Him do anything. He's Lord right now. Right now,
He always has been, He always will be. And the scripture says,
every knee will bow and every tongue will confess just that,
that Jesus Christ is Lord. Jesus Christ is Lord. Seeing
Him as Lord in Christ now is all by His grace. That's all
by His choosing and doing. We would not see Him as Lord
right now, but He allows us to see it now. What do we confess,
brethren? What is it we confess when we
come before Him? Father, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come,
thy will be done. You're Lord. I'm not Lord. You're
Lord. That's the heart that He gives.
That's what repentance gives, isn't it? Repentance, I'm getting
ahead of myself, I always do, but repentance is what gives
us the sight to see Him as Lord and faith gives us the sight
to see Him as Christ. So repentance is a changed mind
to God and faith is now given that we may see Christ as our
substitute in that. That's how we see in both Lord
and Christ, repentance and faith. It's the exact same thing, isn't
it? It's the exact same thing. Now look what these that heard
in mercy had to say in response to Peter in verse 37. Now, when
they heard this, they were pricked in their heart and said unto
Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall
we do? And 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 promise
is unto you and to your children and to all that are far off,
even as many as the Lord our God shall call. Even as many
as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words that
he testified and exhorts saying, save yourself from this untoward
generation. They ask the question, what shall
we do? Now we mustn't misunderstand
this question. I'll tell you the reason that
we must misunderstand this question is because they're not asking
for a work. They have already seen him as
Lord and Christ. How do we know? They call them
brethren. They acknowledge the truth with
them. And they say, well, what shall we do? Not, we'll give
us a work to do. That's not what they're asking
for here. They're not saying, well, give us something to do. We'll
fix it. No, no, no. What does the Lord give his people? What
does the Lord give his people when he gives them faith? It's
a desire, it's a desire to know the truth, isn't it? It's a desire
to know the truth. You shall know the truth, the
truth shall set you free. This is what they're asking for.
Well, we've heard the truth here, so what do we do with the truth?
What are we supposed to do with that? We're desolate, we're empty,
there's nothing we can do. What should we do? Who are we
gonna go to? Isn't that what the disciples
asked Christ? He said, are you gonna depart from me also? He
said, Lord, whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal
life. They were asking because their
hearts were pricked. That's how we know they were
believers. Their hearts were pricked. The
Spirit of God had been given to them to believe at this point.
This Acts 2.38, I've seen bumper stickers that said, have you
obeyed Acts 2.38? You ever seen those before? Well,
most of the time, it's part of the apostolic belief that this
is their salvation. You repent, which is contrition,
you show that you're sorry, you ask for forgiveness, then you're
baptized, and you receive the gift of the Spirit, and that's
the speaking in tongues they talk about. No, the gift of the Spirit
isn't speaking in tongues, it's eternal life. The gift of the
Spirit is the Lord Jesus Christ. The gift of the Spirit is faith
to look to Him, that's the gift. That's the gift of the Spirit.
It never draws attention to the Spirit, it draws attention to
the Lord. That's what the gift of the Holy Ghost is. Now at
this point, they were asking for instruction out of godly
fear and faith. This wasn't them asking what
they must do to fix their problem. Remember in John chapter six,
they came to the Lord said, Lord, what work might we work to do
the works of God? You remember that? What works?
That's not the same question these men are asking here. What
did the Lord say? This is the work of God that
you believe. That's his work. You can't work
that. He has to do that. He must and he will for his people.
He will. It's God's doing and it's his
purpose for his glory. So what does Peter tell him?
Repent. Understand something. Repentance is not penance. Repentance
is not penance. Repentance is not you fixing
it by feeling sorry enough. If that's the case, how sorry
do I need to feel in order to know I felt sorry enough? Do
you remember? hearing preachers, maybe some of you talking that
way, like you need to just be sorry for your sin, confess your
sin to him, feel guilty for your sin. And if you'll confess it,
he's faithful and just to forgive your sin. Well, that's true.
If we confess our sin, he's faithful and just to forgive it, but it
has nothing to do with how sorrowful we feel. Not at all. It has to do with the repentance
and faith that he's given. No, the father's looking at one
One sorrow, and that's the sorrow of Christ on the cross. He was
the one that was sorry enough. He was the one that was sorrowful
enough and it pleased the father. You and I can't be sorrowful
enough to please him. Now, repentance is the gift of
God. It's the gift of God to his people. God says, change
your mind. And our minds changed. That's
what repentance is. Our mind has changed instantly.
I don't know when it happened exactly, but when I heard the
gospel, and I mean heard with the, heard, heard, not just the
human way, but the Lord gives faith to believe it. Faith that
when that happened, it was just, I was born again. That's how
it works is we're born again. Like you just took a new breath
for the first time. You're just, you're alive. You open the scripture
and it rewrote itself. Everything about the gospel is
just beautiful and wonderful. And you see yourself as wretched
and vile and him, you see Lord in Christ. That's what we see.
And that's, that's the gift of the spirit. That's what the Holy
Ghost does. He does it through and by the preaching of his gospel.
He reveals his son, the Lord Jesus Christ. God says, live. When he does, he changes our
mind. He gives us repentance. Now we see him as Lord. And then
He calls us faith instantaneously to see Him as Christ. And we
run to Him. We flee to Him. Lord, have mercy
on me, the sinner. I see You as Lord, the sovereign,
successful Redeemer. I have no hope of bringing anything
I've done unto You. You will reject it. I need Christ. I need Him who is salvation. It takes the Lord's repentance
and faith to have that. We're going to turn right back,
so hold your place in Acts 2, but look in Acts 20. Just briefly. Acts chapter 20. Paul is called
the elders of the church of Ephesus, you know, the book of Ephesians.
He's called the elders of that church, the church of Ephesus.
And when he's assembled them together, he tells them many
things, but specifically what I want to look at is found in
verse 17. And from Miletus he sent to Ephesus
and called the elders of the church. And when they were come
to him, he said unto them, ye know from the first day that
I came into Asia after what manner I had been with you at all seasons,
serving the Lord with all humility of mind and with many tears and
temptations, which befell me by the lying and weight of the
Jews, and how I kept nothing that was profitable unto you,
but have showed you and have taught you publicly and from
house to house, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks,
repentance towards God and faith towards the Lord Jesus Christ. Repentance towards God and faith
toward our Lord Jesus Christ. See, that's the same message
that Peter's preaching. That's the same message Paul's
preaching. That's the same message that's throughout Genesis to
Revelation. It's repentance towards God and faith toward the Lord
Jesus Christ. And if we don't have that, We have no hope of
eternal life. That faith, the scripture says
that he gives, is our justification before God. Repentance reveals
him as Lord, and faith reveals him as Christ. Both are given
of God. Both are the gift of the Holy
Ghost. That's what Peter's talking about
here. Turn with me back to Acts 2.38. 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 ye shall receive the gift
of the Holy Ghost. Repent and be baptized every
one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. If we have been given repentance
and faith, we have been given the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We've been given the gift of the Holy Ghost. It's not tongues. The gift of the Holy Spirit is
not a super-Christian life. I saw a billboard on a church
that said, classes starting soon, how to live a super-Christian
life. I don't even know what that means. I don't want to know
what that means. But that's not the gift of the
Spirit, is it? No, it's repentance and faith. It's repentance and
faith, period. That's all that it is. It's eternal
life in the Lord Jesus Christ. But notice what else he says
here, to be baptized. Why does he say to be baptized? Baptism is the outward confession
of repentance and faith having been bestowed. Baptism is the
outward confession of repentance and faith having been bestowed. Baptism does not wash away sins. Some people take this and they
make a religion out of water baptism. They say, well, unless
you get dunked in water, there is no remission of sins because
he said right here, very clearly, be baptized every one of you
in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. Well,
what did the Lord, what did John the Baptist say about our Lord?
He says, I'm baptizing you with water, but he'll baptize you
with water. He'll baptize you with fire from
on high, from the Holy Spirit. That's where the remission of
sins are, the shed blood of Jesus Christ. So why be baptized then?
Because the Lord said so. The Lord gave us a command. When
he left with the disciples, he said, go into all nations, preaching,
preaching. He told them to preach the gospel.
He said, my mind, I can't remember the verse now, but he tells them,
declare the gospel unto him, baptizing everyone in the name
of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. That's what we do,
isn't it? That's the ordinance that we observe. Baptism doesn't wash
away our sins. It's the physical confession
of our hope and trust in his death, his burial, and his resurrection
as all of our justification before God, all of our righteousness
before God. That's why we're baptized. It's by his own blood
that he purged our sin, but if we have seen him as Lord and
Christ, we will desire to confess him. We will confess that he
is all. How do we do that? Well, first
in the heart, don't we? We confess in the heart. Scripture says
that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus, and
believe in thine heart, God hath raised him from the dead, thou
shalt be saved. But with the heart, man believeth unto righteousness,
and with the mouth confession is made into salvation. We don't
confess to men, we confess to God, don't we? Lord, I didn't
believe, now I believe, but help my unbelief. Lord, I see much
better since you struck me blind. I was blind. You're gonna have
to give me sight. I'm lame. You're gonna have to
give me legs. I'm dead. You're gonna have to make me
alive. That's what repentance and faith gives. And once we
see Christ, we desire to confess Him, don't we? We desire to confess
Him. But how do we confess? Well,
we confess all our hope is in His Lordship and sacrifice as
Lord and Christ. And how do we confess that? First
in the heart, with repentance and faith, then in baptism. We
also confess it when we take the Lord's table, don't we? That's
the second ordinance the Lord gave us. These are the only two
outward ordinances that we have given by God that he tells us
to observe. And neither of them add anything
to our salvation or take anything away from our salvation. Whenever
you were in love younger, whenever you were dating, You were engaged,
and I guess you're still in love if you're married, I hope. Go
sweeter with time, they say. I can testify to that. But you wanted to get married,
didn't you? We wanted to get married. I love
her. I want to marry her. What was that? That's a confession
of my love for her. Well, that's what that is. That
it looks like a casket because you're dying to self just like
a marriage. You're the wife in a marriage.
Does she not take the name of the man and become bone of his
bone and flesh of his flesh? It's a picture of Christ and
his church. Her literally being his made
of him. That's what baptism confesses. Is our love towards him and our
hope, our hope of his love toward us. That's what it confesses.
Don't ever think. that it's for salvation. No,
it's because of salvation, because we love him. Why do we love him?
Well, he first loved us. This is what they wanted to know.
We believe, now how do we confess? What do we do? How do we confess
that? Oh, you repent, be baptized. That's what he's telling them,
be baptized and confess his death, burial, and resurrection is all
of our hope to the glory of God alone. Now look in verse 41,
in closing, 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 prayer." Now look at verse 46. And they continued
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. I love that last part, as many
as should be saved, the Lord added them. The ones that could
hear, they heard. If we can repent, we will. If we can believe, it's because
he did it and we will. If we can come to Christ, we'll
come to Christ. If we can run to Him, we'll run to Him. But
it's all His doing. Do we see that? It's all His
work. And as many as should be saved
will be saved. We come confessing, don't we?
And what is it we confess? That He is Lord and that He is
Christ. Amen.