A Predestined Death – Acts 2:22-24

Kootenai Church

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So it looks like we're probably going to be doing this possibly till the end of April, which means that next

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Sunday, for the first time in the 30 years that I have known or been associated with this church, that we're not going to have

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Easter breakfast here. So if this whole lockdown continues to the end of the month, there seems to be people wanting to push back and say that we should be meeting, in which case, as elders, we are obviously going to have to reevaluate that after next week.

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But for next week, for sure, we're going to be doing this again, and I don't know exactly what that live stream worship service is going to look like, if it's going to be me here with the

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Duluth Trading Company shirt on and the books in the background, if we're going to be doing something in the sanctuary, I don't know yet. But we'll figure that out, and we will be live streaming at the normal times next week.

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Some folks have asked about, and I should address this, whether or not doing a virtual church is okay, because there's a video that Peter and I did, and it's out there somewhere on a

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Twitch channel, I'm not sure which one, where we talked about, is having virtual church okay? Because if you Google virtual church, you will find places that they have a pastor, they have quote -unquote elders, and one lives in Minneapolis, and one lives in Miami, and one lives in San Francisco, and they all get together online, and they're the leaders of the church, and then they do online baptisms, where they switch out to somebody else's video feed, where they're sitting in a hot tub or a bathtub, and the guy behind a desk like I'm sitting, he will say the mantra, and then the person, they'll switch over the video feed to the person being baptized, and they'll dunk themselves under the water, nobody else present, not in front of anybody, except for the watching world online at the streaming channel, and they are baptized, supposedly.

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I had a critique of that, which I still stand by everything that I said in that critique, but is what we're doing the same thing as that, and the answer to that is no, we're not.

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We're not doing this because we like to do this, or because this is the regular thing that we do, we all hate doing this, at least

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I hate doing this. Some of you like watching church while you're eating breakfast, and I know who you are.

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Some of you like that, I don't, and I don't think that the most of us like this, and even the people who are eating breakfast, you would rather be back here, fellowshipping with God's people and singing the word, and enjoying the worship and the fellowship, and observing the ordinances, etc.

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We hate doing this, and this is only temporary for us. We are going to get back to doing what we normally do as quickly as we possibly can.

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Online church or virtual church is an unbiblical concept, not just because it's new, and it's not been tried before, and now we have the technology to do it, but because it really doesn't represent what the church is.

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The church really is a gathering of saints, physically one with another, together, not forsaking our assembly, we assemble physically together.

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That's the pattern of the New Testament, and technology doesn't destroy the pattern, it doesn't abrogate the pattern so that we don't have to follow that anymore.

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We do so under the administration of biblically ordained leadership.

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We submit to one another, we hold one another accountable, we pray for one another, we serve one another, that's the biblical pattern.

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So that type of virtual church is not really a church, and this is only intended to be a temporary solution for what we're facing right now as a nation, and we're going to get away from this absolutely as fast as we possibly can, because this certainly is not our real church, nor is this our first option, nor does anybody, hopefully, who's watching this think that this is a surrogate for a real church, because we would never want that to be communicated at all.

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One other quick announcement, again, we mentioned it, I mentioned it in the weekly update, we mentioned it last week, if you have needs that you want to let everybody know about, please email deacons, d -e -a -c -o -n -s, deacons at kootenaychurch .org,

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and that email will go to one of the deacons who will distribute the needs, or try to facilitate making the needs get met, or meeting the needs, and distributing things, and assigning people to tasks if we need to, etc.

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So if you want your needs to be known, that's the best place to do that. If you want to post that you're doing something, like somebody this last week posted,

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I'm available to help if you need it, please just give me a call or post here, they did that on the

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KCC Facebook, KCC Activity Facebook page. You can post your resources or availability there to help people.

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Somebody posted there that they were going to Costco and was willing to pick some things up for folks if they needed it, that was a great way to help out.

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Stuff like that is kind of a good way of just letting people know that you're willing to help. But if you have a need, which some people may or they're going to, as we continue to seem intent on absolutely crashing the economy for this, needs are going to become probably more acute and pronounced as time goes on, email the deacons, deacons at kootenaychurch .org.

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Today after the live stream, I'm going to hang out for just a little bit afterwards, and then we also have a

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Zoom meeting, if you want to chime in for that, there'll be a link posted in the chat, if there hasn't been already, probably toward the end,

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Peter will post that link, and you can click over through Zoom, and there you'll be able to video conference with each other, and we'll be able to see each other face -to -face, share some prayer requests, and see how that works.

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If you want to join us for that, then just follow that link over. I think that's it.

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One last announcement is the word of the day. And the word of the day today is death.

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Death. We've been talking about the death of Christ, so I need to clarify something about the buckets of candy.

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I mentioned this with the kids last week, we had buckets of candy somewhere in your house with your parents. I need to clarify something about that.

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The buckets might not be in the house, they might be outside the house. The theme for the last couple of weeks with church and Sunday school had to do with the sovereignty of God, and I think it's something that we kind of need to be reminded of and encouraged about in times like this.

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And so I want to continue that theme, but also talk about the death of Christ as well. We talked in Sunday school two weeks ago about what is hyper -Calvinism, it's a denial of human responsibility basically, such an overemphasis or a hyper -emphasis on the sovereignty of God that it denies the human responsibility behind those things which

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God has ordained to take place. And then last week we talked about Romans 8 and the sovereignty of God in His purposes and His plans which

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He allows and ordains in order to bring good for His people and glory to His name through everything that takes place.

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So today I want to continue that theme a little bit and we're going to look at a passage of scripture, Acts chapter 2, if you have your

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Bibles turn to Acts chapter 2, we're going to look at verses 22 through 24 and we're going to kind of look at the context of those verses.

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Acts chapter 2, verse 22, I'll give you a second to find it if you haven't.

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I'm going to read this, I'll kind of back up a little bit, give you a bit of the beginning context and we'll look briefly a little bit at the context that's after it as well.

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Acts chapter 2, verse 22, Men of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which

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God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know. This man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death.

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But God raised him up again, putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power.

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And then Peter goes on there to quote David in Psalm 16.

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That's the passage that we're going to be looking at today. The context of that is Peter's Pentecost resurrection sermon.

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This is after the resurrection of Jesus, it's 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached this sermon on the south end of the temple steps in what is called today

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Pentecost Square. And you can go there today, you can see the gardens and the rockways and the paths and the steps and everything that's in Pentecost Square.

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On the day of Pentecost, all the Jews had come back from all over the Roman Empire and all of them spoke various languages.

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You find this out in Acts chapter 2. And when the Holy Spirit came that day and filled the 120 who were sitting in that upper room waiting for the coming of the

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Holy Spirit, waiting for the promise that Jesus had promised them 10 days prior when he had ascended back to heaven, one of the manifestations of that was the gift of tongues.

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And at least the disciples or some of the disciples began to speak in tongues and began to proclaim the gospel to people in languages that they had never heard before.

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Now all of those people who were gathered there who heard the disciples speaking in these unlearned languages, and it wasn't babble and it wasn't heavenly languages and it wasn't you know,

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I bought a Honda, should have bought a Yamaha, it wasn't any kind of a babbling like that or incoherent mumbo jumbo that you hear in charismatic and word faith and New Apostolic Reformation circles today, that wasn't it.

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It was the gift of languages. In fact, Acts chapter 2 is specific. Luke more than once mentions in Acts chapter 2 that they heard the disciples speaking in their own dialects, and he uses the word dialectos for their own, so it wasn't just a particular language, it was the dialect of these various languages.

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And the disciples had never learned these languages before or the dialects. And Luke in Acts chapter 2 records the dialects that were present there.

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He lists a number of them that the disciples were preaching the gospel in these dialects. Well, as those who were standing there on the day of Pentecost heard the disciples speaking in these languages, they charged them with being drunk.

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And Peter gets up to correct that misunderstanding, that they were drunk. And he says, look, it's 9 o 'clock in the morning, it's the third hour of the day.

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Even your worst card -carrying alcoholic is not drunk by 9 o 'clock in the morning.

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This is not strong drink as you men suppose, Peter says. Instead, he says, this is what was foretold by the prophet

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Joel. So in Acts chapter 2, when Peter stands up in verse 14, he quotes

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Joel beginning in verse 17 and says, in the last days, God says, I will pour forth my spirit on all mankind and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

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And your young men shall see visions and your old men dream dreams. Even on my bond servants, men and women in those days, I'll pour forth my spirit and they shall prophesy.

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And I will grant wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire, vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and glorious day of the

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Lord shall come. And it shall be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now, you'll notice that Peter stops his quotation from Joel almost mid -sentence.

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If you go back to Joel chapter 2, where this quotation comes from, you'll notice that Peter quotes Joel all the way up to the point where he talks about those who call on the name of the

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Lord will be saved. And he stops quoting Joel right there. He could have continued to quote Joel chapter 2 and into chapter 3 about the signs that would accompany the coming of the day of the

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Lord. And Peter's point is not to say that everything that it was prophesied by Joel in that passage had come to pass because the blood and the fire and the signs in the heavens and the earth below, the vapor and the smoke and all of that, none of that happened on the day of Pentecost, nor the dreaming of dreams or the visions or anything like that.

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But the pouring out of the spirit did happen on the day of Pentecost. And that, of course, was intended to be a foreshadowing, a little taste of the kingdom that was to come.

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Pardon me. So as Peter is quoting that, when he gets to the point of saying everyone who calls on the name of the

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Lord will be saved, he stops right there. And then he immediately transitions in verse 22, which is the passage

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I read at the beginning. He immediately transitions in verse 22 to speak of Jesus because Peter's intention is to show that Jesus is that Lord, that Yahweh, upon whom we are to call.

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And that when we call upon the name of Yahweh, whom Peter is going to say is Jesus, that we will be saved.

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And so he takes Joel to show this is what was predicted in the Old Testament, in the Old Covenant. Joel saw that this day would come.

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He spoke of the pouring out of the spirit of God. This is what you see. It's not drunkenness. It's the pouring out of the spirit of God. And then he immediately transitions into preaching

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Jesus to them. And that's when he says in verse 22, when he begins to preach to them in verse 22, he immediately begins speaking of Jesus.

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Now, Peter's intention in his sermon is to show that Jesus Christ is the

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Messiah. He's going to demonstrate that Jesus is Yahweh, that Jesus is the Yahweh upon whom we are to call if we are to be saved.

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Jesus is that Lord, which is why he says in, down in verse 34, he quotes

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David from Psalm 110. It was, was it not David who ascended into heaven, or it was not

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David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet.

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Therefore, verse 36, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this

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Jesus whom you crucified. So here he calls Jesus Lord. He refers to calling upon the name of the

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Lord in verse 21 as that which saves us. And then his point is to demonstrate throughout this sermon that Jesus is that Lord upon whom we are to call.

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And he has given evidence of the fact that he is Yahweh by being raised from the dead. And so God has now made this one whom he says to the

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Jews, you crucified, you handed over, you crucified, you killed him, you rejected your Messiah. God has made him both

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Lord and Christ. Call upon that name, that Lord, that Yahweh, Jesus, and you will be saved.

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Now that's Peter's, that's Peter's goal in the passage, in the preaching, in the message, is to demonstrate that Jesus is that Messiah and to give evidence of that.

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Now to a Jewish audience standing there listening to Peter, Peter is going to have to overcome one major objection that the

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Jewish audience would have had. And that is to answer this objection. If Jesus is the

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Messiah, how could he die? If Jesus is the Messiah, how could he die?

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And furthermore, how could he die under a curse? Because doesn't the Old Testament law in the book of Deuteronomy say, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree?

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Isn't that what the law, the law decreed anybody who hung on a tree to be cursed? And Jesus hung on a tree.

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He died under the curse of God. He died under the auspices of the Roman government. They are the ones who drove the nails and put him to death.

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It was a Roman governor, Pontius Pilate, that handed him over to be crucified. It was Roman authorities who did this.

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It was the Roman soldiers who bartered for his garments and oversaw his execution. It was a

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Roman soldier who put the spear into his side. The Romans did all of this. How could the Jewish Messiah, who was supposed to come and overthrow

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Gentile powers, overthrow Gentile nations, how could that Jewish Messiah die under a curse at the hands of godless

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Gentiles, idol -worshiping godless Gentiles? It didn't seem right. Any Jew would look at that and say, so some conquering king that is, that he would actually die under a curse at the hands of Gentiles.

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That doesn't sound like our Jewish Messiah. Peter wants to answer that objection, and he has to deal with that objection.

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He's going to have to show that it was necessary for the Messiah to die, which he does by quoting

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Psalm 16 in verses 25 through verse 28.

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He needs to show that Jesus is the exalted one according to Psalm 110. He needs to make his case from the

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Old Testament. He needs to overcome this Jewish objection that certainly a Messiah, a Jewish Messiah, could never die at the hands of Romans.

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And the evidence that Peter is going to point to that Jesus is that Messiah is first of all the miracles that he did.

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So you look in verse 22, men of Israel, listen to these words, Jesus, the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs, and there he just, like, just one description after another, miracles, wonders, and signs.

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You saw the miracles, you saw the wonders that he did, you saw the signs that he did. God attested or demonstrated to you that Jesus is who he claimed to be by giving him the ability to do those miracles and those signs.

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He is attested to you by God, God giving him the power to do those things. And notice that Peter says he did this in your midst, as you yourselves know.

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They knew what Jesus had done. They could not deny the miracles, in fact, it's interesting, nobody ever denied that Jesus did a miracle.

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Nobody ever could deny that he did a miracle, and nobody ever tried to deny that he did a miracle. Even his most virulent opponents, the

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Pharisees, the Sadducees, the Scribes, they never denied that he was a miracle worker. They never even tried to address that subject of whether or not the miracles were legitimate.

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All they tried to do was to try and say that, well, the miracles that he does, he does by the power of Beelzebub. That was one thing, one trick they tried.

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On another occasion, do you remember what happened after he healed or raised Lazarus from the dead? Do you remember the response of the

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Pharisees? They didn't say, well, it was a trick, they didn't say it was a parlor trick, it was an illusion, they didn't say that he staged it, they didn't try and explain the miracle at all.

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They just simply said, look, we need to kill him or everyone's going to believe in him because he continues to do these miracles. They never denied the miracles that he did, never tried to deny the miracles that he did, never even tried to explain them away.

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And by the time that Jesus died on a cross, around 33 AD, by the time of his death, he had to have been one of the best known people in all of the land of Israel.

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Think about it, up in the northern regions of the land of Israel, he had multiplied bread and fish for 4 ,000 and then 5 ,000, right around the

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Sea of Galilee, on two separate occasions. We looked at that in Sunday school this morning. Mark chapter 6 and Mark chapter 7,

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Mark chapter 8, describe those two miracles of feeding the 4 ,000 and the 5 ,000.

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That's 4 ,000 and 5 ,000 men who were counted, not counting women and children, which would have been counted separately.

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So you're talking about crowds and there's probably overlap as to who was in each of these crowds. There's probably people that were there for both of these miracles or probably people that were there for one and not the other and vice versa.

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But you're talking about probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 to 15 or 20 ,000 people that would have been in those crowds.

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They're just counting men, 4 ,000 and 5 ,000. You put women and children into that mix and it's going to be much more than that.

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These are tens of thousands of people who had seen these miracles. And not to mention that all of the miracles that he did in Bethsaida and Chorazin, some of which were public, resurrections that Jesus performed that would have been public, healings of blind men and lepers that would have been public.

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Some of his miracles were done in the crowds and on one occasion in John chapter 6, they saw the miracles that he was doing and the people brought to him out of the countrysides, people who were sick and the lame and the sick who needed to be healed and the exorcisms that he did, which were also signs, miracles that Jesus did.

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All of those and word spread throughout the region. At some point, the crowds were so thick around him that nobody could even get through.

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They had to lower people down through the rafters of the houses to him so that he could heal them.

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Crowds so thick that even his own family members, Mark chapter 5, could not get through in some places. Word about him spread throughout the land, so much so that on the final week of his ministry in his life, and this is today's

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Palm Sunday, he would be able to walk into the land of Israel with hundreds of thousands of people in the city of Jerusalem and in the environs around the city of Jerusalem, Jesus was able to walk into the chants of the crowds who hailed him as the son of David, the

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Messiah, the King. That was how far word had spread. At the time of his death, probably the best known person in all of Israel.

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It would be difficult to probably find somebody in the land of Israel who had not heard of Jesus of Nazareth at the time of his crucifixion.

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So Peter is able to say to them, these miracles that he did, you yourselves know God demonstrated that he was the

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Messiah, that he was the Christ. God made this evident to you through the miracles, the wonders, and the signs.

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And the resurrection of Jesus is another sign that he did, which demonstrates his messianic credentials. And Peter gets into that in verses 20, what is it, verse 24 through verse 34, he speaks of the resurrection as being a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, and I think that we might deal with that passage next week.

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That sign of his resurrection was also a demonstration that he was the Messiah and that he was the promised one, the

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Lord, the Christ. And Jesus demonstrated his messianic credentials by fulfilling Psalm chapter 16 in raising himself from the dead.

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But the Messiah could not rise from the dead as Psalm 16 and Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 all demanded.

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Those three Old Testament passages that speak of the resurrection unveiled references. The Messiah couldn't rise from the dead unless he first died.

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So it was necessary that he first die on a cross. And so that is why the death of Christ, far from being a stumbling block to Jews, should be an evidence that he is in fact the

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Messiah. And in his death he fulfilled all of the messianic predictions of the

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Old Testament that pertained to his messianic credentials, to the prophecies that demonstrate he was the

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Messiah. So that is why Jesus could say that the signs that he did was an evidence of his messianic credentials.

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He says this in John chapter 5, verse 36 and 37, the testimony which I have is greater than the testimony of John for the works which the

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Father has given me to accomplish the very works that I do testify about me that the Father has sent me. And he says, and the

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Father who sent me has testified of me, you've neither heard his voice in any time nor seen his form. Then in John chapter 10,

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Jesus said, if I do not do the works of my Father, do not believe me. But if I do them, though you do not believe me, believe the works so that you may know and understand that the

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Father is in me and I in the Father. Jesus pointed to the works that he did as the evidence of his messianic claims.

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And this is what Peter does here in Acts chapter 2, verse 22. This man attested to you by God with signs and wonders and miracles.

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Those were the attestations that he was the Messiah. And then, as I mentioned, his death gives evidence of the fact that he was the

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Messiah as well. This is why Paul could go into the synagogue in Acts chapter 17, verse 3, and he could say, or Luke could say of Paul that he was giving evidence that the

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Christ had to suffer and rise again. Why did the Messiah have to suffer? It was necessary that the

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Messiah suffer in order that he would fulfill all of the Old Testament predictions regarding the

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Messiah, who he was. All the Old Testament predictions pertaining to the death of the king of Israel.

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Jesus had to fulfill all of those. So you go back to Psalm 53, which describes him being beaten and scourged for our transgressions.

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Psalm 22, his mouth being so dry that his tongue cleaves to the roof of his mouth, his bones feeling like they're out of joint, he had pierced my hands and my feet, they have gambled for my clothing, they have pierced my side.

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All of those prophecies. Zechariah, I think, that describes Jesus coming back in the land of Israel, the

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Israelites at the time of his return come back and they look upon him whom they have pierced and mourn for him as one mourns for an only son.

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I think that's Zechariah chapter 12. All of those prophecies regarding the

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Messiah, that he would be betrayed by a friend, a close companion, that he would be sold for 30 pieces of silver, that they would gamble for his garments, that he would be crucified, that he would be killed alongside criminals.

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Isaiah 53 predicted that, that he would be buried in a rich man's tomb. Isaiah 53 predicted that, that he would be beaten and scourged.

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Isaiah 53 depicted that. In fact, Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 are two passages that describe 700 years in Isaiah and 1 ,500 years in Psalm 22.

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They describe the method of crucifixion over 1 ,000 years before it was even invented, David does in Psalm 22, 400 years,

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I think it is, before crucifixion was even used, 400 years prior Isaiah described that.

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So that method of dying was predicted and ordained by God.

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And Paul said these things had to take place. The death of Christ was absolutely necessary.

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It had to take place so that every detail that God had planned and predicted and promised would come to pass, would actually come to pass.

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Not just in a general sense, but every specific detail. So that Isaiah 53 could say that it pleased the father to bruise the son.

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It pleased the father to crush him in our stead. Now, talked last week about God accomplishing all of his good pleasure.

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And those things which please the father, which please God, he is doing, and he is doing everything that pleases him.

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And I said that sometimes the problem is that we don't, we aren't pleased by the same things that God is pleased with.

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Otherwise, we would delight in those things in the way that God delights in them. God accomplishes all of his good pleasure.

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It pleased him to crush the son in our stead. And because it pleased the father to crush him for us,

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God accomplished that and predicted it. And in the words of Peter, he actually delivered him over by the predetermined plan and the foreknowledge of God.

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Why did it please the father to crush the son? It pleased the father because he saw the end.

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Remember we talked about that last week? He sees the end that is in view. What end did the father see in giving over the son to death that caused it to please him?

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The end that he foresaw, that he saw, and that he intended is the salvation of his people, his elect, his bride, his sheep.

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The salvation of those people is the end that God saw. And because God saw that end in view, that joy that was set before him, it pleased the father to deliver over the son.

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Now, look again at the language that Luke uses in Acts chapter 2, verse 22, no, verse 23.

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This man, this one attested to you by signs and wonders and miracles which God performed in your midst, this man, that is

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Jesus, was delivered over, and that word delivered over is only used one time in all of the

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New Testament, and it's used here. This man was delivered over, and the word describes the act of betrayal, being handed over to one's enemies.

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The father delivered over the son to his enemies according to what, in verse 23, his predetermined plan and the foreknowledge of God.

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It was the predetermined plan and the foreknowledge of God that delivered the son over to the

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Jews and to the Romans to crucify him. The active agent in delivering over the son was the predetermined plan and the foreknowledge of God.

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This was the plan of God, to bruise the son. This was, all of the details of it were predicted.

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The plan was put into place, it was all part of the plan. All the details of it were not just foreknown by God, they were planned and predetermined, they were predestined to occur.

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Every last detail of it was predestined to occur. Christ had to die in order to fulfill the predetermined plan, that is,

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God determined that this was going to happen and he did so previously, beforehand, ahead of time.

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He predetermined that plan to happen. God predetermined that plan and that purpose and all of those events to happen so that it could not be otherwise.

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The unfolding of the events could not have been otherwise because it was the predestined, predetermined plan of the father to deliver over the son so that the son might fulfill all of those

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Old Testament prophecies. Now, God does not plan the end and then leave the means undetermined.

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In other words, God doesn't say, look, I think I just want to redeem a bunch of people, I'm not sure how I'm going to do it,

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I'm not sure how I'm going to accomplish it, but I think I'm just going to redeem a bunch of sinners and then we'll make this up as I go along.

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That's not how the Lord does or determines anything. When scripture talks about the predetermined plan and the foreknowledge of God, we're talking about something that God determined before any of the universe or any of creation was created.

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He predetermined not only that he would redeem sinners, but that he would let a perfect creation fall into sin so that he could redeem sinners.

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And he determined not just that he would redeem, he determined whom he would redeem and he determined how that redemption would take place.

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All of that was the predetermined plan, according to the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. So God does not leave the fulfillment of his eternal purposes up to chance.

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He doesn't roll the dice. He doesn't leave the good of his people, that's you and I, Christian, he doesn't leave our ultimate good just up to the roll of a dice.

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He doesn't leave the glorification of his name up to chance or random processes.

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God has predetermined and laid out all of this so that he could glorify his name, so that he could do good to his people, so that he could redeem people.

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Every last detail of it is foreknown by God, not because he's like a good prognosticator.

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He's not Karnak, able to just look down through the corridors of time and foretell events and kind of see them in a blurry way, that's not how

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God plans any of that. He knows the future events, not because he learns of them at some point in eternity past by looking into the future.

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He's not a prognosticator, he's not a fortune teller, he's not a soothsayer. He doesn't know of future events because he learns them, as we do in time, or because he learns them by looking ahead in time.

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He knows future events because he decrees them, he predestines them, he determines them, he predetermines them, he plans these details.

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All of these evil events associated with the crucifixion of Jesus were planned and purposed and predetermined by him.

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So ask yourself this question, does God plan, does he purpose, and does he decree evil events?

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And the answer to that question can only be yes. He plans those evil events, he predestines that they occur, and he decrees that they occur, and he determines that they occur.

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Can you think of anything more evil than the crucifixion of the sinless Son of God? Is there anything in the history of creation, in the history of this world, that is more evil than the sinless

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Son of God being handed over to sinners to be spit on, to be scourged, and to be crucified, and to suffer and die at the hands of evil men?

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Is there anything, any event in all of human history that's happened that is more evil than that? And there is not any event that is more evil than that.

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And yet, listen to how Peter describes that event in Acts chapter 4, verse 27 and 28.

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You can turn there if you want. Acts chapter 4, verses 27 and 28. Peter says, in praying to the Father, he says,

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For truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both

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Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the people of Israel, to do, look at that, whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.

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What was Peter describing? Jesus being handed over to the peoples of Israel, to the

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Gentiles, to Herod, and to Pontius Pilate. He lists four co -conspirators in this grand evil scheme, the people of Israel, the

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Jews, the Gentiles, that is the Romans and the Roman soldiers and the Roman leadership, specifically two other people,

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Pontius Pilate and Herod. So two individual peoples named, and two people groups named, all of them colluded together to accomplish and to do,

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Peter says, whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur. What was Peter describing?

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The crucifixion of Jesus. The crucifixion of the sinless Son of God is the most evil event that has ever happened in all of human history, and God predestined it to occur.

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Not only that, but God predestined it to occur with all of the details that occurred.

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The piercing of the hands and the feet, the spear in the side, the scourging, the beatings, the whipping, the bleeding, the turning over of Judas into the hands of the

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Jews and the Romans so that they could arrest him and turn him over to the Romans. All the trials with Pilate and Herod, and who was the other,

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I forget about this moment, the five trials that he endured on the night before his crucifixion. The abandonment of Peter, the denial of Peter, all of it predestined to occur.

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All of these things God can predestine to occur, the most evil event that has ever transpired in the history of all of creation, all of it

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God can predestine to occur and determine that it occur, predetermine that it occur, destine it to occur, and God can intend for it to occur, but he does so with a sinless will, a sinless purpose, and a sinless act of intention.

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So God intended the same thing that Judas intended, God intended the same thing that Herod and Pontius Pilate and the

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Jews and the Romans and everybody involved in the crucifixion of the Son, God intended that all of those things occur,

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God decreed that all of those things occur, and he predestined that all of it occur, but God did that with a sinless will and a sinless intention because he saw the end in view, which was the redemption of his people.

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So if God can predestine, and here's the closer, if God can predestine and predetermine the most evil act ever committed and then can turn around and use that for good, the good of his people, the redemption of sinners, and the glory of his holy name, and eventually our glory, which will be revealed in us, if God can do that with the most evil act that has ever happened, can he not do that with much lesser evil acts and much lesser evil events?

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He certainly can. So, Peter indicts the children of Israel, the nation, just standing there hearing them, all these people gathered at the

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Day of Pentecost. He indicts them for delivering over Jesus to be crucified, and he does so by pointing out that God had attested that Jesus was the

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Messiah through all the miracles that he did, and then he says in verse 23, this man,

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Jesus, was delivered over by the predetermined plan and the foreknowledge of God. God knew it all ahead of time, and he predetermined all the unfolding of all of his events ahead of time.

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This is why Jesus, when he was going to the cross, he speaks in John chapter 10 about laying down his life for his sheep, for his people, and he says, and nobody takes my life from me.

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I lay it down on my own accord. I have the power to lay it down. I have the power to take it up again, which he did. He laid it down on his own accord, his own volition, and he took up his life again on his own volition.

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He did this because he determined the timing, the day, the purpose, the place, the people involved in his death.

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He determined all of it. It was all part of the plan, and Jesus went to the cross, not as a victim, but as a volunteer, and he could do this because this was the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God.

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Now you might be thinking to yourself, well, and this would be anticipating what the Jews also would have been thinking, hearing Peter's word, if God predestines these things, and if God wills these things, and he purposes these things, and he himself decrees these things, and if it's

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God who delivered him up, and God's purpose delivered him up to be crucified, and if God's plan is the active agent in determining all of this, then how can he hold us accountable for our sin?

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And the answer to that is, he does. He holds us accountable, and he holds the Jews accountable because look what the very next thing that Peter says to them in verse 23, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men.

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So who bears the guilt for this? The Jews did. And Peter indicts them for not only the rejection of the

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Messiah, but for their active involvement in his crucifixion. So Peter has these two things in view, the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of man.

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He says to the Jews, everything that has unfolded is according to the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. So you could look back into the

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Old Testament and you can see, pardon me, you can see in the book of Isaiah and in Psalm 22, all of these things that God promised and predicted would come to pass, he foretold all of this,

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Judas betraying him, 30 pieces of silver, the potter's field, the piercing, the crucifixion, the scourging, all of this, all of this unfolded exactly according to God's plan.

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So God was delivered over the sons so that the plan would be fulfilled, but who bears the moral responsibility for that crime?

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It's not God who bears the responsibility for it. Peter lays the blame for that at the feet of the Jews. You delivered him over, you nailed him to a cross, sorry,

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God delivered him over, you nailed him to a cross and put him to death at the hands of godless men, the godless men being the

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Romans, because these Jewish people had, of course, it was the high priest and Caiaphas and Annas who had plotted with Judas in order to arrest

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Jesus in the garden and they had taken him and then handed him over to Pilate and charged him formally in a

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Roman court during the course of the night so that Jesus would be tried the next day or tried throughout the course of the night and executed the next day.

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The Jews had masterminded all of that. Pilate was not the one who had him arrested. Pilate was not the one who intended to crucify him.

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Pilate didn't do any of that. It was the Jewish leadership who did it. So they're morally culpable for this. Predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed him to a cross at the hands of godless men.

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So who bears the moral culpability for that most hideous act in all of human history? It's those who are standing there who had rejected the

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Messiah and called out, crucify him on that Friday morning when they were all standing before Pilate.

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They bear the moral responsibility for it. So men are responsible in this case for the evil which

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God himself predestines to occur. That is absolute sovereignty of God and it is human responsibility.

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And friends, these things go together perfectly and you'll notice that the men of Israel in this scenario of unfolding everything that was predestined by God and predetermined to occur, none of them were coerced.

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Herod was not coerced. Pilate was not coerced. I mean, at least by God.

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He was coerced by the Jews. They sort of put him into that position to pressure him into saying, look, if you release this guy who claims to be a king, you know, a friend of Caesar's.

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So Pilate was coerced by the Jews, but the Jews, they were not coerced and neither were the Romans coerced.

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In other words, all of these people who colluded together to do this evil, none of them were forced by God to do the evil against their will.

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None of them were forced to do evil against their will. Divine sovereignty and human responsibility in the death of Christ, we see these things go together perfectly.

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So that God predestines everything that happens and men bear the moral responsibility for the evil that is done.

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But God takes that evil and he uses it for good. And so these two things, divine sovereignty and human responsibility, you'll notice that Peter doesn't attempt here at any kind of reconciliation.

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He just says, look, God predestined it and you executed it. You're guilty for executing it. And he rose from the dead and God has made him both

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Lord and Christ. Repent today and believe and be baptized for the forgiveness of your sins or you will perish.

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So they bear the moral culpability for it. God predestined that it occur. And Peter doesn't try and reconcile.

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It doesn't say, look, I know this is hard for you to understand how God can be sovereign and we can be responsible. But it's true. God predestined it and we are responsible.

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And so here's how they go together. And let's try and massage these two things. He just declares these two things that seemingly do not go together at all.

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Divine sovereignty and human responsibility. And they meld together perfectly. So that God appoints and determines and predetermines all that comes to pass.

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And yet men are held morally culpable for the evil that is done. That is how we have to hold on to divine sovereignty and human responsibility in our theology.

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And if we ever get to a point where we start saying, well, yeah, God predetermined this, so men really aren't responsible, then we have erred.

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And if we ever get to the point of saying, well, look, men are free creatures, so God really can't predetermine anything, then we have erred. And we need to be able to hold on to both of these two things at the same time robustly.

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And you may not understand, I don't necessarily have any problem with trying to reconcile them because they don't need to be reconciled.

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And if you think that they don't go together and you're unwilling to allow them to go together, then the problem is with you and with your understanding or with me and my understanding.

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We cannot sacrifice either one of these two things. These are beautiful, glorious doctrines, and they both go together.

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You see it here in Acts chapter 2. You see it again in Acts chapter 4, where Peter says that these things that God predestined these things occur, all of these things.

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How does he say it in Acts chapter 4? Your hand and your purpose has predestined them to occur. But who is guilty?

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Herod, Pontius Pilate, the Jews, and the Romans. They're the guilty parties. And yet God has predestined according to his purposes.

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And what were his purposes? His purposes were to bring something good out of this. So if the death of Christ, which is the most evil event ever to transpire in human history, the most evil thing ever perpetrated against another human being, if the death of Christ was that most evil thing, and God has brought the greatest good out of the greatest evil, then we can be confident that he will do the same with all lesser evils.

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This is an argument from the greater to the lesser. If God has done this for this event, then you and I can be rest assured, we can be most assured, that he will also do this for everything that transpires in our life, which is a far lesser evil thing than that.

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The contemplation of this, this truth, and what Peter has done, this should cause us to examine ourselves in the same way that Peter wanted his audience to examine themselves.

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It should turn our hearts to Christ and to make us think back upon why was this death necessary?

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Why was it necessary that God predetermined and pre -purposed and predestined that Christ die on a cross for sinners?

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Why was that necessary? The salvation, the good that comes out of that death is the salvation of God's people, and he has not left us up to chance.

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He's not left our salvation up to chance and circumstances. He didn't roll the dice. He's determined not only that he will save, but how he will save and whom he will save.

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He's determined all of that. God doesn't just determine the ends, but he also appoints the means, and the means are predestined that these things occur.

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And he has done so in order to save and redeem a people. He did this in the death of Christ to atone for and to take out of the way our sins and our crimes.

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You and I, though we did not drive the nails, and we were not standing there in the first century calling for the blood of Jesus before Pontius Pilate.

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Though we didn't do that, it was our sin that nailed him to that cross. You and I are the natural -born enemies of God.

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We are the ones who have sinned against him, whose sin required a sacrifice, whose sin required atonement.

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It was our sin that demanded that sacrifice. So as we reflect upon Acts chapter 2, we ought to be thinking in terms of not just, yeah, the death of Christ happened, but why did that happen?

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It happened for, because of, due to us. We are the ones whose crimes against God demanded the shedding of blood for the remission of our sins.

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And God's son was the ransom sacrifice. He was the payment for those sins.

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He bore the wrath that was reserved for us. All of our sins, all of our crimes that we committed against a most holy

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God, they were laid upon Christ. So yeah, though we weren't the ones driving the nails, it was really our sins that put him there.

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It was our sins that held him there until the price, the payment of that price was fully accomplished.

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It was our sins that did that. And so we are obviously culpable and guilty of all of our own crimes.

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Our lying, our stealing, our blasphemy, our lustful thoughts, our hateful thoughts, our greed, our selfishness, our covetousness, our gossips, our slanders, our sexual immorality, our idolatry, our disobedience to our parents.

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All of those things have heaped up for us a rap sheet, a rap sheet of God against God that divine justice calls for atonement and calls for our payment of those sins.

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It is for that reason that Jesus Christ came to suffer and to die. And in doing so, in that sacrifice, it was a substitutionary sacrifice.

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Peter says that it was our sins that he bore. It was our griefs. 1 Peter chapter 2, he was nailed there for our iniquities.

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Isaiah chapter 53, his scourging was for us. It brought us peace. It was him accomplishing something in our stead.

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So when we speak of the sacrifice of Christ, we speak of him doing this. He was bruised for us and crushed for us.

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It was a substitutionary atonement. It was a death on the cross that was done in the place of other people.

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On that cross, he died the death that I deserve to die. I was the one that deserved to be whipped and beaten and scourged and pierced and suffer all of that on that cross, all of that indignity, the humiliation, the wrath.

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I deserve to have that poured out on me. You deserve to have that poured out on you. But God predestined and predetermined that he would have his son, the

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Lord Jesus Christ, come to this earth and to live a perfect life, also a substitutionary life.

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The life that he lived, he lived in our stead. And the death that he died, he died in our stead as our substitute on that cross, hanging there as it were.

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We, the guilty ones, we nailed him to the cross at the hands of God's men. Our sin held him there. So we bear the moral guilt for that.

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It was our sin that required that sacrifice, that substitutionary atoning sacrifice. And it was a penal sacrifice, meaning it was a punishment.

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Bearing the punishment that we deserve, bearing the wrath that we deserve, paying the price for our sin.

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And the wrath that he paid and the death that he died was not just one that makes salvation possible.

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If he died in the stead of sinners, then he paid the price for my sin.

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And if he paid the price for my sin, then I can go free. And if he paid the price for my sin,

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I am able to go free on the basis of repentance and faith. So we're not talking about a sacrifice that was done just generally, like he just died and now anybody can come and it's available for anybody and it's there and it pays the price for everybody.

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It was a substitutionary atonement. He died in the stead of sinners, specific sinners. You and me died in our stead so that our sins could be wiped away and wiped clean.

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He did this in our place. It was a penal sacrifice. That is a punishment.

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It was a substitutionary sacrifice. That is, he died in our stead and it was a vicarious, voluntary sacrifice that he did for our sin.

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So what does God demand of us? He demands that we respond in repentance and faith.

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This is what Peter will later say to the Jews, repent and be baptized for the forgiveness of sins. And not that baptism isn't necessary for salvation.

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That's not what he's talking about in verse 39. That's another discussion. But the identification with Christ and repentance is part of that turning from sin.

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And scripture calls us to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. These two things, turning from sin and believing upon Christ, that is the natural, that is the

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God -ordained, God -decreed means by which we can have our sins forgiven. We turn from sin and we believe upon him.

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So if you're listening to this today and you are not a believer, and I know that there are people who are atheists and who are not believers who drop into our channel and watch this podcast, our broadcast here, just as there are people who sign in, who are part of our church body maybe, who are not believers and have never trusted

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Christ. If that's you, I beg of you, I command you on the basis of scripture, I implore with you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God by repentance and faith.

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The death that he died is sufficient to pay the price for your sin if you repent and you believe. But if you will not repent and you will not believe, you will not be able to blame the

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Romans for your sin or the Jews for your sin or anybody else for your sin. You will not be able to cop out and blame the sovereignty of God for your sin and say, well, he predestined it to occur and I had no choice.

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He predetermined it. It's God's responsible for it, not me. You won't be able to blame anybody else for your sin.

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You and you alone will bear the culpability and the guilt and the wrath for your sin for all of eternity if you will not repent and believe.

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So I would beg of you to do so today. Christ stands willing to receive you.

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He has promised to receive you. He says, all that the Father has given to me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will certainly not cast out.

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Come to him today. He will not cast you out. He will not turn you away. He will forgive your sin. He will grant you eternal life because of what he did on the cross 2 ,000 years ago in dying in our stead.

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You must abandon your own attempts at self -righteousness and trust in the one who is infinitely righteous.

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For those of you who have trusted Christ, who are believers, then you know what this means. This passage has a couple of good lessons for us.

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And number one, that we can rest in and trust the fact that God is sovereign, knowing that if he has promised and predestined to bring the greatest good out of the greatest evil that has ever been committed, he will also do bring good out of all of the lesser evils that will be committed and have been committed over time.

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He's working all things for our good and for his glory. And we can rest and trust in that.

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Second, we can rest in the fact that our price has been paid, that our sin has been atoned for. It's been taken entirely out of the way.

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The infinitely righteous one stood in our stead and bore our sins in his own body on the tree.

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First Peter chapter two, he bore our sins in his own body on the tree, paid that penalty, took the divine wrath and bore it all in our place so that we could be declared righteous and we could be forgiven.

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And not just have our sins wiped out, but that we could be made children of God and be adopted into his family.

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What a great salvation we have been given because of what Christ has done. So Christian, you are safe.

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You are secure. You're in him. And God has predestined and predetermined not just the sacrifice of his son.

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But remember, according to Romans chapter eight, if he who delivered his own son up for us, how will he not with him also freely give us all things?

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He has given us the greatest thing he could possibly give us. Most certainly he will then also turn around and give us all lesser things.

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He will give to us the kingdom. He has predestined you not just to eternal life. He has predestined you to inherit the kingdom with him as well.

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That is his promise to you. All right, let's pray. Father, we are so grateful for what the death of Christ has accomplished on behalf of all who will believe.

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We thank you for the promise of eternal life in him, for the provision of righteousness in him.

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We thank you for predetermining and predestining to occur all of those events which have purchased our salvation.

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And we thank you that you have not left our salvation up to chance, a roll of the dice, or human determination at all, but that you have predetermined these things and they must come to pass.

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If it were not for that, we could have no assurance or confidence in our own salvation if we did not know and love and worship a

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God who has revealed himself in scripture, a God who has revealed himself to be one who predetermines the future and has written all of human history, a

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God who has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world and set your affection upon us.

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If we did not have that God to worship and serve, we could have no confidence that anything would turn out for our good. And we don't serve a

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God who is looking down through the corridors of time and waiting to see what unfolds. We don't serve a God who is reacting to human events and human decisions and human actions.

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We don't serve a God who is reacting to the news each and every day. We serve a God who has orchestrated all of this for our ultimate good and for his ultimate glory.

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We thank you. Thank you, Father, for choosing us. Thank you, Lord Jesus, for dying in our stead. Thank you,

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Holy Spirit, for opening our eyes and drawing our hearts to you in faith and regenerating us, granting us repentance, granting us faith to believe, and bringing us to your

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Son. We thank you, our great, blessed, and triune God, for the salvation that we enjoy in Jesus Christ because of what has been purchased by the

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Son. You have worked together in concert and in perfect harmony together to accomplish our salvation.

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And we praise you, our blessed and triune God, in the name of the Son, by the power of the Spirit, and for the glory of the

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Father. In his name we pray. Amen. All right.

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Well, that is Acts chapter 2. And next week, I think what we'll do is probably take a look at the rest of Acts chapter 2 in the resurrection narrative there, or the resurrection section that Peter discusses with the

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Jews in that same sermon, as he quotes from Acts chapter 16 before sort of clinching it by telling them this one, whom you delivered by the pre -eternal plan for knowledge of God, God has raised up and made him both