Episode 128: Peter’s Pulpit and the Primacy of Preaching at Pentecost and Permanantly in the Church. (Acts 2:14)

The Church Is Not a Democracy but a Monarchy

To the Ruled Church Podcast.

This is my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased. He is honored, and I get the glory. And by the way, it's even better, because you see that building in Perryville, Arkansas? You see that one in Pechote, Mexico?

Do you see that one in Tuxla, Guterres, down there in Chiapas? That building has my son's name on it.

The church is not a democracy, it's a monarchy. Christ is king. You can't be Christian without a local church.

You can't do anything better than to bend your knee and bow your heart, turn from your sin and repentance, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and join up with a good Bible-believing church, and spend your life serving Jesus in a local, visible congregation.

The Sermon as Preaching Rather Than a Mere Speech

Welcome to the Ruled Church Podcast. I'm Allen Nelson.

I am your host.

I'm one of the elders at Providence Baptist Church in Perryville, Arkansas. Little community, 25 miles west of Conway, 35 minutes or so northwest of Little Rock, Central Arkansas. Just under 1 ,500 people.

We're a Reformed Baptist congregation. You can find out more about us at providencebaptistar .com. In today's episode, we are going to listen to a sermon preached at Providence Baptist Church on June 29th, 2025.

And this message is about the importance of preaching, and we hope that it's one of those episodes that is an encouragement to pastors, and maybe to churches as well, and church members, of how important preaching is, and how it is the God-ordained means to convert sinners, and also to edify and strengthen and grow the church.

And so we pray that you would walk away from this episode loving the preaching of the Bible all the more, and specifically the preaching of Christ. We hope it's helpful in all these ways. And so I've trimmed some from the sermon,.

Just a few minutes.

You can find it on our YouTube, which is also providencebaptistar. But anyway, or probably on our website as well. All right, let's get into the sermon.

Lifted up his voice and addressed him. Let me just stop there for a second, because I'm gonna give you three observations from that right there, that I believe should signal to us that this isn't just a little talk.

It's not just a little, you know, speech or discussion, but this is preaching. This is a sermon. This is the fisherman's fire. So the first is this, from the text, it's not in the outline yet. Don't worry about the notes, the fill in the blanks.

The first is this. It says that Peter standing with the 11. So there's all 12 apostles now. That includes, by the way, Matthias. So that would be like for people who say, well, I don't know if he was really, I don't know if he really should have been apostle,.

Whatever.

I think this kind of answers it. Luke is showing that he should have been an apostle. And so Peter is standing here with the 11. And as a reminder, just read Ephesians 2 .20, that says that the church is built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ himself being the chief cornerstone.

So Luke is showing us here that Peter is taking a stand, not only as a Christian, but also with apostolic authority. He is standing with the apostles. The office of apostle, you know, we've said it, we'll say it again, I'm sure, but it's a special office.

It's in the life of the first century church. It dies out when the apostles died. But the point I'm making here is that Luke is showing us that Peter is about to preach. He's about to say something authoritative, not just a little speech or dialogue.

He's going to preach. That's first observation. If I could just make an application point, it would be this, that we need more pastors in America today and more churches in America today that are willing to stand, to stand up for the truth, even in the face of mockery or hostility, especially in the face of mockery and hostility.

And if I could give a second application point from this observation, it would be this, you shouldn't preach from a stool. We don't need little fireside chats. We don't need little talks. We need men who will stand up and have something to say and preach.

Now, second observation that this is preaching are in those phrases there after that, but Peter's standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them. So Peter takes command of the chaos here.

Remember the scene and think about it. The people are perplexed and you have these people over here saying, what in the world is going on? And all these people are speaking in different languages. And then you have this other group of people who are mocking and say, look, they're drunk, they're drunk.

And so there's a little bit of chaotic scene happening here and Peter stands up with authority. He lifts up, the text says in Acts 2 verse 14, that he lifted up, notice this, his voice, a solo voice that needs to be heard.

Not all the apostles at once, but one man to stand and to deliver the sermon, a monologue to rise up above the noise. Then it says in the ESV, it translates, he addresses them. So he lifted up his voice and addressed them.

And the word has the connotation, I'll just quote to you, to speak loudly and clearly, to speak with emphasis. And so this word, Luke had actually already used in verse 4, they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, that's the word there.

And so in verse 14, the idea is that this is a spirit empowered proclamation that Peter is giving. He's not, by the way, he's not preaching in a foreign language. Okay, the gift of tongues is not the gift of hearing, but speaking, so he's gonna speak, and most commentators agree, in Aramaic, which all the Jews would have understood.

By the way, I make this note,.

You can do with it what you want, but note that this is an outdoor church service and Peter is preaching in the open air. So whatever anyone wants to say about open air preaching, you just need to know that it has quite a long history in the church.

Now, a third observation that this is a sermon and not just a speech or discussion is in the phrases there, let this be known to you, and of your immortal soul is at stake, and these are weighty matters.

Peter is saying, you must listen. In fact, these are commands. Let this be known to you and give ear to my words. Those are imperatives. He is taking authority over the assembly and remember this morning, church, that preaching is authoritative.

So that's my defense there for why this speech should be interpreted as a sermon. I might also mention this, another little note I actually thought about this morning down in verse 21, everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved, and Paul makes this argument in Romans 10 that they're not gonna call upon the name of the Lord unless they believe and they're not gonna believe unless they hear and they're not gonna hear unless someone is preaching.

So just another side note, this is a sermon. Now you say, if that's a sermon preacher, well, why do you preach so long? He preached that pretty quick, didn't he? Well, let me give a defense real quick in verse 40.

Go down to verse 40 for just a second and this is gonna help you as we go through Acts. So just note this in verse 40. And with many other words, he bore witness, thank you, Luke, and continued to exhort them saying save yourselves from this crooked generation.

So the idea is that when we read the sermons in Luke, we should understand them as highlights at times, summaries, okay, so it's not every single word that Peter preached, but we have the general idea and Peter or Luke records this under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Let me just make this comment, we're gonna get to the outline, but I need you to remember, this is happening, this happened on the Lord's day, it's happening on a Sunday, Pentecost, it's important. We remember that the prophets foresaw that the glory of the Lord would leave the temple and it certainly did and now it dwells in the new temple, the temple's the type of the church and so it dwells now in the church and this whole event in Acts two, remember to zoom out for a second, the whole event in Acts two is meant to show us that the promises that God made in the Old Testament are coming to fruition and the new era has arrived.

In fact, the last era, if you look down at verse 17 for a second, Peter says, and in the last days, Peter quoting Joel, but he adds his own interpretation there in the last days. All right, so what we're gonna do now though is consider some aspects of preaching that we learned from this sermon.

So I hope you're ready and I hope you appreciate preaching. I hope this is important to you because it matters to me and I believe it matters to God. Number one, the priority. Number one, the priority.

The Priority of Preaching Over Tongues and Other Church Activities

So we see that what happens is, verse 14, Peter stands with the 11, he lifts up his voice and he addresses them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give ear to my words.

Now it's interesting to me that a lot of people will look at Acts two and they'll put a lot of emphasis on the speaking in tongues but if you just would read Acts two with an honest assessment, you would understand that clearly it is the sermon that has the priority of the text.

That is the gift of tongues gets us to the preaching and it is the preaching that it is in the preaching that we have the explanation and right interpretation of what the event is about. If not for the preaching, then we don't get the soul saved at the end of Acts two.

Preaching, I'm saying, is a priority of the text and it must be a priority in churches today. Here is the public birth, if you will, of the new covenant community, the visible affirmation of Christianity and what stands at the center?

Preaching.

Sam Waldron says this, preaching is central to Christianity and I would add, by implication, it is central to the life and health of the church. Now understand me, Providence, there are a lot of good things that churches can do and must do but that must never take the place of preaching.

Now I'll give you an example in our church. I love our singing at this church. I loved singing those songs with you today. I love how loud we sing. We have a few families out today for various reasons and yet we still, it's like, okay, we gotta sing louder today.

Wow, I love the loud, doctrinal, rich singing that we have. But just note something in Acts two. It doesn't break out in song because there is a priority and necessity of preaching. And I use singing because some churches today, all over America, there will be churches that might sing for 45 minutes to an hour and then at the end, someone will get up for 10, 12, 15 minutes and say a few words that some people would call a sermon.

Now we're not trying to downplay preaching or, sorry, we're not trying to downplay singing at all. In fact, a lot of singing stinks in places. It needs to be better. And we never wanna minimize singing at Providence Baptist Church.

We're not knocking singing but I'm just saying singing often moves the emotions. Emotions are God-given, they should not be despised. But if our emotions are moved without being calibrated by the truth, which is what preaching does, one thing preaching does, then we can run into all sorts of error and you see that all the time.

So I'm just trying to show us here that there is a primacy of preaching at the very birthday of the New Testament church. Peter lifts up his voice and addresses them. Frankly, I can tell you a lot about a church.

In fact, I can tell you a lot about a church if I just mute the whole service, look at it online and look at the place of the pulpit. I'm not trying to be silly, but if it's a little bitty pulpit and it's kind of obscure, you barely notice it, it's more about the drums and the guitars and the screens.

And usually, more often than not, that church is not a healthy church because it doesn't have a high view of preaching. Where a church is healthy, you will see preaching as a primary place in the gathering of God's people.

All right, we're gonna move on.

The Purpose of Preaching: Exposition, Exaltation, and Exhortation

Number two, the purpose, the purpose. Let me give you a rudimentary outline of Peter's sermon. I didn't alliterate this. So number one, I would say, this is what's happening. So in verse 15 through 21, Peter's gonna explain, this is what's happening.

It's great in the King James in verse 16 because it says, this is that, right? This is that, this is that, which Joel talked about. So point number one, this is what's happening,.

Verse 15 through 21.

Secondly, this is how we got here. So that's verse 22 through 36. This is a fulfillment of what Christ has done. And then thirdly, this is what you must do, verse 38 and following. So that's a rudimentary outline of Peter's sermon.

Let me give you three purposes now of Peter's sermon. Number one, exposition. So this is a sermon that exposits Joel chapter two, verse 28 through 32. But Peter also is gonna bring in Psalm 16. He's also gonna bring in Psalm 110 to prove his case.

And then you can kind of notice more allusions to the Old Testament sprinkled out throughout the sermon. But I need to just make a few comments on that, okay? First, the early church did not have a New Testament, but it doesn't mean that they didn't have a Bible, right?

That's so silly. You hear people say, the first church didn't have a Bible or Rome gave the church a Bible or things like that. That's baloney, it's hogwash. They did have a Bible. They preached the Old Testament.

We see it here. They preached the Scriptures. They had the 39 books of the Old Testament, and so they preached these books. And in Acts, several places, we have examples of the apostles showing us the proper interpretation of these books.

But I'll move on here by just saying that the purpose of preaching is to give the sense and meaning of the Scriptures. I don't care what the preacher's opinions are. I want to know what the Bible says and what it means and how it applies.

This is how we must preach today as well, exposition. Secondly, under the purpose of preaching. So we have exposition. Number two, we have exaltation. Exaltation, I'm gonna spend a minute here, so be ready.

The sermon masterfully works through the person and work of Christ. And you'll remember for a second, you're saying, but he doesn't say everything that I want him to say. Okay, Luke is summarizing this for us.

And then we have the epistles in the New Testament that solidify our doctrine and our Christology. And so Peter doesn't have to say absolutely everything he could possibly say about Christ. But he masterfully works through the person and work of Christ.

We'll consider that in the coming weeks. But let me just show you. Look at verse 22, there's a couple places we'll look at. Verse 22, he says, "'Men of Israel, hear these words. "'Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested you by God "'with mighty works and wonders and signs "'that God did through him in your midst, "'as you yourselves know, this Jesus, "'delivered up according to the definite plan "'and foreknowledge of God, "'you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men.

"'God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death, "'because it was not possible for him to be held by it.'". Here you have, friends, a summation of the gospel. I'll elaborate. All mankind has a sin problem.

It has affected everything about us. Little boys, little girls. You don't have to teach them to sin. It's true with adults too. The way that we think, the way that we feel. We can't trust these things.

They're tainted by sin. The way that we speak, the things that we do, our attitude and actions and affections our motivations and emotions and desires. This is totally impacted by sin. And in total, our mind and heart and soul have been affected by sin.

The Bible says things like this. God is angry with the wicked all the day. And you say, well, I'm not wicked. Are you a sinner, right? Outside of Christ? Sin is simply doing what God says not to do and not doing what God says to do.

We scoff at his holy law. Mankind's problem is sin. And we sin because by nature we are sinners. And the reality is that God in his righteousness could sentence us all to eternal hellfire and let it be known to you this day that some he absolutely will.

But it won't be that way for all. And it does not have to be that way for you. Oh, I'm just talking this morning, preaching. Would you just please consider your soul? God has done something about our sin problem Peter is preaching here in Christ.

Jesus has fulfilled the law by his perfect life. And God has punished Jesus in our stead as our substitute. He's died under the wrath of God. And then here's something that a lot of people forget in the gospel, but Peter won't be quiet about it.

That is this Jesus got up out of the grave. Jesus resurrected, he rose again from the dead. And something else Peter won't stop talking about is that not only was he resurrected from the grave, but God seated him on David's throne as fulfillment of the promises.

Peter is preaching the gospel. He is exalting Christ that this Jesus is the son of God and he is Lord of all. And it's very fitting that in the very first Christian sermon, if you will, Christ is magnified because he ought to be magnified in every sermon.

The sum and substance of Christian preaching is Christ. We preach the scriptures from Genesis to Revelation and we show how the scriptures point to Christ. So hear me this morning, the point of preaching is not just exposition in the sense of I'm gonna tell you Greek words and verbs and participles and I'm gonna talk about the historical context and I'm gonna talk about the ancient Near East and I'm gonna talk about archeological findings and I'm just gonna give you all these bare facts.

No, friends, all of this must serve the overarching purpose of exalting King Jesus. We don't just exposit, we exalt. Peter does not preach himself. If you'll allow me this jab, he certainly has no one kiss his papal ring.

That's a satanic lie from Rome. Rather, what does Peter do?

He preaches Christ.

Look at verse 31, talking of David, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of the Christ, that he was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. So too, this is true of all the churches preaching.

You wanna know what true preaching is? True preaching is God-ordained, Spirit-empowered and Christ-exalting. One theologian put it this way, in expositing scripture for the congregation, the preacher must show that there is a way to the center, even from the farthest point on the periphery, for a sermon without Christ is no sermon.

Or maybe you know this about Spurgeon. He says, a sermon without Christ, you might as well talk of a loaf of bread without any flour in it.

How can it feed the soul?

It is a sort of sermon that will make the devils in hell laugh, but make the angels of God weep. Brothers and sisters, if a church is not preaching Christ, she has nothing worth saying. But consider this morning, the great Christ exalted in Peter's sermon.

Press on a couple of verses, look at verse 32. This Jesus, Peter preaches, God raised up and of that we are all witnesses, being therefore exalted at the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this, that you yourselves are hearing.

Peter is exalting Christ. Remember, this whole event at Pentecost is magnifying the gospel. If you hear any preaching about Pentecost that takes away from the gospel, you're not hearing preaching about the biblical Pentecost.

It's magnifying Christ and we must preach Christ. Another quote, Charles Hodge. He says, to make the end of preaching, that is, if you make the goal of preaching, the inculcation of virtue, that is the highest end of preaching, if you make it, men to be virtuous, I'll keep reading, this is from Hodge, to render men honest, sober, benevolent and faithful is part and parcel of that wisdom of the world that is foolishness with God.

It is attempting to raise fruit without trees. You hear what Hodge is saying? What Hodge is saying is, if the end of your preaching is to make men better, more moral, to have a more just society, if that's the end of your preaching, that's worldly wisdom and it's foolishness to God.

The end of our preaching is not a virtuous nation. The end of our preaching is the exaltation of King Jesus Christ, Him we preach. You have sermons today, how to be a better husband, how to be a better wife, how to have financial success, how to be a good citizen, how to have a Christian nation or whatever, but men are preaching these sermons, separating them from the work of Christ and there's no gospel there.

Okay, but what are you, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, are you saying we don't preach tangible, or we don't preach about husbands and wives and children? Of course we preach these things, amen, yes we do, but remember, any dues in a sermon are flowing out of the done of Jesus Christ.

I live today because Christ died for me and rose again. I work only because God first worked in me by the grace secured in the gospel and He continues to work in me by the power of the Holy Spirit. So any action on our part must be a reaction to the action of Christ.

It's the gospel. Peter did not preach, here's how you do better, here's how you be better, here's how you achieve fame, here's how you achieve material blessings, here's how you have a healthy life. He preached Christ because Christ is our all.

He's the only name by which we must be saved. He is the righteous one, He is the sacrificial lamb, He is our substitute, He's the resurrection and the life, He is Lord, He is God, He is King, we need Christ.

No Christ? No Christ? Then you have no right to the kingdom. You're not getting in, no pardon, no peace, no forgiveness, no justification, no adoption, no sanctification, no feasting, no hope, only the fearful reality of the judgment of eternal fire.

We must preach Christ. Exposition, exaltation. Thirdly, I'm still on point two, the purpose. There's exposition, there's exaltation. Thirdly, under this heading, there is exhortation. So go down to verse 40 for a minute.

I stole, borrowed, used the word from this text. And with many other words He bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, save yourselves from this crooked generation. All right, first thing I'm gonna do, let me lay a contextual foundation and then I'm gonna get to my point.

But a contextual foundation is this, you need to be reminded there from verse 40 that Peter is being the witness that Jesus promised the church would be in Acts 1 -8. So just remember, it's helpful, know what Acts 1 -8 means, okay?

Acts 1 -8, but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. And then verse 40 says, and with many other words, He bore witness and continued to exhort them.

Okay, remember also back in verse 14, this is not unconnected either, but Peter standing with the 11, lifted up his voice and addressed them, men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem.

Why?

Because that's the first place, that's where they're at, they're in Jerusalem and it's the first place Jesus said, you're gonna be my witnesses. You'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea. Peter understands that.

And so this is the promise of Christ that his apostles would be the witnesses and that his church would continue the witness to the ends of the earth. Now, I'm making a contextual point. Just hear me for a second.

Ask yourself this question. You listening?

Amen?

How does the church bear witness? How does the church bear witness for Christ? Now, there are a lot of things that we could say that I would accept and say, well, that's right.

That's okay.

You know, you have places that go out in the community and do hymn singing and things like that. Okay, and then there's other things that we could talk about. They're not bad things. A lot of things I could say.

But here's one non-negotiable thing that we must say. How are churches today bearing witness for Christ? Okay, a lot of things you may say. Here's one non-negotiable thing that we must say that's at the top of the list, and that is by proclaiming Christ.

The church bears witness to Christ and for Christ by preaching Christ. So I don't want you to miss this. The church is not a silent witness. Go back, take your beady little eyes, look at verse 14, and just consider something in that verse.

Peter lifted up his, what, actions? What'd he lift up? Look, look in the text. Can't look at the text if you're looking at me. Look at the text. The text says he lifted up his voice, right? He lifted up his voice.

He raised his voice because witnessing for Christ requires words, words. Witnesses of Christ must raise their voices above the noise and distractions of this world today, and they must use their lips to preach Christ.

I know we try to do things to serve a community. I'm not opposed to that. It's not that I'm opposed to that, right? These are good things, some things that we've done and participated in. Passing out food, passing out candy, passing out coats, passing out water bottles, giving children Christmas presents.

Okay, it's not that I'm opposed to those things, but just know that if you do those things apart from preaching for Christ, you're not witnessing for Christ. You're not witnessing for Christ. In some ways, in some ways, I wanna be kind here, you might actually be witnessing against him because there are non-Christian places that will do those things.

And so now you do those things just like those other non-Christian and godless places, and the church is just lumped in with that. The church is just a welfare situation. It's like the church is not a witness, but a welfare organization.

No, I'm not opposed to those things, but just understand that we witness by preaching. The church is obligated to use her voice. Am I saying just be unholy and go around? No, of course, we need to back that up with holy living, godly homes, godly marriages.

All of these things are true, but we can't be a silent witness. We must preach Christ. Okay, but that's not what I'm getting at in this point. What I'm getting at here in exhortation is this. So the purpose of preaching in Peter's sermon, exposition, exaltation.

But you can't miss this third, exhortation. What am I saying? Just listen carefully. That for the preacher and the hearer, we're not just filling our minds with great truth of what Jesus has accomplished.

The goal of our preaching is to persuade, to move, and this is the Spirit's work, but to move men and women and boys and girls to do something, to look to Christ, look, there is flowing a crimson tide, whiter than snow you may be today, to repent of their sins, to trust Christ by grace alone, through faith alone, to run to Jesus as our only suitable and all-sufficient Savior.

Like, if I preach the most wonderful message and all it does is fill your mind with warm, fuzzy thoughts, but you go out and you've never moved your soul.

To close with Christ, have failed.

Christ, closing with Christ, exhortation, to live now as a Christian all of your life under His supreme authority. I'm saying that sermons are not lectures. They're not TED Talks. Lord John says preaching is logic on fire and it's designed, I'm saying by God, to move the hearers.

In fact, I'll model that now. Friends, you've heard the Gospel, right? You need to understand this. George Whitefield put it this way, an unapplied Christ is no Christ at all. An unapplied Christ is no Christ at all.

What does he mean by that? What he means is that we're not merely filling our minds, but we must have Christ applied to the soul. An unapplied Christ is no Christ at all. So friends, do you only know an unapplied Christ?

Are you here this morning and you know about Jesus and you hear the things about the singing and you know we read the confession and catechism and you're like, well, I think that's a solid church and you know a lot of things in your mind, but Christ hasn't been applied to your soul.

Give facts, give songs, but you stand outside of union with him. He's not beloved in your heart as Lord and Savior and King. Save yourself from this crooked generation. That's what Peter preaches and that's what I preach to you and you do so by running to Jesus.

Verse 21, call upon him and you will be saved. Repent of your sins and believe the Gospel. Why would you come to this church time and again and only know about Christ and leave with him unapplied to your soul?

Christ will be your Savior. Christ will forgive you of your sins. Christ will justify you by his own righteousness. Christ will have you adopted into his family, but not if you're satisfied by remaining in your sin and misery.

But if you'll call upon the name of the Lord, if you'll repent of your sins and you'll trust him, I don't care who you are and what you've done. I don't care what your past looks like. I don't care the secret sin that no one knows about.

I just know this, God will forgive you in Christ if you go to him and you trust him. Would there be any here who would go to our Savior? The priority of preaching, the purpose of preaching. Exposition, exaltation, exhortation.

The Power of Preaching: Biblical, Beautiful, and Bold

Thirdly, the power of preaching. Now, I have three points here as well. This is a powerful sermon. This is, in one sense, a sermon that changed the world. 3 ,000 souls saved. Why was Peter's sermon so powerful?

Number one, it was powerful because it was biblical. I just love this quote from J .C. Ryle,.

So listen to this.

The divine comforter of the church, the Holy Spirit, has always employed one great weapon to oppose Satan's plans. That weapon is the word of God. The word expounded and unfolded. The word explained and opened up.

The word made clear to the head and applied to the heart. The word is the chosen weapon by which the devil must be confronted and confounded. The word is the sword that his ministers must use in the present day if they would successfully resist the devil.

The Bible, faithfully and freely expounded, is the safeguard of Christ's true church, J .C. Ryle. Why was Peter's sermon powerful? Number one, it was powerful because it was biblical. It was a sermon that he didn't just get up and say, hey, where do you go?

What are your felt needs today? What are you struggling with today? What's going on in the world today? No, he stood and he opened up the word of God and he preached. He preached. This is Joel. This is from Joel, he says.

And I'm saying that the power of our preaching is in the preaching of God's word. It's not the preacher who is powerful. It is the word of God. We must be men like Spurgeon who said, how do you defend a lion?

You let it out of the cage. What do you do with the Bible? You open up the book and you let it fly. Preach the Bible. Power in the word. Secondly, it was powerful because it was beautiful. Now, give me some liberty here.

I'm reaching back to last week's sermon where I talked about the Holy Spirit beautifying creation. What I mean by beautiful is not that the outline's beautiful or whatever. What I mean is it's beautiful because the Holy Spirit is operating.

A powerful sermon has the Holy Spirit's operation. It's why Owen, John Owen, masterful, you will not find, it would be hard-pressed to find a smarter man who's lived than John Owen. And yet John Owen talked about the preaching of John Bunyan, a little tinker, not formally educated, not in the presence of kings, and yet he was amazed by the tinker's preaching.

Why is that? It was Holy Spirit anointed. A sermon may not have alliterated points. It may be in simple, even childlike language. It may never mention Greek or Hebrew words, but if a biblical and Christ-exalting sermon is being preached, it's because the Holy Spirit is in it.

And it is beautiful. You say, well, how do I know? Well, I say you've never heard preaching then. There is a beauty in biblical and Christ-exalting preaching that captures us in an inexplicable way, compels us to adjust our lives, calls us to repent, rests us in Christ, opens our eyes to His glory.

How is this happening? How is this happening?

How am I being drawn now to Christ? Why is my heart breaking?

Why am I in awe of Christ?

Why do I feel in love more now with the church? Why do I see the glory of God? Is it because the voice of the preacher is so mesmerizing, so wonderful? No, it's because the Holy Spirit is working through the preaching.

Why is Peter's preaching powerful? Because the Holy Spirit has determined to use this as a means to save His people and to sanctify His people and to conform His people to Christ. I don't know about you, but have you never just sat and heard a sermon and you thought to yourself, how was the preacher a fly on the wall this week?

How did he know that I was going through that? How could he possibly know. I needed that? I needed that conviction. I needed that encouragement. I needed that challenge.

I needed that grace.