Alright, Acts chapter 2. This morning, my subject was Pentecostal preaching. And tonight, I'd like for us
to think together for a little while on what we're taught here
about worship, worshiping God, serving God, witnessing for the
glory of God. In other words, the message that
Peter preached at Pentecost is a pattern for us who preach today. And also the means and the methods
that these men used in those early days are the very means
and methods that we should be using today. Now I know that
in the natural world, in the material world, the secular and
scientific world, there's constant change, constant change. Some for good and some changes
not so good. But in the worship of the Lord, there is no change. We, it's
the same God, it's the same scripture. Sinners are the same, we worship
God the same way that Moses worshipped God, with the heart, the soul,
in Christ. We worship God exactly like these
early disciples worshipped God. and the preaching of the gospel.
It's the same gospel, same Bible, same Old Testament, New Testament,
same types, and shadows, and pictures, and same fulfillment,
and same Savior. That's the reason I try to go
verse by verse through this Word. Paul told young Timothy, preach
the Word. Not what you think, what God
says. When I wrote these Sunday school
lessons, I had no intention of printing them at all. I had no
intention of using them in any way except right here. For years,
I looked for good Sunday school material. We used Scripture Press
and Southern Baptist and different kinds, but I could never find
Sunday school lessons that were satisfying and true to the word.
One day I sat down in Romans chapter 1 and started writing
and giving them to you on mimeograph paper. And we studied them. We went through Romans and then
all the epistles. I was out in Texas in a meeting
and a man out there that has a printing company got hold of
the study on Galatians. And he came to hear me preach
one night, and he said, have you ever thought about putting
that in print? I said, not really. He said, well, it ought to be.
And I said, what would you charge to print the book of Galatians? He said, $5,000 would give you
1,000 of them, I believe, something like that, booklets, something,
I forget what it was. I said, well, maybe it was the
opposite, maybe 5,000 by 1,000. It was a long time ago. I said,
let's try it. So Janine Clark was here for
a Bible school one summer, and she took one of those little
booklets to England with her and gave it to her daddy, who
was then with Evangelical Press. And her daddy gave it to Mr.
Rubens, and Mr. Rubens wrote and said, have you
got more of those? I said, I've got 21 epistles.
He said, can we have the right to publish them in five languages? Spanish, Portuguese, French,
English, and then Russian later. Four then, five. So they were
printed. And so they sent one to France
in French. And one of the preachers got
hold of that commentary. And Bill was there in a meeting.
And Bill said that these are good, and they're being used,
and God's blessing them. Why don't you use them? Well,
he said, I don't particularly care for his commentaries. Bill
said, why? He said, well, all he says is
what God says in the Word. Bill said, I thought that's all
he's supposed to say, what God says in the Word. And that's
what we're supposed to preach. what God says in the Word. You're
not supposed to add anything to this. Preach the Word. You
can't improve on that. And the praise and prayer. I
just read David's prayer. I just heard Chuck pray, and
it sounded like to me. Don't it to you? As Chuck was
praying, I could hear David praying. We pray just like they pray.
We sing just like they sing. worship just like they worship.
Our methods are the same, our doctrines are the same. I tell
you this, any change in your worship, preaching, praise, prayer
or methods from what the scripture says is a departure from the
truth and from grace and from the will of God. Just change
anything. And you've just went out of business, as far as God's
concerned. That's so. Any change from the
way of the Word and the doctrines of the early church leads to
compromise and error. I've watched preachers through
the years, and they become a little uncomfortable with the doctrine
of particular redemption. And they try to make the sacrifice
of our Lord to be for everybody rather than the elect. And the
minute they do it, the minute they dabble with substitution,
they're headed the wrong way. And it's no telling where they
wind up. I've watched them. How can you improve on the teaching
of the Word? How can you improve on the preaching
of the apostles? How can you improve on the message
and the worship and the methods of the early church? This is
our pattern. The Word of God is our only rule
of faith and practice. Don't depart from the Word of
God. And I warn you about this. I warn you about this. Don't
you let any preacher ever come in here and take out the King
James translation and put in something else. That's right. Don't ever let it happen. God
has used this book, this translation more than any other because it's
the closest one to the original. It certainly is. Just don't stand
for it. Now here's my message. I've got
four points I'm going to get out of this scripture here. Number one is the message to
be preached. Number two is the results to
be sought. What are we trying to do? Number
three is the instructions to be given to those who are moved
by the message. There's some instructions. And
then there's some marks of those who really believe it. Now, what's
the message? Well, let's look here. I talked
about it this morning. In Acts 2 verse 22, ye men of
Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man, but more
than a man, no ordinary man, he's the God man. He's a man
approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs
which God did by him in the midst of you as you yourselves also
know. Turn to Romans 1. This is the
man he's talking about, the God-man. In the beginning was the Word,
the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And Paul talks
about him here. In Romans 1, verse 1, Paul, a
servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated to
the gospel of God, which he promised afore by his prophets and the
holy scriptures. This gospel of God is concerning
his son. That's what the gospel is all
about. It's about Christ. Concerning his son, Jesus Christ
our Lord. The man, now watch this, which
was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. He was
made what he wasn't. A body has to have prepared me.
A man, God ordained and God sent. A body, God prepared. But now
it's the next line. He was made of the seed of David.
He was declared to be the Son of God with power. He wasn't made to be God. He
was already God. He was declared to be. He was
made to be what he wasn't. That he might be our representative,
but he was declared to be who he is. He's the Son of God. All
right, back to my text. And this Savior, verse 23, he's
a covenant redeemer. He was delivered by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God. You have taken, you have
taken and you by wicked hands have crucified and slain. Men
crucified Christ. He was in the world and the world
knew him not. He came to his own and his own received him
not. Crucify him. They took him, stripped him,
nailed him to the cross. When he died they took him down
and put him in a grave. But it's God. who sent Christ
to the cross. Turn to Isaiah 53. He was delivered
into the hands of evil men to do what they would do by God. All right, Isaiah 53, verse 10. Isaiah 53, 10. Yet men crucified
him. Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise
him. Who bruised him? The Roman soldiers. Yep. The Jewish priests. and leaders, yep, but pleased
God to bruise him. And God was pleased in the bruising.
You see, all these animal sacrifices and lambs and bullocks and heat
and goats, sheep and goats never pleased God. God was never pleased
with those sacrifices, never satisfied justice or God's righteousness,
but Christ's death pleased him. This is my son in whom I'm well
pleased. He pleased God. God put him to
grieve. Verse 10, Isaiah 53. God made
his soul an offering for sin. He shall see his seed prolong
his days in the pleasure of the Lord. This is the pleasure of
the Lord being accomplished. Christ died before the Lord.
Back there, those Old Testament sacrifices were offered unto
God. They weren't offered to people,
or before people, or to get people in the right kind of note. They
were offered to God. The blood before the Lord. The
blood before the Lord. That's what it says over and
over again. To satisfy God's justice. That's why Christ died.
That's why He suffered. The just for the unjust bring
us to God. Alright, back to Acts 2. Verse
24 says God raised Him up. God hath raised him up, having
loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible he should
be holding thereof. Turn to Acts 17. When God raised
him up, he raised him up as a representative. He was the first begotten, the
firstborn of the dead. First begotten, and because he
lives, we live. Look at Acts 17, verse 31. Because God hath appointed a
day, in which ye have judged the world in righteousness by
that man." That's how he's going to judge you and me? By that
man. In that man. In that man. "...whom he hath
ordained, whereof he hath given assurance to all men." What is
that assurance? Raised him from the dead. Paul said, who can condemn me?
Christ died, yea rather is risen again, who is even at the right
hand of God. who ever lives to make intercession
for us. Down here in verse, now 36 of
Acts 2. That's our message. That's the message they preached
at Pentecost. That's my message. Therefore,
that all the house of Israel, all believers, all God's elect,
all of his chosen ones, all of true Israel know assuredly, confidently,
without doubt, that God Almighty hath made that same Jesus, whom
you crucified, Lord of lords, King of kings, he's the Christ,
he's the Messiah, he's the Redeemer of Israel. He's our hope, our
salvation, our life, he's everything. He's our forerunner, he's already
entered in to heaven and occupied it for us. And he'll bring us
to himself. That's the message. That's the
message I preached here, that's the message I preached this morning,
that's the message I preached tonight. God willing, Wednesday
night I'll preach it again. It's Christ, Christ, Christ.
That's what Paul said, I'm determined to know nothing among you save
Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I was with you in weakness and
fear and trembling. And my speech and my preaching
was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, persuasible words
of man's intellect, but in the power of the Holy Spirit, that
your faith, your confidence should not stand in the man preaching,
but in the man he preached. That's where our confidence is.
What kind of results are we seeking? Alright, my text, Acts 2, verse
37. Now I want you to listen carefully. Now when they heard this, they
heard it. What'd they hear? They heard
who Christ is. They heard why he came. They
heard what he did. Where he is now. They heard. That's what they heard. When
they heard it, they were pricked. Pricked in the heart. John Gill
says they were cut to the heart. Cut to the heart. He said the
word of the gospel, the glorious truth of the gospel of Christ
in the power of the Holy Spirit, entered into their hearts, and
like a sharp sword, it laid open their evil hearts, it pricked
them, it cut them. And they saw themselves guilty
before God, guilty of the crime laid to their charge. They murdered
the Son of God. And they were full with remorse
and fear of the Lord. They were wounded in spirit.
They were cut in the heart by the words preached unto them. And one old writer says, a prick
in the heart, a cut to the heart is a mortal wound. Is it not? Cut to the heart is a mortal
wound. But in the spiritual realm, it's
a cut only God can make and only God can heal. So look for it. That's what I'm looking for.
I'm not looking to make a Calvinist out of anybody. I'm not up here
preaching to get folks to say, say, he's a good preacher. I'm
not up here preaching to get folks to be Baptists. You want
to try to make a Baptist out of me? Oh, I wouldn't do that
to you for the world. Not for the world. He said, you've
come from sea and land to make one more apostolate to your religion,
and when you've made him, he's two-fold more the child of hell
than you are. You know what Christ said? You know what I'm up here preaching?
This gospel. And expecting, and waiting, and
praying, and hoping God will take it and rip somebody's heart
wide open. Cut it to the bone. If he can't
stand it, just rip it open. And that's a wound that'll kill
him. But it has to be done for God to heal him. You've got to
do it. Don't say it too often. Once
in a while. Spurgeon said this. Listen, this
is famous. The first work of the gospel
ministry, the thing to be aimed at, is that our message of Christ
should cut men in the heart. In the beginning, my business
is not to convert anybody. My business is to get them lost. It's God's business to convert
them. Paul said, God, who separated
me from my mother's womb, was pleased to reveal his Son to
me. I can preach a gospel that can rip up his heart, I can preach
a gospel that'll bring him down into the dust, I'll preach a
gospel. He said, Spurgeon says, it's idle to attempt to heal
people that are not sick. It's foolish to try to clothe
people that aren't naked. It's a waste of time to try to
make a man rich who's not poor. The needle, the needle of the
law prepares the way for the thread of the gospel. The needle makes the hole, but
it pulls the thread. When you rip up a man's heart,
you're opening a wound for the gospel to come in, the balm and
healing. But you got to stab him, got
to be pricked. Got to. Got to. There must be a knowledge of
sin and a sorrow for sin before there can be a broken heart. And there's just one thing that'll
break the heart and that's the true gospel. Do you remember
our Lord's word who said, they that be well need not a physician? Go learn what that means. Go learn what that means. If
you're going to be a witness, if you're going to be a preacher,
if you're going to deal with men's souls, go learn what that
means. The well do not need a physician,
but they that are sick. I am not come to call the righteous,
but sinners to repentance. Could this be the reason why
there's so much religion and so little true knowledge of Christ? that people have not been first
cut to the heart, wounded, mortally wounded, that God may heal them. We sing unto him that loved us
and washed us from our sins, but they've never been defiled
by sin. How can they sing it? We know that to whom much is
given, forgiven, whom much is forgiven, he'll love much. But
they've never had anything to be forgiven. They've always been
nice folks. We know that we've passed from
darkness to light, but they've never been in darkness. God says,
remember the pit from which you were taken. Pit? I don't know
anything about a pit. We've never been in bondage to
anybody, the Jews said. David said, Out of the depths
have I cried unto thee, God, hear my voice. If our Lord shouldest
mark iniquity, who would stand but to forgive us with thee?
What depth? You know. I know. Paul knew. He said, Jesus Christ
came into the world to save sinners of whom I am. chief. If anybody ever becomes a chief
of sinners, God will save them. Got to be pricked in the heart.
And they were pricked in the hearts and they cried unto Peter
and the rest of the apostles, what shall we do? Well, here
comes the instructions. Then Peter says, repent. Repent and be baptized. Repent and confess Christ. That's
what he's saying. Repent and believe the gospel.
Repent and be baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ
for the remission of sins and you'll receive the Holy Spirit.
These two commands have got to go together. They must go together. They're always together. You
can't repent unless you believe. You can't believe unless you
repent. got to be broken and sorry for
sin and believe on Christ, always together. Paul in speaking to
the elders at Ephesus, he said, I have not shunned to declare
unto you all the counsel of God I preached unto you, repentance
toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. And let me show
you something in the book of Mark, chapter 1. When our Lord
Jesus Christ came preaching, In Mark 1, verse 14, when the
Lord Jesus came preaching, it says in Mark 1, verse 14, now,
after that John was put in prison, Jesus came into Galilee preaching
the gospel of the kingdom of God and saying, the time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God is at hand.
Repent and believe the gospel. That's what Peter preached, wasn't
it? That's what our Lord said. Repent. Repent. What is repentance? It's a change of mind, change
of manners, change of direction. It's a turning. Old Brother Shelton
said it's a turning, but oh, what a turning. Oh, what a turning. Well, what produces this repentance
toward God? This repentance towards God.
What produces that kind of attitude and spirit? Repent. Change my
mind about myself, and about God, and about Christ, and about
the Word, and about all the way to heaven, about everything.
Well, we know this. Fear of punishment will not produce
repentance. Somebody says, you need to preach
more. A man wrote me this not so awful long ago, I forget his
name, but he said, I've heard you preach and you don't preach
enough hell. I don't know enough about it,
I reckon, to say too much about it. But I do know this, I've
never seen hell convert anybody. Have you? Fear of punishment. Cain killed his brother. And the Lord said, where's your
brother? Am I my brother's keeper? Your brother's blood cries underneath
in the ground. You'll be a vagabond. You'll
be out. Me, it'll desert you. You'll have no friends. Oh, simple
punishment's greater than I can bear!" But he didn't repent. He never did. And yet God himself sentenced him to life as a vagabond
by punishment. It didn't change him. Loss of
benefits, loss of honor will not produce repentance. Esau
sold his birthright for a mess of beans. That's what he wanted,
that's what he got. He sold out. But he never repented. In fact, the scripture says he
sought it with tears and never found it. He never found the
change of heart. He was what he was the rest of
his life until he died. So loss, punishment, loss of
honor. I tell you this, a great sin or a great sorrow
or a great fall does not produce repentance. It produces religion. I don't know how many times in
my ministry I've been called to places where people have had
some kind of tragedy, terrible tragedy. First thing they want
to do is get religion. Sometimes they do. It doesn't
last long. I called down here one time to
a man. His wife had packed her bags and got the little girl
and left the house, never coming back. He's sitting there crying,
weeping over his drunkenness, and he asked me to come down.
I sat with him. He sat there and promised her
everything from A to Z, promised what he's going to do. And he
tried, but it never worked. You see, it doesn't produce repentance.
It doesn't. Judas is an example of that.
He came back and threw that money on the floor and said, I betrayed
innocent blood. But he didn't repent. He went
out and hanged himself. Emotional response to a preacher. At a funeral or a special service, you hear
a preacher And he suggests a lot of things and folks do it. But
Herod didn't work for him. Herod went out to hear John the
Baptist. He feared John. He feared John. He thought he was the greatest
thing he ever heard. And he did many things. But he never repented. He killed John. Felix, he trembled. Paul, he heard the greatest preacher
God had since our Lord. He heard Paul, he said, one of
them was Gripper, one of them said, you almost persuaded me
to be a Christian, but he never did. I can't persuade anybody
to be a Christian, and nobody else can. Only one can make a
man a believer, and that's our Lord. That's right. You see, these things, what does
produce retentions? Listen, turn to Romans chapter
2. I'll tell you what produces repentance. I'll tell you what produces repentance. Romans 2 verse 4. Despiseth thou the riches of
his goodness, and forbearance, and longsuffering, not knowing
it's the goodness of God that leads a man to repentance. That's
right. It's the preaching of the gospel
of the grace and mercy of a forgiving God in Christ Jesus the Lord. That's what produces repentance. That's right. The goodness of
God. It's not the fear of hell, it's
not the loss of benefits, it's not sorrow over a great fall,
it's not emotional response to a human preacher, it's the goodness
and long-suffering and grace of God and forbearance of God
to a sinner like me when I finally hear it and believe it and fall
in love with Him who loved me first. That's right. That's right. And see if that's not what Paul
says over here. Titus chapter 3. See if that's
not what Paul is saying right here. Titus 3 verse 3. Titus 3 verse 3. We ourselves,
you got it? Titus 3, 3. We ourselves also
were so foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lust
and pleasure, living in malice. envy, hateful, hating one another,
but when the kindness and love of God our Savior towards us
appeared, not by works of righteousness which we've done, but according
to his mercy, he saved us by the washing of regeneration,
renewing of the Holy Spirit which he shed on us, abundantly through
Jesus Christ our Savior, that being justified by His grace,
we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life. Love. That's what does it. Love for Christ. The goodness
of God. When we see His goodness, His
holiness, we see our sins. We discount any merit or works
of our own. We acknowledge it's only by his
sovereign love that we're redeemed. It's only by his sovereign love.
And when a person falls in love with Christ and with his gospel,
he'll never leave him. It's like when a man falls in
love with his wife and children and really loves them. There's
no way he'll leave them. There's no way. No way now, I'm
telling you. When a person falls in love with
the gospel, you've been preaching this gospel fifty-one, fifty-two
years, maybe. I'm pretty close to fifty-three.
Yeah, and I'm going to preach it, if I live, two or three more,
because I love it. There is no other gospel. There's
no other way. You love Christ. Peter, do you
love me? Yeah, Lord. Well, feed my sheep. You will. You won't throw them out in the
garbage. You're not going to walk on and leave them. You're
not going to lie to them. You're not going to take them
down the wrong path. You're going to feed them if you love me. If you love me, feed my sheep. If you love me, that's right,
love covers a multitude of sins. Love, that's what it is. That's
the key. That's the whole thing, when
you fall in love with Christ. That woman that came in there
and washed his feet with tears. And he said, your sins are forgiven.
And that old Pharisee said, now if this man were a prophet, he
wouldn't let that woman touch him. And our Lord looked at him
and said, Simon, I've got something to ask you. Here's a man that
was in debt. And he owed so much, just a little
bit, and the fellow forgave him. Here's another that was enormously,
enormously overtaken, overcome in such debt. He couldn't pay
a thing, just helpless, and he forgave him all. Which one of
them gonna love him most? Well, he said the one to whom
he forgave the most. He said, you've right to say
it. That's who's gonna love him. If you know where he found you,
and how he found you, and what he did for you, you'll love him
better than anybody here. That's right. That's right. All
right. Then he said, be baptized. That's
the way you confess Christ. That's the way they confessed
Christ back there. Verse 41 says, they that gladly
received the word were baptized. Now let me give you this, and
I'll close. These are the marks of those who hear. Number one,
verse 41, they gladly received the word, his word, his word,
his gospel. They were baptized. Verse 42,
and they continued in the doctrine steadfastly, in the doctrine
and fellowship, breaking of bread and prayers. And number four,
verse 43, and fear came upon every soul. They worshiped God. That's the beginning of wisdom,
the fear of the Lord. Verse 44, and they that believed
were together and had all things common. They were generous people.
They sold their possessions and goods and parted them to all
men as they all had need. And they continued. They just
continued. With one accord in the temple,
breaking bread. That's not just fellowship and
that's observing the table of the Lord. The house to the house
did eat their meat with gladness and singleness and peace and
joy and unity. By praising God and having favor
with all the people. Wow, they loved! They weren't
trying to run from hell and trying to keep God from beating them
to death. They loved Him and they loved
each other. And that motivated everything that it did. And the
Lord added to the church daily, such as should be said. I hope
that's a blessing to you. It's just the truth. It's just
the truth, that's it.