Peter’s Sermon Results
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2022 · 17 July 2022
Related to Acts 2:37 – 42, the questions this evening is how is a person saved? By what act? Through what person? What is the channel of salvation? There have always been those people who were going to save the world and redeem man from all of his trials and problems, but they have all failed. So how is a person to come into a knowledge that he is saved both for this time and eternity?
What do I have to do to inherit eternal life?” The legalist says, “Keep the law. That’s how to be saved.” The moralist says, “Have your good deeds out way your bad deeds.” The racist says, “Be one of God’s chosen Jews.” The universalist says, “Don’t worry. We’ll all get in in the end.” The ritualist says, “You’ve got to do the right ritual.” And they all isolate scripture verses to prove their point.
The racist quotes Romans 11:26, “So all Israel will be saved,” and avoids Romans 9:6, “For they are not all Israel who are of Israel.” The Universalist uses Romans 5:18, “so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men,” avoiding Matthew 7:13, there is a broad road that leads to destruction and many go there.” They avoid Ephesians 2:8 - 9, “For by grace are you saved through faith, not of works, lest any man should boast.”
They will carefully avoid Romans 10:9 -10, which says that you’re saved with you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus Christ and believe in your heart.” You can prove anything by the Bible if you take it out of context. And it’s being done constantly. All of the people who espouse false doctrine from scripture do that. That’s why you have to compare scripture with scripture.
Now we’re studying Peter’s sermon. And it’s very important to look at what happens in response to Peter’s preaching, because we’re gaining real principles here for our own witness, for our own evangelism, for our own preaching. Let us briefly understand what happened. In Jerusalem, these masses of people begin to gather at the sound of a hurricane because there wasn’t any wind.
And as they came together to the location, here were all of these disciples speaking the wonderful works of God in the native languages of all these people who went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the feast of Pentecost. And they were astounded. The Spirit of God had opened their minds by the sign that these believers were reciting the historic deeds of God that every Jew knew.
Immediately at that point Peter stands up and explains to them what’s going on. And you can see how in such a fantastic way the Spirit of God has prepared their ears to hear the message. And by the time Peter opens his mouth, they’re hanging on every word, “What is this that we’re seeing?” They cannot deny the phenomenon and now they’re about to get the explanation.
Peter begins his sermon begins by explaining Pentecost. Joel said that in the last days, He would pour out the Spirit. Messiah came once and everything in between till His second coming still embodies Messianic times. Verse 22 introduces the Messiah as Jesus of Nazareth. They had actually killed the one they had been waiting for. And this is what Peter convicts them of.
In verse 23 he says the death of Christ was no accident. Jesus was no victim, but rather this was ordained by God, fulfilling prophecy explicitly. Then in verses 24 to 32, he says Jesus Christ is the Messiah because of His resurrection, and he shows how the Old Testament prophet David predicted Messiah would be a resurrected individual and Jesus had done that, fulfilling David’s prophecy.
Then he goes on to show that He is Messiah by virtue of ascension in verses 33 to 35. The conclusion then of his theme is in verse 36. Listen to it, “Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus, whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ” In other words, he has proven Christ to be Messiah. So the introduction explains the theme exalting Jesus.
Now he goes right to the core of the problem. You see, the most blatant sin that a man commits is not lying or cheating or committing adultery. The blatant sin in which every sinner lives is the sin of rejecting Jesus Christ, and that’s the cardinal sin of which the Spirit convicts. And so Peter shows them that they have executed their own Messiah and their own Savior.
Verse 37, “Now when they heard this they were pricked in their heart and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, ‘Men, brethren, what shall we do?’” They’re desperate. That’s where the Spirit of God wants to take every man in terms of conviction. Pricked in their heart means to penetrate with a needle. When the Messiah gets there, they put Him to death by the hands of the Romans.
They were cut to the heart because they had a deep sense of guilt that they themselves had done it. It would have been terrible to have lost the Messiah had somebody else done it, but they had done it. And then this, Peter had announced to them in no uncertain terms and there were multiplied witnesses to prove it, that this same Jesus who had been crucified was now alive.
And so they were afraid of His wrath. What could be a worse sin in all the universe than that? Nothing, in their minds. Those Jews were convicted that they had done the worst thing imaginable. They were right of course. And the fear of His wrath, they were scared of His vengeance. He was alive again and He was going to make His enemies His footstool. They were scared.
Oh, that’s a beautiful thing, because it’s just that kind of hopelessness that Jesus Christ can meet. And as long as a man thinks he can do it on his own, he can never know the experience of real salvation. As long as a man brings any of his own works or his own thoughts or his own ideas to add to what he thinks is salvation, there’s no way. It’s all by grace, Paul said.
And it is just that state in which the soul is prepared to receive the Savior. It is just that state that is ready to yield to Jesus Christ. Their guilt is fully exposed. They’re feeling the pain of the apostles’ words. Their consciences are stung by the sense of sinfulness in crucifying Jesus. They are convicted. If conversion is to be genuine, it is the offspring of conviction.
In the restoration of Israel, there’s going to be a conviction and a guilt over the execution of Messiah. And the pain and anguish will be like having murdered your own child. That’s how sacred Messiah is. And that’s exactly the same pain and anguish those people must have felt on the day of Pentecost. Just as bad as if they had taken executed their own firstborn son.
In Zechariah 13:1 it says, “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David.” In other words, once conviction comes, it’s followed by cleansing. Conviction is the key in the hand of the Spirit that opens the heart to salvation and to everyone that you preach to. You need to realize you’re a sinner not only because you do sin, but you’re a sinner because you live in rebellion against God.
You rebel against God by the fact that you haven’t committed your life to Jesus Christ. That’s God’s command that you do that, and you’ve not done it. You live in rebellion against God. For that you are the worst kind of sinner, and so was I before I came to Jesus Christ. People do not realize that. And I showed them from scripture that he that is not with Christ is against Christ.
You can’t assume, “Well, I’ve preached with great power and I’ve exalted the message of repentance, therefore, everybody’s going to believe.” You’ll get the reaction all right. Some will come to Jesus Christ, some will grit their teeth and gnash on you, and others may desire to kill you. But does that mean you don’t preach it that way? Does that mean you water it down and don’t tell it like it is? Of course not.
The tool of conviction is not telling stories. The tool of conviction is the Word of God. Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the Word of God is alive and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.” It is the Word of God that is the convicting agency in the hand of the Spirit of God.
And so when you witness, you witness with great conviction of sin. And Peter is in a good position. What do we do? And he replies in verse 38, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” But his message is based on the fact that they have no right to exist as a rebel against God.
Now what does repent mean? It means to turn around and go the other direction. Now 2 Corinthians 7:10 says that the world has a kind of sorrow that is not godly sorrow. It’s the sorrow because you got caught. That’s not the kind of sorrow he’s talking about here. Peter says, I don’t want you to just be sorry that you did this to Jesus. I want you to be so sorry you turn from your old self and you turn to Jesus.
Repentance is more than fear of the consequences. True repentance dreads sin itself. It’s an affront to God. And the fact that sin is evil and that God hates it is sufficient reason why the truly repentance heart hates sin and forsakes it. Now these Jews were afraid of punishment, but they had to be willing to turn from sin and come to Christ. And there’s an urgency in what Peter says here.
Peter says repent. Salvation is not a question of education, it is not a process. Oh, there’s so much more to salvation than that. It’s an act that happens in a moment. That’s why we get so many tares among the wheat. In Acts 17:30 God commands all men everywhere to repent. There is no salvation apart from repentance. Cut the cord of your past life and embrace Jesus as your Messiah.
So Peter calls on them to make a change and be baptized. And many of them in their hearts had believed the Messiah and they had accepted the fact that Jesus is the Messiah. And the temptation would have been to say, “I believe this, but I’m not sure I’m opening my mouth about it. But you cannot be a secret disciple. Peter wants something that is graphic as a renouncement of Judaism.
Notice in verse 38, “Be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.” And it meant that their families and all the rest of their world would count them as dead. The most despicable thing that a Jew could do would be to come to Jesus Christ, who was a blasphemer, they had decided, and worthy only of execution. But Peter says, I want you to show publicly that you believe Christ.
The Word of God does not teach that you are to be baptized to be saved. Water doesn’t save anybody. But now watch this key point. “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins.” It means, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ because of the forgiveness of sins.” It is a public sign of what had happened on the inside.
Notice at the end of verse 38 he says, “And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This is what Joel said, that God would pour out His Spirit in you. What is the condition to receiving the Holy Spirit? Repentance. Some people have been Christians for a long time and never followed baptism and thus not publicly declared their union with Jesus Christ. This is wrong.
Verse 39, “For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” Now that is the sovereign side of salvation. But if you go back to verse 21 and it says, “And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That is the human side. So you have both sides of the divine paradox right there.
Verse 40, “And with many other words Peter testified and exhorted them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation.” Jesus called that generation faithless, perverse and evil. And in 70 A.D. God swept down on that generation and wiped it out. Let a person know exactly what he’s doing when he comes to Jesus Christ from beginning to end. So we see the introduction, the theme, and the appeal of Peter.
Well, how many believed? Verse 41, “Then those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them.” Here you have three thousand that were baptized. That means those three thousand people were for real. Verse 42, “And they continued steadfastly in the apostles’ doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers.”
So the church is born. It was visible and at the same it was invisible. If your evangelism is right, you’ll be able to see how Christians are changed in the church. Make sure your evangelism is clear. Peter preached as the Spirit gave him inspiration. And the first day that little church had well over 3,000 people in it. And they were together and they were for real and they were about to change the world. Let’s pray.