Care Without Caring (Part C)

Back to the teens once again, because you are never forgotten. There are those in the scriptures that boast, since I was a child I have followed the word of God. What are you going to do? Because there are forces out there bigger and tougher than you that are trying to get you to not ever make that claim, to detour you. You are expected to prevail by simply calling on the Lord, loving on the Lord. Today, Pastor Rick concludes his message called, Care Without Caring, in Acts chapter 3. Proverbs 30 verse 3, I neither learned wisdom nor have knowledge of the Holy One. Of course there is a rebuke in that, there is a challenge in that, that's why the rebuke is given. So you read that and say, I don't want to be this guy who is ignorant, who has no wisdom or knowledge of the Holy One.

That's the objective of the proverb. Isaiah frequently describes God as the Holy One and the Servant, showing God as distinct from his creation and then applying this to Christ. For the righteous Jew of that time, there was only one Holy One and that's Yahweh. This is a pretty bold move on Peter's part. He's saying Messiah is Christ and Messiah is divine and the Jews understood that in the days of Christ no longer.

We'll come to that. Applying to Jesus these exclusive titles in Psalms and Isaiah, for example, these exclusive titles are used for God. Peter applies them to Messiah Christ or Jesus, Jesus Messiah, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you. Peter says, how dare you?

How dare you? This man was holy and righteous and you traded him for Barabbas? What is wrong with you?

That's what's in this. I mean, if you're listening to this, he's going to have a large conversion after this, incidentally. You demanded death for the Holy One and life for a murderer. So here we come to the stupid things that otherwise intelligent people, intelligent human beings will do when they reject Christ. You can have human beings that are compared to human beings, not compared to God, are quite impressive, quite genius as a matter of fact, and can just do all sorts of things, and yet they reject God. The fool has said in his heart, because many of them are atheists, and they boast, look at me, I don't believe there's a God. So what?

I believe you believe there's a God and you just don't like what you've heard. Peter watered down nothing. He wasn't brutal in a mean way.

He's brutal in a true way. He's letting them have it. Can you imagine sharing the Bible with somebody? And they're into all sorts of sin and you don't even bring it up? You don't even bring sin up? What are you sharing there? What part of the Bible are you sharing? When pastors look for a topical message, I think most pastors, well, I don't know what most do.

I know what I do. I try to look for something encouraging and uplifting, and it's very difficult, because so much of the Bible is right up in your face. Like, you better fix this.

You better at least address it, but you sure better not excuse it. And it's such a lesson in that. You can cherry pick and just, we're just going to take the word love from 1 Corinthians and leave out all the other stuff. But Paul says, if you don't have love, you're nothing. You see what I mean? You can't preach on love without getting up in somebody's face and saying, if you don't admire this and want this, you're nothing to God.

You're annoying. And that's how he calls it. And so Peter says here in verse 15, you killed him.

Right out like that. Even a Gentile was trying to let him go. This word, the prince, the prince of life, the word prince in the Greek, or kegos, we find it in Hebrews 2 and Hebrews 12. It's translated also the author. It means the leader, the prince, the source, the captain of our souls. Jesus is not only the servant of God, but he is the source of life. These are big words.

I don't mean big words, you know, like anthropomorphic or something like that. But schadenfreude, there's a fun word. It's really revenge built into that one. Anyway, Jesus, the source of life. Therefore, to Jesus, everyone owes allegiance.

That is it. If he is who he says he is, then you owe allegiance to him. This is why when Peter saw the miracle of Christ, he says, depart from me, and he was on his knees.

I'm not worthy to show you allegiance. John the Baptist, I can't even untie his sandals, he's so righteous. I baptized with water, but he's going to baptize you with fire in the Holy Spirit.

He's on a whole other level. Don't you love that truth? Whom God raised from the dead. All the indestructible Christ. He gave up the spirit, they did not kill him.

He had total control and total suffering at the same time, which adds to his majesty that he endured such treatment. Without this part of the message, we have nothing to say as Christians. Without the resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have no gospel. We can have a religious, you know, book of conduct. Thou shalt not, thou shalt not. Jesus came on and put everything into positive. You shall. You shall love your neighbor. You shall love the Lord your God. He's lifting him up now.

The timing was right for that. In Moses' day, he had to bring him down. 1 Corinthians 15, and when you share the gospel, it is again okay to open your Bible and read it to them straight out. We're not covering up anything. We're not saying, well, you know, I don't want you to know I'm reading the Bible to you. If Christ is not risen, your faith is futile. You are still in your sins. Then also those who have fallen asleep, a euphemism for died, in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men the most pitiable. Paul is saying, you know, the resurrection, it changes everything. So back to the teens once again, because you have never forgotten. There are those in the scriptures that boast, since I was a child, I have followed the word of God.

What are you going to do? Because there are forces out there bigger and tougher than you that are trying to get you to not ever make that claim, to detour you. You are expected to prevail by simply calling on the Lord, loving on the Lord. This is true of you and it's true of the adults.

You want to be treated any differently? You want your junior adults, you could say, you're coming up, you've got to earn it. You've got to work. You know, it's not just handed to you. You still have to work it out.

All of us do. Paul said, work out your salvation. Not that you have to earn your salvation, but you got to live it. You've got to engage the world by faith.

He says here, of which we are witnesses. Here's a provocative thought. Three and a half years walking with Jesus and the disciples were still not equipped enough. Is that not provocative? Just because you walk with Jesus, I'm good.

That's not enough. How do we know that? Because of the filling of the Holy Spirit that he promised he would give.

Acts chapter one, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the earth. How, how we should embrace this is good news. There's more.

There's development. There are things to look forward to as a Christian in serving Christ. And he has laid it out for us. Even back in Isaiah chapter 43, God speaking about the Messiah. You are my witnesses, says Yahweh, and my servant whom I have chosen that you may know and believe and understand that I am he.

Before me, there is no God formed, nor shall there be after me. Well, the Jews never lost sight of that much of that, not in this stage of the game. And so for Christ to come along and say, I'm the one that's being spoken of here is quite powerful.

And they held him to it. That was the charge against Christ by the religious rulers. He, being a man, made himself to be God by claiming he was the Messiah. Verse 16, and his name through faith in his name has made this man strong whom you see and know.

Yes, the faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. So Peter's faith in Christ, not the beggar's faith, the beggar didn't know what was happening, but the power that empowers is the name of God, the credentials of God. You know, we watch those movies of Sherwood Forest and in the name of the king. Well, if it's the name of our king, it's got a lot of power to it. Verse 17, yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

Your rulers, not ours. He's already laid the conviction on them, and now he's going with the grace. It's something that Satan never does. He says, you did it out of ignorance. Well, that's what Christ prayed from the cross. Father, forgive them.

They don't know what they're doing. That's what people learn this from. And so he's got a chance now to open this up with them, and he's doing exactly this. His indictment of the rulers and their guilt, that kicks the hornet's nest. That would be chapter 4 and beyond, verse 18. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets, that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled. Well, Jesus, Luke 24, we read it quite a few times, beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself. He took a book like Obadiah, and says, let me show you where Christ is in Obadiah, and every other one, in Zephaniah, in the books that we may scratch our head with Christ, that he knows it all. That the Christ would suffer, he has fulfilled. Peter's impressive Old Testament knowledge, he uses Joel, he uses Psalms, Isaiah, Deuteronomy, Samuel, Genesis. He is truly, he once was a man of his word, now he's a man of the word, and he's not going to depart.

What a, you could say, role model, but we would just say a dynamo of the faith. Because who does not want that as a believer? God authored the cross, they authored the guilt, as Peter is laying it out, that the Christ would suffer. Why so much, with so much scriptural evidence, why did the Jews of that time reject Christ? Because there's a difference why the Jews then rejected him, and the Jews today are rejecting him, overall. They had Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, Isaiah 9, Psalm 2, we'll get some verses from that in a little bit. How could they miss that Messiah would be suffering?

A two-fold answer. One is, those at the time, they didn't want the verses to apply to Jesus, because he would not honor them. That's how they disqualified him.

They wanted honor, that's one of the reasons. And he didn't give it. In fact, he called them out on their sins. He said, don't be like those guys. Unless you're righteous and exceeds that of the Sadducees and Pharisees, you will not enter heaven.

He was just in their face. And they had anticipated Messiah coming, delivering them from Roman rule, Gentile rule, ending the age of the Gentile, and appointing them to high places in the kingdom. And because that did not happen, they would not accept him. Why do the Jews not believe today? Well, before I get to that, both cases, they only accept the literal sections that spoke and speak of the glorious reign of Messiah. But they dismissed the other sections through spiritualizing those verses. So they'll take Isaiah 53, and they'll spiritualize his sufferings. Well, it's really not a person.

It's Israel suffering or some other approach. There could be other, you may have heard other responses, but this is one of them. And when you spiritualize the scripture without taking heed to the original, the intended meaning by God, you're rendering that section or that subject to your subjectivity.

There's no backup for it. There's no connection to other scriptures. You just end up dismissing the facts if you just spiritualize something.

We have to be careful of this. I think God is saying something to me. Well, maybe he's saying you're kind of dumb. Well, if somebody said that, you say, well, what do you base that on?

Yeah, you can't just say that without having a basis for it. Both, I mean, the accusation that you're dumb or the one that you're saying God is speaking to me. Well, one way we know God speaks to us is that he's not contradicting the scripture. God's not going to tell you, okay, it's okay to murder this guy because I don't like him either. That's, you know, that's not God.

And that's an extreme, somewhat humorous example. Anyway, this understanding that Christ was not accepting them, he was not taking down the Roman Empire, just fed their rejection of Jesus Christ to the point of murder. So, spiritualizing the scripture and puffing up yourself can have some deadly consequences for others. Verse 19, we're coming back to this too. We still got to deal with the Jews of today.

Verse 19, repent therefore, be converted that your sins may be blotted out so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. And not only the solution is Peter giving them, repent and be converted. It is the only solution.

There's no plan B. If God has a plan B, that's him. What he has told us to do, we are responsible for. And that is to preach Christ crucified, risen and returning. So, he's calling them to repentance.

Book of Acts, that's what they did and that is, those first Christians have left us the template. That your sins may be blotted out. Either we repent and our sins are blotted out or we do not repent and we are blotted out of the book of life. So, you resist God and you pay the consequence. Revelation 3, he who overcomes shall be clothed in white garments and I will not blot out his name from the book of life but I will confess his name before my father and before the angels. God is going to be very aggressive in saying, yet this one's mine.

Even the spiritual beings will be in on that. He continues here in verse 19, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Because repentance brings relief and repentance comes from Christ. To know that you are saved is one of the most refreshing experiences a human being can have.

It is a reset. Verse 20, now we're going to come to some other answers. And that he may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. The common belief today amongst the Jews is that Messiah is not divine whereas in the days of Christ the leading rabbis believed the Messiah would be divine. And they felt that Jesus claimed divinity. John chapter 12 verse 34, we have heard from the law that the Christ remains forever. How can you say the Son of Man must be lifted up? So they did not believe that Messiah could die because they had heard this but they blocked out those scriptures that spoke of his sufferings.

This is how they entangled themselves and on that account because he did not overthrow the Romans and because he was ultimately crucified they justified their rejection of him as being Messiah. Peter anticipates this. He anticipates this objection. He says until the times of restoration all things. It's the millennial kingdom. So he's saying Christ is crucified, he's in heaven.

There's a millennial kingdom. There is a process that God is taking, is more, which God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. As it is written he says, Jesus said you search the scriptures for in them you think you have life and these are they which testify of me. Verse 22, I'm trying to speed it up so we're not too long and get to the meat.

I do want to finish this section. For Moses truly said to the fathers Yahweh your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things. Whatever he says to you and it shall be every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. He's quoting Deuteronomy 18 verses 15, 18 and 19. This section in Deuteronomy is another reason why the rabbis today after the cross and the resurrection reject the Christ. They say Moses was just a man.

The ones today they didn't always think this way but they've tailored it to refute Christianity much like the Council of Trent by the Roman Church to counter-attack the Reformation. Moses they say was a just man and he was just a man. So if Messiah is like Moses he will only be a man. And since Jesus claimed to be the Son of God but was a man we reject him.

Hope I didn't lose you on that. They were just saying Jesus can't be the one. Leaving them unable to explain Isaiah 9 and Psalm 2 just for example. Isaiah 9 verse 6 for unto us a child is born unto us a son is given. That is the humanity of the Messiah. He became a human.

The government will be upon his shoulders and his name will be called Wonderful Counselor Mighty God Everlasting Father Prince of Peace. That is the deity. And there you have Christ was 100% human and 100% God while he walked the earth. Psalm 2 verse 7 Yahweh has said to me you are my son today I have begotten you. So the Messiah is from God. He is divine and he is born. But again the rabbis from the time that Christ at the time of Christ. They believed that Christ would be divine. That Messiah would be divine. Mark 14 verse 16.

Now if I've lost you it's recorded. And you can just go back to the verses. Mark 16 again the high priest asked him saying to him Are you the Christ the Son of the Blessed? You see they understood that the Messiah was the Son of God. They just would not allow it to apply to Christ because he did not honor them because he did not overthrow the Romans and because he allowed himself to be crucified. They did that by ignoring their own scriptures and they do it to this day.

They know more about rabbinical writings, the Mishnah and the Talmud and other things than most of them, most of the Jewish people. And you should know this if God gives you a chance to preach to them. Preach to them from the Old Testament. Take them to Isaiah. I've spoken with Jews and they love to hear about their own scriptures because they're not getting it anywhere else. I went to a Bar Mitzvah once and you know what I remember, one of the things I remember is the struggle of the child to recite his verse in Hebrew and to carry the scroll of the scripture, the Torah.

His father had to help him. I said what a picture. They don't get it. They're struggling with spiritual things because they're going in the wrong direction. And the rabbis, rabbinical Christianity has done more damage to them. Let his sin and his blood be upon us and our ancestors, they yelled out. We don't have time to get deeper into this.

You say but what about their sincerity? Jesus is the one that says these people draw near me with their mouth and honor me with their lips but their heart is far from me and in vain they worship me, teaching as commandments, the teachings of men. There you have it.

Well, we have to move forward. Verse 24, we're almost done. Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow as many as have spoken have also foretold these days. When you are witnessing to Jewish people, I think it is very important that Satan doubles up his attack on them because they are linked to the chosen people of God that lay out the plan of God from them Messiah has come, from them the Scriptures. They were custodians of the Scriptures. And it just helps to understand that as Paul pointed out with a broken heart, Satan has blinded them.

We should never allow ourselves to lose sight of love whenever we're witnessing. Verse 25, you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our fathers saying to Abraham, and in your seed all families of the earth shall be blessed. Paul becoming all things to all men using the Scripture to identify where he says, and your seed all families of the earth shall be blessed.

Seed is singular. It refers to Messiah, not to Israel. However, it comes through Israel.

So you have that paradox. Verse 26, to you first God having raised up his servant, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities. Well, we're speaking a lot about the Jewish people in the book of Acts and we will continue to until the Gentiles start moving in, which is going to be fierce. But when we get to the epistles, then we're going to beat the snot out of the Gentiles. So, anyway, verse 26, to you first God having raised up his servant, sent him to bless you in turning away every one of you from your iniquities. So, Peter is saying God wants you saved. And this is the process that God has laid out before us. His sermon will be interrupted by his arrest, he and John. The impact is probably a thousand people saved.

If you look at verse 4 of chapter 4, the church was growing and expanding just by the preaching of the word and the loving of the Christians. Well, I sometimes want to thank you for sitting through this, but listen, I put about 20 hours into this. What's an hour to you? Let's pray. Our Father, so much knowledge and information, all of it worth it and useful if we would but apply ourselves. It would be a good prayer to ask of you in the name of Jesus that we make better use of our time to your glory, that we could be more useful to you. These things we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. 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.