You. Amen. Please stand with me if you would as we hear the word of the Lord from the book of Ezekiel chapter 37. The Word of God says this. The hand of the Lord was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley. And it was full of bones. He caused me to pass among them round about, and behold, there were very many on the surface of the valley, and lo, they were very dry. He said to me, son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, you know. Again he said to me, prophesy over these bones and say to them, O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord. Thus says the Lord God to these bones, behold, I will cause breath to enter you that you may come to life. I will put sinews on you, make flesh grow back on you, cover you with skin, and put breath in you that you may come alive. And you will know that I am the Lord. So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I prophesied, there was a noise. And behold, a rattling. And the bones came together, bone to its bone. And I looked, and behold, sinews were on them, and flesh grew, and skin covered them. But there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, thus says the Lord God, come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain that they come to life. So I prophesied as he commanded me. And the breath came into them, and they came to life and stood on their feet an exceedingly great army. Then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, our bones are dried up and our hope has perished. We are completely cut off. Therefore prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God, behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people, and I will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out of your graves, my people. I will put my spirit within you and you will come to life. and I will place you on your own land. Then you will know that I, the Lord, have spoken and done it, declares the Lord. The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, and you, son of man, take for yourself one stick and write on it, for Judah and for the sons of Israel, his companions. Then take another stick and write on it, for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim and all the house of Israel, his companions. Then join them for yourself one to another into one stick that they may become one in your hand. When the sons of your people speak to you saying, will you not declare to us what you mean by these? Say to them, thus says the Lord God. Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel, his companions, and I will put them with it, with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they will be one in my hand. The sticks on which you write will be in your hand before their eyes. "'Say to them, thus says the Lord God, "'Behold, I will take the sons of Israel "'from among the nations where they have gone, "'and I will gather them from every side "'and bring them into their own land, "'and I will make them one nation in the land "'on the mountains of Israel. "'And one king will be king for all of them. "'And they will no longer be two nations, "'and no longer be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols, or with their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. But I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned, and will cleanse them. And they will be my people, and I will be their God. My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. and they will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them. They will live on the land that I gave to Jacob, my servant, in which your fathers lived, and they will live on it, they and their sons and their sons' sons forever. And David, my servant, will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant with them. And I will place them and multiply them and will set my sanctuary in their midst forever. My dwelling place also will be with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people. And the nations will know that I am the Lord who sanctifies Israel when my sanctuary is in their midst forever. This is the word of the Lord. All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field. Grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God shall stand forever. Amen. Well, let's pray together as we come to God's word. Gracious and merciful God, we come before you again and we ask your blessing on the reading and the preaching of your word. We ask God that you might take your word and open our eyes and our ears and our hearts to see and hear and receive it gladly. We pray for understanding. We pray that we might see Jesus, exalted, ruling, reigning full of power and glory and one day coming again. I pray, Father, for myself and for each one who is here, each soul, that you might work your work in such a way that your name would be brought glory and your people would be encouraged and blessed in the hearing, in the preaching of your word. Thank you, Father, for this time. Thank you, Jesus, for your reign. Thank you, Holy Spirit, who teaches us. Thank you for this word that we have here. this hour we have together in Jesus name we pray amen various Old Testament prophets men like Isaiah and Ezekiel Joel among others Anticipated a day in which God would pour out his spirit upon his people for their restoration. A day in which, Isaiah says, the wilderness of their existence would become like a fertile field. A day in which the fertile field would then become a virtual forest. A day in which justice and righteousness would abound and flourish. A day where peace would abound and God's people would dwell in safety. A day that Ezekiel says is a day of blessing in which God's people call upon his name. A day in which God would cause his spirit to dwell within his people that they might keep faithfully his law. A day in which God would make himself known in saving glory. and in mercy. Texts that possess these particular truths that I've just mentioned in brief, texts like Isaiah 32 and 44, Ezekiel 36 and 37, the one that was read for us by Paul, later in Ezekiel 39, as well as Joel in chapter 2, as we'll see in our look at Acts chapter 2 today, Alan Thompson, in his work, The Acts of the Risen Lord Jesus, notes that in these texts, the prophets look forward to a time beyond the experience of Israel as disobedient and under God's judgment in exile, to a time when God again would restore his people In that time, Thompson says, God will establish a new covenant relation with his people. He will cleanse their hearts, forgive their sins, dwell among them, and enable them to obey him and declare his name to the nations of the world. Thus, the pouring out of the spirit of God was essential to the hope of the last days when God's people were to be restored. And we have been making the case now for some weeks that these anticipated last days, the days of the inauguration of Christ's kingdom in the Israel of the new covenant or the church, are established by Christ in his first and not in his second advent. I believe this is made abundantly clear in the text that we have before us this morning or this afternoon. that we also began to look at last Lord's Day in Acts chapter 2. So I would invite you to take your Bible and turn with me to the second chapter of the book of Acts. I want us to read this chapter again. I know we just read it last week, but if you're like me, a lot has happened in the last seven days, and I've forgotten a lot of things. So I want us to come back and look at Acts chapter 2 again. Acts 2 verse 1. When the day of Pentecost had come they were all together in one place and suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind and it filled the whole house where they were sitting and there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves and they rested on each one of them And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Now there were Jews living in Jerusalem, devout men from every nation under heaven. And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished saying, Why, are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthenians, and Medes, and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, and the district of Libya around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God. And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, what does this mean? But others were mocking and saying, they are full of sweet wine. But Peter, taking his stand with the eleven, raised his voice and declared to them, men of Judea and all you who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give heed to my words for these men are not drunk as you suppose for it is only the third hour of the day but this is what was spoken of through the prophet joel and it shall be in the last days god says that i will pour forth of my spirit on all mankind and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days pour forth of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. 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 over 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 saw the Lord always in my presence, for he is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue exalted. Moreover, my flesh also will live in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow your Holy One to undergo decay. You have made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of gladness with your 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 knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on 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 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 your enemies a footstool for your 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. But we'll stop there in our reading of this particular portion. It is this text, as we noted last time, or it is in this text that we noted last time, that we find Israel reconstituted under 12 new leaders. We find the tribes regathered from the nations to which they were dispersed. We find the promised Holy Spirit outpoured upon all flesh. And we find the enthronement of a Davidic king over a new covenant people. This points us to the list that we gave you last week, and it's printed for you again towards the end of your bulletin if you want to follow along in an outline fashion. It's kind of written down there for you. We found several brief heads characterizing Israel in the New Covenant. We found that she is grounded on the apostles. She is gathered from the nations. She is gifted with the Spirit and governed by a king. Each individually points to and as a whole declares that Israel of old has, in the new covenant work of Christ, been reconstituted as the new and greater Israel of God. Now this is what we're wanting to kind of look at today, but also over the next several weeks in a few other chapters, is the restoration of Israel and what we want to call the Gentile mission. Israel in the new covenant. Now, before we kind of lay out these four points again, and I think we discovered the first one last Lord's Day, I want to mention to you kind of a point of interpretation, a word regarding Luke's use of fulfilled prophecy. Last time we pointed to another issue of hermeneutics or biblical interpretation known as typology. And we talked about how there's a typological relationship between the tribes of the Old Testament and the reconstitution of the tribes under 12 men in the New Testament. But today I want to mention the concept of fulfilled prophecy, because what we really find in Acts chapter 1, but most explicitly in Acts chapter 2, is that Luke makes use of the subject of fulfilled prophecy to demonstrate and to prove certain things. In other words, it's not a, this resembles that, which is often the case in typology, or sometimes we speak of biblical allusions. Maybe something in the Old Testament may allude to something in the New Testament, kind of vaguely, or to greater or lesser degrees. Or in typology, we find those people and places and event in Old Testament time period that find their antitype or their fulfillment in the New Testament antitype, person, place, or event that's kind of greater and expanded. But there are times, so we might say in allusion, we might say, this sounds like that. We might say with typology, this points to that. But what we can say with fulfilled prophecy is that this is that. In other words, in the Old Testament, certain things were said that were going to happen in later days, the prophets pointed forward to them, and then in the New Testament, they actually happen. And the fulfillment is actually what was being pointed to by the Old Testament prophetic text. So Luke is going to make use of this concept where each time we see that there's an Old Testament prophetic word that has a fulfillment in the New Testament text, specifically here in Acts chapter 1 and 2. So let's look at how he does this in highlighting Israel in the New Covenant first, grounded on the apostles. Now, We mentioned this last time, I just want to say a couple things about it by way of kind of a brief recap. Israel in the New Covenant is grounded on the apostles as these 12 men representing the 12 tribes of God's people. Though Jesus had personally chosen his apostles, we found back in Luke chapter 6, and he had granted them a kingdom, an authority in that kingdom in Luke chapter 22, He had granted them authority in a kingdom to rule it as his vice regents over a newly reconstituted people. He also appointed them as the 12 to represent or reconstitute them as a covenant people. And just kind of a footnote there, I think when one hears that, that these 12 men are going to serve in some sense as representative of the tribes of Israel. I think sometimes we hear that and go, well, you can't have 12 men represent the whole of tribes. Well, in fact, that's exactly what you have in the Old Testament. You have the sons of Jacob, do you not? You have Judah, and Reuben, and Levi, and you have all these. I'm not going to embarrass myself completely by trying to give you all 12 and totally mess it up. These 12 men represented what? the 12 tribes of Israel. It was interesting this past week, I was reading through the book of Numbers and the book of Deuteronomy, and it was interesting how many times I came across the entirety of the tribes in the Old Testament, the Old Covenant period, were represented by their chiefs or leaders or heads. They were going into the land. They were going to apportion the land. They had to designate a particular individual that would be kind of representative or over all the fighting men from a particular tribe. Judah would have so many warriors that were 20 years of old and older. Remember the men that were 20 years of old and older? They were the ones that were able to go to battle. And they'd have a chief over them. And that one chief would go to the meetings. He'd be the representative. for the whole of the tribe. It shouldn't surprise us to find when Jesus comes in the New Testament that he comes to his people and he begins to have his public ministry. And one of the first things he does in his public ministry is he takes of his disciples, he takes 12 of them. to make them special. They are his apostles. They're the sent ones. They're the ones that Jesus says to them, I'm going to covenant with you a kingdom. I'm going to give you authority. I'm going to give you rule. I'm going to give you thrones to sit on. You will be judging the tribes. In other words, you're going to be placed in a position of power and authority over this newly constituted people of God. Thus, when Judas abdicated his office and another needed to fill his place in the ministry, both Judas' abdication and Matthias' installment in Acts chapter 1 were such that scripture might be fulfilled. Go to Acts chapter 1. Just turn back over there if you're in chapter 2. First, Judas' abdication is in verse 16. And it says, brethren, the scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit foretold by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a guide to those who arrested Jesus. And later on, he's going to actually quote from this text in verse, let's see, it's verse 20. Acts chapter one, verse 20. For it is written in the book of Psalms, let his homestead be made desolate and let no one dwell in it. This is a quotation from Psalm 69. In other words, the Old Testament specifically predicted the fall of Judas. This is prophetic fulfillment. The psalmist said it was going to happen. Judas fails. Judas abdicates his position. His spot is now desolate. But notice what else the psalm says. It says in... I can't read my... I can't read my writing. This is always bad. I think it's Psalm 109. Yeah, Psalm 109 in verse 8. But it's here in Acts chapter 1 verse 20, the last half, it says, let another man take his office. And that's Matthias. In other words, the scripture is fulfilled where Judas abdicates his position, and the scripture is fulfilled when Matthias replaces him. Luke here, again, is making use directly and clearly, explicitly of prophetic fulfillment, prophetic words in the Old Testament, Psalm 69, Psalm 109, fulfilled in the abdication of Judas and the filling of the position by Matthias. Furthermore, when Matthias joins the eleven, they now become, again, The 12 we mentioned I think last time that one of the uh, one of the most frequent ways in the gospels that the apostles are referred to They are referred to as the 12. They're often called disciples only a few times. Are they called the apostles? They are most often called the 12 And matthias here if you notice in Acts chapter 1 verse 26 matthias is added to the what? He's added to the 11 But that's incomplete. So now, once again, we have the 12. So renumbered as the 12, they formed a strong and sure foundation for the soon-to-be burgeoning new community. Their number was unique. Their positions were now fixed. Their authority was unquestioned. And I say their number is now fixed. Their positions are fixed. Remember James, the brother of John? When James dies, there is no replacement for James. When all the apostles die, there is no replacement for the apostles. The apostles, the twelve, serve as a foundation that is never to be repeated. And with them, the new Israel is well grounded. But we need to move to a second point. Israel and the new covenant not only is grounded on the apostles, it is gathered from the nations. Look with me if you would in Acts chapter 2 beginning in verse 5. Acts chapter 2 verse 5. Now this is the season in the Jewish calendar of what is known as Pentecost. It is 50 days. after the first Sunday, if you will, following Passover. So Passover happens, and the first Sunday following that Passover would be just a few days later. Fifty days after that, we come to Pentecost. We're on the first day of the week here. What for us is the Lord's Day. On this day, many have come from far and wide for the feasts. Now in the Old Testament, there were religious festivals at various times. But there were three particular festivals that all the Jews had to return to Jerusalem for. And I say all the Jews, and that's probably overstated. It's not all the Jews. It's those who were like 20 again and over. Go back to the book of Exodus. I think it's in Exodus 30. No, we're gonna find it here. It's not 34. Exodus... No. Exodus 23. Let's go there. Exodus chapter 23 and verse 14, three times a year, you shall celebrate a feast to me. You shall observe the feast of unleavened bread for seven days. You are to eat unleavened bread as I commanded you at the appointed time in the month of Abib. For in it, you came out of Egypt and none shall appear before me empty-handed. This is the Passover. Secondly, verse 16, also you shall observe the feast of harvest the first fruits of your labors from what you sow in the field. This is the feast of Pentecost. And then there's the feast of the end gathering at the end of the year when you gather in the fruit of your labors from the field three times a year all your mails shall appear before the Lord God. And these three feasts are mentioned in Exodus again and Deuteronomy and some other places in the Bible. In other words, we have a feast where the men are commanded to return to Jerusalem. You might recall Mary and Joseph, when Jesus was a little boy of around 12, Mary and Joseph take the family and they go back to Jerusalem for the Passover, right? This was one of those required feasts. And here we are 50 days later, about seven weeks or so later, and these people are still there. Well, if you lived in Rome and you had made the trek from Rome all the way to Jerusalem for Passover, and you knew you were going to have to do this again in seven weeks, what would you probably do? It's time just to stay. Find some relatives, make some friends. I don't know if there'd be a hotel, you know, or what it would be like, but you would want to stay. Who'd want to make that trek again? So many of them stay there for the Feast of Pentecost. And it says in verse 5 that there were Jews living in Jerusalem. Some may have just decided to move. Devout men from every nation under heaven And when this sound occurred, the crowd came together and were bewildered because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language. They were amazed and astonished, saying, why are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we each hear them in our own language to which we were born? Barthenians, and Medes, and Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, and Cappadocia, Pontus, and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt and the districts of Libya and around Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabs, we hear them in our own tongues speaking of the mighty deeds of God. Later in the text, in verse 22, they are referred to as men of Israel. And later in the text, in verse 36, it refers to them as all the house of Israel. Let's think about this in a couple of ways. One, think about this gathering of people, think about it historically. Where have they come from? They've come from an area sometimes, or a grouping sometimes referred to as the dispersion. During the Old Testament period, we had the conquest of the Northern Kingdom by Assyria, the conquest of the Southern Kingdom by Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar, And in those conquests, the people were dispersed. The people of the Northern Kingdom were dispersed up into Assyria. Maybe they went off into the Northwest or off into the Northeast. The people of the Southern Kingdom were carted off to Babylon in the East. Eventually, some who were left in Babylon made their way down to Egypt in the Southwest during the ministry of Jeremiah. Over the course of all the years of Jewish history, there are many conquests, there are many periods of battles, and there are many dispersions, if you will. The greatest dispersions do happen during the period of the Northern Conquest and the Southern Conquest by Assyria and by Babylon. But many of these people end up moving or being taken away into these various geographical areas, and they stay there. So, for example, the southern kingdom is conquered by Nebuchadnezzar in the 6th century BC. 70 years later, under Cyrus, there's a decree to rebuild, and many of them return. Remember the days of Ezra and Nehemiah, and they come back to Judea. They come back to Jerusalem to rebuild. But many stay in Babylon, and there is a significant Jewish population in Babylon for the next hundreds and hundreds of years. There's a significant population of Jews in Egypt. I believe it's Philo, who is a kind of a first century Jewish philosopher. Philo records that in the first century there are perhaps a million or more Jews living in Egypt. Josephus, who is a Jewish historian in the first century, writes a significant portion of his book on the Jewish wars in Aramaic for the benefit of those who are still over in Babylon. In other words, there are Jews all over, and they are scattered abroad to the north, the south, the east, and the west. Geographically, what we have here, if we were to draw this on a map up here on the wall, when we look here at Acts chapter 2 in verses 9 through 10, We have areas of the Parthenians, the Medes, the Edomites, residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya, Cyrene, Rome, Cretans, and Arabs. We have people from the north, the south, the east, and the west. And they are all coming where? They are all coming back to Jerusalem. So once you see the significance of this and the fact that God has said through the prophets for years, there is coming a day, there is coming a day when I'm going to gather you what? I'm going to gather you back. I'm going to bring you back to the land. I'm going to bring you back to Jerusalem. We read earlier in Ezekiel chapter 37, when he brings them back, he's going to pour his spirit out upon them. The effect here is that what we have gathered, Again, I'm not saying every Jew came back to Jerusalem. That's not what I'm saying. Nor do I think we have to have that. Because what we have is Israel regathered by way of representation. We have enough representation, listen, we have enough representation of the Jews for Peter to address them in Acts chapter 2 verse 6 as, quote, all the house of Israel. You don't have to have every Jew to have all the house of Israel. Peter is seeing this as a representation of the tribes gathering back in. It is the same phrase that we find in Ezekiel 37. Turn back over there if you would for a moment. In Ezekiel 37, It's an amazing chapter to read, was it not? It contains two visions. And we could basically say that the visions are the same. The visions are one and the same, but they kind of come at the same thing from a different angle. We have this vision in chapter 37, verses 1 through 14 of the Valley of the Dry Bones. The dry bones are representative of the people of Israel. They are representative of the whole of the house of Israel. Ezekiel finds them. Now remember Ezekiel? Ezekiel is an exilic prophet. There are pre-exilic, exilic, and post-exilic prophets. And you're thinking, that's like a mouthful. What does that mean? Well, that simply means there are prophets who prophesy before the exile of the northern and the southern kingdoms. And there are prophets who prophesy during the exile, and there are prophets who prophesy after the exile. Just kind of an example of those. Isaiah, which yes, we're still studying Isaiah. Isaiah is a pre-exilic prophet. Pre-exilic in regard to the southern kingdom. He prophesies before Nebuchadnezzar comes and destroys the southern kingdom and carts them off. An exilic prophet is someone like Daniel. Remember Daniel and his friends, Meshach, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, those men who are carted off to Babylon. Daniel is a prophet that prophesies during the period of the exile. And then we have other prophets that come back after the exile, and they're kind of tucked away at the end of the Old Testament for us, men like Malachi. right? They come, Zechariah, they come and they prophesy after the exile. Haggai comes back in and prophesies after the exile, during the time of rebuilding. Ezekiel is prophesied during the exile. The northern kingdom and the southern kingdoms have both fallen. They have both, from all observable, you know, estimations, they've been destroyed. They've been conquered. They've been taken away. Everything seems like a loss. It's as if the people of Israel are a valley of what? Dry bones. That's what's happening here. God calls to Ezekiel and says to him in verse 4 of 37, prophesy over the bones. What an interesting image. I want you to preach. I want you to preach to the bones. Well, why preach to the bones? Why? Because God is going to use preaching, just mark that down, God is going to use the preaching of the word to bring the bones together. He's gonna use the preaching of the word to put flesh on the bones. He's gonna bring the preaching of the word to affect the end of restoring the nation. What's Peter doing in Acts chapter two? He's preaching, just make a note. Now, then in verse nine, Then he says to me, prophesy to the breath. So in other words, come speak to the bones, tell the bones what's going to happen. All right. Then I want you to prophesy to the breath. Well, the breath here represents the Spirit of God. Why? Because we need not just the preached word, we need the Spirit to come and what? Join with the preached word to make the word effective. prophesied to the breath because it's the breath that is going to come and inhabit the bones and fill the bones and give life to the bones. So talk to the bones about what's going to happen, then call upon the breath that it might actually happen. And now come third in verse 12, prophesy and say to Israel, This is what I'm going to do to you. I'm going to open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves, my people, and will bring you into the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Lord. I'm going to put my spirit, verse 14, within your heart. All these amazing things are going to happen to the bones and they will be reformed and refigured and reconstituted as God's people. He will be their God. They will be his people. And then there's another vision that comes in verses 15 through the end of the chapter. And this is interesting. It's a vision of sticks, two sticks in particular. One stick represents the Northern kingdom and one stick represents the Southern kingdom. And God says to Ezekiel, I want you to put both those sticks in your hand and like, you know, squeeze really hard. and we're going to make them one stick. You ever tried to do something like that, you know, put two things together like that and it doesn't always work, but here it's going to work. He's going to take the stick that represents the Northern kingdom, the stick that represents the Southern kingdom. He's going to put them both together and they will be one. He says in verse 17 in your hand. And then in verse 19 he says, they will be one in my hand. Take the sons of Israel, from among the nations, notice verse 21, how's this going to happen? Because we're gonna have to get the sons of Israel from among the nations where they have gone, gather them from every side and bring them into their own land and I will make them one nation in the land. Now, that's not all. He's going to take these people and bring them back together to make them one and he's going to then give them a what? He's gonna give them a king. and he's going to give them one king, and he'll be a king for all of them. And they will no longer be two nations and no longer divided in two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols or with their detestable things or with any other of their transgressions. I will deliver them from all their dwelling places in which they have sinned. I will cleanse them and they will be my people and I will be their God. And who is going to be their king? This is very interesting. David. David will be their king. I thought David was dead. Okay. David is dead at this particular point. David's dead. David is in the grave. David's bones are in the grave. David has not been raised. Yes. To be absent from bodies, to be present with the Lord. We believe that David would have been with the Lord and his spirit when he died. However, his body was still in the grave. We'll get back to that in Acts chapter two. They will all have, verse 24, one shepherd, and they will walk in my ordinances and keep my statutes and observe them. Verse 26, he says, I'm going to make a covenant of peace with them. It will be an everlasting covenant. My sanctuary will be among them. This is Ezekiel's way of speaking about the days of the new covenant. Jeremiah is the only Old Testament prophet that mentions explicitly the old covenant. I believe Jeremiah 31 or 33. Ezekiel speaks in the New Covenant, Isaiah speaks in the New Covenant, but just in rather modified language. But in all of them, it is a day when Israel and Judah are brought back together under one King in one New Covenant with their sins forgiven, the law of God placed upon their heart, and the Spirit dwelling within them. Let's go back to Acts. Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Back to Ezekiel. It's like a Bible drill or something. I want you to notice a phrase. Maybe you already saw it. Ezekiel chapter 37 and verse 11. This is in vision one. Then he said to me, son of man, these bones are the what? The whole house of Israel. Verse 16, all the house of Israel. We can go over again to chapter 39 in verse 25, another statement about this same thing. Chapter 45, verse 6. Again, it shall be, Ezekiel 45 verse 6, it shall be for the whole house of Israel. I simply wanted to show you this phrasing that when Ezekiel's looking forward to the days of the new covenant, he speaks in terms of all the house or the whole house of Israel. Now, sorry, back to Acts chapter 2. I say all that to stress again the significance of the phrase that Peter makes use of in Acts chapter 2 in 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've crucified. He is speaking here not to every single Jew, And he is speaking here not of something that's going to happen in the future. He is speaking of something that has happened right now. He is addressing them, these representative individuals coming from these nations back to Jerusalem for the Feast of Pentecost, who have now heard the preaching of the gospel. He is speaking to them as the whole house of Israel. Israel in the New Covenant is gathered from the nations. We expected that when we read in Ezekiel 36 or Ezekiel 37. We expected God to gather his people back in, and that was just one prophetic text. There are many more we could use where he gathers them from the east and the west and the north and the south. We've seen this, for example, in the book of Isaiah. In the days of the New Covenant, he's going to gather his people back in. A third point. to note here. In the days of the New Covenant, Israel in the New Covenant is not only grounded upon the apostles, they are not only gathered from the nations, they are also gifted with the Spirit. Notice what happens in Acts chapter 2 beginning in verse 12. And they all continued in amazement and great perplexity saying to one another, what does this mean? I want you to notice that phrase, that question that is asked. What does this mean? I think that question is very central to everything that's really gone before and everything that's going to now come after. What does this mean? We've had 12 men get up before us. We've had 12 men speak with tongues that we can understand. We have 12 men that are filled with something. Something amazing is happening here. Not only that, these are 12 men that are speaking to us about the mighty deeds of God. Look back up in verse 11. We hear them in our own tongues speaking about the mighty deeds of God. This phrase, the mighty deeds here, is only used one other place in the New Testament. And it's used by Mary, interestingly, in Luke chapter 1, where Mary says in her Magnificat, for the mighty one has done great things for me and holy is his name. Now there are many places in the Old Testament where it speaks about the wondrous deeds of God or the great deeds of God, often speaking about things like, for example, the Exodus or the creation itself, the redemptive work of God and bringing the people out of Egypt, Or here, Mary is making reference to the fact that she is now carrying the very Son of God in her womb. And here, in Acts chapter 2, I think the great deeds of God, or the mighty deeds of God in particular, that they are hearing them speak of, is they are witnessing to Christ and the resurrection. The reason I say that is because earlier in chapter 1, remember when they appointed Matthias to be one of the 12 with them, it said that one of these men, down in verse 22, one of these men must become a witness with us of the what? Of the resurrection. And this is the chief task, if you will, or the chief thing that the apostles are known for throughout the book of Acts. They are witnesses of the resurrection. Even Peter will say things, well, we'll go there. Okay, so Acts 2, verse 12. They're amazed, they're perplexed, they're confused. They don't know what this means. In particular, let's get down to verse 14. Peter wants to explain. Well, let's skip down to verse 15. These men are not drunk as you suppose, for it is only the third hour of the day. But this is what was spoken of through the prophet Joel. So make the connection. I don't know how you're going to do it. I use a line. You ought to draw in your mind a line between verse 12 where it says, what does this mean? And verse 16, but this, the two thises are connected. What does this mean? I'm going to tell you what this means. These guys getting up and speaking of the mighty deeds of God in foreign languages that you all understand. This is perplexing to you. I'm going to tell you what this is. It's not what the mockers are saying. They're not drunk. They're not drunk on sweet wine. Rather, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel. Might even be better here to use the King James. The King James in verse 16 says it this way, but this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel. Remember our hermeneutical principle of illusion? This sounds like that. Typology, this points to that. Prophecy, this is that. Okay? Verse 16 is the explanation to the question in verse 12. I'm going to tell you what this is. This is that which was spoken of through the prophet Joel. Now the prophet Joel prophesies in Joel chapter 2 in verses 28 to 32 these words that we're going to read here quoted in Acts chapter 2 verses 17 through 21. Let's read them. And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour forth of my spirit on all mankind. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will In those days pour forth of my spirit and they shall prophesy and I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below and blood, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. There is in Joel chapter 2 verses 28 to 32 a prophetic expectation that God is going to have a day in the future of restoration for his people in which he will pour out his spirit upon them. Isaiah looks for this day. In Isaiah chapter 35, just look there for a moment. We've seen this verse before. Isaiah 32, sorry, not 35. Isaiah 32, there is a glorious future anticipated for God's people that are going to suffer a period of devastation that is spoken of in chapter 32. But toward the end of chapter 32 in verse 15, it says this, until, in other words, all these conditions are going to persist. until the Spirit is poured out upon us from on high and the wilderness becomes a fertile field and the fertile field is considered as a forest. Then justice will dwell in the wilderness, righteousness will abide in the fertile field, the work of righteousness will be peace and the service of righteousness, quietness and confidence forever. Then my people will live in a peaceful habitation and secure dwellings in an undisturbed Undisturbed resting places how blessed verse 20 will you be you will sow beside all waters who let out freely the ox and the donkey in other words Isaiah sees a future day a day of the outpouring of God's spirit that brings restoration to God's people Ezekiel sees this day He speaks of it in Ezekiel 37, in the two visions that we referred to earlier. Also, other passages in Ezekiel. But Joel also speaks about such a day. I want you to turn in your Bible to Joel chapter 2. So if you find Ezekiel, go to Daniel, and then Hosea, and then Joel. Joel chapter 2. Now you need to have also ready in your hand Acts chapter 2. So you might just kind of keep both those things open. But I want to read from Joel chapter 2 in verse 28. Joel chapter 2 verse 28. It will come about after this. that I will pour out my spirit on all mankind, and your sons and daughters will prophesy, et cetera. Now, keeping your hand in Joel, turn back to Acts. I wanna read the first part of verse 17. Acts chapter two, verse 17. And it shall be in the last days. Go back to Joel chapter two. I'm gonna read the first part, Joel 2, verse 28. Stick with me, I really have a point here. I'm not just trying to exercise your flipping abilities. Joel 2, verse 28, opening line, it will come about after this. It will come about after this. Acts 2, and it shall be in the last days. It will come about after this. It shall be in the last days. Peter has done what? Peter has changed Joel's quotation. If we were to go back into the Hebrew and the Greek, we would find that Peter has what? Changed Joel's quotation. Why? Well, before we answer why, let's answer where. Where did he get that? I mean, was Peter just like making up some words on the fly? Was he just going to like, you know, maybe paraphrase Joel? I don't think so. The phrase that Peter uses in Acts chapter 2 verse 17 is very explicit in the last days. He takes it from Isaiah chapter 2. Now you're gonna have to hold three things. Oh, you could probably lose Joel. All right. Go back to Isaiah. Isaiah chapter 2. Now there are other places in the Bible that we can go to find a phrase that's similar to this, but not exactly this. Isaiah chapter 2 says, in Isaiah 2-2, now it will come about that in the last days. This particular section in Isaiah chapter 2 is quoted again. It's kind of taken by the prophet Malachi at the end of the Old Testament. I believe it's in Malachi chapter 4. No, I'm sorry. It's Micah. Get Micah and Malachi mixed up. Their mothers probably wouldn't appreciate that. But Micah chapter 4 says this. And it will come about, Micah 4, 1, it will come about in the last days at the mountain of the house of the Lord, and then on down through verse 4 or verse 5. It basically quotes Isaiah chapter 2. Isaiah seems to be prior than Micah. Isaiah is looking forward, again, like Ezekiel. Ezekiel sees a valley of dry bones in Ezekiel 37. The days are bleak for the people of God. In Isaiah chapter 1, the days are incredibly bleak. This is where the prophet comes to the people. Come, let us reason together. They'll just send her as scarlet. They will be as white as snow. They'll be like crimson. They'll be like wool. And he sees the sin and the idolatry and the false worship of the people, the vanity of it all. But he looks forward through God's eyes, if you will, and sees a greater and more glorious day coming for the people of God. And if we follow, as we have through our study of Isaiah from chapter 1 all the way to chapter 66, What isaiah is looking at isaiah chapter 2 is the days of the new covenant He's looking at the days of the messiah the day The messiah is going to come with the spirit of the lord upon him to set the captives free He says it will come about on this day in the last days I'm in isaiah chapter 2 verse 2 that the mountain of the house of the lord will be established as the chief of the mountains And will be raised above the hills and all the nations will stream to it. And many peoples will come and say, come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us concerning his ways and that we may walk in his paths for the law. Notice what the law does. The law will go forth from Zion and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. In other words, Israel is restored. Israel is restored the Spirit of God is upon upon them and from them will then go out to the nations of the world what the Word of God This I believe is exactly what we're seeing in the book of Acts in the weeks we have ahead to look at these other chapters Go back to Acts chapter 2 Peter takes this phrase from Isaiah from Micah It is an Old Testament phrase that is pointing to the dawn of a new era and a new day. And what I'm saying to you here is that we are not waiting for that day to come anymore. That day has come in the coming of Christ. Again, the questions in verse 12, what is this? The answers in verse 16, this is that. What's happening with the apostles being filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking with other tongues, declaring the great deeds of God, is exactly what Isaiah and Micah and Joel were looking for in the coming day. It's interesting that Years ago, there was a study Bible that was made by a man named C.I. Schofield. It's called the Schofield Study Bible. It's a 19th century publication, maybe early 20th century, and became incredibly popular in the 20th century. Now, I want to read to you what Schofield says about this very text in Acts 217. He reads, he says, compare Acts 2.17. Now, this is his comment on the text from Joel, the text we just read after these things. But Peter tweaks this and says, in the last days. He says, Peter did not state that Joel's prophecy was fulfilled on the day of Pentecost. I think that's exactly what Peter is saying. Peter is saying this is that. Now look at the text again in Acts chapter 2. In Acts chapter 2, Peter says that in the last days God says, I will pour forth of my spirit on all mankind. And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. And your young men shall see visions. And your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my bond slaves, both men and women, I will in those days, same days he's been talking about since verse 17, pour forth of my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will grant wonders in the sky above and in the earth below. blood and fire and vapor and smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved." FF Bruce writes that the last days began with the first advent and will end with his second advent. They are the days during which the age to come overlaps the present age. Hence the assurance with which Peter could quote the words of Joel and declare that this is that. Now, that is the broad principle. We obviously don't have the time to go through every line of Joel chapter two that is quoted here in verses 17 to 21. There are, I will say in this particular text, some very bizarre statements. There are some strange statements. But two things to keep in mind. One, it is prophetic apocalyptic imagery, which means I want to be very careful before I strain out the gnat and swallow the camel. I want to be very careful to not make mountains out of molehills. and make something say that it has to say it just the way it says it here, or it hasn't really happened. Because Peter's saying, this is what Joel said was going to happen in the last days. It's happening now. Now, I say that. Then to say, I think if we had time to go through each line of this particular text, We could find some very interesting things that have happened right around this particular point of time historically that match up fairly well with all the things that Peter is saying here. Do you remember what happened, for example, on the day that Christ was crucified? On the day that Christ was crucified, Matthew records for us in Matthew chapter 27 and verse 45 this, now from the sixth hour darkness fell upon all the land until the ninth hour. Three hours at the crucifixion of Christ, darkness, the sun is obscured. About the ninth hour, Jesus cries out with a loud voice saying, Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani, that is my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And some of those who were standing there, when they heard it, began to say, this man is calling for Elijah. One of them runs and takes a sponge and fills it with sour wine and says, drink the rest. Let's just see if Elijah is going to come. Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded of his spirit. And behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. That must have been eye-catching. That must have been memorable. and the earth shook and the rocks split. Numerous places in the Old Testament when we speak of judgments, of days to come, we hear of earthquakes, we hear of hailstorms. Verse 52, the tombs were opened and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised. In fact, literally speaking, that's exactly what Ezekiel said in Ezekiel 37 was going to happen. People are going to come back to life? And coming out of the tombs after his resurrection, they entered the holy city and appeared to many. Now, the centurion and those who were with him keeping guard over Jesus when they saw the earthquake and the things that were happening became very frightened, I can imagine, and said, this was the Son of God. If we just think in terms of the sky having signs, the sun growing dark, the moon turning to blood or darkening, I mean, do we read that and think the moon is actually going to drip blood? No. I don't think anyone thinks that. But it's going to be dark. In other words, that which normally gives light will what? Will not. Your sons and daughters were prophesied through the entirety of the Book of Acts. There are many men and some women at times, daughters, in fact, daughters of Philip the Evangelist who are said to be prophetesses. All of these signs, as they are, are indicators that God is doing something. He is judging the wicked, even though they said they were his people. He's bringing judgment upon them. And he's saving what? Saving the undeserving. I believe what's happening here is that Israel, as a disobedient people in the days of the old covenant, is now being reconstituted, grounded upon the apostles, gathered from the nations, and gifted now with his Holy Spirit. And that leaves us one final thing to look at here, and we cannot do that today, and that is that they are granted. They're granted a glorious king who will govern them and rule them. And Lord willing, if we're able to come back and look again at the remainder of this section in verses 22 to 36, we will find that Peter is declaring, he is declaring to this newly constituted Israel that their king, that they've just killed, indeed reigns. He reigns on the throne of David. He is Lord, and he reigns as David's Messiah. He is the Christ. This sets them on a trajectory for the rest of the book of Acts to go forth and speak of this glorious, enthroned, resurrected Christ. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word. And we thank you for its beauty. We thank you for its cohesiveness. We thank you that it's written by some 40-plus authors over thousands of years, but it has one author, and it has a perfect unity, and it has a perfect, streaming, glorious story, telling us about the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ. Indeed, at the heart of all the Word of God is a witness to Jesus. And Father, we pray through all these studies that we wouldn't pursue being smarter, that we wouldn't pursue winning. God, that we would just pursue Jesus because we want to see him as he is. He is not dead. He is not in the grave. He who was humbled in death and burial has been exalted in his resurrection, his ascension, and his session and he rules over his people and he is bringing all things to his appointed end. We do this day glory in the Lord Jesus Christ and I pray God that each one who is here under the sound of my voice too would glory in the Lord Jesus Christ. That they would forsake any hope of being helped by anyone else and they would flee to Christ He is the one who has power over death and the grave. He is the one who has ascended on high. He is the one who has reconstituted and is rebuilding his people and is adding to them as the days go by. And we pray, oh God, for his glory and the good of souls that you would continue to add even many more for the glory of your name. Thank you, oh God, for your word. I pray that Somehow in all of this, this has been profitable for our minds to think on. I pray it's profitable for our souls to be drawn away after Jesus. We ask God all this in his name, for his glory and again for our good. Amen.