Our First and Foremost Message: Jesus!
Acts 2:21-24
Sermon by Rick Crandall
McClendon Baptist Church - May 3, 2006
21. And it shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
22. "Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus of Nazareth, a Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know
23. "Him, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death;
24. "whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
*Dan was a friend of mine years ago back in Georgia, and he was a good man, one of the deacons at First Baptist. I liked Dan a lot. He was friendly, he had a good sense of humor, and he cared about people.
*But I remember the conversation we had about the difference between Islam and Christianity. Dan had made friends with a Muslim man at work, and he began thinking about the fact that they believe in one god, and we believe in one God. They believe in right and wrong, so do we. We both believe in living a moral life.
*So Dan said, “I don’t see the difference between Islam and Christianity. We both serve the same God.”
*He couldn’t have been more wrong. The difference is the Cross! The difference is Jesus! And that makes all the difference in the world.
*I was reminded of that yesterday, when I watched a few minutes of John Hagee. He talked about the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem. If you have ever seen a picture of Jerusalem, you have seen this mosque, because it was built on the Temple Mount, and it’s the most prominent building in the city.
*John Hagee talked about the inscriptions on the mosque and said that it says, “God has no Son.” I didn’t doubt it, but wanted to confirm it, so I looked it up on Google and found this translation of the inscriptions on an Islamic website:
“O People of the Book! Do not exaggerate in your religion nor utter aught concerning God save the truth. The Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, was only a Messenger of God, and His Word which He conveyed unto Mary, and a spirit from Him. So believe in God and His messengers, and say not ’Three’ - Cease!
(It is) better for you! - God is only One God. Far be it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And God is sufficient as Defender. The Messiah will never scorn to be a servant unto God, nor will the favored angels. . . It befits not (the Majesty of) God that He should take unto Himself a son. . .” (1)
*The evidence is clear: Islam is an anti-Christ religion. It was inspired by Satan, and one billion Muslims are following a false faith into hell.
*Jesus Christ is the Son of God! He is unparalleled, incomparable and without equal. Jesus stands alone!
1. And as we continue looking at Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, we see first of all that only Jesus is able to save us.
*This is the first way that Jesus stands alone, and we see this as vs. 21 says, “it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved." There is no other name that can save you.
*By Acts 4, Peter and John have been thrown into jail for preaching about Jesus, and when they were hauled before the rulers the next day, Acts 4:7-12 says:
7. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, "By what power or by what name have you done this?’’
8. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders of Israel:
9. "If we this day are judged for a good deed done to the helpless man, by what means he has been made well,
10. "let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.
11. "This is the `stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.’
12. "Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.’’
*Jesus stands alone! Only He is able to save us.
*The Sago Mine disaster is back in the news with hearings that are going on this week up in West Virginia. On Jan, 2nd of this year, the Sago tragedy captured national attention. The story was even more tragic, because initial media reports brought great hope that the dozen trapped miners were all alive. But only one man survived: Randal McCloy
*The recovery and rehab for Randal has been excruciating. As part of his emotional healing, Randal wrote a public letter to the families who lost their loved ones. The letter was dated April 26, 2006, and told some of the miners’ final activities. Randal spoke of their multiple efforts to get out, to secure shelter from the poisonous gases, and to signal their location for rescue teams.
*After these futile attempts, he noted: “We were worried and afraid, but we began to accept our fate. Junior Toler led us all in the Sinner’s Prayer. We prayed a little longer. Then someone suggested that we each write letters to our loved ones. I wrote a letter to Anna and my children. When I finished writing, I put the letter in Jackie Weaver’s lunch box, where I hoped it would be found.” (2)
*It was a horrible tragedy, but “Junior Toler led us all in the Sinner’s Prayer.” Those men may not have been saved from the mine, but they were saved forever from hell, because “whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved!”
2. Jesus stands alone. Only Jesus is able to save us, and only Jesus was approved by the Father.
*As the KJV says in vs. 22, “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know. . .”
*Jesus was approved by the Father... *The NIV says: “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.”
*“Accredited” is a word I can relate to because my wife stresses out every few years about SACS plans. That’s the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and if you lose your accreditation, you are in big trouble.
*Jesus was accredited. He was approved by somebody a whole lot more important than the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools! Jesus Christ was approved by our Heavenly Father. The word picture behind that word “approve” was “to point out or exhibit.” And notice how the Father did it. It was through the “miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him.”
*Those miracles of Jesus, so many that the last thing John said in his Gospel was “there are many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” Those miracles were a huge sign God the Father was using to point to the Lord and say, “Here He is! This is the One. Jesus is the Messiah!”
*Nobody else could walk on water and open blind eyes. Nobody else could feed 5,000 with a few loaves and fish. *Nobody else could calm the storms and raise the dead!
3. Jesus stands alone! Only Jesus was approved by the Father, and only Jesus was appointed by the Father to be our sacrifice...
*We see this in vs. 23: “Him, being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death...”
*Why was the sacrifice needed? It was needed because of our sin. If we had been there at the foot of the Cross, I don’t believe we would have screamed out for His death, but we are just as responsible for His death. Because as Igor Stravinsky once said: “Sin cannot be undone, only forgiven.” (3)
*We desperately needed a sacrifice for our sins, but why did Jesus have to be the Sacrifice? He was the only One who was qualified to die for others, because He had no sin of His own.
*When the Lord gave instructions to Moses for the first Passover, in Exodus 12, He said:
5. `Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
6. `Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight.
7. `And they shall take some of the blood and put it on the two doorposts and on the lintel of the houses where they eat it.
*Your lamb shall be without blemish. The sacrifice had to be spotless, WITHOUT BLEMISH. God used that phrase 40 times in His Word.
*Untold millions of animals were sacrificed in Old Testament times. When King Solomon dedicated the Temple, 2 Chron 7:5 tells us that he “offered a sacrifice of twenty-two thousand bulls and one hundred and twenty thousand sheep.”
*Untold millions were sacrificed in Old Testament times, and every time, God was saying that the sacrifice needed to be without blemish. He was pointing to Jesus every step of the way. So 1 Peter 1:18-19 says:
18. knowing that you were not redeemed with corruptible things, like silver or gold, from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers,
19. but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
*Jesus was appointed by the Father to be our sacrifice, and God turned the worst crime into the greatest good. As Paul tells us in Ephesians 5, when he is talking about the relationship between husbands and wives:
25. Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it,
26. that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word,
27. that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.
*Arthur Caliandro told the story of a life transformed by Jesus Christ. It was in Russia during Communist rule. Many Christians were forced into prison camps because of their faith. A Russian pastor Georgi Vins told of meeting a young woman named Galena. Galena had been arrested for teaching at a Vacation Bible School.
*The prison camp was filthy. Food was scarce. Medical care was nonexistent. And the women were forced into hard labor. Galena’s hair and teeth fell out. Painful boils broke out all over her skin.
*When Galena’s mother finally saw her, she was horrified at her daughter’s condition, but Galena was positive. She told her mother that thousands of women in these prison camps had never heard of Jesus, and it was her responsibility to tell them about Him. (4)
*What a life of Christlike love! And Galena was able to live that way because “Christ loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”
4. Jesus stands alone! Only Jesus was appointed by the Father to be our sacrifice, and only Jesus had the power to come back alive.
*We see this in vs. 24, where the NKJ says, “whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.”
*And the NLT says: “God released him from the horrors of death and raised him back to life again, for death could not keep him in its grip.”
*I like that! Death could not keep him in its grip. Death did not have the power to hold Jesus. Why? Because He was perfect. Jesus Christ never deserved to die.
*Death could not keep him in its grip! Why? Because God’s Word prophesied that it would happen. (That in vs. 25-31 and we will look at that on May 24.)
*Death could not keep Jesus Christ in its grip! Why? Because the price had been paid in full. As John Phillips said, “It was impossible because He was sinless. ‘The wages of sin is death,’ says the Scripture. He did not sin, so obviously, He could not die. But die He did. He died because He was made sin for us, because He ‘bare our sins in His own body on the tree’ (1 Peter 2:24).
*Having thus paid the price for our sin, having suffered the extreme penalty and having discharged the debt, ‘it was not possible that He should be held’ by death. The resurrection was . . . God’s receipt to the believer of a debt paid in full. What a message to herald to that guilty multitude who stood there on that Pentecost morning!” (5)
*Pastor Bill Bouknight said that one of their Sunday School teachers was quizzing her kids last Easter about the resurrection story. One of the questions she asked was this: "Why did Jesus arise from the dead?"
*One bright little boy replied, "Because it wouldn’t have been much of a story if he hadn’t."
*And Bill said, “That little boy is absolutely right. Everything about our faith depends on the resurrection. Without the resurrection, Jesus would be nothing more than a dead hero. The history books are full of them. But the Good News of resurrection is that Jesus Christ has blazed a path for every believer into eternity, and even now this risen powerful Christ has been loosed upon this world. (6)
Conclusion: Jesus stands alone!
-Only Jesus is able to save us.
-Only Jesus was approved by the Father.
-Only Jesus was appointed by the Father to be our sacrifice.
-Only Jesus had the power to come back alive.
1. Found at www.islamic-awareness.org/History/Islam/Inscriptions/DoTR.html
2. In Other Words April 2006_4 (Beaumont Enterprise, 4/28/6, p.1A.) (IN OTHER WORDS... began in 1991 and is produced by Dr. Raymond McHenry, Senior Pastor of the Westgate Memorial Baptist Church in Beaumont, Texas. 6130 Barrington ~ Beaumont, Texas 77706 (800) 553-4697 www.iows.net)
3. In Other Words April 2006_2 (Beaumont Enterprise, 12/29/3, p.2A)
4. Dynamic Illustrations JFM 2002 - "The Higher Uses of Suffering" by Arthur Caliandro Plus: The Magazine of Positive Thinking, May 1994, pp. 35-36.
5. “Exploring Acts” - John Phillips - p. 50
6. Sermon found on esermons.com - “All You Need to Know About Heaven” by Bill Bouknight - John 14 1 14
