God sent Him to bless you

Good morning. We're going to be looking here at this passage Randy read for us the Acts of the Apostles 3 17 through 26 Before we go there though. I did want to make a comment We Nancy and I went to this wedding for Torrey and Just want to let you know.

It was definitely a Christian wedding and And one of the things we noticed, even the reception was very spiritual. I caught at one point, here is Karen praying with her cell phone. I think she's maybe texting God or something, I'm not quite sure. But anyway, it was apparently very spiritual. And with a small piece of scripture in his hand, you can see Kirk giving a very strong exhortation to this newly married couple. That's what caused them to sit down afterwards, which you see in the picture there. So anyway, yeah, it was a very good Christian and spiritual wedding, and even the reception was great. So anyway, into our Acts passage, just to kind of bring us up to speed, we have Acts 3, 1 through 10. which is the passage regarding Peter and John coming into the temple. And as they're entering, there is a man there.

We don't know his name, but he is apparently lame. We know from the full passage that he had been lame since birth. for more than 40 years and had been spending basically years begging there at the temple in Jerusalem, to the point where it's very clear later on that the people there know him. So Peter and John come up and encounter this man, and Peter says, I don't have any gold or silver to give you. which I'm sure at first disappointed him. But then what I have, I will give you, in the name of Jesus Christ, stand up and walk. And so that's the first part of the passage there.

And then we find the man who is then now walking after being lame for decades. And so as he's jumping, I'm sure he's singing, he's doing some kind of, you know, I was a lame man dance. When I was a lame man... Anyway, on and on like that. So anyway, going on and on like that, and so this is getting everybody's attention, because here's this guy that everybody knows for decades has been a lame fellow, and now he's walking.

One of the points we made starting a couple weeks back is Dr. Lane Rittmeyer has made a very good case that the entry point to the temple was what's known as the double gates. There are two sets of multiple gates there at the south end of the temple where you enter into the temple courtyard. This is the one on the left that has two gates versus the triple gates to the right. So here are the stairs to the double gates.

This is what those stairs look like. So they would have gone up these stairs. They would have gone inside the double gate tunnel, which is still present and other than some decay over time from the centuries, is still there and still in great part as it was back then. Here is a reconstruction, an architectural reconstruction of what the patterns would have looked like on the ceiling and what the double gates, that tunnel, would have looked like going through. So you can imagine, here's the lame man in this tunnel. A great place, by the way, to wait because you're out of the rain, you're out of the sun, and people are walking by to go into the temple courtyard.

It would come out at the Huldah gates, there were two of them, and actually it's the one on the west side, again still there, those gates, and it would come out at that gate into the temple courtyard. And so here it is looking again at this picture as you have on your handout. It would be this western of the two Huldah gates.

And then it says in the passage that they went on to Solomon's portico. This was one where Jesus himself had been on multiple occasions. John chapter 10 verses 22 and 23 describe Jesus as being in that very same place. when he celebrated Hanukkah. So it's called the Feast of Lights otherwise.

But anyway, so this is a colonnade or portico or porch that kind of goes around the perimeter. And Solomon's portico was that one on the eastern side surrounding each side of that eastern gate. And this is kind of a reconstruction, a model of that colonnade portico or porch as it's called. It's certainly a lot bigger and fancier than my porch. But anyway, so this is Solomon's Portico and what it would have looked like without all the thousands of people there that were there.

This is an attempt to reconstruct the mass of people. In fact, that's not quite enough, because we know that 5,000 were saved that day, and so there was quite a gathering. There was quite often thousands of Jews in this temple courtyard, and especially this would have been three o'clock in the afternoon. Most people would be preparing for a prayer time. So that's the prelude.

So last Sunday we had in Acts 3, 11 through 16, while he, that is the lame man who had been healed, was clinging to Peter and John. All the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon full of amazement So this is the portico that we're referring to on the east side of the temple courtyard But when Peter saw this he replied to the people men of Israel Why are you amazed at this or why do you gaze at us as if by your our own power and piety? We had made him walk The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate when he had decided to release him. But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, but put to death the Prince of Life." Or as we pointed out, this also translated, the author of life. the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. On the basis of faith in his name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know, and the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.

So that brings us to Acts 3.17, the beginning of our passage, where Peter says, And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. He says brethren actually as he did previously, and that was customarily what the Jews would call one another. We won't see until a couple chapters later the word brethren is used of Christian brethren, Christian believers who share a brotherhood. But in this case he's referring to Jews, they are brethren in the Jewish sense, not that they're brethren and also saved in the Christian sense.

We also point out there this now is the summer of 33 AD. We don't have a precise date as we do with some other points in the book of Acts, but just as your rulers did also, the day in which the Lord was taken before Pilate and taken before the Jewish leaders first, then Pilate, then Herod Antipas and then back to Pilate and then crucified would be April 3rd, 33 AD is a mounting mass of evidence is pointing that specific date as the date at which it occurred. One is interesting, he tells them that you, I know that you acted in ignorance. He says that. The leaders of the Jews, their followers and that day until this day, those who followed after him, Pontius Pilate, Herod Antipas, Even the Roman soldiers who were carrying out orders of crucifixion, they all acted in ignorance.

Did they really have a full sense of what they're doing? No, they did not. They didn't have a sense of what they were doing. There wasn't a sense of, this is the genuine Messiah who was appointed by God and we're going to go ahead and kill him. There was no sense of that.

They were indeed ignorant and Peter's right. These words are entirely consistent with what the Lord himself said as recorded in Luke 23, 34. Jesus was saying, Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing. Even Jesus there on the cross Father, forgive them. They don't know what they're doing.

The only sense that we have that day that someone eventually understood what was going on was the Roman centurion who we find, he says, truly this man was the Son of God. We crucified and killed an innocent man. So he did have some recognition, but that was towards the end of the day. He still had to carry out his orders.

And so acting in ignorance, yes, all of them from beginning to end. In fact, even you'd have to say the Apostles and what they did back before they became Apostles, they acted in ignorance in what they did, including Peter trying to keep Jesus from being crucified. So he says, I know in part of what he says, and do not know.

And this is a know that means a knowing of perception, a knowing of understanding. I perceive and understand. It's not just a I see it on the outside but have no idea what it means. This is an I know and I perceive and understand. And he says, and do not know.

So let's take a look at that. It's a study of scripture, as a matter of fact, to examine the many passages that make clear what we know. and can know as his believers, and what the various ones do not know and cannot know. That's a big deal. If you ever come across Christians, they say, well, you really can't know what the Bible says. Matter of fact, we had one fellow come here to visit. He told me he went to Colorado Christian University, and one of his professors said, if somebody tells you that they know what the Bible means, that's heresy. What? But anyway, yeah, that mindset is out there among Christians, including many Christians.

I've talked to them as recently as this last week. We have this sense of, boy, we really can't know what the Bible means. So in this passage, Peter tells all of them that he knows about them. Again, that's perceives and understands. He acknowledges that they acted in ignorance of the truth and the spiritual realities of what they were doing and not doing.

Indeed, it's valuable for us to consider carefully there are things that we can know, and so God has revealed with the intent that we can know with certainty. God did not reveal the things in Scripture with the idea that we have not the foggiest idea of what He's really talking about. God wants us to know Him. We had an invitation to the wedding, for Torrey and Ben, and we looked at the invitation and we went there with the idea that they had a specific thing they wanted to communicate to us. I wonder what they're doing. Is this a graduation ceremony? Which Thursday are they talking about? And is this March of this year, next year? So there's all these things.

We don't wonder what that is. As a matter of fact, we went and got to DIA and flew down to Phoenix and drove and did all sorts of things. Based on the understanding, we knew what they meant. And lo and behold, we actually attended the wedding. And it was the right one.

But God wants us to know. God gives us specific things in Scripture, and He has revealed a lot. If you've got a copy of the Bible, or at least the New Testament in Greek or something like that in your pew racks, or you've got a Bible with you, you have a modern version of an ancient document. That entire document is God's revelation that He intended us to understand.

So what and who we cannot know, God has revealed Himself truthfully but not fully. We don't know also when He, that is Christ, is coming for us. We don't know, for example, when the Lord raptures people alive, will it leave clothes and shoes and a sort of a disheveled look, empty look, or will they be folded when the Lord takes us?

We don't know the answer to that. I don't know. But the Lord knows. But that hasn't been revealed to us, right? We don't know when He's coming. I hope I don't get to finish this message. But the Lord could come at any time. And we know that He is coming. We know that with certainty. We just don't know the time. The Father is the one who calls the time.

Unbelievers are indeed ignorant of many things. So unbelievers involved with Christ's death were ignorant of Him and what they were doing to Him. They didn't understand a lot about what they were doing. Is this really Jesus? Yeah, that's why we're crucifying Him. They understood, yeah, this is really the guy. It's unlike the Muslims teach where the wrong guy got crucified. That's what they teach. Somebody else got crucified. It wasn't Jesus. No, it was Him. As a matter of fact, the Jewish leaders wouldn't have been happy with anything else, right? Would they have accepted Peter in his place? Nuh-uh. Nope, they wanted just Him.

Here's Acts 3.18, But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that as Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. So God announced these things beforehand, He does so not by a trick or special ability to glance here and there into the future. God does not have that perspective of time.

God sees all times as now, in the present. So for Him to tell you what's going to happen from our time perspective is no big deal, because He sees all times as in the present. It's not a trick, it's not a special ability, and God doesn't only have foreknowledge in those places where he chooses to. This is why Jesus said, before Abraham was born, not I was, but I am. He sees all times in the present tense. It's not God's looking ahead to the future here and there and then telling us about those points in time in advance that He has seen ahead of time. That's not God's special trick or ability.

God knows all times because He has made it. There's this little formula for light and how it travels, and it includes time, and it's also involved in other things in physics. It includes time. God made time. What we did is discover the time element after God's creating of it.

He is not subject to time. He sees all times as now, even before time. He chose us in Him. When? Before the foundation of the world. Before He said, let there be light. He chose us in Him. Why? He's not subject to time. He said here, Peter said, Christ would suffer. He'd suffer for our sins. That was told well in advance by King David about a thousand years before Christ was crucified.

Read, if you like, Psalm 22. It describes at several points things that are very clearly the crucifixion at a time when crucifixion was not the standard method of capital punishment. By Isaiah, about seven centuries before, It says in Isaiah 53 that Christ would be killed, be buried, and be resurrected.

All in advance, seven centuries in advance of its actual occurrence. And by the other prophets as well. Other details about Christ's first coming. These things are also very clear and very important that Christ told his disciples in advance. Matthew, Mark, and Luke each record three instances, minimum, each, where he tells them in advance, I'm going to be killed, or in some cases even crucified, and buried, and rise again.

He also tells them after his resurrection about the Old Testament passages and explains them. The most thorough demonstration of that is on the road to Emmaus. He told two of his disciples about these truths that were revealed in advance, all out of the Old Testament, through several miles of walking. Imagine that took some time. Telling them both about his death, burial, and resurrection. It was the resurrection part that was completely shocking to them, although his death, burial, and resurrection was all a puzzle to them at that point in time.

It says there, He is thus fulfilled, and we get several passages as instances. There are also many, many others. Dozens of passages in the Old Testament that speak of Christ's death for sins, His burial, His resurrection from the dead. Some of them, depending on how you break it down, number about a hundred regarding His death, burial, and resurrection.

Christ conveyed this to the disciples on the road to Emmaus. These things were not only prophesied, and he explained them to them, but he had fulfilled every single one of them, and that was Peter's claim here. He has thus fulfilled. Peter could proclaim this. He had no hesitations. He had no limitations. He had no reservation in proclaiming it. He didn't couch it in careful, cautionary terms. Like, as best I know, as far as we can tell, right? None of that. He simply proclaimed it as a truth, and we have no record that it was challenged at any point.

Here's Acts 3, 19-21, Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things, about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets from ancient time.

So, do a U-turn. That's how we title this, unless you're in Denver, and sometimes that's not a good idea. Anyway, to repent, this U-turn here is to change one's mind so as to end in believing. That's a very important understanding. There are people who will try to define repentance as something else, and there is a misunderstanding even among some regarding what is the gospel. By adding this repentance as some additional step, and defining it differently. But repentance, biblically, is a change of one's mind, that's the meaning of the original word, and biblically, to end up believing. That's the idea. Return for these people is a return to the facts that were originally presented to them. They all had, in great part, rejected.

Here is this Jesus and we want him dead, right? And, oh, good riddance, right? Instead of understanding, here's what God was doing there, right? And you meant it for evil, but God, in fact, accomplished something incredibly good in His death. As Jesus had said to the leaders of the Jews in Jerusalem, unless you believe, you will die in your sins.

We talk here at Holly Hills about our position in Christ, and it's very good that we do that. We must, and we ought to. But one of the things that Jesus talks about here in John 8, 24, and the Apostle Paul actually writes of it in more than one place in his letters, is that the person who does not believe is still in their sins positionally. We who believe are in Christ. Until a person believes, They're still stuck in the sins. And dying in your sins is not a good thing. They're stuck in them. They're positionally in those sins. Unless they believe. Believing is the only way out of that.

So they had heard these words right from Christ Himself. Others were there who recorded, and perhaps even people who were there this day had heard those words. Now Peter also says that the sins were wiped away. Peter and John and all these Jews were right there in Jerusalem.

As a matter of fact, where they were was only a couple hundred feet from where the animals were being sacrificed by the priests for their sins. They were right there in the temple courtyard, and they were all being sacrificed by the priests according to the law of Moses, doing everything right.

The sins which were covered by the sacrifices were never, not ever, wiped away by the sacrifices. The sacrifices never got it done. And that's the point of Hebrews. They keep doing year after year these sacrifices. Why? The sacrifices cover the sins, they point to God's ultimate sacrifice, but they never get it done. Here they are at the best place that Judaism has to offer. The sacrifices never get it done. Only Christ's death on the cross gets it done, so that the sins were all wiped away. That is why Jesus could say on the cross, one Greek word, tetelestai, Translated often, it is finished. It basically means it's all paid. And it's said in such a way that it's a permanent payment, a total payment, complete and accomplished.

So the Messiah appointed for you. So Jesus Christ was and is and will be the Messiah, that is, the Christ, or the Anointed One. The Messiah means the Anointed One. The Christ means the Anointed One. And the use of the definite article there specifically points to the idea of Messiah, the Anointed One. Appointed for these Jews, and actually for us as well, there are those who will say, oh, the Messiah, that's very Jewish.

Yes, it is originally. But among the best-kept secrets of the book of Ephesians, this is the book that starts off, we've been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, Christ is referred to as the Messiah 23 times in Ephesians. And starting with verse 110, Ephesians 110. And what he tells the Jews in Ephesians chapter 2 is the Messiah took the law out of the way.

Isn't that amazing? The Messiah took the law out of the way by dying on the cross. For us in the church, the body of Christ, Christ is the Messiah as well, but our relationship to Him is that of His eternal bride. He is still the Messiah, but we have a different relationship to Him. That's very important for us to recognize than those Jews who are simply looking for the Messiah to come and establish the kingdom.

Peter refers to times of refreshing and times of restoration. Now, why do I say times of restoration? The times of refreshing and the times of restoration both look ahead to Christ's kingdom reign on this earth. It's translated in the New American Standard, and we read the period, but in fact the word there that is translated period is plural. So it's actually the times of refreshing and the times of restoration both look ahead to Christ's kingdom reign on this earth. They both of them look ahead to that.

Among the Jews of that day, only those who repent and return will have their sins wiped away and will personally be present for Christ's reign on earth for a thousand years and all who believe now. That is true. Those who believed that day, though they were ethnically Jews, did they become a part of the church, the body of Christ? Yes.

And by the way, if someone who is a believer dies, do they miss the rapture? No. The rapture, 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verses 13 through 18, says those who are asleep in the Lord, those who have gone home to be with Him, are those who are brought to that point of the rapture first, and then brought alongside those who are alive and remain during that time. So if someone goes home, and just think of people we've had in this congregation who have gone home, people that you love and care for, if they're believers, they didn't miss the rapture.

Nobody's going to miss it. Isn't that great? You will be there, right along with those who are alive and remain, and I hope that's us. We'll be there and brought to this reign of the Messiah on earth for a thousand years, in which we will be not the Messiah, the one who reigns over our land, because that won't be us, but the Messiah's bride.

So, meanwhile, back at the ranch. Wait a minute, not back at the ranch. That's me on a water tower and my sister riding a cow. That's not back at the ranch. It's meanwhile back in heaven. That's what Peter's talking about. So Christ is now there with God the Father. There where you and I have our heavenly citizenship. All of our spiritual blessings. How many of them? All of them. Not some percentage. All of our spiritual blessings. and where we are seated with Him even now, there in Christ. At the appointed time set by God the Father, you and I will come back with the Lord Jesus to rule and reign with Him during times of refreshing and times of restoration.

Ephesians 1.10 puts it, all things will be summed up in Christ. He is administering, managing all of history to that end, that everything will be summed up in Christ.

Is there anything that's going to thwart God's management of everything to the end that everything will be summed up in Christ? No. So you don't have to worry about the last election or the next one. Nothing will happen. Nobody's going to get voted in or not voted in that will change that. God is managing all things to be summed up in Christ.

Acts 3.22-23, Moses said, The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. To him you shall give heed to everything he says to you, and it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.

And so you know, as soon as these Jews hear Moses, so they're thinking, keep calm and think, what would Moses do? And just within seconds, people are starting to sell things like bumper stickers. Put two of them on your donkey. And then other things.

So now, the prophet that Moses spoke of was Jesus. This is the one he refers to there. Jesus Christ is the prophesied prophet who was to come. Jesus Christ, the prophesied prophet, was raised up by God. That's what the passage says. from among the Jews, okay, so he's not going to be a Gentile, to speak truth to them. So this prophet of whom Moses spoke said that what God told him to say, that's what Moses said he would do.

And John 8.28, that's exactly what Jesus did. God the Father told him what to say and that's what he says. The Jews in great part had not regarded or listened to what Jesus had said to them.

Here's Deuteronomy 18 verse 15 and then 18 and 19. The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you from your countrymen and you shall listen to him. So verse 18, I will raise up a prophet from among their countrymen like you and I will put my words in his mouth and he shall speak to them all that I command him. It shall come about that whoever will not listen to my words, which he shall speak in my name, I myself will require it of him."

So we have the question here, does God give second chances? These guys, did they listen to Christ's words, the prophesied prophet, did they listen to Christ's words the first time? No. No, they had not. A great many of these people had very likely heard Christ directly, or at very least heard of Christ, and there wasn't a great deal of response. God does in fact give lots of second chances for people here on planet Earth.

I one time told the story of my two grandmothers, one of whom I became a believer in the middle of the 1906 earthquake that rocked the San Francisco area. In the middle of the earthquake, the Bible study leader asked my grandmother, now Eva, are you ready to invite Jesus to be in your life, to believe that he died for your sins, was buried and rose again? And my grandmother said, yes, as the ground was shaking and the piano was rocking from wall to wall, right? My other grandmother had Christians presenting her the gospel again and again and again and again over the years. And she just zipped her mouth and went flat-faced, just no response, until three weeks before she died. And instead of just dying, she went home. She had many, many, many, many second chances. So yes, God does give second chances. You're done here.

The problem is, if a person dies in their sins, then that's really a problem. Even the Jews present on this day, whom Peter is speaking, will get a second chance, and it may even be more than that. They may have heard even Peter on the first day, or other days, or other apostles, and they may even have heard Christ himself. But they're getting those second and third and fourth and fifth and whatever other chances.

As long as you're still here on the planet, there's a chance. There comes a time, and only God knows that time, when the second chances are over and done with, never to happen again. So unless you believe you will die in your sins is the risk. That's why Jesus says, Unless you believe, so how is the one way, what is the one way out of dying in your sins? Believing. That's it.

So here's Acts 3.24, and likewise all the prophets who have spoken from Samuel and his successors onward also announced these days. So these days were the days told about by the prophet Moses. about Jesus, this prophet who was the Christ, this is the Messiah, all the prophets spoke about Christ in his first and his second coming in one way or another. They all spoke about it in one way or another. The message, as Peter summarizes it, from Samuel to Malachi, as the last of the Old Testament prophets, and every prophet in between included speaking of Christ's first, I would say, and or his second coming.

And by the way, there's about eight times more reference to a second coming than to his first. Even the time in between the two comings is referenced there, but not the church. Peter meant, in this instance, the time after Christ's first coming. That was the time these days he's referring to here. which was, we point out, the summer of 33 A.D. Here's Acts 3, 25 and 26.

So the sons of the prophets, Here, that refers to their common Jewish ancestry being descendants of those to whom the prophets spoke. In some cases, they could actually be descended from the prophets. That was even possible. So, to the Jews belong the covenants. We have this picture of the super Jew, right? You see that big S?

No, that's not an S. So, to the Jews belong the covenants, this is Romans 9.4 and Ephesians 2.12, starting with the covenants to Abraham that are repeated and reiterated to Isaac and then to Jacob. To the Jews belong the covenants, we who believe are blessed through the covenant, even though the covenant is not made to us. This covenant that was repeated to Isaac and to Jacob.

So in your seed, all the families of the earth will be blessed. These are the physical seed, the physical offspring of Abraham. Those Jews who became believers that day also became spiritual and natural seed of Abraham. That is, they were physically descended and now spiritually also descended from Abraham.

So unless you're ethnically Jewish today, And a believer here today, you who now believe, I assume you're Gentile, like I myself, I'm a northern European Gentile mongrel, right? A mixture of all sorts of things. But then you who now believe are the spiritual seed of Abraham. Believing Jews, Gentiles, and those in the church, whether Jew or Gentile, will all be blessed. Here are the four seeds of Abraham.

We won't take the time to go through it. You're certainly welcome to do so. The point being that those who were physically and ethnically Jewish and then believed that day were of the spiritual, natural seed, the spiritual remnant, if you will. And then we who are Gentiles are spiritual seed who are believing non-physical descendants of Abraham.

Okay, so God the Father sent him to bless you. This was out of Genesis 12, verses 1 through 3. To bless the Jews before Peter that day, and also to bless you. That's exactly what Christ has done for you. He has blessed you. And it's exactly what God had in mind from eternity past.

This is why Ephesians 1.3 is so clear. And that blessing is on into the time of Christ's first coming now and forever. Believing Jews, Gentiles, and those in the church where the Jew or Gentile will all be blessed. Here's Ephesians 1, 3 through 8 that makes it very clear.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love He predestined us to adoption of sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved that is in Christ. In Him, we have the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He very stingingly gave us, right? No, which He lavished on us.

By the way, that's riches plural. You could substitute the word wealths. Wealths of grace, which He lavished on us. So that's how our blessings get started and founded and continued on into eternity. Let's pray. Thank you, Lord, for just what you have done. You intended from the outset to bless us. You chose us in Him before the foundation of the world. And we learn more and more as we go through here what in Him means. Thank you that because we believed, and that's all we did, we have been placed in Him, no longer in sins, but in Christ our Lord. Thank you, Lord. In Jesus' name, Amen.