(“And Can it Be?” – C. Wesley)
“Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Brethren, what shall we do?’ And Peter said to them, ‘Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself.”
Peter had just finished preaching the first sermon of the newborn church. He and the others had received the gift of the Holy Spirit, accompanied by outward, visible and audible manifestations, and a large crowd formed, out of curiosity.
We’re told that Peter took his stand with the eleven, raised his voice, and began to address the gathering men of Israel.
It may be that we have given to us here, the pattern of the perfect sermon. It is short and to the point, it unabashedly addresses not only the issue of sin in general, but the specific guilt of the audience, it gives a clear account of the death and resurrection and Lordship of Christ, and it is notably devoid of any of the superfluous fluff and ear candy that it seems to be all the rage to deliver from so many pulpits today. I mean cutsie stories, philosophical rantings, political soapboxing, so many Reader’s Digest illustrations that there’s hardly time to address a scriptural text at all…
Just like that crowd before Peter, there are millions of people outside of the church today who are bewildered, perplexed, wanting answers and not knowing where to look, and there are some that quite frankly think we’re all nuts, and not because we’re filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking of the mighty deeds of God, but because we’re just generally acting like a bunch of nuts!
And if we are to have any hope of ever reaching any of them for Christ, there needs to be clear, significant, accurate, Holy Spirit-inspired preaching in our churches, preparing and equipping Christians for the work of ministry in their daily lives, and then Christians repeating that clear message to those they rub elbows with on a day to day basis.
Now we may not be wise to simply copy Peter’s words and shout them from the steps of City Hall. If we were to say, “…this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan of God, you nailed to a cross…”, they’re going to say, ‘No we didn’t!’
But they do need to hear and very clearly and without hiding it under a bunch of icing and dressing it up with frill and feel-good funny stories off the internet, that it was the predetermined plan of God that His only Son, hang on that cross and shed His blood and die to pay the penalty for the sin of all mankind, and that includes every one born onto this planet and no one is excluded.
It may sound like an old fashioned notion to people’s very modern and enlightened ears that all have sinned and fallen short of God’s glory, but it remains a fact, and it remains a fact that apart from the saving Grace of God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ all are headed for Hell and eternity separated from God and Heaven.
Christians, I recently heard today’s church referred to as a ‘great sleeping giant’, and I think that assessment pretty much hit the nail on the head. If we want people to be saved, if we have any desire in us matching God’s desire that none should perish and all should come to repentance, then we need to wake up to the very basic and unavoidable fact that the Holy Spirit must first convict the heart of sin and grant repentance, and He is not doing that in the hearts of an unchurched or simply unsaved public being told, “Jesus loves you just like you are”.
“Come to church and worship with us! We have great programs for the children, and wonderful midweek bible studies, and women’s ministries and men’s fellowships, and we are very active in missions, and blah-blah-blaaaah, blah, blah!
God became a Man in the Person of Jesus Christ, and because of YOUR sin, He was nailed to a cross where He bled and died, and He was put in the ground and two days later He came out of the tomb bodily, and He was seen and touched and talked to by many witnesses; and God has made Him both Lord and Christ, and He is one day coming back in judgment.
That is the message the Holy Spirit uses to convict and draw men to Christ, and if we’re not telling it, or if we’re trying to make it so politically correct that it becomes virtually unrecognizable, then we might as well be reciting ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb’ while standing on our head, for all the good it will do anyone at all.
Now I realize that I’m preaching to the choir here, and there’s little likelihood that anyone who really needs to hear and respond favorably by a change of heart and life is going to hear or see this sermon.
But it is important that you understand this today. And I want to give you a brief illustration and then we’ll move on.
A disobedient child may be very bold and defiant and rebellious to a baby-sitter or an older sibling who is left to watch him. But at the prospect of daddy returning home and being told of the child’s behavior, and the swift judgment and subsequent punishment that is sure to follow, he may very suddenly become very repentant and compliant, and looking for ways to appease his overseer’s anger before the return of his parent.
And when people are shown that their condition in the eyes of God is that from their very heart they are like that little rebel, and that the One they have truly offended is not some dead prophet, but a risen and reigning Lord, and that they will one day stand before Him and give account, surely some will continue in their defiance and some will simply refuse to believe that ‘daddy is coming home’. But some will be pierced to the heart, and you’ll find them wanting to know…
BRETHREN, WHAT SHALL WE DO?
Notice, as we go to our text verses, that unlike the responses we might get today, these men did not deny crucifying Jesus. Twice in his address to them, Peter indicts them for the crime, and when he said, ‘…whom you crucified’, - in fact, it is interesting to note that he ended his sermon with those three words; not with a joke to ease the tension, not with a heart-wrenching story to prime them for an altar call – but when he said ‘…whom you crucified’, they did not say, “No we didn’t!”
They were pierced to the heart with conviction, because they remembered very well the events of that Passover day, only a matter of weeks past, and I’m sure many of them remembered standing in the midst of the crowd shouting, ‘Crucify! Crucify Him! Let His blood be on our heads and on our children’s!”
And with all the posturing and debating about whether tongues is valid in today’s churches or whether God still heals the body or what is really meant by the term ‘Holy Spirit baptism’, let’s not miss this miracle. Fifty days ago these same people were so fired up and filled up with rage and blood lust and murder in their hearts, they put a man to death even in the face of a Roman procurator insisting that He was entirely innocent; and now, under the power and influence of the Holy Spirit, all that fury and rage is replaced by repentance and fear of eternal judgment.
How can such a complete and revolutionary change take place, not in one or two, but in more than three thousand hearts, so quickly, and so immediately?
I mean, these people got up that day, intending to celebrate the festival of First Fruits. Going about their own business, making preparations, bumping into each other at the market place and never exchanging so much as a ‘pardon me’, lost in their own thoughts and perhaps thinking about the journey home after this day was over and the next was come.
Next thing you know, they’re drawn aside like Moses to the burning bush. There’s a very large group of people loudly proclaiming the mighty deeds of God, and they turn aside from their day to find out why, and within a matter of minutes their lives are changed forever.
They woke up without a Messiah, and ended the day reborn and Heaven bound!
They woke up religious and chained to the Law and its demands and went to bed saved by grace!
They started the day with the cares of the world on their minds and before lunch they had a Savior in their hearts.
How could this be?
Because the good news of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is the power of God for salvation, for all who believe! (Rom 1:16,17)
Listen! The message of the resurrection of Christ bears with it the power to resurrect. And that is precisely why it is imperative that with as much sincerity as we can show and clarity as we can deliver, people hear from us that Jesus came back to life so He could give them life. That He rose so they too might rise.
That He is seated at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, having been granted all authority in Heaven and on earth, to judge sin and to impart everlasting life to all who repent and believe.
We might be able to fill a church with people by offering them a place to be accepted and befriended and treated like family and fed and consoled and supported emotionally. But until they are pierced to the heart with the truth of the gospel and joined to Christ by the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, they are just the walking dead.
There’s nothing you can do for them, there is nothing I can do for them, there is nothing they can do to help themselves to any degree whatsoever.
Religion won’t help them, no matter what name is tagged to that religion, philosophy won’t help them, science won’t help them.
There is one source of everlasting life in the presence of the Living God, and that source is the message of the resurrection and the application of its truth by the Holy Spirit of God, to the individual’s heart and life, not to rehabilitate, not to renovate, but to regenerate. To impart life where there was no life.
Look at Peter’s response to their question:
REPENT AND BE BAPTIZED
He said, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ…”
Isn’t this an amazing thing? Remember, this man, about 6 weeks previous to this event, experienced the greatest failure of his life!
Let me bring something to your attention here, before we move on.
When a man is basically a coward, happy to live out his days in some quiet place, doing a job that does not involve contact with other people, avoiding any sort of conflict or confrontation at any cost; a Casper Milquetoast kind of guy…
…then he has no problem admitting that he is not a fighter and wants no trouble, and there is no shame whatsoever in just slinking away and avoiding involvement in anything controversial or potentially dangerous.
But when he is like Peter, opinionated, boisterous, occasionally pugnacious, strong and bold and self-confident; suddenly finding himself acting contrary to his basic nature, filled with fear, denying his own convictions, ready to run for cover,…that is devastating!
That is a moment he will remember for the rest of his life, and cringe inside every time he thinks of it. It is why he went back to fishing, and had to be reinstated by Jesus Himself. I don’t think anyone, any other man, could have convinced Peter at that point to come back and pursue the faith. It took Jesus Himself, repeatedly saying, ‘feed My sheep’, to imbue his heart once more with an awareness that God could love him. I know this to be true, because I’ve been there.
But here he is, 50 days later, preaching a sermon that he did not sit down and prepare, didn’t think through in advance, and it is used by the Holy Spirit to convict three thousand hearts, and when they cry out for help his simple response to them lays out the foundational doctrines of the faith!
Now my intent is not to get into a detailed teaching of these doctrines today, but let’s look briefly, just to be certain we’re clear on a few points.
First, we’ve already discussed the need for repentance, and I don’t think we need to go into that again. Just let me repeat that it is the Holy Spirit who grants repentance to the heart so that we can turn from sin to salvation and God.
So Peter’s first exhortation is to repent, and that must be foremost in any presentation of the gospel that we make, even on a one to one basis.
Secondly, he says that they should be baptized. Now we know that baptism does not save. It is a physical demonstration symbolizing what we know has transpired in a spiritual reality. I have died to sin and been raised to newness of life in Christ. His own baptism in the Jordan was to identify Himself with us, and our baptism identifies us with Him, in His death, burial and resurrection.
Again, baptism does not save, but is a witness that by faith we have been saved. But let me impress upon you today that baptism is necessary and indispensable, simply for the fact that Jesus commanded it, and it is a fundamental teaching of the New Testament writers that new believers are to be identified with Christ in this way.
If you have professed faith in Jesus Christ and call yourself a Christian and yet never been baptized, then you are in disobedience, and you need to get yourself baptized as soon as possible. Of course, you should know why you are being baptized and what it represents, and you should go into it out of a desire to be obedient to your Lord, not because some preacher says so, or your spouse or your parent says so.
But it is a biblical requirement, spoken by Jesus Himself, and to go on without it is a bad decision.
The next thing I want to make clear is that when Peter says to be baptized for forgiveness of sins that does not mean that forgiveness of sins is the primary reason for baptism. It is a testimony that your sins have been forgiven, since when you repented of sin and believed in Jesus Christ for salvation, your sins were dealt with and forgiven at that moment.
In the same way, when he goes on to say, ‘…and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” he was not indicating to them that the act of submitting to baptism procures for them the gift of the Holy Spirit in them.
Peter is simply answering their question in the simplest of terms, and not endeavoring to teach a class on theology. They need to know the essentials. They are in desperate straits. They have recognized their guilt in crucifying the Lord’s Christ, and they are in fear of eternal damnation.
What shall we do? That is not a casually or glibly put question! “Oh, my gosh! How are we going to get out of this one!
Imagine Christmas day, as you are gathered with family, gifts have been opened, the smells of hot cider and cinnamon and baking ham and fresh banana bread and pine and all the other fragrances of the holiday are wafting through the house, people are laughing, singing, playing board games, and just generally enjoying this special day together, when there comes a knock at the door.
Two police officers are there, with a warrant for your arrest. It seems that several days previously, driving in a downpour, when it was cold and the windows were mostly fogged, you ran over what you thought was a bump in the road but it turned out to be a small child, and investigators have just determined it was your car and that you were the driver.
Now that is an imaginary situation far removed from that which existed in the streets of Jerusalem on that day of Pentecost, but I just want to impress on you that this festive day, for this very large gathering of people, had just taken a very bad turn.
Hey! If you knew you were responsible for killing someone, and then found out that he had the power to come back to life, wouldn’t you be shaking a little in your boots?
So they are desperate for answers, and Peter doesn’t waste words.
And that fact alone should drive home to our minds, today in Montrose, Colorado, that there can be no soft pedaling or side stepping the importance of what he is telling them.
There needs to be repentance, baptism is not an option, and the joyful news is that when you repent and come in the obedience of faith to a forgiving and loving God, He will infuse you with His kind of life and fill you with His own Spirit, in fulfillment of a solemn oath made by God who does not change and whose promises are eternal.
THE PROMISE IS FOR YOU
I hope you didn’t come here today expecting to learn something new.
I am well aware that I have not told you anything that you haven’t heard before. We’ve just taken these few verses and amplified, hopefully without error or in an unclear way, what is obviously being said.
But what I have been building up to, and what I want you to have freshly applied to your mind and your heart today is this gracious declaration from God through Peter, and then through the pen of Luke and preserved for your eyes and ears today, two thousand years later, that this promise is as valid for you as it was for those who crowded the streets of Jerusalem on the day the church was born.
With the removal of certain words from scripture it might be argued that the things that happened so long ago were only for that generation, and how can we kid ourselves into thinking that any of it has meaning for us.
But God has made a promise, and knowing eternity future from eternity past, He had you and me in mind when He spoke through the Apostle Peter, and inspired him to declare that what was bestowed upon men that day in Jerusalem was for ‘as many as the Lord our God shall call to Himself’.
And that means us; that means you, believer in Christ! The Holy Spirit, when He inspired scripture, made it personal. He wrote the wording in such a way that you and I can personalize its message and say with conviction and great joy, ‘this is written to me’.
Furthermore, it gives us confidence to answer all the doubts and questions that mankind can throw at us, with the simple fact that what was done there was done for them also. Because the promise was for the devout Jews of Jerusalem and Judea, and for their descendants, and for all who were far off, meaning the Gentiles also, which includes everyone who is a Jew, and everyone who is not.
You crucified the Lord’s Anointed One. Your sins put Him on the cross. It was you and I, who Him to death pursued.
But what you meant for evil, God intended for good. That’s why Wesley would be inspired to ask, “Died He for me?”
Yes, He did. And it is a truth that needs to be shared.
Away with the flowery garbage that has been fostered on us over the past 30 years.
“Jesus loves you and has a plan for your life”. “Jesus loves you just the way you are”. “Accept Jesus in your heart”. No, no!
Here is what you need to know. You’re heart is in rebellion against God, and because of your sin He came to die and pay your penalty. That’s how much He loves you. Can you grasp this? God died for you! And He died as much for you, as He did for the people who lived there in Jerusalem on the day He died.
I know, because His Apostle declared to the very people who put Him on the cross, that the promise of forgiveness of sins and the indwelling Holy Spirit was not only for them, but for all who were far off, and that’s us! That’s you!
And it is equally valid for anyone you tell, if they will only repent and believe your message of a resurrected Christ.
Your sins pursued Him to death, but He died for you, and He rose again, and He sends His Holy Spirit to live in you, to help you live for Christ, and as a pledge of your inheritance in Him.
Like I said, nothing new to your ears. But is this knowledge important enough, and inspiring enough to maybe drive you out of your comfort zone, and out of your routine, and maybe out of your natural inclinations toward reclusion and introversion, to bear the news to other’s ears that the promise is for them? Just how amazing is His love, to you?
