The Unchanging Christ and Other Sermons, 5. The Message of Pentecost (2:22-36)


Text: “Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth. a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and sings. which God did by him in the midst of you. as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of, ye 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 be holden of it. For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face; for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved; Therefore did ow heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad: moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope: Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou host made me full of joy with thy countenance. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; He, seeing this before, spoke of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the prose 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 said himself, The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, 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.” (Acts 2:22-36)

I WANT you to look with me at a sermon that another man preached over nineteen hundred years ago; a sermon that had greater results probably than any other that has ever been preached in the history of the world.

You all know, of course, that it is a little over nineteen hundred years since the Holy Spirit came on that wondrous Pentecost at Jerusalem. Our chronology is reasonably certain excepting that when the calendar was arranged as we have it now, those who had charge of these matters were misled on account of a misunderstanding of the Roman calendar. We say B. C., before Christ, and A. D., Anno Domini, since Christ, the year of our Lord. Somebody has said, “His pierced hand lifted empires off their hinges and changed the course of ages.” We date everything from the time that Christ Jesus came into the world. Chronologists discovered a few hundred years ago that those who had computed those dates had been misled in some particulars, and that our Lord Jesus was born four years earlier then supposed date of His birth. He was in this scene thirty-three and one-half years, therefore He was crucified in all probability in the spring of A.D. 30, although some think it was more likely in A.D. 29. Fifty days after His resurrection the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, On the morning of that day, the twelve apostles came together to wait upon God, and with them a number of others who brought the entire company up to one hundred twenty. The twelve who had the prominent place were those who had been associated with the Lord Jesus Christ in His life on earth “from the days of John the Baptist until the day in which He was taken up.”

Judas had proven recreant and after selling his Lord had committed suicide going to his own place. Though bearing the name of a disciple, he was ever “a devil.” But in place of Judas another had been chosen, Matthias. He had been an eye-witness of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. These men had been commissioned by the Saviour to go out “into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” They were largely illiterate. They had had very few advantages, thinking of them from the scholastic standpoint. But as they had been instructed by the greatest Teacher who had ever walked this earth, spiritually and intellectually, too, they had enjoyed remarkable privileges. They had been transformed by the years of companionship with Him. But there they were, a forlorn little company; they had seen their Lord crucified, they had given up hope; they said, “We thought it was He who should deliver us,” but His death seemed to end all that. Then they were electrified to hear that the stone had been rolled away from the door of the tomb, and they thought His enemies had stolen His body. His foes were as perturbed as they, for their greatest desire was that He should remain forever in the tomb.

Suddenly the Blessed Lord appeared to His disciples and in such a way that there could be no doubt that He was the same blessed One who had been nailed to the cross, who had gone through all the agonies of the tree and cried out in His anguish, “My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

He was risen, no question about it. If His enemies had stolen the body, they would have produced it for they would realize that they had made the greatest possible mistake. If the disciples had taken it, they would have produced it, for they were upset to think that their enemies might have taken it. But they had to believe that He had risen when they saw Him. He could actually say to a doubter, “Reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side; and be not faithless but believing” (John 20:27). During forty days the risen Lord gave them a postgraduate course in Christian service and commissioned them to carry His gospel into all the world, and yet those men shrank from the task before them. But He told them not to begin until a new power should come to them. “Tarry ye in Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high” (Luke 24:49). And they waited for ten days after He had ascended to heaven and then we are told that “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 as of a rushing mighty wind and it filled all the house where they were sitting (Acts 2:1, 2). Oh, the solemnity of it! Imagine what it must have meant to them when suddenly they heard that sound from heaven. There was no evidence of storm in the sky and yet there came “a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they were sitting.” Then as they gazed one upon another “there, appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them” (Acts 2:3). The Spirit had come in cleansing power and had come to empower them to carry the message of the gospel in the tongues of all men to the very ends of the world. They were to go forth to win men not with human reason nor by grace nor by their eloquence, but with the tongue of fire, the tongue touched by the Holy Spirit. They were filled with the Holy Spirit and their filling was not just for their own satisfaction; it was not simply for their own joy and gladness; it was not a mere emotional experience that would give them a certain ecstatic sensation; but they were filled in order that they might be the messengers of grace to a dying world and “they began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.”

Thousands of years before, men rose up in their pride when God had commanded them to scatter on the face of the earth, and undertook to build a tower that would reach to heaven and said, “We will remain here and we will be strong in our own strength, in our own power.” But we read that God came down to see the tower which the children of men had builded, and He divided their tongues so that they were not able to understand one another’s speech. One man asked for bricks in one language and he was answered in bewilderment by his brother in another language. The work ceased and they were scattered abroad. But on the day of Pentecost the very opposite miracle was wrought. God used men, all of whom were Galileans, to preach in languages that they had never learned, and gave them opportunity to manifest this new power which they had received.

The Jews had come up to Jerusalem from their own countries where they had been scattered in order to worship God at Pentecost, and there they were all ready for the message. They were amazed to hear every man speak in their own language and they said, “Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans?” Remember we have no intimation that anybody bathe twelve had this marvelous manifestation. It was the twelve apostles that were preaching in tongues that day; not the one hundred twenty, not the people who were converted afterward. And yet they said, “How hear we every man in our own tongue, wherein we were born? Parthians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, in Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews and proselytes, Cretes and Arabians, we do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God.” They could not explain it. “Why,” they said, “what meaneth this?” Those who could understand the different languages could get what was being preached; those who did not understand thought the men were just babbling and said, “These men are full of new wine.” It was not that they were acting in an erotic manner but as they preached in these strange languages the Palestine Jews said, “Why, these men are babbling drunkards.” But Peter replied, “No, no, this is the very same power that was spoken of in the book of the prophet Joel.” He does not say that this is the fulfilment of the prophet Joel, for when Joel’s prophecy will be completely fulfilled, there shall appear “wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke” (Joel 2:30). But the very same power that is going to work then was the power that was working on Pentecost, and so Peter says, “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel.”

The same Spirit, the same power, came at that day to accompany the ministry of the Gospel, and in that power Peter preached the Word. Do you wonder as you read it, how it was that it produced such tremendous results? I did not hear any man cry for mercy; I did not hear any one sobbing over his sins when we read it this morning, but when Peter preached, the effect was electric; it stirred his great audience from the center to circumference. Those people were all familiar with the events that had just taken place; they knew how Jesus had been denied in Pilate’s judgment hall, how He had been crucified, laid in a tomb, and now Peter’s solemnly attested declaration is that Jesus whom many of them had seen carried to the tomb, had been raised in power and was living to save. It stirred those people to the very depths of their being. Oh, that the Spirit who gave power to that message nineteen hundred years ago might give power to it as I read it again to you today.

“Ye men of Israel”— let me change it— “Ye men of Chicago, you who are here today out of Christ, you who are more or less familiar with these things but have never allowed them to grip your heart and conscience, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know.” Jesus came in exact accord with the prophetic word; everything was headed up in Him. He came in the way of righteousness; He said the things that He had been expected to say, and yet, alas, alas, they rejected Him. People say, “If we could only see miracles wrought; if the ministers today could work signs and wonders, people would believe.” Not at all! No one was ever converted to God by a miracle. God has given miracles in order to attest His message. Even if we could call the dead to life, men would no more believe than they do when the Gospel preached.

You remember that rich man who died and went down into Hades, and cried, “I pray thee, therefore, that thou wouldest send Lazarus to my father’s house: for I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment” (Luke 16:27, 28). Think of it! Six brothers, one in hell and five on the way. What a family! And that man in hell said, “I do not want my brothers to come here; send Lazarus to them.” But Abraham said, “They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them,” let them read their Bible, let them accept the message of the Bible. That rich man knew how he himself had neglected his Bible, and he knew his brethren were just like him, and said, “Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent” (Luke 16:30). And Abraham said, — (hear it, Christless soul, you who have sometimes said, “If God only gave me some other advantages than those He has given in His Word”)— Abraham said, “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, though one rose from the dead” (Luke 16:31). What does this mean? Just this, that if men will not believe the Bible, they will not believe the greatest possible miracle; they would call it all in question, they would not accept it. O, my friend, God is not speaking to you through miracles but He has sent His Word which Jesus attested by miracles. Would men accept Him? They cried, “Away with him, away with him, crucify him.”

But now, see how Peter drives that home. “Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God”— nothing took God by surprise. He knew just what they would do, but that does not lessen their sinfulness— “Ye have taken and with wicked hands have crucified and slain.” The world stands guilty before God of the murder of His Son, and if you have never yet turned to God in repentance, saying, “O God, I confess the awful sin of rejecting Thy Son, and I take Him now as my Saviour and own Him as my Lord,” you remain under the dreadful indictment of having crucified the Lord of glory, for you stand with those who were guilty of the most fearful crime that has ever taken place in this world. Every man or woman who has never turned from the world to Christ stands guilty before God of the murder of His Son.

Do you say, “Preacher, you do not know me; I am respectable; my life is a good life; I am a good father, a good husband, a dutiful son, an obedient daughter. You have no reason to point me out as a sinner?” The Spirit came that He might convict men of sin. What sin? Jesus says, “Of sin, because they believe not on me” (John 16:9). If you are not guilty of any other sin, that one sin of Christ-rejection is the worst one you could possibly commit. And it is the sin that will sink you down to the deepest depths of bitter woe for all eternity if you do not repent, if you do not turn to God and say, “O God, I accept the One the world rejected, the One the world crucified I put my trust in Him; I will take Him as my Saviour.” This is what Peter drove home in the power of the Holy Ghost to those people that day. He reminded them of what David said, “I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is my right hand that I should not be moved” and then went on to show how this was fulfilled in Christ. “Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” David was not speaking of himself for he died and had to await the time when believers would be raised in the first resurrection. But Peter said that David was speaking of Christ, and he declared, “Therefore, being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne; he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.” Now Peter says, “This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses.”

Jesus has been raised from the dead. What does that mean? Two things. First, that He who died lives again to be the Judge of all. “He hath appointed a day in which He will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead.” You must see Him some day; you must look into His face some day; hear His voice, and meet Him either in this world or in the world to come.

The second thing is this. Jesus has been raised from the dead to give repentance and remission of sins. “Let all the house of Israel— (let all the people of Chicago) —know assuredly, that God hath made that same Jesus, both Lord and Christ.” As Christ, He is the Saviour of sinners, the risen Jesus. You must meet Him either in life or at the great white throne, but the first time you meet Him you must meet Him in all your sins. You can meet Him in your sins today and be saved for all eternity; but if you refuse to meet Him in your sins in this life, you must do so in the judgment day only to hear Him say so sadly, so sorrowfully, “Depart from me. I never knew you.”

Jesus lives. He lives to save you today if you will come to Him. This was the message that Peter preached. Can you imagine the results? Does it seem impossible that 3,000 people smitten to the heart, cried out, “What shall we do?” They confessed Jesus as Saviour and Lord and were baptized in His name, and the same glorious gift was given to them as came to the twelve and to the one hundred twenty. You have heard the same story. What effect will it have upon you? Are you here in your sin? Are you here unsaved? You cannot do a thing to save yourself, but Christ died for your sin and has been raised from the dead. He sits today exalted on God’s right hand, a Prince and a Saviour, and He has commissioned us to preach repentance and remission of sins to all who trust His name. Will you trust Him as did they of Pentecost over 1900 years ago? Will you heed the message? Will you come to Him?