Book of Acts chapter 4, excuse me, chapter 3, I'm getting ahead here, chapter 3, not 4, chapter 3. And please, as you take your Bible and open it, also take the outline there on the back of your bulletin. Seeking to prepare some detailed analytical outlines of the book to help us in our study and to help you in your own consideration as you go back and look over the passage after the service. This section of the Book of Acts deals with the witness of the church to the Jewish world in the early stages of the church when they were going, as Jesus commanded, to the Jewish people, beginning in Jerusalem, then in Judea, and then Samaria, which were all parts of that Jewish world. And this is the section of the book we're in. The next part of the book will be when they burst the bounds of Palestine and that region and go into all the world as the Lord commanded them. But we're in the early stages of the church. The church is only weeks or months old at the point in which we find ourselves here in the book of Acts. They're in that initial stage where the gospel is going forth from Jerusalem, even as the prophet said, the word of the Lord would go forth from there. It would all begin there, and then it would spread to all the nations eventually. The church in Jerusalem and its ministry and activities there is found in Acts chapter 2, verses 42 through Acts chapter 6 and verse 7. We've already looked at the earliest days of the church in Jerusalem, which is recorded for us in summary form. In chapter 2, verses 42 to 47, we now come to the second main section of Luke's account of the church in Jerusalem, and this deals with the miracle of the healing of the lame man in the temple. It's a mighty miracle. It's a very public miracle. The apostles were performing many miracles, as we saw in that summary statement in the end of chapter 2. Verse 43, and fear come upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were done by the apostles. That's a reference to the miracles that they were performing, and chief among those miracles were healings. These are not all recorded for us, but this one is. This is representative of the kind of things they were doing, and it was chosen for a number of reasons. Again, it was very public, took place in the temple, It took place on a man that the people who frequented the temple knew of, who had been lame from his birth. It was a mighty miracle. It was also a miracle that led to a public proclamation of the gospel, like on the day of Pentecost. There were many miracles, and every time a miracle was performed, there wasn't a public gathering, a crowd, and a preaching. There may have been private exhortation, maybe to small groups, but this involved a massive crowd in the temple area. And so it was chosen because of the connection of the preaching with the miracle, powerful message that Peter preaches. And thirdly, it was chosen because it led to the first official overt persecution of the church by the Jewish authorities. Remember, we saw at the end of chapter 2 that the Lord was protecting the infant church. He gave them favor with all the people. But now he is lifting that hand of protection, allowing the church now to begin to go through the fires of persecution, which of course will be to the benefit of the church. It is through those fires of affliction, those fires of persecution that our faith is tested. It is refined. and the church becomes strong. And we will see that that is the result of this first persecution. So it's an amazing response of the church in chapter four, which we will get to eventually, to see how persecution should affect the church. The book of Acts is so essential to our Christianity, to our Christian faith, to understanding the church and how it should function in the world. Everything is covered here in representative form. It is a masterful book. There's only one book of Acts. There's four gospels, but one book of Acts. And we find in it so much that is vital to our faith as a corporate body of Christ, the church of Christ, and as individual Christians within that body. So we looked last week at the portrayal of this miracle in chapter three, verses one through 11. Let me read it, And now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour. And a certain lame man from his mother's womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple, which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple. Who, seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, asked an alms. And Peter, fastening his eyes upon him with John, said, Look on us, And he gave heed unto them, expecting to receive something of them. Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none, but such as I have, give I thee in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Rise up and walk. And he took him by the right hand and lifted him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength. And he, leaping up, stood and walked and entered into the temple with them, into the temple, walking and leaping and praising God. And all the people saw him walking and praising God. And they knew that it was he which sat for alms at the beautiful gate of the temple. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened unto him. And the lame man, which was healed, held Peter and John. And all the people ran together unto them in the porch that is called Solomon's Greatly Wondering. There's the portrayal of the miracle. Now in verse 12 we get into Paul's Peter's preaching in connection with the miracle. In verses 12 to 26, we've already looked and considered last week his explanation of the miracle. So let's look at that and read that again by way of review. And when Peter saw it, he answered unto the people, You men of Israel, why marvel ye at this? Or why look you so earnestly on us, as though by our own power or holiness we had made this man to walk? The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus, whom you delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when He was determined to let Him go. But you denied the Holy One, and the Just One, and desired a murderer to be granted unto you, and killed the Prince of Life, whom God hath raised from the dead, whereof we are witnesses. And his name, through faith in his name, hath made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yea, the faith which is by him hath given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all." So there's the explanation. Jesus Christ, the risen Christ whom Israel had rejected and delivered up to be crucified, even though Pilate tried in various means to let him go. They wouldn't allow it. And so they denied Christ, the Holy One, and instead cried out for Barabbas, the murderer, to be granted. He was put to death. The Prince of Life was killed. But because He was the Prince of Life, He could not remain dead, and He was raised by God from the dead. And it is in His name, through His power, the risen Christ is active. He's not dead in the grave. He is active. And this miracle we must ascribe to Him and His power. That's the explanation of this miracle. Christ has done it. He lives. and he is showing his living power through this miracle. Now, we come this morning to the latter part of this chapter in our text for today, where we have in verses 17 to 26, Peter's exhortation to the people. He has explained the miracle, and now he's going to exhort them. He has looked at the history of the rejection of the Messiah, his crucifixion and resurrection, Now he's going to look at the implications of that for this people who have been amazed by this miracle and they have given their attention to the church, that is to the apostles who are preaching concerning this miracle. Now if you look there at the outline, I think there's two parts here. As we try to get the outlines, it's good to have the balance and appropriateness in terms of balance. So we see here that there's, first of all, gentle words of introduction in verses 17 and 18, where he speaks to them and says, you know, you killed Christ, but you did it in the ignorance of unbelief. You did it in ignorance. It's a gentle word to them. You just charged him with this horrendous crime, and yet he softens it. Then he also softens it, or gently speaks to them, in the terms that, yes, you killed him, but you were actually fulfilling God's word through the prophets in doing so. It does not alleviate your guilt. But nonetheless, God was at work in your crime to work his purposes. So they're the gentle words of introduction. Then he moves on to bold words. Bold words, powerful words of exhortation. First of all, he calls upon them to repent for the forgiveness of their sins. Secondly, he calls upon them to recognize where Christ is right now. He is in heaven. He's preaching Christ to the people, and they say, well, where is He? You said He did this miracle. Where is He? He's where God has Him at this point. This is the time of His mediterranean reign at the right hand of God the Father in fulfillment of Psalm 110. Thirdly, he goes on to speak to this very important thing about Moses. They trusted in Moses. Moses was their teacher. Well, Jesus is the fulfillment of Moses' prophecy concerning the prophet, who would be like unto him. And so, instead of rejecting Jesus, they should respect him, even like they respect Moses, because he is the prophet. Fourthly, he calls upon them to realize that you are in the days of the Messiah, the prophet spoke of. And finally, to receive the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant through the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. So let's look at all of this now in somewhat more detail. Here's the transition from his explanation. And now brethren or brothers, You can see the tone that he's bringing to them, not flaming denunciation, but an appeal. And he's leading them on to hear his words by these gentle opening statements. Brethren, my fellow Israelites, I what, and there's the word what, which is the old English word that we still do use in our language, but not the what form, W-O-T, but the word witting, We even speak often that if someone did something unwittingly, what do we mean? They didn't know what they were doing. It's the same, wit is the same word of, that we get our word wat from. That's a different form of the English verb. I know is what it means. By the way, when we talk about someone being a wit, someone who's pretty smart, has got a bunch of knowledge. So the word is still used, though we don't use the word what, W-O-T, currently. But that's the root of our English word. So he says this, I know that through ignorance, you did it. You did what? What he just had accused them of, of denying the Holy One, demanding a murderer, and having Pilate crucify him, even though Pilate wanted to let him go. And he says, I know you did it, through ignorance. The instrumentality of your act was your ignorance, not your knowledge. I know that you didn't have knowledge. You were ignorant of what you were doing. Not ignorant in the fact that they were demanding his death, but ignorant in the fact that the one they were demanding to be killed was the Christ that God had promised. He's giving them hope here. How is He giving them hope? If you will take your Bibles, you don't need to turn there right now, but to the book of Leviticus chapter 4, there's a whole lengthy chapter on the forgiveness of sins through the offerings of the sacrificial system. And these offerings were available to those who committed sins in ignorance. It's a whole category of moral failing in the Old Testament. And for sins of ignorance, there are sacrifices for forgiveness. If you look at Leviticus 4, it does not in any way speak about the sins of ignorance not being sins and not being serious. In fact, they're so serious an animal needs to be killed in the place of the sinner so that their sin can be forgiven. This is not in any way denying moral guilt when we do something ignorantly. But it is a sin that can be forgiven. In the Old Testament, there was another category of sin called the sin of the high hand. It was the sin of someone who says, I know this is evil. I'm going to do it anyway. The sin of ignorance also can be the ignorance of unbelief, the ignorance of weakness, if you would grant what I'm saying. We stumble, sometimes we forget in our lusts the commandments of God, and we fall into it, then we say, oh, then we remember them. So that doesn't mean complete ignorance, but it means that the sin has with it this idea of the unknowingness of what we're doing at the moment. It can also be a sin of ignorance if we do it out of false teaching. There's people who do things as Christians and it's a sin of ignorance because they have been taught falsely by their teachers. They do things and it's a sin of ignorance because they don't know the truth. They have been mistaught. The interpretation of scripture is not proper. There's so much of that happens in the church. There's so much sins of false doctrine, false practice, sins that are committed all the time because people are being taught falsely. But they are still sins and they're responsible for them for everybody ultimately is responsible to study their Bible themselves and to know the truth and to live in light of it. But do you see how to their minds calling it a sin of ignorance gives them some hope at the beginning? Because sins of ignorance can be forgiven. They committed a horrible crime and it was a terrible sin. There's no denying that, no lessening that fact. But at the root of it, Peter says, and he's speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, God understands that though they should have believed Christ, all of his words and life testified of who he was, yet because of the false teaching of Judaism, the false teaching of the Pharisees, their own weaknesses, they rejected him. You see, they thought that when the Messiah came, he would be a David-like figure who would come in glory and power and pomp, and he would come to lead an armed rebellion against Rome, cast the Roman overlordship into the sea, and become an independent nation under the Messiah, and they would then become a conquering kingdom. That's what they thought. That was the false doctrine. And since Jesus didn't fit that, they rejected him. And so this is part of the ignorance that he's talking about here. Ignorance based on a faulty understanding of the scripture. But they still need to be forgiven. That's why in verse 19, it talks about repentance so that their sins can be blotted out. They're still guilty. But this gives hope. in these words. Not only them, this is somewhat difficult to imagine, but he also includes the rulers. Again, this doesn't mean these rulers were good guys, who were well-meaning people. It simply means that in the delusions of their Judaism, they rejected the Christ. And I say Judaism because they were not following the Old Testament faith. They were not of Abraham. They had developed a new religion since those days. Paul said he had to be saved out of that religion. Paul didn't just transfer from the Old Testament faith to the New Testament faith. You know who did those kind of transfers? Men like John the Baptist's parents, men and women like John the Baptist's parents, they were of the true faith, they were circumcised in heart, and their transition went in order and peace. The Zechariah in the temple who held the baby Jesus and said, Lord, let now thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. He knew this was the promised Christ. He was of the Old Testament faith. But the people who rejected him, the rulers who persecuted him, were living a corrupted, religion that they had invented. Oh, they used Old Testament forms here and there, they used words, they appealed to certain things, but it was a false religion. This is the same status today of the Jewish people. They are in darkness. They, through the ignorance of their Judaism, reject Jesus Christ, condemn the church as being a false religion, and they're in trouble, but the hope is that they can be forgiven too if they will heed the message of the New Testament, even this message of Peter today. They can be saved. It's a sin of ignorance. It's a culpable sin, but it's not a hopeless sin. Do you get the difference there? Jesus himself said, All manner of sin against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but not the sin against the Holy Spirit. Which seems to indicate, a sin against the Holy Spirit is when the Holy Spirit shows you and you know that this is true, and the Holy Spirit has revealed it to you, and you say no to the Holy Spirit. There's no forgiveness for those kind of sins. They're the sins of the high hand. Secondly, he also says, not only did you kill Christ, oh, by the way, in the Ignorance of Unbelief, I thought of this, there was one passage, it's very important. In fact, let's turn there to look at that. It's in 1 Timothy. One of the Pharisees who was following the false religion, one of the rulers, of Acts 3.17, though he may not yet have been a member of the Sanhedrin, he was certainly one of their very important assistants because he was the one charged with the persecution of the church in the early days. So Paul was part of those ruling class that was caught up in the hatred and delusions that came from their false religion. But he was saved. How did that happen? He was one of these rulers. Paul says, and I thank God, I thank Jesus Christ, our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry. Who was before a blasphemer, that's a pretty serious sin, isn't it? He blasphemed Christ. A persecutor, persecuted the church, and injurious, he inflicted physical pain and injury upon people. But he says, but I obtained mercy because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. Paul was not acting on, so I know Jesus was the Messiah, but I reject him even knowing that. And I hate him because I don't want him to be my Messiah. That wasn't Paul's position. He was deluded by false doctrine. And as he says here, I retain mercy because I did it in unbelief. And that's what Peter is saying at the beginning of his sermon. He's offering them mercy because of this same situation. I was injurious, but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorant in unbelief. And the grace of our Lord Jesus was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." Then he says, "...this is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the chief." So Paul is not excusing himself when he says he did it ignorantly on belief. He later on here in these couple of verses later calls himself the chief of sinners for those sins. But he did it ignorantly in the sphere of unbelief that was caused by the false religion and doctrine that he had imbibed since he was a child. And so he obtained mercy. And this was a pattern for all who should come after. This was a pattern not only for Gentiles, but Jews. They can be saved today if they go the same route that Paul. And so we see this, these gentle words. Secondly, he says in verse 18, more gentle words. You know, you did it unbelief, but there's another thing that is that you did it, though you weren't, you did it unwittingly. You were actually fulfilling the prophets. It was God's purpose that Christ would die, because it was through his death that salvation would come to the world. He says, but those things which God before had showed by the mouth of all his prophets, what did he show? That Christ should suffer. In other words, the Old Testament is filled with the predictions of the sufferings of the Messiah. Some of it is veiled in the context of typology. The very fact that the animal sacrificial system was put in place in the Old Testament was a prophecy God was showing beforehand through that that his lamb, his ultimate sacrifice upon which all of these sacrifices were ultimately dependent, was the death of Christ himself. Again, reading in Leviticus is very important. I'm reading that right now in my own scripture reading. And what they would do, they would bring this animal, cute little lamb or goat, Perhaps it would be a bullock. They weren't so cute. But still, they would have to come. And the worshiper, for the forgiveness of their sins, they had to kill, slay, violently take the life of that innocent animal for their sins. They killed it. They took a knife and slit its throat and would bleed out. It was a violent thing that the tabernacle was surrounded by that kind of violence of killing of these animals, not for food, not for that purpose, but simply because they had to die, suffer this death for the forgiveness of the sinner. That was a prophecy of Christ. He had to die. He had to suffer death. God was in that typological way setting this forward. in the Old Testament. We also have some specific words of the prophets, such as in Daniel 9, verse 26, when it talks about the Messiah being cut off. Slaughtered, killed, but not for the sins of himself, but for the people. Psalm 22, David and his experience of suffering becomes a type of Christ and a prophecy of Christ. Isaiah 53, an incomparable statement of the sufferings of the Messiah. And even at the very beginning, the dawn of history, there was a prophecy. And this was in the condemnation of the serpent. when it said that the seat of the woman would bruise, bruise in the sense of crush, the head of the serpent, but in so doing, he would suffer the bruising of his heel. And so the whole Old Testament is filled with these prophecies, and those who had the right spirit within them, who were circumcised in heart, not just in flesh, sought this out and sought to try to put it all together and understand it. But when the time came, when Christ came and died, they had the whole Old Testament opened up to them, and they saw it. And this is what Peter is seeking to do here. And the church was seeking to open their eyes to what the prophets said. There's so much about the prophets here. Verse 18, it talks about what God showed by all the mouths of the prophets. Verse 21, again, spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets. Since the world began, there's a Genesis 3.15 prophecy. Since the world began, it's been in there. And then it talks about the prophet that Moses spoke of. who would come, verse 24, yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and on have told of these days, verse 25, you're the children of the prophets and so on. And so what he's telling them here and he's giving them hope that if it was God's purpose for Christ to suffer and they were guilty in being instruments of that suffering, but maybe there's hope for them that that suffering will cover them now if they recognize what they've done and repent. and believe. God has fulfilled it, even through your wicked act. So then he comes to verse 19. where we begin these bold words of exhortation. He's introduced, he's given them hope. This is what Christians need to do for people when we witness to them. This is what preaching needs to do. We do need to bring people to the sense of their sin and the justice of God and the righteous wrath upon God. But if we don't give them hope in the midst of that kind of preaching like Peter does here, then we are going to just bring them to despair, not to the cross. Their sin is great, yes, but there's hope. There's mercy. God's own will was being fulfilled in that terrible crime that they committed, in that it was the means whereby Christ went to the cross. We saw that in chapter two, didn't we? Verse 23 of the Pentecost sermon. Him being delivered by the determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken him by wicked hands. See, they're still, they're guilty. Wicked hands work here. But it was based on the foreknowledge and determined counsel of God. This is the same thing. This is the essence of the apostolic preaching, giving to the people hope. And so with that hope given, he calls upon them to repent. If there was no hope, why repent? Why call upon them to have their sins washed away if their sins can't be washed away? So this is the point. It is not hopeless for Israel at this point. There's still a day of grace open to them. Even though they rejected the Messiah, the Messiah has come, his word is now being spoken and his miracles are now being performed by his apostles and God is giving them the opportunity to be forgiven for their awful crime. And so he says, and this is to Israel. This is the context of the book of Acts. It is in Jerusalem. It's the beginning of the gospel. It's to the Jew first, as we'll see in verse 26. He is first being offered to them, Christ. Because of their whole role in the old covenant system in preparing the way. So to the Jews of that day and to the Jews of this day, they can be forgiven if they will repent. They will have a change of mind. We looked at that was the very exhortation in the day of Pentecost. Men and brethren, what shall we do? They said to Peter on that day, repent. And let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." They'd been brought to this point of conviction, and the answer was repentance. And we saw there, to repent means to have a change of mind, a change of thinking. They need to completely reorient their thinking about who Jesus is. They need to see that they have committed a terrible crime. They're guilty of this. Change their mind about the whole event of the crucifixion. And in the change of their mind, they need to be converted. And this, it says, be converted. It could better be translated that you might be converted. You need to convert yourselves is what it's saying here. This is not against the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit. It's a synonym of repent. It means repent and change course. That's what it means simply. And that's what repentance is. Change your thinking and change your steps. Change your thinking, change your lives. That's all he is saying here. And so the true repentance always leads to this being converted. That is, a person repents before God. and a sinner, they then have a new view of Christ and they change their steps and they go to the cross. Instead of running from the cross, they turn around and they embrace the cross because there they see the solution to their sin problem before a holy God. So repent and turn yourselves around. Come to Jesus Christ. The one that you rejected, and denied for a murderer, see how terrible your sins were, change your thinking about that act, see how culpable you are, guilty you are, and come to the cross, come to Christ. Listen to my message, that your sins may be blotted out, including the sin that we read about that Peter preached on about denying the Holy One for a murderer. By the way, do you ever think when Peter said that you denied the Holy One for murder, what was going through his mind is he was ready to offer forgiveness. What did he do? Not the same way. He believed in Christ, but he denied out of fear. He understands what it means in fear and confusion sometimes to deny the truth. I denied him, here I am preaching to you. You denied him, you can be saved. You can be forgiven. But your sins may be blotted out. This is a very powerful word, meant to be erased. The idea is that of an indictment against you, written up, the nature of the sin spelled out. Here, of course, it would be, in this specific context, the sin of rejecting Christ, but all their other sins as well that made them guilty before God, that made it necessary for Christ to even come and to die for them. And so there's this whole list of sins written down. And the record is there. We have this image in the book of Revelation on the day of judgment, the books will be open and the people will be judged out of the things written in the books. There are crimes, there are sins that we have committed, which are really innumerable for humans to even try to number what sins we've committed. But what this says here, that record of our sin can be blotted out. And this means to be expunged from the record. erased, gone, all of our sin, all of the sins of the people to whom He is preaching here, even the sin of the cross and rejecting Jesus and demanding His crucifixion, that can all be blotted out. It can be blotted out individually and even the nation of Israel, if there would be national repentance at this point, that crime against them could be expunged from the record. This is mercy, isn't it? This is astonishing. This is what God will do for you in Christ. If you repent, excuse me, and come to the Lord Jesus, that your sins can be blotted out. And then what comes next, after your sins are blotted out, is a time of refreshing, refreshment. there will be times of refreshment that will come when they come from the presence of the Lord. Now, what is this referring to? It seems to be pretty clear to me, it's not talking about the presence of the Lord in the second coming or anything like that, because the very next verse says, not the next verse, 20 speaks about sending Jesus Christ, which was preached unto you, and many see the second coming in those two phrases, the presence of the Lord and him sending Jesus Christ, who was preached unto you. But the problem with the interpretation, this is the second coming, is verse 21, he next tells his hearers, he must remain in heaven until his work at the right hand of father is fulfilled. This is a word to this audience, okay? This is how you interpret the Bible. What did it mean to them? It does not refer to the second coming. What does it refer to? It refers to the gift of the Holy Spirit, which was the center of the Joel prophecy that launched the church. And one of the key points of the Pentecost sermon is that if you are baptized in the name of Christ for the forgiveness of your sin, what will you receive? What will God send to you? The gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the presence of the Lord is the Holy Spirit will be given as Joel said, this is the time of the messianic kingdom. The spirit is gonna be poured out and you will be refreshed when the Holy Spirit comes into your life. People who've experienced conversion understand this. Their lives were under the burden of sin. They were guilty. They were drying up inside, as David said in the psalm, when he did not confess his sin. And then they repented, they confessed their sin, they ran and embraced the cross, believed that Christ died for them, and they received the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and their whole life changed. Interesting, the word here, refresh, means a fresh breeze. It's like you're in a hot, muggy, terrible summer day. You're thirsty. You're just about worn out. And then all of a sudden, a cool breeze blows out of the Northwest. Someone hands you a cold glass of water, and that breath of fresh air, the refreshing water, the water of life in our image here, is given to you, and you just, ah, I feel like a man again. I feel like a woman again. I feel like I can face life again. This is what happens when we're saved. When the Holy Spirit comes into us, we are given new life. And so the refreshment that is being spoken here from the presence of the Lord is that he says he will send Jesus Christ to you. Well, why didn't he say the Holy Spirit? Because the key here is that they've rejected their Messiah, but they can have him again. He will be resent to them. They killed him the first time he came in the flesh, but now God will send him to you in the person of the Holy Spirit. That's what Jesus said to his disciples. Peter's only preaching what he told. He said, I'm going away, but I'll come again to you. For the Father will send the Holy Spirit in my name. It's my spirit. Paul called the Holy Spirit, the spirit of Christ. And so comparing scripture to scripture and comparing it to the day of Pentecost sermon and the call to repentance and the gift of the Holy Spirit, the presence of the Lord, the coming of Christ to them is this gift of the Holy Spirit. For when the Holy Spirit comes into the heart, what do we say? Christ comes into the heart. And so this is what he's talking about here. So repent for the forgiveness of your sins and the refreshment that will come from the presence of the Lord. Now, you know, this is being spoken in an evangelistic context, but it can apply to Christians in their daily life. We get off the path. We sin, we grow cold, we dry up. Because there's sin in our life, we can repent of it. And we can change the direction we're going. Change our thinking, change our direction. Those two go together. What will happen? There'll be a time of refreshment in your life. You will have a new breath of life into you. The Holy Spirit's ministry will be unleashed again afresh in you. And you will know this time of refreshments from the presence of the Lord in your conscious life. When we're Christians, the Spirit of God and Christ have come to us, but we can become unconscious of that presence through our dullness, through our sins. But when we repent and we recommit ourselves to Christ and we are converted again back to the way we ought to be living, we have this refreshment of the Lord's conscious presence in our lives. We can be thankful, by the way, that the Lord is present with us even when we're unconscious of it. we'd be in big trouble if we weren't. So he's with us, but we're not conscious of it, we're not thinking about it, we're not experiencing the joy of it and the refreshment of it. So this is being though in an evangelistic context, he's saying to the Jews that if you repent of your sins, they will be blotted out, the Holy Spirit will be sent by God, the Spirit of Christ will come and you will be refreshed. Israel was a dry, Dried-up leaf they were a dried-up mess they were that fig tree by the way that Jesus cursed that had all this life in it a Symbol of Israel the showiness of the light, but there was no fruit in Israel Just like that tree it looked beautiful Jesus went to get the fruit. There was no fruit there, and he cursed it Because it was an empty shell of Judaistic religion not Old Testament living vibrant faith What this is saying is that dried-up Fig tree can be given life. Just as Jesus sucked the life out of it, he can put it right back in it and it become a beautiful tree this time with fruit. This is the promise. This is what's being offered to them and it's a real offer. I've said this many times. We went over this in the book of Revelation over and over again. Why did we have AD 70? It's because they rejected this kind of preaching. They were given the opportunity to be forgiven. and to receive Christ. But they said no, no, no. Thank God there was a remnant among Israel that did. A large remnant, not a huge one, but a significant remnant did believe this message. They were actually the founding folks of the New Testament church. But the nation as a whole said no. They didn't get the time of refreshment, they got the time of condemnation. in the AD 66-70 war, because they refused this offer of salvation. The next thing he wants to tell them here, again, I mentioned this in my introductory overview, is he's now going to move on now to answer some objections. And one of the objections, of course, is going to be, if Jesus is the Messiah, why isn't he here with us? Of course, we know what Peter teaches, we know what the truth is, he is ascended to the Father's right hand, he will come in the spirit, but he's dealing with people who don't believe that kind of stuff. He has to convince them that Jesus is the Messiah. How can we believe in a Messiah that's not present? Well, you can believe in him because he's exactly where he's supposed to be. Not only did God ordain that he would suffer, he also ordained that he would reign at his right hand, and that was brought out emphatically in the Day of Pentecost sermon. Which, we don't know if Peter developed that here, because if you remember in the Day of Pentecost sermon I mentioned to you, pointed out to you, that at the very end of the sermon it said, and with many other words did he testify? These accounts of this preaching is not everything that they said. It is what they said, it is true to what they said, the very words that they said, but it's a condensed version, highly condensed version. Peter might have preached for half an hour to an hour. You can read over this in a number of minutes. We don't know. But when he's talking here about the Messiah, and he's telling them that he's right where he's supposed to be. Heaven must receive him until the times of restitution of all things. Heaven must receive him. In the day of Pentecost, it said that he ascended into heaven. He's now at God's right hand, fulfilling his ministry, which was described as that he was to put his enemies under his feet. His enemies would be his footstool. Sit at my right hand until. Here we have the heavens must receive him until the times of restitution of all things would take place. Now, first of all, the times of restitution here is not speaking about a point in time. Notice the plural. The time of, it's not talking again either about the second coming of Christ at the end of history. The times of restitution is the period of the Messiah's reign at the right hand of God. What is he doing up there? He's restoring things. He's bringing things back to where they were supposed to be. Now we know that the absolute completion of that work does remain for the new heavens and the new earth, that's for sure. But during this period of time in history, these times, plural, not a point in time, but a space of time, the space of time, the times of restitution of all things are the inner advent period, from the time of the ascension to the time of the return, the end of the ages, for the final judgment and the establishment of the new Jerusalem and the new heavens and the new earth. By the way, I'm glad I taught in God's Providence Revelation before teaching Acts, because it gives us the context, historical context, of when Acts was written, what was happening in the plan of redemption, and what was happening in terms of Israel. And so what Christ is doing now in this time, this period of time, not a point in time, but the period of time, is the restoring of all things. Now this word restoration has to be understood. And it's somewhat difficult because this is the only place in the New Testament this word actually appears. It was used in the language of the day of repairing and restoring temples by the heathen. Their temples were broken down. They would hire a remodeling or a renewal contractor and they would come and rebuild it. Well, in this time, the temple of God was on really low footing. We've talked about that already. Judaism had conquered the people of Israel. There was only a remnant that was left. The temple, the people of God needed to be rebuilt. But this time when it's going to be rebuilt, there's going to be a whole wonderful new infusion of stones to rebuild this temple. It's going to be Jew and Gentile. Ephesians 2, the new temple. He's going to restore it. During this age Christ is building his new temple. These are the times of restoration of the temple of God that was in ruin after the apostasy of the Jews. But now he's rebuilding it. It's a rebuilding of the New Testament phase of that temple. It's a wonderful time. And so this actually refers to the evangelistic advances of the church until the whole elect of God are brought in and the temple of God is restored to its perfect number of stones in beautiful order during this age. And of course, in that time of restoration of the church and group, people have different views of how much that will affect culture, how much it will affect society, how much history will be shaken by this wonderful restoration of the people of God to their full vibrancy and number in the New Testament era. And that division comes down to what we call the amillennial and postmillennial views, and I am not gonna enter into that in this point of the sermon, but there is a, work that God is doing right now that's called this restoration. There's another way this word means to change, in a very simple way, to change something from worse to better. See how that fits the temple that was broken down? We need to change that. We need to restore it. Or to use a phrase today that I have used, and I believe it's right on this thing, is what we call reconstruction. Christian reconstruction is joining with Jesus Christ to this time of restoration, this time of rebuilding. Reconstructing not only the church, but Everything our lives touch. If you're a Christian, you should reconstruct business in the image of Christ in a biblical way. If you're in education, that needs to be rebuilt, reconstructed into the form of Christian education. If you're a family man or woman, the family is in horrible shape. It needs to be rebuilt, restored, reconstructed. in the image of the biblical family and so forth. So this is not a period of time, excuse me, not a point in time at the second coming, this period, but it's what's happening right now. And he will be there until that phase is done. Who will know when it's done? Well, again, there's different views on that, but God will know. And when that work is done, when the new covenant era work is done of building the temple of God, Christ returns. And so he says to them, where's the Messiah? He's right where he's supposed to be, doing his work, restoring the temple of God, the spiritual temple of God. Furthermore, you put all your trust in Moses. Jesus said, you trust in Moses. But if you'd have believed Moses, you'd have believed in me. But that brings across the idea that Moses, Moses, what Moses says, we believe. We don't believe what you say, Jesus. We believe what Moses said. Go away. And that's when Jesus said, if you really believe what Moses said, you'd believe me because he wrote of me. And here's one area where he wrote in me. For Moses truly said unto the fathers, that is when he was giving the great Deuteronomic sermon, which we're reading right now, and we'll read this passage later. Right before he died, he said to the Israelite fathers there on the plains of Moab, before they went into the promised land, basically, I'm going to die, but God is not going to leave you without a word. He's going to give prophets. And this will culminate specifically in a prophet that God will raise up that's like me. Moses was the founder of the old covenant order. He was a prophet, he was a priest, and he was a king. He united all of those things. Moses offered sacrifices. He ministered in the tabernacle. He preached the word of God like a prophet to the people and he administrated the civil affairs of the nation. He would sat as a judge and a ruler. Well, there's gonna be a prophet like that. Now we had many prophets who came in the prophetic tradition that were like Moses to some degree, but none of them rose to this level of the prophet, the priest, and the king, as it were. And so Moses said, there was gonna be a prophet like me. And Peter's point is clear, Jesus is that prophet. He's going to raise up of your brethren. Jesus was born of the seed of David, of the house of Israel. He came from you. Jesus fits that perfectly. He is the one that God has raised up. If there's not also in this raising up, it's hard to discount the resurrection from the dead as part of that raising up. And so Jesus is the, he's telling them Jesus is the prophet like unto Moses. and him you shall hear. If you'd have listened to Moses, you would have listened to everything Jesus said, because Moses commanded you to hear what he said, but you refuse that. And so he's arguing here that if you believe Moses, to this crowd there in the temple, if you believe Moses, you need to believe in Jesus Christ because he is the promised prophet that he spoke of. Moses prophesied of his coming. But he also said this when he told you to listen to everything he said, which, by the way, you remember the Mount of Transfiguration when Peter, James and John were there with him and the cloud overshadowed him and Jesus was transfigured into some form of heavenly glory before their eyes. After it was all done, the vision ceased. actually was during the vision, excuse me, near the end of it, it said, this is my beloved son, hear him. Basically what Moses said as his prophet. But the problem is if you don't hear him, you'll be destroyed. And the word destroyed there means utterly destroyed. Every soul which will not hear that prophet, that Jesus, the prophet of God, he or she or all as a group will be destroyed from among the people. This was fulfilled among the mass of Israelites in AD 70. They're destroyed. They refused even on this, I don't know if it's the right word, but second chance, another opportunity to right the wrongs of the past. By the way, when those opportunities come to you, when God gives you a chance to right the wrongs of the past, don't pass them over. Very likely you won't get another one, another opportunity. But here it's talking about that if you don't hear Christ, you'll be destroyed. Judgment is decreed. If you don't repent and change your course, if you don't get that forgiveness of sins, the gift of the Holy Spirit, accepting Jesus as a prophet like unto Moses, and hearing what he says, you'll be destroyed, utterly destroyed. Israel has not been a nation since that day. Don't make the mistake that what's over in Israel right now is anyway these people. It's not of God, whatever it is. So they've never been a nation since, they've been destroyed ever since, that's what the word of God says. They'll never be a nation again. As they were, the chosen people nation. They'll be destroyed. So you need to look at Christ with entirely new eyes, one of deep respect. Just like you respect Moses, he's calling on them respect Jesus. And in the context, again, they're looking to Moses. He says, if you look to Moses, he'll point you to Christ. And that's one of the reasons why the way we know that the Jews of today don't believe Moses. They reject Moses because they won't believe in Christ. Next, verse 24, he says, again, arguing with them, I want you to realize my brothers, remember verse 17, my brothers, I want you to realize that you are living in the most amazing days. Verse 24, yea, and all the prophets from Samuel and those that followed after, as many as have spoken, have likewise foretold of these days. You're in the days that the fathers long to see. You are in the days of opportunity, of salvation, of the gift of the Holy Spirit. When like Joel said, in the last days, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh. Do not let this false doctrine that you have been fed by your rabbis that the Messiah has not yet come, You're still waiting for him. And of course, which is the official doctrine of Judaism today. The Messiah has not come. Don't listen to that. All the prophets beginning at Samuel. Here we see that the prophetic order began with Samuel. the special ministry of the prophets in the Old Testament. And all the ones that followed after until the time of Malachi and all the men in between, they have spoken of these days, the days of the Messiah, the days of Jesus Christ. And finally, he says, you need to receive the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant. You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, In thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. Now, this is quite astonishing to them. What do you mean, receive the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant? We're already in it. We're already receiving the blessings. We're in the covenant. Peter says, No, you're not. The only way you get in the covenant is by faith. Even in the Old Testament, the true covenant members were those who were circumcised in heart. There was an outward structure. There was a physical relation. But this change has come now in the New Testament. He's telling them that if you're going to receive the promise, which is the essence of the Abrahamic covenant promise, and in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. That's the promise. It's in your seed. Now, who is the seed? Peter is dealing with the very same thing here with them that Paul makes abundantly clear in the book of Galatians. We use scripture to interpret scripture. This is all the apostolic message. It says in Galatians 3.16, now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He saith not to seeds, plural, seeds plural. As of many, like all these many seeds, like every Jew or Israelite is one of the seed of Abraham that blesses the world. No. There's only one seed that was in view ultimately. Paul says, not into seeds as of many, but as of one, into thy seed, which is Christ. The promise of the Abrahamic covenant looked down to this seed. Everything else was just part of the plan, part of the process, part of the project, part of the preparation, but it was all to be culminating in them. If there is no seed, singular Christ, there is no Abrahamic covenant. And so the promise of the Abrahamic covenant is in your seed. And so that's why Paul goes on to say that those who are in Christ are the true seed of Abraham. It doesn't matter what your physical descendancy is, because the physical descent question is settled in one man, Jesus Christ. And if you're joined to him by faith through the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit, you are, figuratively speaking, in Christ. And if you're in Christ, you're joined to the seed of Abraham, and therefore you yourself now have the right to call yourself the seed of Abraham. Physical descent means nothing when it comes to the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant. And yet all that we hear today about this, the chosen people today, they're the seed of Abraham. No, they are not. Those who are the seed of Abraham are those who are in Christ. And do you see this sermon? That's what he's saying to the Jews originally in this first time that's brought up, the covenant of Abraham. He's telling them they don't have the blessings yet. They don't have the blessing, the blessing of salvation that is ultimately in that Paul said in Galatians 2 that he preached the gospel to the world when he said, in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. The Jews need the gospel here and today just as much as they needed it then. Well, I mean, today as much as they needed it on this day when he was preaching. Powerful, transformative theology. There's a lot of people today who are sinning in ignorance over this whole question of the Jews and Israel because they have imbibed the false doctrines of dispensationalism and its parent, or its child, Zionism. So you need Abraham's blessing. He says this to Jews. We need to say it to him today, too. You don't have Abraham's blessing. And by the way, that side issue where, you know, we have to bless Israel because God said that I will bless those who bless you and curse those who curse you. And they bring it down to today and said that we are responsible to bless this rogue state called Israel over there today. And if we don't, God will curse us. That is so false. It is so dangerous. It is so wrong. God deliver us from it. First of all, Abraham, in the Abrahamic covenant, the word seed there, no, not seed, that's singular, but in before the, I will bless those who bless you. Singular, Abraham. It was a promise to Abraham. that God would bless those who would bless Abraham. And we see in the account of Abraham's life, that's exactly what happened. And he would curse those who cursed Abraham. It has nothing to do with passing down through all of history, this idea that everything's determined by whether we bless the Jews or curse them. Irrespective of the rebellion, sin, and unbelief, we're to bless unbelief? We're to bless rejection of Christ? We're to bless blasphemy? Not in my understanding of the Bible, but sadly, in the understanding of a lot of Christians, that's what we're supposed to do. But here it is. The Abrahamic covenant is offered to these Jews because they're not in it. They're not experiencing its blessings until they come to Jesus Christ, because the next verse says, unto you first. First in order of time. This does not mean first in order of importance. The soul of a Jew is no more important than a soul of a Gentile to the creator, both made in his image. But this is the opportunity. God is going to give them first opportunity because of the historical stature of the people of Israel in his old covenant plan. Paul said to the Jew first in Romans. You look at Paul's missionary journeys, which we will, when he would go into a town, he followed that into a city, Wherever he could, wherever there was a Jewish synagogue, he went there first to preach the gospel. Like I said in the book of Revelation, that's all over now. There's no Jew first anymore. That was back then. A Christian missionary goes into a city to preach. He doesn't have to go to the local synagogue and search up the Jews before he can say a word to the Gentile. That ended at AD 70. No, it's not. But here it was still in place. In fact, this was the very beginning. And God in His mercy, Peter is saying to them, He is giving to you first this privilege to hear this message and to believe in Jesus Christ who's been raised from the dead. God has sent Him to bless you. He sent Him in the incarnation into your very midst. God was among them. The word was made flesh, and the Israelite John says, and he dwelt among us. What an incredible experience. And God sent him to you, and the whole purpose of this was to turn you away from your iniquities, to forgive your sins. He sent Christ. Now you have rejected him, but here's the great news. If you'll believe, if you'll repent, you can be forgiven, and you can become a member of his rebuilt temple. which as time will be revealed was Jew and Gentile in one body. The wall of partition is gone and it's a whole beautiful all the families of the earth gathered together in one spiritual temple in Christ Jesus. So let's look again at our message. Peter begins by giving these gentle words of introduction. I hope we have given context and understanding to this idea of the sin of the ignorance that is due mercy. God is merciful. It's still sin. but he will forgive it if we repent. Furthermore, his suffering was exactly what the prophets would say. He's making an argument to these who said they believe the prophets and they believe Moses. So he says this is what the prophets said would happen. So in believing in Jesus the crucified, one, you're not rejecting your prophetic teachers in the Old Testament or in the Hebrew scriptures. That's what they said would happen. And then after this, words of hope, that there's hope for you, he then exhorts them on the basis of that hope to repent of their sins, to turn their lives around, receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, and all the refreshment that will come to them right then and there in history. This is not the second coming, it's what will happen to that audience if they'll turn to Christ. Then to the question, well, if Jesus is the Messiah, why isn't he reigning on David's throne? It's because he's reigning at God's right hand. Heaven has received him. He's exactly where he's supposed to be. And during this period of time, he's building the New Testament temple. And we're inviting you to become part of it, he's saying to them. This is not a divergence from Old Testament teaching that the Messiah is ruling from heaven. Thirdly, you say you trust in Moses. Jesus was the one that Moses spoke of. If you really believe Moses, if you revere Moses, then you'll revere Jesus, and you'll put your trust in him, because in Deuteronomy, he prophesied of the coming of a prophet like unto him. Who would be a prophet? Who would be a priest? Who would be a king? Furthermore, Don't you understand, he says to them, you are in the days of the Messiah. All the things that the prophet spoke of are happening right before your eyes. And so Moses spoke of him, the prophet spoke of him. And therefore, if you want to know which you think is the whole foundation of your blessings, you haven't even received them yet until you Turn to Jesus Christ and find in the Abrahamic Covenant the prophecy of the seed. So Jesus is prophesied, he tells them, finally, in the Abrahamic Covenant. It's in Abraham's seed, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, that all the nations of the earth are blessed. All of these things apply to us directly, brothers and sisters, within our own context. repentance, the recognition of Christ's mediatorial reign, what he's doing in history right now, this deep reverential respect of Christ as the prophet of God Moses spoke of, that we are living right now in the days of the messianic kingdom. The prophecies are being fulfilled in our lives, in our day. They were also before our day, that is since Christ's incarnation, they're going to be being fulfilled after our day, but we live in the messianic age. And if you want to receive you, yourself, the blessing of the Abrahamic covenant, if you want to be known as the true sons and daughters of Abraham, doesn't matter who your parents are, question is, are you a believer in Jesus Christ? May God have mercy on us. May God have mercy on the Jews today. Oh, how we would love to see them to repent of their sins, to hear Peter's message here, and to cry out to Jesus Christ to save them from their sins, to see all the false doctrine that's been shoved down their throat by proud and arrogant rabbis that's all false, and that they would come to see this beautiful message of hope and forgiveness and refreshment that is offered to them as it is offered to us as Gentiles. in the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Lord, bless this word of Peter and our attempt to exposit it and to set forth its glories by comparing scripture with scripture. May you work mightily in our lives that this might be a reality for us. that we're repentant, we recognize Christ's mediatorial reign, we respect the Lord Jesus Christ as the prophet we must obey, that we realize we're in the days of the Messiah, and that we have received the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant through faith in the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ. And we would pray this not only for ourselves as Gentiles, but for the Jews in the world and their poor benighted condition, that they might come to faith in Christ Jesus. In whose name we pray, amen.