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For those of you who are visiting with us, we are continuing our verse-by-verse study of the book of Acts, and we find ourselves this morning in Acts chapter two. While you're turning there, may I remind you that the word of God teaches us that the more we gaze at scripture, the more we become like Christ. In fact, in Romans 12:2, we're told that we're transformed by the renewing of our minds. So literally, the Holy Spirit of God changes our thinking, he changes our attitudes when we study, when we meditate upon the scripture, and when our minds are renewed, they are in fact becoming more and more saturated with and controlled by the word of God; and this is why we have such an emphasis at this church in the preaching of the word, so that we will become more like Christ, which is the goal of our faith. In fact, in Colossians 1 we are told through the apostle Paul, "we proclaim him, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, so that we may present every man complete in Christ." and then he went on to say, "...for this purpose I also labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."  So I would ask you this morning, I would ask for you to labor to learn as I labor to teach, and together we therefore will grow more into Christ's likeness, that he might have the preeminence in all things.

Follow along as I read Acts chapter two, and we find ourselves this morning beginning in verse 22 through verse 36 Peter, preaching here, says,

"Men of Israel, listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know -

"this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.

"But God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.

"For David says of Him,

"'I was always beholding the Lord in my presence; for He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.

"'Therefore, my heart was glad, and my tongue exalted; Moreover, my flesh also will abide in hope;

"'Because Thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow thy holy one to undergo decay.

"'Thou hast made known to me the ways of life; Thou wilt make me full of gladness with Thy presence.'"

"'Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David, that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

"'And so, because he was a prophet and he knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants upon his throne,

"he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that He was neither abandoned to Hades nor did His flesh suffer decay.

"'This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.

"'Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this which you both see and hear.

"'For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, "The Lord said to my Lord, sit at My right hand,

"'"until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet."'

"'Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ - this Jesus whom you crucified.'"

I would invite you this morning to come with me to Jerusalem to walk down the streets, the stony streets, and notice that they're rather empty. Something is going on. If you listen carefully, you will hear a large group of people somewhere over there. It sounds kind of like a stadium filled with people. There's much excitement, and as we approach the crowd, and we begin to gaze at them, we notice that the place absolutely electric; something has happened, something amazing, something that's confusing.

You will remember the context; Christ has ascended, and the Holy Spirit of God has descended in a very dramatic fashion, and all of the Hebrew males have been required by law to come to Jerusalem for the sacred festival of the Feast of Weeks, or Pentecost, and the word of God tells us that they were gathered from every nation. So God, in his sweet providence, has brought this crowd together, and they have heard a deafening noise, the text says, like a violent rushing wind, and it had come down from heaven, and it had reverberated around an upper room in a certain house, where 120 people that followed Christ had been gathering, and there they had been told to gather together to wait for what the Father had promised, namely the Holy Spirit; and indeed the glorious presence of the Spirit of God had come down and had visibly rested upon the people in that room, miraculously empowering them to be able to speak with languages that they did not know -  that they had never learned - speaking the mighty deeds of God. And now the crowd was hearing this, they were hearing it in their own language, and they were amazed. They knew that all of this was from God, but they didn't understand what it meant. What is going on?

As verses 12 and 13 say, "...they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, 'What does this mean?'" And then we learned last week that Peter reminds them, as he speaks to them, of Joel's prophecy, that what they were witnessing at Pentecost was a preview of divine judgment - judgment that would ultimately be fulfilled when Christ returns again - a reminder that Israel must first be judged and purged of her sins before the promised blessings could eventually be poured out. In essence, he is reminding them that the tongues that they were hearing was really a sign of divine judgment, a sign also of the temporary displacement of Israel as the custodians of divine truth, that truth now being temporarily transferred to the church.

Moreover, the supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God was the initial, shall we say, the partial fulfillment of the new covenant, the new covenant now whereby sins are forgiven, salvation comes now, not only to individuals, but also as we read in Jeremiah and Ezekiel, promise to a future generation of ethnic Jews, promises of spiritual restoration, promises of reconciliation and great joy, also promises of gathering his chosen people, Israel, back to their land, never to be removed again. And, of course, all of this ultimately will be fulfilled. All of God's covenant promises will ultimately be fulfilled as he makes good, shall we say, on his covenant promises to Abraham and David, and will find their ultimate convergence in the millennial kingdom.

And now Peter goes on to build his case against the people of Israel, a case that would convict some, that would confuse others and absolutely infuriate most. To accuse the Jews of that day of crucifying their long-awaited Messiah was a supreme blasphemy. Their disdain for anyone who would dare make such a claim was eclipsed only by their utter contempt of this man, Jesus of Nazareth. They were no doubt saying, "If he's the Messiah, where's the kingdom? How come we're still under Roman bondage? Where is the king? Where is peace? Where is blessing? Where is the reign of righteousness? Where is the ruling with a rod of iron?" You see, they were fixated on the glory, not on the shame. They were fixated on salvation from Rome, not salvation from sin. Their focus was on reward, not repentance, which is so indicative of people even in this day. Because of their ethnicity, because they were Jews, because they were sons of Abraham, they automatically assumed that they were part of the kingdom. They were convinced also of their own self-righteousness, and they refused to consider the Old Testament promises, therefore, of a Messiah who would first come in humility as the Lamb of God to suffer and to die for their sins, even though that was made clear in Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53. They only focused on the promise to come in glory as the triumphant king of Kings, the one who would conquer his enemies and also the enemies of his people and establish the glorious earthly kingdom. Of course, all of that is still yet to happen when he comes again his second time.

Now you must remember that they were confused because in the Old Testament we see predictions of the Messiah that would come to establish his kingdom, but it was unclear to them that this would involve two comings separated by many years, but now the newly empowered spirit-filled inspired apostle carefully builds an ironclad case against Israel, proving to them that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed their long-awaited Messiah, and that their guilt was beyond dispute; and here the inspired apostle uses four compelling arguments to make his case, each one having occurred in chronological order in Jesus' life. He is going to prove, dear friends, that Jesus was the Messiah because of number one, his phenomenal power; number two, because of his predetermined death; number three, because of his promised resurrection, and fourthly, because of his preeminent exaltation. And God is now going to use each of these forceful evidences to bring conviction to some, and frankly, further harden the hearts of others, because, as you all know, two plus two equals five to some people, no matter how you present it.

So, first of all, let's look at his argument based on his phenomenal power, proving that Jesus was Messiah. Verse 22, "'Men of Israel,'" he says, "'listen to these words: Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through Him in your midst, just as you yourselves know - '" Now, friends, the key verb here is "attested," it means to display or exhibit something for the purpose of authentication or confirmation; and here we read that God displayed his son, the Lord Jesus Christ, in human flesh, and thereby authenticated or proved his deity with miracles and wonders and signs, which God performed through him. "Miracles," biblically, could be defined as supernatural events that cannot be explained by natural forces designed to publicly authenticate a divine messenger declaring a special revelation to those who witnessed the miracle. And "wonders" is a term that really describes the awe that fills the minds of all those who behold the miracles. And then we also see the term used, "signs," which really describe the purpose of biblical miracles. A sign does what a sign does, it points to something, it draws your attention to something, and here the miracles were signs that pointed to the omnipotence of Almighty God and man's need to not only hear but heed the voice of God.

Now it's fascinating as we study the biblical record, that even Jesus' enemies could not deny his phenomenal supernatural miracle working power; they had all witnessed it, but they could not bring themselves to believe that somehow this man was sent from God, that he was really the Messiah, that he was God incarnate. Now, examples of this are many in the gospel narrative. We see, for example, in John 11, when Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, the text says the chief priests and the Pharisees convened a council and were saying, "What are we doing for this man is performing many signs, if we let Him go on like this, all men will believe in Him, and the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation." We can't have that. So, being good religious politicians, rather than believing in Jesus as Messiah, and therefore running the risk of forfeiting their political power and jeopardizing their lavish lifestyles, they plotted to kill him. And it's interesting, dear friends, rebellious pride is always a greater enemy to truth than ignorance. In fact, Jesus told Nicodemus, the ruler of the Jews in John 3 that, "Some men love darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil." You see, people will believe what they want to believe, regardless of the evidence to the contrary. People will believe convenient lies, usually the first thing that they were taught when they were young, or what they themselves teach, because it's hard to go back and say, "You know, what I've been teaching something that is errant, I was wrong." In fact, scripture teaches that if people willingly, deliberately, consciously hear the truth and reject it, that they will unwittingly become victims of lies and myths. Paul tells us this in Second Timothy four, beginning in verse three, "They will not endure sound doctrine, but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires," and catch this, "and will turn away their ears from the truth and turn aside unto myths." Turn away is in the active voice. It means it's something you choose to do. You hear the truth, you don't like it, so you turn your back on it. You move in a different direction, and when you do that, it says you will "turn aside to myths." That's in the passive voice, which indicates that it will be something that will happen to you. And what happens to you is the myths take you over and you begin to believe things that are utterly ridiculous. and my, how the world is filled with such deception.

So, the first indicting testimony against them has been stated. He is, in essence, saying that you witnessed the phenomenal supernatural power of Jesus, yet you refuse to worship him. Now, it was exceedingly difficult for the Jews to understand why this miracle worker did not save himself from the cross, if he was indeed the Messiah, as you claim. Remember, they shouted, "You saved others, save yourself." And again, their image of their Messiah was not one of a suffering servant, but rather of one who would come to conquer. Now, knowing this, the Spirit of God speaks through his servant Peter, and he now answers this question, offering yet a second compelling argument to further indict them, and that is the argument based upon his predetermined death.

Verse 23, "'...this Man,'" he says, "'delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.'" So, again, they're going to ask, "Alright, and now, if he was the Messiah, why didn't he save himself from the cross?" And the answer is simply this: because God ordained him to hang on that cross. The word "predetermined" in the original language, it is "horizō," we get our word "horizon" from that, and it means to mark out a boundary beforehand. It was a predetermined plan, "plan" - "boulē" in the original language - it describes God's will, God's will of purpose, sometimes called his secret will, his sovereign will, his will of decree, that which he has designed, ordained, and decreed in eternity past. So Peter is saying, our sovereign God decreed that Jesus die on the cross. This was his predetermined plan. He had a purpose in it. And it was also based on the foreknowledge of God, "prognōsis," in Greek. We get our word prognosis in English; it means to fore ordain. It means far more than some would want to have it mean that God just kind of looked ahead and saw what was going to happen. It has literally the idea of foreknowing something to the point of for loving as well as for ordaining. In fact, grammatically we know that this term means, in essence, that God's foreknowledge or his foreordination was really the sole cause or the means by which you men nailed him to a cross. This is to say that Jesus did exactly what God ordained him to do, yet you are responsible for what you did. And here again, we see another example of the inscrutable mystery between God's sovereignty and man's responsibility.

Now, let me digress for a moment. Scripture teaches that God is in control of absolutely everything in His creation, and I was looking up some of the passages I was going to share with you, and I realized that there would be no place to stop. There are many, many, many passages in Scripture that would acknowledge that; and you also must therefore understand that God is also even in control of evil, yea, he has ordained it to occur as we see here in his predetermined plan to deliver up the Lord Jesus to evil men. Now you know, whenever there's some great catastrophe here in the United States, the political pundits and news people get some religious figure on, and they say, "Well, where was God in all of this?" And everybody's real quick to say, "Oh, well, now wait a minute, God had nothing to do with this. This kind of snuck up...he's as surprised with this as we are." And you hear all of this silly stuff. And many Christians will go to great lengths to protect God from such a charge. Many will say, in essence, we cannot admit that God is totally sovereign over all things, including man's salvation; to say that he would save some and not all. We can't let him have that rap on him.

Moreover, we cannot let him be held responsible for evil, so we must invent a theological system to get God off the hook. And, of course, this system is one that would deny not only God's sovereignty, but also deny that man is spiritually dead, and deny that regeneration is fully a work of God and they would say that God offers salvation to man, but it's really up to man to save himself and to accept that, and God is kind of dependent upon all of that. So, ultimately, there is a whole group of people that would, in essence, say God is not responsible for evil, man is in fact the cause of evil. They would say is man's free will. Their argument would go something like this: you see, God could have created totally righteous robots and never allowed evil to enter his creation, but that would have eliminated man's free will, which he believed was far more important. So, if God is completely sovereign and acts as the primary source of man's choices, they would go on to say that that would not only violate the higher good of man's autonomy, but it would also make God responsible for evil, and we can't have that, because after all, God is a God of love, so we must protect God from that charge of injustice. And so what they end up doing is reinventing a God who values man's will more than his own. They reinvent a god that is not the God of the Bible.

 I remember when I was a young man, I was a classic Arminian, which is in essence the main group that would believe this, and I thought that this solved everything. I really struggled with this as a young man. I just could not come to believe that God was sovereign, that He decreed everything that happened. I believed, well, you know what, I can bail him out of all this. I will just go along with the group that says that God just really looked down through the annals of time and he saw what was going to happen and based on what he saw was going to happen, then he decreed that those things would happen. So, really, it wasn't his fault, it was their fault, and that seemed to make sense to me. And therefore, even in this situation in Acts, what we could say is that the Lord didn't really predetermine that the Lord Jesus died on the cross. He just saw that he was ultimately going to be killed, so he decided to decree that that was going to happen. And so it really wasn't his fault, it was their fault.

Well, of course, in a superficial way, that made a lot of sense to me. The problem that I had to wrestle with, that maybe some of you wrestle with is simply this: if God knew people would choose to reject him, why would he go ahead and create them and allow them to be born? You see, bottom line, he's still therefore the primary source of evil, because he is ultimately the one in control. Well, what does scripture say? Dear friends, scripture teaches that God has indeed willed evil to exist as a part of his plan and his purpose to glorify himself. In Isaiah 45 beginning in verse six, we read, "I am the LORD, and there is no other, the one forming light and creating darkness, causing well-being and creating calamity. I am the LORD, who does all these." Oh, no, no, that can't be true. I demand another explanation. Oh, do you really? Anticipating that, in verse nine, God says, 'Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker; an earthenware vessel among the vessels of earth. Will the clay say to the potter, "What are you doing?" Or the thing you were making say, "He has no hands." Woe to him who says to a father, "What are you begetting?" Or to a woman, "To what are you giving birth?'" In other words, dear friends, to question God's justice in his sovereign rule is as ludicrous as a pot demanding an explanation from its potter, or an unborn child still within the mother's womb demanding an explanation for its conception and for its genetic makeup. Utterly ridiculous. Isaiah 46 beginning in verse nine, the end of verse nine, God says, "I am God, and there is no one like Me. Declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things which have not been done, saying, 'My purpose will be established, and I will accomplish all My good pleasure.'" And he says in Deuteronomy 32:39 'It is I who put to death and give life. I have wounded, and it is I who heal, and there is no one who can deliver from My hand.'" And in Proverbs 16 verse four, "The Lord has made everything for its own purpose, even the wicked for the day of evil." And in Amos 3:6 we read, "If a calamity occurs in a city, has not the Lord done it?" In Psalm 115 verse three we read, "Our God is in the heavens, He does whatever He pleases."

Well, yes, but I don't like that. Why would God ordain evil simply to glorify himself? Beloved, let me ask you, this is God more or less glorified because he ordained Jesus to die on the cross? The answer is obvious, is it not? You see, had he not ordained evil to enter into his perfect creation, we would have never known the heights of his holiness, nor the depths of his grace. In Romans three and verse five, we read that it is our unrighteousness that demonstrates the righteousness of God. "Demonstrates" means that something that is disclosed or revealed or made obvious something that is put on display. He says, "but if our unrighteousness demonstrates the righteousness of God, what shall we say? The God who inflicts wrath is not unrighteous, is He?" The answer is, of course not. In Romans five verse eight, we read, "But God demonstrates" - there's the same word - he displays, he puts on display, "His own love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” You see, friends, you must understand, had God not decreed in his sovereign infinite wisdom that sin entered the world, we would have never been able to understand his infinite love and mercy and forgiveness and grace.

You see, literally our sin puts his glory on display. It allows us to see his love in action, his mercy, his grace, his forgiveness, even his holiness. We see his holiness displayed even in his wrath, not to mention his glorious power. In Romans nine, beginning in verse 22 we read that God was, "...willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known." It goes on to say that he, "..endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction." In other words, even in his holiness he patiently endured all of the sin, because he had a purpose; he was going to demonstrate his power. It goes on to say that, He did so in order that, he might, "make known the riches of His glory upon vessels of mercy, which He prepared beforehand for glory." "Yeah, but I still don't like it, it makes God out to be a monster." Oh, really? God anticipates this, and in Romans nine verse 14, he speaks through his apostle and says, "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be!" Then he gives this incredible example,

"For He says to Moses, 'I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.' "So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs..." In other words, God's mercy doesn't depend upon human choice or human effort, "...but on God who has mercy."

"For the scripture says to Pharaoh, 'For this very purpose, I raised you up...'" Now let's stop there. Whoa, whoa, wait a minute. You raised up this wicked fiend named Pharaoh to commit incredible atrocities upon your covenant people? You did that? Why would you do that? He goes on to say, "'To demonstrate My power in you, and that My name might be proclaimed throughout the whole earth.'" And indeed, because of what happened in the Exodus, God's name, his power, his grace, his mercy, his love, even his wrath was proclaimed throughout the whole world and continues to do so today. So then it says, "He has mercy on whom He desires, and He hardens whom He desires." "Yes, but I hate this doctrine, it's unfair. God is a God of love. I prefer a theological system that bails him out of this jam."

My friend, let me ask you, will you grab God by the ear, so to speak, and haul him in before your court of justice. Will you sit him down before you in a lower court of your finite and fallen reasoning, and demand an explanation from him? Will you judge him according to your understanding of justice? Will you make him adhere to your law? God anticipates such ignorance and arrogance. And in Romans nine verse 19, he says, "Will you say to me then,  'Why does He still find fault? For who can resist His will?'" Verse 20,

 "On the contrary, who are you, O man, who answers back to God? This thing molded will not say to the molder, 'Why did you make me like this,' will it?

"Or does not the potter have a right over the clay, to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?"

Beloved, may we rejoice in the infinite wisdom and justice of God, who ordained evil to enter this world, because had he not done so, we would never be able to join with the angels some day in eternal worship, and be able to praise God with a profound understanding of all of his attributes, which will be able to shine in all of their glory against the backdrop of the darkness and wickedness of sin.

So the Holy Spirit, again, back in Acts two indicts the Jews in verse 23, "'...this Man, delivered up by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put Him to death.'" As a footnote, I find it fascinating; many will resent the notion that God would choose some and not all to be saved, accusing him of being unfair, and yet I find it interesting that you will not hear those same people accusing God of being unfair and choosing them, nor will you hear them say it was unfair for God to deliver up the innocent Lord Jesus Christ to the hands of those godless men to be nailed to a cross. You won't hear that. My how hopelessly biased we are in our own favor, and how infinitely ignorant we are of the character and justice and purposes of God, who has decreed all things for our good and his glory. Beloved, do not eviscerate the sovereignty of God from his character. If you do so, you diminish his glory.

So, the inspired apostle proves that Jesus was the Messiah, first on the basis of his phenomenal power, second because of his predetermined death, and thirdly on the basis of his promised resurrection - the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And here, dear friends, is really the heart of Peter's argument; a fact that they could not deny, although they came up with all kinds of ways to try to explain it away, a fact that proved the deity of Christ. John MacArthur has well said, and I quote, "The resurrection is the crowning proof that God accepted the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Without it, His death becomes the heroic death of a noble martyr, the pathetic death of a madman, or the execution of a fraud. The greatest proof that Jesus is the Messiah, then, is not His teaching, His miracles, or even His death, it is His resurrection." End quote.

Now notice Peter's argument in verse 24, he says, "'God raised Him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for Him to be held in its power.'" In other words, he's saying, "You, Israel, nailed your Messiah to a cross, but God raised him up." Can you imagine a more scathing denunciation?  The word "agony” that the Spirit of God uses here is one that can be translated "birth pains." Obviously, this is a fitting word to use, because the Spirit of God used it, but think of this: the temporary birth pains of a woman as she's preparing to give birth is really a painful indication that something glorious and eternal is about to occur. A new life is about to come into existence here - an eternal life - the birth of a child. Likewise, and here's the parallel: Jesus' temporary agony on the cross signaled the glorious and eternal reality of the resurrection, whereby all who are united to him by faith will someday be raised to eternal glory. Beloved, we can all rejoice, because Jesus' death has rendered, as Hebrews 2:14 says, "...powerless him who had the power over death, that is, the devil..." because Jesus said, "'I am the resurrection and the life.'" Because of that, we can echo the words of the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians 15:54 "Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" My, what great hope and joy we have in Christ.

Peter goes on to quote Psalm 16, verses eight through 11, where the Messiah himself speaks in the first person through David, who penned the words in verse 25 he says, "'For David says of Him,'" now here Jesus is speaking prophetically, "'I was always beholding the Lord in my presence.'" In other words, here we read of the Lord Jesus, who never lost sight of his Father's goodness and his will, and his trust was energized by the Father's omnipotent power, he says,

"'For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad, and my tongue exulted; Moreover, my flesh also will abide in hope;

"'Because thou wilt not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow Thy Holy One to undergo decay.'"

You see, because of the Savior's confidence in the glorious purpose and power of God, he joyfully endured the cross and committed his body to the grave. You know, there's something very practical to learn here, because I know some of you are in this place, bringing with you some great calamity in your life. Think of this: what great confidence we have when our trust is in God alone. When we recognize that he indeed is our rock and our fortress, our strong tower, our deliverer, our strength, our deliverer. As we read here, "'For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken.'" Oh, child of God, please hear this: it is only when we keep the gaze of our hearts fixed upon the eternal can we survive the great sorrows of the temporal. Remember in Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, it was that key called Promise that allowed him to escape from Giant Despair's doubting castle and to somehow be freed from the giant's wife Distrust's merciless beatings. We must hold tight to that key, dear friends, the key of promise. Never ever drop it, even in the midst of the fires of great adversity. And how foolish it is for we, as Christians, to let the inevitable calamities of this fallen world discourage us and cause us to lose sight of the glories that will follow.

Albert Barnes put it so well, and I quote, "Our Savior has left us an example that we should walk in His steps. The prospect of future glory and triumph should sustain us amid all afflictions and make us ready like Him to lie down amid even the corruptions of the grave." 

So the Lord says in verse 28, "'Thou hast made known to me the ways of life.'" It could be translated literally, the path to resurrection life. You've made that known to me, and, "'Thou wilt make me full of gladness with thy presence.'"

And then Peter goes on reminding them of something that must have had a devastating impact, if it hadn't been devastating enough, if they weren't infuriated enough, so much for being seeker sensitive; He says in verse 29, "'Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried, and his tomb is still with us to this day.'" Verse 30,

"'And so, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants upon his throne,

"'he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh suffer decay.'"

Now, friends, by corollary, he is simply saying King David is still dead and in his grave. So Psalm 16 could not have been referring to him. So to whom does it refer? Well, the answer is in verse 32, "'This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses.'" In other words: you, my friends, you crucified your Messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, and God raised him from the dead, even as he promised. The empty tomb proves it. Now I can only imagine the scene. It would have been one of two reactions: intense grief or intense outrage. The evidence was overwhelming. His phenomenal power, his predetermined death, his promised resurrection, all pointed to one thing: Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the Messiah.

One final piece of evidence in Peter's argument, and that is the one of his preeminent exaltation, verse 33, "'Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has poured forth this, which you both see and hear.'" There being a reference to the outpouring of the Spirit of God, and all that they saw with the tongues there at Pentecost. Indeed, he is saying that Messiah has come, he has suffered, he has died, he has been resurrected from the dead, and now he has been exalted into glory. And he reminds them of yet another psalm of David that prophesied this very thing. In Psalm 110 we read it in verse 34, "'For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, 'The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make Thine enemies a footstool for Thy feet.'" You see, friends, you must understand, Christ ascended to his rightful place in heaven. The Father had given him full authority, the full right to rule, the full power to rule. God made him both Lord and Christ, and so naturally the question would come to mind, "So what delays the establishment of the kingdom?” And we see that here in this text, as Peter quotes from Psalm 110, the answer is simply this: He must wait until all of his enemies have been subjected to him until they're all as a footstool for his feet, which was an ancient expression denoting the utter surrender and humiliation of an enemy. So these Jews, along with many others, had to understand that they were the enemies, and he boldly tells them, therefore, that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit that you have seen here at Pentecost is a sign of divine judgment. Eventually, Christ will return as King of kings and Lord of lords, and he will complete that judgment.

Verse 36, "'Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ - this Jesus whom you crucified.'" And yet, what grace there is. He had already told them, and he will tell them again, as we will discover that there is great hope if they repent. Earlier he said in verse 21, "And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." My friends, Jesus was Israel's long-awaited Messiah, our Savior. His phenomenal power, his predetermined death, his promised resurrection, and his preeminent exaltation all prove it. He has promised to return someday, and when he does, he will indeed put all his enemies under his feet.

And while I long, and I hope you do too, I long for that day when he causes every need to bow and every tongue to confess that Jesus is Lord, I also grieve for those of you who reject Him, because unless you repent, you will be the object of his wrath, not the object of his love. And as his servant, I humbly warn you of a coming day of judgment, and I invite you to call on the name of the Lord and be saved before it is too late. And may you never say now, please hear this, may you never say in this life or in death that you were not presented the gospel of Christ, for you have heard it today. May God have mercy on all of our souls. Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for the power of your word. Thank you for disclosing such enormous and incredible and exciting truths to us. May they cause all of us to worship you at a very new level, and I pray especially for those who do not know you as Savior, who do not submit to you as Lord. I pray that by the power of your spirit you will overwhelm them with the truth of their sin and the Savior, that today will be the day of their repentance, that they will today experience the miracle of the new birth. For it's in Jesus' name that I pray. Amen.