Video of this message is available on YouTube: Witnesses for the Prosecution – Acts 2:32-41

Summary:

“Witnesses” (v. 32) are people who’ve seen or heard some-thing and testify that it’s true.  The disciples had seen and heard “all” the things the Lord did before He died (Acts 10:39-41), and so were good witnesses that it was Him after He rose again.  That’s why the Lord picked them (John 15:27).

But Peter didn’t know what Paul later learned, that He rose for our justification (Rom. 4:24).  So he charged Israel with the Lord’s death and threatened them with His resurrection.  Saying, “The one you killed is alive and coming back to get you!” And the disciples were witnesses for his prosecution.

“Exalted” (Acts 2:33) means to raise or elevate (Isa. 52:13,14).  God “exalted” the Lord “with His right hand” (Acts 2:33) by setting Him at His right hand (Mark 16:19).  To prove that, Peter quotes David (Acts 2:34).  Earlier he quoted a psalm of David where he talked about rising from the dead before his body corrupted (Acts 2:25-31).  Then he pointed out that David’s body was still in the grave, so he must have been talking about Christ.  Now Peter’s quoting another psalm of David, one where he talked about sitting at God’s right hand.  David couldn’t be sitting there if he was still in the grave, so again he must have been talking about Christ.

And if any of the Jews forgot that Psalm 110:1 ended by saying Christ would sit there till God made His enemies His footstool, Peter reminded them (Acts 2:35).  The Jews loved that psalm, for it went on to say that God would conquer the Lord’s Gentile enemies (Ps. 110:5,6).  But Peter was telling them that by crucifying the Lord they had joined the Lord’s Gentile enemies, and now He would return and judge them too!  Just as Psalm 2:1-12 said He would do, to Jews as well as Gentiles.

Luke 20:9-16 predicted this also, a parable the Lord told about the Jews (Mt. 21:41-45).  Of course, He couldn’t return and judge anyone unless He was Israel’s Christ, so Peter went on to say that He was (Acts 2:36). God declared that by setting Him at His right hand in the heavenly Zion (Ps. 2:5,6). The Jews knew Psalm 2 ended with advice to “kiss the Son” that they’d crucified, and that’s what Peter was telling them to do—and put their trust in Him, as the psalm also advised.

Peter called on them to “repent” (Acts 2:38), which means to change your mind about something.  Preachers today quote that to tell sinners to change their mind about their individual sins. But Peter hadn’t mentioned those!  He charged them with Christ’s death, wanting them to repent of that.  He was quoting Joel’s call to “turn” (Joel 2:11-14).

Preachers say baptism isn’t for salvation, but Peter said it was (Acts 2:38) because the Lord said it was (Mark 16:16). That’s just not God’s message for today!  Baptists also disagree with Peter when he said that if you get baptized you’ll get the Spirit in such a way you’ll speak in tongues, for they don’t believe in speaking in tongues.  But all that confusion could be avoided if they’d just realize Peter was talking to Jews and their children (Acts 2:39).  The “promise” was the Spirit (Acts 1:4,5), a promise God never made to Gentiles.  Those “afar off” were Jews who were scattered when Israel disobeyed God (Dan. 9:7).

Peter told the Jews to save themselves from that generation in Israel (Acts 2:40) because they killed the Lord, and so God was going to judge them for the death of all the prophets (Lu. 11:50,51).  He calls them “untoward” because he’s quot-ing how Moses called them “froward” (Deut. 32:19,20). Jews thought they were saved just because they were Jews, part of the nation of Israel, but that generation was “a froward nation” that God planned to provoke to jealousy with “a foolish nation” (Deut. 32:20,21,28).  When the Lord quoted that (Mt. 21:43), most people think He meant to make that nation jealous by giving their kingdom to the Gentiles.  But the Gentiles are many nations, not one.  “The nation” (singular) that the Lord gave it to was His little flock (Lu. 12:32).  Salvation used to be “of the Jews” (Jo. 4:22), but now it was of “the remnant” (Joel 2:32), so they had to get out of that nation and in Peter’s nation, the believing nation (I Pe. 2:9).

We don’t get 3,000 converts from one message today (Acts 2:41) for the same reason we can’t speak in tongues.  We aren’t filled with the Spirit in the same way they were!

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Peter Tells the Jews to Listen Up! – Acts 2:22-31

Summary:

“Nazareth” (2:22) was a despised city (John 1:46), but Peter mentioned it anyway.  Never be ashamed of the truth!

God approved the Lord by miracles (Acts 2:22), miracles that would tell the Jews that their God had come (Isa. 35:4-6).  The Jews require a sign (I Cor. 1:22) and the Lord gave them plenty of signs that He was their God!  But the Father did them (John 14:10,11) through Him. God was “with Him” (Acts 10:38) but that didn’t mean He wasn’t God (John 1:1).

How’d Peter know they knew about the Lord’s miracles (Acts 2:22)? They were from all over (Acts 2:5). But His fame got around (Mt. 4:24; 9:1,26,30,31; Mark 1:28; Lu. 4:37).

But the Jews killed Him (Act 2:23). God “delivered” Him to them by His “determinate” counsel, even though His “foreknowledge” told Him they’d kill Him.  But that doesn’t mean God forced them to kill Him to provide the world a Savior, despite what He “determined” (cf. Lu. 22:21, 22).  They should have sacrificed Him in faith, not executed Him in unbelief (Psalm 118:250-27 cf. Mark 11:9).

Peter says God the Father raised the Lord from the dead (Acts 2:24 cf. Acts 3:15,26; 10:40; 13:30,34; 17:31; Rom. 4:24; 6:4; I Cor. 6:14; Gal.1:1; Eph. 1:20; Col.2:12; I Thes. 1:10; Heb.13:20; I Pet. 1:21).  But the Bible also says the Lord raised Himself up (John 10:17), and that the Spirit raised Him (Rom.8:11), showing the oneness of the Trinity.

It was “not possible” that death could hold the Lord (Acts 2:24) because “the wages of sin is death” (Rom.6:23) and He was no sinner.  True, God put our sins on Him, but God was “satisfied” with His payment for our sins (Isa. 53:11).  So death couldn’t hold Him—or us!  But Peter didn’t know this, so he says death couldn’t hold Him “for” the Bible predicted that He’d rise from the dead (Acts 2:25-27), and all Bible prophecies must come true (cf. John 10:35; Acts 1:16).

Peter quotes a Messianic psalm of David (Ps. 16:8-11), a psalm that was true of both David and Christ.  The faith of both was so strong, they saw the Father in the grave with the eyes of faith, and so couldn’t be moved (Acts 2:25).  You’d think the Lord would be sad He was killed but He was “glad” (2:26) because His flesh rested in the “hope” of resurrection.

The “hell” they both went to (Acts 2:27) was the paradise side of hell (Luke 16:19-31 cf. 23:43).  The Lord “finished” paying for our sins on the cross (John 19:30) and didn’t have to go to the torment side of hell to pay for our sins.

But if the Lord was “glad” (Acts 2:26) in paradise, why’d He want to be raised from the dead?  It was because His flesh was still in the grave, where bodies see “corruption” (Acts 2:27).  So God showed Him the way out of the grave by the path of life (2:28), a way that unsaved men in the grave can’t find (Pr. 2:2-19).  His hope was to see God’s countenance (Acts 2:28), as was David’s (Ps. 17:15)—and ours too!

Peter probably knew that quoting Psalm 16 would remind his hearers of the similar-sounding Psalm 21:6-9, which predicted that after the Lord rose, He would avenge His enemies.  Peter wanted them thinking about that when he later told them to “repent” (Acts 2:38).

Peter’s argument in Acts 2:29 is that David didn’t rise from the dead before he saw corruption, so either he was mistaken when he said he would or he was talking about someone else. Peter knew the Jews would never admit there was a mistake in their Bible, so they’d have to admit he was talking about someone else—someone Peter identified as Christ (v. 30,31).

David predicted Christ would rise from the dead, knowing God had promised him that one of his descendants would be Christ (Act 2:30 cf. II Sam. 7:12,13).So God had to raise Christ to fulfill His promise that He’d sit on Israel’s throne forever.

But Paul says God raised Him for our justification (Rom. 4:25).  Peter and Paul didn’t preach the same thing!  We must remember Christ according to Paul’s gospel (II Tim. 2:8), not Peter’s!  Finally, Peter wasn’t trying to be unkind in charging Israel with Christ’s death, he was just trying to get them to mourn for Him (Zech. 12:10), as they someday will.

Video of this message is available on YouTube: Disciples Who Passed the Sobriety Test – Acts 2:14-21

Summary:

When the crowd at Pentecost heard the Lord’s 120 disciples (Acts 1:15) speaking in different tongues (2:4), some thought they were drunk (2:13).  So Peter corrected them (v.14,15).

It’s important to notice Peter was talking to Jews (v.14), because some say the Body of Christ began at Pentecost.  But the Body is made up of Jews and Gentiles (I Cor. 12:13), so Peter wouldn’t have excluded the Gentiles.  That’s just one of many proofs we’ll see that the Body did not start here.

After pointing out that it was too early to be drunk (2:15), Peter told them that what was happening fulfilled Joel 2:28-32 (v.16).  But that means the Body couldn’t have started here, for “the church, which is His Body” (Eph. 1:22,23) was “a mystery” (Eph. 5:32), and a mystery is something that wasn’t made known to the prophets (Col. 1:26).  Plus, Peter says that Joel called what was happening “the last days” (Acts 2:17).  That means Pentecost wasn’t the first days of the Body of Christ, it was the last days of Israel’s program.

In those days, the kingdom was supposed to come (Isa. 2:2-4).  The last days started with the Lord’s coming (Heb. 1:1,2). You can’t have a kingdom without a king!  And you can’t have the kingdom of heaven without the Spirit, who made it so they couldn’t sin (I Jo. 3:9;5:18).  That’s the only way to get rid of war (Isa. 2:4 cf. James 4:1,2).

The pouring out of the Spirit was also a time when God filled His sons with His word (cf. Pr. 1:23).  It was supposed to change the earth back to Eden-like conditions (Isa. 32:12; 35:1,2).  It didn’t because the dispensation of the mystery interrupted God’s prophetic program.

Some say God brought Israel back to the land in 1948, but He says He won’t do that until He pours out His Spirit again (Ezek. 11:19).  That’s when He’ll put a new spirit in them and cause them to walk in His ways (Ezek. 36:25-27) and stop hiding His face from them (Ezek. 39:29) as He’s done for the past 2,000 years now.  That’s also when they’ll mourn for Christ (Zech. 12:10).

When Peter said God poured out His Spirit on “all flesh” (Acts 2:17), that can mean everyone (Gen. 6:12).  But when Peter tells Jews that God would pour Him out on “your” sons and daughters (Acts 2:17), we know it means all Jewish flesh, all Jews who believed on Christ.

“Dreams” and “visions” (2:17) are the same thing.  They are how God talked to the prophets (Num. 12:6).  That’s how He communicated His Word to them (Num. 24:4).  And that’s what was happening here at Pentecost on all 120 of the disciples who were prophesying (Acts 2:18).

Blood and fire and smoke and wonders (Acts 2:19) are mentioned a combined 58 times in Revelation, the book that describes the Tribulation, so we know the time for the Tribulation had come.  Some of the wonders in heaven included the darkening of the sun (2:20), the beginning of the day of the Lord (Isa. 13:9,10; Rev. 6:12).

But Peter says the sun would be darkened before “that great and notable day of the Lord” (2:20), and the Lord said it would happen “after the tribulation” (Mark 13:24).  But while the entire 7 year 70^th week of Daniel is the day of the Lord, the last 3 and a half years are the “great and terrible day of the Lord” (Joel 2:31).  So the sun will be dark after the first half of the Tribulation, but before the second half.

If it bothers you that only half of Joel’s prophecy was fulfilled after Peter said “this is that” (Acts 2:16), the Lord only quoted part of Isaiah 61:1,2 in Luke 4:16-20.  He left off the part about “the day of vengeance” because He added “this day is this scripture fulfilled” (Luke 4:21).  He knew it wasn’t time for that, so He didn’t quote that part.

But then why did Peter quote all of Joel’s prophecy, including the part about the day of God’s vengeance?  It is because he didn’t know that it wasn’t time for the vengeance.  The mystery that interrupted the vengeance wasn’t revealed until Paul.  We know Peter eventually learned the last days had been postponed because he later talked about what “shall” happen in the last days (II Pe. 3:3), and said if you want to learn more about the delay, see Paul! (v.15).

Video of this message is also available on YouTube: The Apostles Spoke With Forked Tongues – Acts 2:4-13

Summary:

“Cloven” (v. 4) means divided.  The Spirit divided their tongues by giving them the power to speak in other languages as part of the “taste” of the kingdom that He was giving Israel (Heb. 6:4,5).  It would be heavenly not to have to worry about serpents, poison or illness (Mark 16:17,18).  But what’s so heavenly about the gift of tongues?  Well, Jewish disciples will need the gift of tongues when the Gentile nations look to them to teach them about God (Zech. 8:23).

When it says, “every man heard them speak in his own language,” it sounds like the disciples spoke their language, but people heard them in their language.  But that would be the gift of ears, not tongues.  The disciples were filled with the Spirit (Acts 2:4), not the Jews to whom they preached.

“Confound” (v. 6) means amazed (v. 7,8).  The people of the lands in Acts 2:9-11 all spoke known human languages, and not the gibberish that passes for tongues today.  Since there are more than 12 tongues mentioned, this suggests all 120 believers spoke in tongues (Acts 1:15), not just the 12.

If you could speak in tongues, wouldn’t you preach the gospel? Instead, the disciples talked about “the wonderful works of God.”  They might have done that to draw a crowd so they could hear Peter’s message.  Or it could be that they were being sneaky!  That exact phrase “wonderful works” is only used 8 other places in the Bible, and half of them are in Psalm 107, where it says God stills the wind and waves (21-31).  Aren’t those the wonderful works of God you’d talk about, ones that would identify Christ as God (Mark 4:36-39).

When it says some thought they were “full of new wine,” wine is a type of the Spirit in the Bible.  The Lord taught that the new wine of the Spirit couldn’t be put in the old bottles of the apostate leaders in Israel (Lu. 5:37,38), it had to be put where God put it, in the new bottles of the new leaders in Israel, the little flock of the Lord’s followers (Lu. 12:32).

Our Pentecostal friends know they can’t speak in legitimate languages, so they insist that they speak in the tongues of angels (I Cor. 13:1).  But angels in Scripture are never said to have their own language.  An “unknown tongue” (I Cor. 14:2) is just a language that someone didn’t “know” (cf. Jer. 5:15).

We know the tongues in Corinth were the same human languages they spoke at Pentecost because Paul says that if they didn’t interpret their languages that “learned” men couldn’t understand them (I Cor. 14:13,16).  That means that learned men could understand them.  Learned men can often speak more than one language, but they can’t speak angel. 

Tongues in Corinth were also given for a different reason.  At Pentecost they were given to the Jews as a sign that God was about to offer them the kingdom in which they’d teach the Gentiles in their own languages.  In other words, it was a sign of God’s blessing.  But once the Jews rejected their kingdom, tongues were given to the Gentiles as a sign God was judging Israel, not blessing them.

To explain the gift of tongues to the Corinthians, Paul quoted Isaiah to say, “with men of other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people” (I Cor. 14:21).  That’s not a gift of tongues that God gave to the Jews to teach the Gentiles.  That’s a gift of tongues He gave the Gentiles to speak to the Jews.  That’s what Isaiah meant.  God had spoken to Israel in Hebrew through the prophets, and they didn’t listen, so He threatened to speak to them through the Gentiles by letting the Gentiles conquer them (Isa. 28:11).

That’s what God was doing in Corinth.  He gave the Jews’ gift of tongues to the Gentiles next door (Acts 18:11) as a “sign” (I Cor. 14:22) He was judging them for rejecting Christ

Doesn’t God still want the Jews to know that He is judging their nation?  If so, why isn’t He still giving the gift of tongues?  The answer is that God is using His Word to tell them this today, in the dispensation of grace.  That’s why tongues and prophecies ceased when the Bible was complete (I Cor. 13:8-10).  God no longer needed prophets to speak through, He had His Word to speak through.And He no longer needed to give the Gentiles the gift of tongues as a sign He was judging Israel.  He now has His Word to do that too.