Attacking the Gates (Part C)

It is only the anointed man that prevails in the pulpit. God can take a man who is clumsy in with the language and turn him into a fireball. This is true of Paul.

They mocked his speech, and yet we don't study those who, we don't even know their names. We are well versed in the life of the Apostle Paul. So when Peter says, let me speak freely to you, it is because of the promise, you will be witnesses to me with power.

And we're looking at that. This is Cross-Reference Radio with our pastor and teacher Rick Gaston. Rick is the pastor of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville. Pastor Rick is currently teaching through the Book of Acts.

Please stay with us after today's message to hear more information about Cross-Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick shares part three of his message called Attacking the Gates, as he teaches in Acts chapter two. Well, the resurrection of Christ was both prophetic and fact. There's not always the same because until Christ was crucified and risen, it was just prophetic, but now it's taken place.

Now it is a fact. Peter, quoting Psalm 16, a messianic Psalm, he's going to dart between three different Psalms in this one section of his sermon. He's already laid out Joel to them, and now he is, as I said, speaking from the books of wisdom in the Old Testament, a barrage of scripture to support his points.

It's not his opinion. He's giving them the word. He's applying to Christ some of what David saw concerning himself, making it a dual fulfillment, Christ being the greater fulfillment. For Christians, the Old Testament headed forward to Jesus Christ. It is in fact, the Old Testament, meaningless without him. What could you get from the Old Testament without Jesus Christ?

He brings life to it all because it's all about him. And that's why when he says, I am the way, the truth and the life, that goes back to Genesis one, where God says, when the Bible says, God speaking through Moses, in the beginning God, or in the Hebrew, God in the beginning, created the heavens and earth and everything forward. Psalm 68 verse 2, our God is the God of salvation and Yahweh the Lord, and to Yahweh the Lord, the long escapes from death. Well, I'm having a hard time reading some of these things.

I want to hurry up and get to what I want to say, and not what I want to read. It is a dilemma. But back to that verse again. Our God is the God of salvation, and to Yahweh the Lord, the long escapes from death. Only God could be the Savior.

So when you come to the New Testament and Jesus is referred to the Savior, that makes him equal with God by design. Verse 27, for you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Hades, or Sheol, was the Old Testament, in the Old Testament, the place of death, and in the New Testament in the minds of those two. He's quoting verse 10 of Psalm 16. And David indicates that he will be in Hades, he will be in the underworld, and Sheol, the righteous side of it, but he will not be left there. Psalm 68, verse 18, another Psalm of David, you have ascended on high, yet you led captivity captive.

What that Psalm is saying is that God is the one that will take those who are in righteous Sheol, who died before Christ, and he will bring them into heaven. Paul uses this in Ephesians 4. Now this, he ascended.

What does it mean? But that he also first descended into the lower parts of the earth. He who descended is also the one who ascended far above the heavens, that he might fill all things. Isaiah 61, verse 1, speaking of Jesus, that he came to proclaim liberty to the captives and the opening of the prison door of the prison to those who are bound. And so again, before the cross of Christ, when someone died, a righteous person such as Abraham, they went to Sheol, which was divided into two compartments, the wicked side, where they were doomed, and the righteous side, where they had no savior, because heaven was not open to sinners until Jesus descended and then ascended with them.

And that's why we read, and Jesus said to him, assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. You won't be taking a dirt nap as that theology that teaches we're in a sleep state. It's a doctrine that hopefully you've never heard of.

It's out there though. I think the Jehovah Witnesses are the big ones that push that one, that when we die we're not conscious, but the Bible says otherwise. Nor will you allow your Holy One to see corruption. Well, David saw beyond himself, but yet he's speaking also of himself. The paradox that the prophets brought to their day was Messiah would die, but his throne would last forever. When Christ came, many of the Jews lost sight of that. Revelation, chapter 1, verse 18, I am he who lives and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore.

Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of death. Total control, total fulfillment of Isaiah 53 and all the messianic Psalms and the writings of the prophets like Ezekiel and Isaiah that mention Messiah will reign on earth nonetheless. We have to learn to discover and understand dual meanings and dual applications and dual fulfillments in the scripture because there's quite a few of them. Now, the idea of the resurrection from death is where Peter finds ultimate and significance in these words of David, that there is a resurrection. And so he's telling his Jewish audience, you know there's a resurrection because our Bible preaches the resurrection when David said you will not allow your Holy One to see corruption. He's holding them to the scripture, the scripture they claim to believe. David did not mean that David would not die, but that his death would not be permanent.

His original reference has in it a reference to himself. You will not leave your Holy One, himself being separated when Samuel anointed him. There is a dual application there, but its greater fulfillment is in Christ and David would have known that. Many of his Psalms do just that.

Many of the prophets, when they speak of their prophecies, they bounce back and forth through different ages of their prophecy, different stages of its fulfillment. And we see the New Testament writers explaining these things to us as Peter is doing here. Peter is saying David is talking about this Jesus, even though there was a present meaning, its fuller meaning is now.

And his audience had every chance to refute Peter, to scoff at Peter at this point, and they don't because they can't deny it. This Holy One of God, even the demons recognize Jesus to be the Holy One. Isaiah 49, speaking of Messiah Yahweh, the Redeemer of Israel, their Holy One, the Holy One of Israel. Well, you're not going to say the Holy One of the church because the church didn't exist. It was a non-idea.

They could not even imagine it. To this day, there are amongst the Hasidic Jews this passion to reach other Jews and zero passion to reach Gentiles. That is unbiblical, but they're listening to their rabbis, their Talmud, their Mishnah, and their other writings, and they've departed from them.

They bring up the law, and they bring up Moses and the characters in the Bible when convenient for their points, but they're not adhering to their own scripture. I mean, for instance, Messiah cannot come right now. There are no longer the records of the genealogical records to prove that he's from the line of David. So that little section, that beginning of Matthew's gospel in that third chapter of Luke, they're critical. They're saying here's his royal line from Matthew, from Joseph, in Matthew, from Joseph to Solomon, to David. In Luke, we have the bloodline going from Mary all the way back to Nathan and David. This covers it all in the mind of the Jew.

So they've missed that window, but many of them don't want to hear this, especially in the Hasidic world, which is a whole other thing. I don't have time to stay on that, but I will go back to this. Verse 28, you have made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of joy in your presence. David was deeply sensitive to God. When he wrote these things, he meant them. He believed them, regardless of his struggles, as we discussed the life of David. Many of these beautiful psalms came when he was being hounded by Saul, and yet he trusted God.

So you have made known to me the ways of life. Well, remember when Jesus preached, they didn't like his sermon, many of them. And they said, this is a hard saying. This is not a seeker-friendly sermon, and we're going to leave. And they left, and Jesus did not say, oh, no, wait, come back, give me another chance.

Why did you leave? He looked at all his 12 apostles, and he said, you're going to leave, too? And it was Peter. John chapter 6, verse 16, but Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. See that connection? You have made known to me the ways of life from the psalms, and Peter saying, you have the words of eternal life. I don't think at that point Peter made that connection. He may have.

I'll ask him when I get there. But right now, I'm going to go that way. He says in verse 28, you will make me full of joy in your presence. Well, prophecy makes us merry. That's why a lot of people, listen, if I just, if we were finishing up the book of Revelation, it's a good chance somebody after the service would say, where are we going next, Pastor, Revelation?

You get it? This is hunger for end-time prophecy. This is hunger in Christians, because prophecy, the whole concept of it in the Bible, makes the heart merry. It is the shadow of God's sovereignty. When we come across prophecy, especially the ones that we know are fulfilled, we get stronger in our faith.

God has got this under his control. Isaiah 46, verse 9. You've got to love these Hebrew prophets.

They're just amazing. Remember the former things of old, for I am God, and there is no other. I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from the ancient times, things that are not yet done, saying, my counsel shall stand, and I will do my pleasure.

How can you not love the God that says, I am in control, and I don't ask permission? I mean, this is why prophecy is the shadow of sovereignty. This is why, when David writes, you have made known to me the ways of life.

You will make me full of joy in your presence. David had prophecy in his day. Verse 29. Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Now, he's saying, men and brethren, again, likely on the Temple Mount, probably near or in the court of the men, he keeps addressing his audience in the masculine that would account for that, the Pentecost pilgrims. At the end, Peter, Luke will tell us that 3,000 souls were saved.

That's not masculine. At some point, perhaps the ladies did join the crowd, which would then put it outside of the court of the men, maybe in one of the colonnades. There's so many places there that this could be happening that would accommodate such a large turnout. If you go to the Temple Mount today, which I do not believe, or maybe I'll put it this way, I'm not so sure is the original site. I lean toward the current Temple Mount being the Antonia Fortress, and yet to the south, about 600 feet is where the Temple Mount really was.

It really doesn't matter. God is going to do everything He said He's going to do. And I forgot why I was bringing this up, except to say that this would accommodate the crowds, not the local streets amongst the Jews. He says here, in verse 29, let me speak freely to you. Peter was a nobody, according to the religious elite, and many of the Jerusalem Jews looked down at him. Pulpits devour able men, men who step into the pulpit and they can be articulate and they could have the silver tongue and they can be very knowledgeable. It is only the anointed man that prevails in the pulpit.

God can take a man who is clumsy with the language and turn him into a fire ball. This is true of Paul, they mocked his speech, and yet we don't study those, we don't even know their names. We are well versed in the life of the Apostle Paul. So when Peter says, let me speak freely to you, it is because of the promise, you will be witnesses to me with power, and we're looking at that. Of the patriarch David, verse 29, that he is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us to this day. If I can say it this way, David at this point was unrisen, and still is. Just in contrast, in Jerusalem, there was the body of David, and he's still there, is what Peter is saying, the body. Christ, by contrast, he's crucified, his body's not here. You can go down to the tomb to check and see if he's there.

You can go to the Bureau of Records at the temple and find out his lineage and find out he has rights to the throne. You can also discover that all these things we know about Jesus Christ can apply to no one else. As I mentioned, in this day, the Messiah, there's no way to validate that he's from the tribe of Judah, let alone so many other things. So since David's body remains in the grave, his words in Psalm 16 cannot refer primarily or exclusive to him when he speaks about being incorruptible.

The body did not die and subject to its decay. Paul will later use the same approach pointing to David in Acts chapter 13, that David is dead, he is here, he is not risen, but Christ is. Verse 30, therefore being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on the throne.

And David was a prophet, the oath is what was given through Nathan the prophet to David. We Christians believe that men wrote down what God inspired them to capture from their day about things present, even things past and things future. Therefore, because we believe that, we must be dominated in our outlook by truth. Truth is to characterize and dominate the Christian, truth about Jesus Christ.

You have to put this warning on it though. If all you have is truth, you're going to be barbaric. Truth alone can be brutal. You must mix with truth love, gentleness, and kindness.

Without those things you become legalistic, and fruitless, and an irritant, and a candidate for pepper spray. Not that we want, we want the truth is what it comes down to about God. We do not want traditions that are meaningless and baseless, we want what God has to say. Continuing in verse 31, and we'll speed up now because we've really hit the major points, the fruit of his body according to the flesh. He's going with Psalm 132 at this point.

I've already covered the genealogy, he's talking about the human body, not the carnal nature. Verse 31, there's really nothing I haven't already commented on here in verse 30. Verse 31, he foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. So again, Peter preaching to those who knew these verses that he's using.

And if his application was wrong, if when Peter is saying, I'm quoting these verses from the Psalms, I'm quoting these verses from Joel, I'm applying them to this moment with the phenomenon of the Holy Spirit coming, and my application to Jesus Christ. If he was wrong, now would be their chance to object. Now would be their chance to say, wait a minute, Christ could not have been the Messiah because, but we never hear a protest. There's nothing they can say. That's why they're going to repent.

They're going to respond to the truth. You have to believe that when you preach, you just stick with the truth according to the scripture, and you leave the rest with the Lord. Not everybody that day in Jerusalem was saved, but a large amount. That his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption.

And again, they could have just taken a short walk to the tomb to find that. Verse 32, this Jesus God has raised of which we are all witnesses. David's words of not remaining in Hades made no sense until you factor in the resurrection. David is talking about, I'm not going to remain in the underworld. God will lift me to his presence and glory, and I should dwell in the house of the Lord forever. David could see that. He says, of which we are witnesses, an amazing sermon, Peter being filled with the Spirit, no guarantee of personal perfection. He will make mistakes.

We'll read about those later. Verse 33, therefore being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear. He's talking about the coming of the Spirit, the speaking into the miraculous events which must have been more powerful than the words can convey to us. Titus, Paul writes to Titus, but when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us through the washing and regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit whom he poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior. What a magnificent, these verses, I don't know if you Christians, I do believe you do, but if you don't, you're cheating yourself, you need to make sure you go through your New Testament and let these things get down deep in us. Verse 34, for David did not descend into the heavens, but he says himself, Yahweh said to my Lord, sit at my right hand. He's referring to Psalm 68 and he is eliminating himself from being the fulfillment of the prophecy. He says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand.

He's speaking of someone greater than himself, someone who was simultaneously distinct from Yahweh and yet David's ruler and that would be Messiah. Verse 35, till I make your enemies your footstool, that's the messianic kingdom. In the New Testament Jesus said, repent for the kingdom of heaven is here. We have a dual meaning of the present tense in the kingdom. We work for the, you know, we do it in the kingdom and then the kingdom to come. Verse 36, therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified both Lord and Christ.

Right, blunt, pretty blunt enough. Therefore let it be known to Israel, this Jesus whom you crucified. Isaiah 53, three, he is despised and rejected by men. These are the men that brought about his death. A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief and we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we did not esteem him, no they killed him. Today the rabbis try to say well he's talking about, this is a metaphor for Israel and it just doesn't fit because they don't want it to apply to Messiah the person. They only came up with that after Christ.

This is, no one else in history comes close. They needed help to understand that their Messiah would be the sovereign sufferer. So does the world. The world needs us to make them understand. They need a Savior and what we learn about witnessing is that we don't know who God has been working on until he opens the door for us to join that work.

He works internally and then he brings us externally. Our job is to be ready to be used and it is no surprise that Christians who are not ready aren't used. All of us should be saying Lord can you lead me to somebody to share the gospel with. One last thing, if you are afraid of losing lost friends because you share the gospel with them, then be ready to lose them for all eternity.

The gospel is still powerful. You've been listening to Cross Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel in Mechanicsville, Virginia. As we mentioned at the beginning of today's broadcast, today's teaching is available free of charge at our website. Simply visit crossreferenceradio.com. That's crossreferenceradio.com. We'd also like to encourage you to subscribe to the Cross Reference Radio podcast. Subscribing ensures that you stay current with all the latest teachings from Pastor Rick. You can subscribe at crossreferenceradio.com or simply search for Cross Reference Radio in your favorite podcast app. Tune in next time as Pastor Rick continues teaching through the book of Acts right here on Cross Reference Radio.