Burnett, Willie: The First Gospel Message ~ Acts 2

This morning we're going to read in the Acts of the Apostles and in chapter two. Acts and in chapter two. Acts chapter two. I will commence our reading at verse number five. When they were therefore were come together, that's the disciples, they asked of him, saying, Lord, wilt thou at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons which the Father has put into his own power, but ye shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, unto all the uttermost parts of the earth. And when he had spoken these things, while they beheld, he was taken up, and a cloud received him out of their sight. And while they looked steadfastly towards heaven as he went up, behold, two men stood by them in white apparel, who also said unto them, Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into- ye- ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same Jesus who is taken up from you into heaven shall so come in like manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Then returned they unto Jerusalem from the Mount of Olivet, which is from Jerusalem, a Sabbath day's journey. And when they were come in, they went up to an upper room, where abode Peter and James and John and Andrew and Philip and Thomas and Bartholomew and Matthew and James the son of Alphaeus and Simon the Zealot and Judas and James. These all continued with accord, one accord in prayer and supplication with the woman and Mary, his mother, and Jesus. Now down to verse number twenty one. It's chapter one, by the way. Yes, chapter one. Sorry, sorry. I, I, chapter, go into chapter two now, sorry. I should be, I, yeah, sorry, I, I should have said chapter two. Verse twenty one of chapter two: And it shall come to pass, whoever shall call upon the name of the Lord, ye men of Galilee, 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 you yourselves know. Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken by wicked hands and have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should he- be held by it. Down to verse number thirty six. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made this same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ. Now, when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 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 Spirit. For this promise is unto you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this crooked generation. Then they that gladly received his word were baptized, and the same day were added unto them about three thousand souls. And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, the fellowship and the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. We'll go back again to the beginning of chapter two. I made a mistake with chapter one there, and verse one. And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven like a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues as of fire, and it sat upon each of them, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. And they were dwelling at Jerusalem, Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven. Now, when this was noised abroad, the multitude came together and were confounded, because every man heard them speak in his own language, and they were all amazed and marveled, seeing one to another, behold, are not all these who speak Galileans? How hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born? And then there's a whole list of all the, all the, uh, nations. There are seventeen nations were present on that particular occasion, down to verse twelve. And they were all amazed and were perplexed, saying one to another, what meaneth this? Others mocking said, these men are full of new wine. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them, ye men of Judea and all that dwell in Ju- in Jerusalem, be this known unto you, and hearken to my words. Down to verse twenty one, and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. We trust that the Lord will indeed add his blessing to the reading of his precious word this morning. In Matthew's gospel, chapter twenty eight, the Lord Jesus is about to leave heaven, to to leave earth and go into heaven, and he gives his disciples his final instructions before he leaves, in what we commonly refer to as the Great Commission. He said, go ye into all the world and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, uh, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you, and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And as we come into the Acts of the Apostles, chapter two, we see how that Great Commission that was given to the disciples was completely fulfilled accurately and meticulously there on the day of Pentecost. Acts chapter two, of course, gives us the first gospel message that was ever preached at the dawn of the day of grace. And of course, we discover that Peter talks about the basic elements of the gospel. He talks about repentance and the need for it. He speaks about forgiveness. He also talks about baptism, as was included in the Great Commission, and also the gathering principles that would characterize the, the, the church at that time, teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you. And so we want to look at this particular section, this very important section, when the gospel was preached for the very, very first time, with dramatic results, I might say. The first thing I want to talk about this morning is the universal audience and the universal language. We discover, as we read through this chapter, that there was a, a representation from seventeen nations present on that particular time. And the great miracle was this, that when Peter stood up and spoke to them, they all heard the words in their very own language. Peter, of course, wasn't speaking in multiple languages all at once. He was a Galilean, and he was speaking Hebrew. And the miracle was this, not that he was speaking in tongues, but the miracle took place in the transmission. In other words, all these nations were there, and Peter speaking in his own language, they they were all amazed and said, how could we all hear at one time in our own language? All these people had gathered together in Jerusalem because it was the feast of Pentecost. They had been scattered by the Romans and and scattered throughout various nations. But there was a certain magnetism about Jerusalem that drew them all. The Feast of Pentecost was one of the feasts of Jehovah defined in Leviticus chapter twenty three, when the children of Israel had to come to Jerusalem three times a year, and this was one of the occasions, the Feast of Pentecost. And they're all there from all these languages, and they all hear in their own language. Wh- why is it that God brought about this miracle that everybody heard in their own language? Why? Well, the reason for that is this, that sin is a universal problem. Sin isn't unique to some nation or group of people or whatever. Sin is a universal problem. The Bible says, all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That embraces everybody, including me and everybody else here. All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. So if there's going to be a solution to that problem, if there's going to be a remedy, it has to be a universal remedy. And so we discover that God makes the gospel available in all these languages so that there would be a universal remedy preached on the day of Pentecost that would reach everybody who was present. Now, to understand what's going on here, we have to go back to the book of Genesis chapter eleven. You remember on that occasion, men had abandoned God and were going their own way. And we read, they said, let us make us a tower that we may reach up into heaven. Very ambitious. That they would reach into heaven by building a tower, but that was their thought. They thought that they could work at getting to heaven. If we can get bricks and mortar and put layer upon layer upon layer, we can work at this and eventually reach heaven. That's what they said. But we also read in that chapter that God said, let us go down and see what men are up to here. And you remember God came down, and he confused their languages. Now, anyone who has been involved in major projects, as I myself was in the oil business for many, many years, knows that communications are absolutely critical to a major project. If people can't communicate with the, with each other, the project will fall apart. And so it is. When God came down and saw man saying, I'm going to reach heaven by my own efforts. I'm going to build and build and build and, and, and get there. God comes down and he confuses the languages. They could no longer speak to each other, and the whole project fell apart because God was saying to man, there's no way that you can possibly work at getting to heaven. There's no way you're ever going to be able to get there by that. But when we come into Acts chapter two, God reverses what took place at Babel. Instead of the people being scattered as they were at Babel because they couldn't understand the languages, all these people are brought together, and God reverses the, the punishment of Babel on that occasion so that men could hear the gospel. Isn't that the grace of God? That he would be so gracious as to reverse this terrible problem that had been brought in away back in the book of Genesis, and God reverses it, and everybody hears in their own language. Nobody has any excuse because they've heard the gospel in their own language. We want to talk now about Peter's first gospel message. Peter in Acts chapter two makes it very clear that Calvary was God's plan to save man from their sin. He speaks to the Jewish elders who were standing by, the men who had just crucified the Lord Jesus just a short time before, fifty days before exactly, and they're all there. And Peter speaks to them, and he says to them, him, Jesus, being delivered by the determinate counsels and foreknowledge of God, ye have by wicked hands taken him and crucified and slain. So Peter charges these men at this particular time, but he makes it clear, whereas they thought they had crucified Christ, whereas they thought it was their plan to get rid of him, it was not a, a, not a bit of it was their plan. They were only the instruments in God's hand to accomplish the plans of God that had been conceived in a past eternity, him being delivered by the determinate counsels and foreknowledge of God. Peter says it wasn't you, it was God's plan. You were only the instruments, not, of course, excusing them from the guilt of crucifying Christ, but nevertheless, they were only the instruments. The hymn writer says, oh, the love that drew salvation's plan. That's in heaven, before there was even a world. Oh, the grace that brought it down to man. Oh, the mighty gulf that God did span at Calvary. The next thing he shows is here, of course, that Calvary condemns man for what he really is. We see two sides at Calvary. We see God's heart, and we see man's heart. Peter says, you are, you weak- by wicked hands, you took and crucified him. There was wickedness involved in what you did. Your heart was fully exposed at Calvary in, in being wicked and crucifying the Son of God. But at Calvary, the heart of God was revealed. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. The hymn writer says, inscribed upon the cross I see in shining letters God is love. The Lamb who came, eh, from heaven above has now come to save us by his love. Yes, Calvary is the place to which all souls must come if they're ever going to be saved and be in heaven. Peter brings before us three steps here: repent and receive remission of sins, and then be baptized, and so on. First of all, he asks them to repent. In other words, take personal responsibility for your sin. You must do that. Repentance of itself does not save, but it's a necessarily, a necessary prerequisite to be saved. In other words, before a person can be saved, they have to know the n- the that there's a need to be saved, and why. I mean, when you go to the doctor, you always go with something that you understand is wrong. You don't understand why it's wrong or exactly what's causing it, but you go to him understanding, I've got this problem, and the doctor then can administer to it. If you go along to your doctor and you're just in for a, a casual visit, you wouldn't get very much, eh, eh, acceptance by him. You have to come knowing your problem, and so it is with repentance. Repentance means I understand I am a sinner. I realize I've offended God by my sin, and if I, I, and I want to get rid of it, and I want to have it all put away. I want to finish with my sin. That's, that's repentance. An admission of one's sins and expressions of regret. The Apostle Paul, speaking to the Ephesian elders for the last time in Acts chapter twenty, says, when he was there, he says, I preached, eh, repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. And that's the order in which peop- the the order in which the gospel comes. Repentance first, and then faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. An a a an acknowledgement of one's sin and realizing Christ is the only one who can take it away. Repentance towards God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. But Peter now talks about remission of sins or forgiveness of sin. Sin is the universal problem between God and man, and it's quite impossible for man to have fellowship with God while in his sins. Impossible. God and sin cannot coexist. There's a moral difference has, distance has come in between man and God in his natural state, that he can have no fellowship with God at all. You remember when man first sinned, God drove him out of the garden. There was a gulf there. Salvation means that we recognize that there is a gulf, and we can't bridge it, incidentally. We can't bridge that gulf. And the only place where that gulf can be bridged is at Calvary, because the Lord Jesus built that bridge by his cross, you might say, so that we can be saved, we can have our sins forgiven through coming to the cross. Yes, there has to be a remission of sins. You remember the Lord Jesus told the story about two men who went up to the temple to pray. This brings this idea of repentance and remission and moral distance together. And one was a Pharisee, a religious zealot, a religious fanatic, if you could put it that way. And the other man was a publican. Now, a publican in our culture is a man who owns a pub, but this is not the idea here. It's a tax gatherer, a despised tax gatherer, one of the Jews who had taken a job with the Roman government to extort taxes from his fellow men, and they were known to be corrupt and sinful. And so these two men go up to the temple to pray, and the Lord tells the story how the, the proud religious man went down to the presence of God, and he stood there and he said, God, I thank you I'm not like everybody else. I do all these good things, I give my tithes, and I help the poor, and I give, and so on and so on and on, multiplying all his righteousness. And the Lord said, this other man, the tax man, he stood afar off. He knew the distance. He knew that as a sinful person, he couldn't come close to God, and it says he couldn't even lift up his head, and he beat upon his breast and he said, God, be merciful to me, a sinner. Know what the Lord Jesus said about these two men? That sinner, that tax gatherer, went down to his house justified rather than the other. Sometimes we misquote that and say, uh, we, he was justified more than the other, but it's not that at all. The religious man wasn't justified one whit. In all his righteousness that he was parading, he wasn't at all accepted by God. But this poor sinner who admitted the distance and called for mercy, he was the one who went down justified. Dear friend, if you want to be justified, if you want to be saved this morning, it has to be taking that place of recognizing the distance between your soul and God and coming to Christ who can close it for you. And the sad thing about this is this, that if you don't close that moral gap between you and God in time, it will endure for all of eternity. And there will be no possibility of closing that gap then, as there is this. The Lord Jesus told another story about a man in hell, and he looks up and he sees, uh, someone he knew on earth, uh, Abraham and and uh Lazarus in his bosom, and he says to Abraham, could you not send someone from here to to help me? I I'm tormented in this place. I want some water just to cool my tongue. Could you not just, eh, help? And Abraham says, no, no, that, that is not possible. Remember your lifetime. You had all your chances when you were living. He says, and nowadays no one can come from where I am to where you are, and no one can come from where you are to where I am. There's a great gulf fixed. Terrible thought, isn't it? That one would be in hell for all of eternity and na- and unchangeable for all of eternity. What sort of response did Peter get to that message? Three thousand souls were saved. Don't you wish we were back in these days? Three thousand souls were saved. Now, to understand what's going on here, we have to go back to the book of the the book of Exodus. In the book of Exodus, Moses comes down from the mountain with the two tables of stone, with the Ten Commandments written on them by the finger of God, and he finds the children of Israel dancing around a golden calf, saying it's their God. And Moses drops the tablets of stone, and they smash. The law was broken right away. And he said, who is on the Lord's side? And the tribe of Levi came to Moses' side, and they went through the camp. Do you know how many people died that day? At the inauguration of the law? Three thousand souls. Three thousand souls perished at the introduction of the law. When we come into the Acts chapter two, at the introduction to the day of grace, three thousand souls are saved. It is true, as John says, the law came by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. And we find that Christ has annulled the curse of the law for those who come to him. But Peter didn't close there. I mean, uh, sometimes we quote the, the, that verse in the Great Commission, say, go into all the gospel, into the world and preach the gospel and make disciples of all nations, uh, and so on. But it goes further, and Peter doesn't exclude that from his message. And you'll find out throughout the Acts of the Apostles that baptism is the next thing that's mentioned in connection with every salvation that took place. Everyone who was saved was baptized. Baptism does not add to one's salvation, but it's a necessary step of the first step of obedience to Christ in the pathway of faith. Baptism is a symbol of identification with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection. It's an outer public declaration of an inner change that has taken place by the Spirit of God, and the willingness of that person to be obedient, to identify with Christ in his death, his burial, and his resurrection. We do this, of course, by immersing people in water. Uh, there'll likely be one, I would think, at the back of the, the, the, the me here on the platform. But, uh, when we baptize people, it isn't holy water that's in the tank. It's the same water that you get out your tap. It's not washing away one's sins, because only the blood of Jesus Christ can do that. No, it's only a symbolic identification with Christ. And listen, baptism wasn't presented in the early days by, in the Great Commission that the Lord Jesus gave as a kind of option. It was a commandment. Baptize them. Preach the gospel, baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy. So baptism isn't a sort of, well, no, maybe just a kind of option we can do if we like or not. No, no, no, it's a commandment. I was saved when I was ten, and I remember the brethren at that time, they thought, well, he's a bit too young to get baptized. But anyway, when I was twelve, a brother came along to our assembly and eh, he spoke in the ministry, and he happened to mention baptism. And I used to sit down the second front seat beside my dad, and I thought he was pointing at me, and he said, are you a disabodient child? And I thought, why, why, I think, why, that really hit me that. So I went to the brethren again, I said, listen, Mr. Burns said, uh, about me being a disabodient child, and you know, the brethren thought, yeah, we better baptize you. So I got baptized at that particular point, and I tell you, the joy that I got from that, it didn't add to my salvation, but I tell you, I had taken the first step on the pathway of faith. Being saved is not a finishing line. Being saved is only the starting line. And the first step, of course, is that of, uh, baptism. Then Peter goes on to talk about them being added, being added. And where- where we I was brought up in Scotland, there was always a difference made, and I think it was right, between being baptized and coming into fellowship. When I was interviewed by the brethren, uh, for my baptism, where they asked, uh, tell us how you were saved and so on, which I did. And they said, now, Willie, you'll understand if you want to come into fellowship, there has to be a different conversation, uh, dealing with different issues. This has only to do with you i- identifying with Christ and obedience. But if you want to come into fellowship, you'll have to approach us again, and we'll have a different conversation. And I did sometime later, and they explained to me what the responsibilities were associated with me coming into fellowship as to my behavior and conduct and so on, and the responsibilities I had to remain in fellowship as well, and also what I could expect from them as elders. This was all presented to me, uh, at that second interview, and then I was brought into, into fellowship. And of course, eh, it's very important to, to understand there's a difference. There's no sort of responsibilities attached to baptism other than obeying Christ, but when it comes into fellowship, there is other thing- there are other things involved, including being under the authority of the elders and so on in the assembly. The next thing he talks about is they continued steadfastly. They, these people who had been saved, they didn't just say, well, that's it, I suppose, uh, we're saved and baptized, uh, we're just sort of free agents now. No, no, no, no, he says they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, the fellowship, the breaking of bread, and the prayers. The word steadfastly is very, very interesting. I looked up my Greek lexicon, it says to continue all of the time, to be devoted, to give unremitting care to. That's a challenge, isn't it? How are we in our being added? One brother used to come along to our assembly when I was back in Scotland, and he used to liken believers to two kinds, bees or butterflies. He says bees, from the moment they're born into that hive, twenty four hours or twelve hours a day during the daylight hours, that bee works ceaselessly, back and forward, back and forward, for the benefit and well-being of that hive. It's completely devoted. And eh, he says they they work ceaselessly. In fact, I've been told that once these little bees die and they're swept out the hive by the the cleaners or whatever, their little wings are in shreds. They they've given their all, uh, for the for the benefit of the the the that hive that they belong to. And he used to say butterflies are different, you know, they just have a they they have no loyalty to any place. They just flit around and have a little sip here, a little sip there, and eh, and that's it, he said, are you a bee or are you a butterfly? Are you continuing steadfastly, committed to one local church and the building of it and the good of it? Very, very important to understand that. It's very interesting to know that the apostles' doctrine is mentioned first, and I don't think that's a mistake. It's very, very interesting and very important that it should be first, because everything depends on the apostles' doctrine. That's the foundation. The apostle could say, I have laid the foundation, and the apostles and the prophets, they laid the foundation for the church. And so it's important, doctrine is important, because if our doctrine isn't right, our practice will be wrong. And so it's very important that we understand that the apostles' doctrine, the truth revealed in the New Testament with regard to the local church, should be, eh, adhered to. Unless there's a common understanding of doctrine, there's no real basis for fellowship. No real true basis. Then there's the word fellowship, they continued in the fellowship, the word that's used here is the same word that was used for a business partnership or a marriage. Now, marriage is, is, is a very, uh, it's a big step, isn't it? You're committed to each other until death do us part. Bit different in the world nowadays, mind you, but the scriptural idea is, uh, brought together, committed to each other until death do us. It's deeper than just having a social relationship or an occasional visit. Commitment and loyalty are wrapped up in the breaking of, in in the in the fellowship, the idea of fellowship. Being in fellowship doesn't mean coming to the breaking of bread. It means involvement in all the other aspects of the church and being, eh, involved in the fellowship. And then the breaking of bread. One author, uh, has written a book, and I think it's up in Gospel Folio Press, I've seen it, The Chief Meeting of the Brethren. And indeed, uh, I think that's right, as it's the high point in our fellowship when we meet together and in the presence of the Lord, and we remember him in accordance with his own, his own instructions to us. And so, eh, the breaking of bread is very, very important. I was preaching up, eh, a little bit further up north, I think it might have been Lystawell one Sunday, and eh, in the afternoon, eh, they asked if I would like to have a rest, and of course, at my age, yeah, I'm very happy to do that. So I, I, I was into a room, and there was a magazine lying there. It wasn't an assembly magazine, but it was from an evangelical group. I think it might have been Moody Monthly or something like that. Anyway, in this magazine, they had done a survey of all the evangelical groups in, in America, I believe it was, identifying their strengths and their weaknesses, and uh, I didn't have the inclination or the time to be able to read all of this, so I very quickly turned to what they said about the Brethren Assemblies, and I was quite amazed. Here's a man who isn't in our assemblies, and here's what he said. He said, my visit to the Brethren Assemblies were, was very unique compared to anywhere else I had been. He said, everywhere else I went, the pulpit was the focal point. But he says, when I went to the brethren assemblies, the table was the focal point. And I thought he got that right. The Lord in the midst, uh, the table and so on. And so the breaking of bread is a very, very important thing. This is a truth that was recovered from the morass of Christendom away back over a hundred years ago by our early brethren, who decided that we needed to get rid of all the trimmings and trappings and, eh, hierarchy and all the rest of it surrounding the feast, to have it as the Lord instituted it simply amongst his disciples, as we did this morning, and it's very precious. And finally, the prayers. Prayer is very, very important. Paul writing to Titus, he says, first of all, supplication and prayers be made for all men. First of all, prayers. In other words, one of the great priorities of the local church is that of prayer. I don't know what like it is in Brantford, but in many assemblies, the prayer meeting is perhaps the poorest attended. Uh, maybe you're different here. I hope me- I would hope you would be. But anyway, it's so important if we are going to be able to serve the Lord acceptably and, and in the power and energy of the Holy Spirit, that there must be indeed, the prayer must take the priority in our lives. Time is gone, but I trust that these remarks that we've made have been helpful. If you're here this morning, you're not saved. I trust that you'll be one of those who will repent of your sin and exercise faith in our Lord Jesus Christ and leave here this morning, and that's possible, saved and bound for heaven. May it be so for his name's sake. Shall we pray? Our gracious God and our Father, we thank thee indeed for these tremendous moments that took place at the beginning of the church age. For that great result that they got from the first preaching of the gospel, we give you thanks. And so, our Father, we would just pray that what we've seen happen in Jerusalem um two thousand years ago may be somewhat duplicated in our meeting today, that someone might come to Christ and be saved. So, our Father, we just ask thy blessing as we part, and we pray that you will bless us in our fellowships together this afternoon. And as we come up this evening, we pray that the power of the Holy Spirit may be evident among us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Could we take time to sing, uh, three hundred and forty two, Just as I am without one plea, uh, but that thy blood was shed for me and that thou bidst me come to thee, O Lamb of God, I come. We'll sing the first verse and the last verse. I haven't got a hymn book up here, but the first and the last verse of that one hymn.