Sunday, September 4, 2022 AM

Well, let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Heavenly Father, I thank you for gathering us here today. You are so good to hear our prayers, to answer them, to love us for the sake of your Son, in whom you are well pleased, to give us your Holy Spirit, that we may live in relationship with you, enjoying your many graces.

And this is one of them, that we can come here together in this place and at this time to hear your word. Lord, I ask that as you declare to us the glories of your Son, Jesus Christ,.

That we would rejoice.

That your word about your Son would find a hearty amen in our lives. And as you show us your Son in this word, that you would transform us to look like him in this world. We pray all these things for his sake.

Amen.

We'll invite you to open your Bibles and turn with me to Acts chapter 2. Acts chapter 2, and we will be reading, beginning in verse 25 through verse 36. Acts chapter 2, verses 25 through 36. It is the day of Pentecost.

And as has been promised by many prophets, the Holy Spirit has arrived in just those ways that should get all of the people present thinking about the Old Testament promises. The prophets of old had said it would be like this.

And to the crowd of the dumbfounded and the skeptics, Peter begins to preach, to declare the meaning of Pentecost so that they would not be left with doubt or derision. And Peter simply begins to point out that the arrival of the new covenant made so manifest by the Holy Spirit's presence signals the end of the old covenant.

He says, welcome to the last days of the old for the new has come and good news with it. Even though judgment is pending and he urges them to be delivered from this perverse generation, a generation with the blood of Jesus on their hands, and indeed the blood of all the prophets Christ has ascribed to this perverse generation.

Peter says, be saved. That's the promise from Joel. He said the last days of the old covenant would be just like this in the arrival of the Holy Spirit and there is a promise of salvation. Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

And goes on to identify that Lord, none other than Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, the son of the living God. And he goes on to point out the same truths on a grander scale, not just from Joel, but from David.

Not just from the old covenant prophet Joel, but the old covenant prophet and King David. So that by the testimony of two witnesses, this most wonderful word would be established. Well, let's read beginning in verse 25.

I invite you to stand with me as we read God's word. Here is the word of our savior and sovereign Jesus Christ by his spirit and his servant Luke. For David says concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is at my right hand that I might not be shaken.

Therefore, my heart rejoiced and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest in hope. For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life.

You will make me full of joy in your presence. Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne.

He foreseeing this spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up of which we are all witnesses. Therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see and hear.

For David did not ascent into the heavens, but he says of himself, but he says himself, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. It is with great excitement and great trepidation that we have now come back to football season. Lives are being changed. Routines are being disrupted.

It is what it is. In the off-season, there's really nothing to talk about, even though they try. And there's debate, eventually, they get to the bottom of the barrel and there's nothing left to talk about.

So then they have to talk about who's the greatest of all time, who's the goat as a coach or in a particular position or whatever. And so they have something to talk about. Who is the greatest of all time?

Who's the goat?

And you know, the debates are spirited and you use up airtime, but what if, what if there were two candidates? What if there were two candidates for the greatest of all time? And the debate was raging on the sports show and actually one of those two candidates called in.

What would happen?

One of those two candidates called in and said, you guys are way off base. You guys are going back and forth. Let me just settle this. I'm not the greatest of all time, this other guy is. Here's my reasons.

There's no competition, he's the greatest. Well, now you don't have much to discuss, but at least the debate has been settled, right? The debate has now been settled. In this particular moment in time, here in Acts chapter two, on the day of Pentecost, there are two covenants at work at the same time.

Jesus has come and he has shed his blood and died upon the cross. He was raised from the dead and now reigns at the right hand of the Father. He has brought about the new covenant. He said that's what he was doing and he did.

And he fulfilled all those promises that were made by the prophets about how the Messiah would come and do this very thing. And indeed, one of the major signs that the new covenant was present was the gift of the Holy Spirit.

There's always that central blessing of the new covenant as declared in the Old Testament by the prophets anticipating that better day. The Holy Spirit was promised and an effusion of the Holy Spirit, unlike anything that had ever been seen, that every member of the new covenant would be born again and alive in the Holy Spirit and bear the righteousness of God himself.

So many wonderful promises. And indeed, the new covenant had arrived. But the old covenant was still in operation, still in operation. There were still those priests in that temple on that hill in Jerusalem, still observing the feast day, still ceremonially washing their hands and going through all of those motions that in shadow declared the coming of the Messiah.

But he had come. Two covenants in operation. One appeared to be very grand indeed. One of the wonders of the ancient world. Herod's temple laid over in gold, massive stones that even today, engineers can't figure out how to move.

Acreage, acres of temple property, swarming with activity, power, political power, wealth beyond imagining. Behold the grandeur of the operations of the old covenant. And along comes this ragtag group from Galilee with their thick accents.

And on Pentecost, they start preaching in about 17 different dialects with their thick Galilean accents, declaring the good news of the kingdom, the mighty works of God through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

The debate is on which covenant is better. And all the way through the rest of the New Testament, in the entirety of the New Testament, all of Jesus' parables, and then reading through the New Testament, that is the raging debate.

Which one? Which one?

Who are the people of God? How are we to understand the Bible? How are we to understand the promises of the Old Testament? How are we supposed to now live, given the realities of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ?

Which one is the better covenant? Which one is the right covenant? Which is the greatest of all time? Interesting, isn't it? Interesting. Jesus said that of the Old Covenant, of the Old Testament, there was none greater of the prophets than John, John the Baptist, right?

He was the goat, Jesus said. He's the goat of all the Old Covenant prophets. And do you know what John the Baptist said of Jesus? I'm nothing compared to him. I'm not even worthy to untie his sandal. He's the real deal.

Now that's the kind of covenant transition that is to be desired. That is the preaching of the good news here. The apostles are preaching the good news, and they're calling the folks there, the Jews from all over the Roman Empire, as they've gathered there for this feast day, this feast of harvest, they're calling them to have that same mentality.

That they would rejoice in the greatness of Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, the Son of the living God. That they would be like John the Baptist. Oh, we must decrease, he must increase. He's the real deal.

But you know, there was a lot of resistance to that. A lot of resistance, a lot of jealousy. It was from jealousy that the stewards of the Old Covenant, the Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees, that they were jealous of Christ.

They were jealous like King Saul was jealous of David. Said no, you know, you have Saul and David, you have two anointed at the same time. But Saul's anointing was coming to an end, and David's anointing had just begun, but Saul was jealous of David and wanted to kill him and destroy everything about him.

In the same sense, we've got two anointeds in play here. We've got Israel, the anointed mediator of the Old Covenant that's all shadow but testifying to Christ, but Christ has come, he's there, and he's operating, he's in heaven, he's at the right hand, here are his people, and there's gonna be a jealous conflict that we're gonna read about through the entirety of the New Testament.

Sometimes in the book of Acts, we're gonna find Jews who turn to Christ and rejoice. And sometimes we're gonna find that they resent what's being proclaimed and they go on the attack. And Peter is preaching and saying, hey, there's good news, there's salvation in the Lord, there's deliverance in the Lord, be saved from this perverse generation.

Don't embrace their rejection of Jesus as the Christ. Don't be swept away in the judgment that awaits them. Be saved, call upon the name of the Lord. And in order to convince them of this, Peter, wanting the folks in front of him, the men and brethren in front of him, to submit to the true king of kings, he calls upon the goat, the greatest of all time king in the Old Testament, whose name was David.

And he wants his audience to listen to what David has to say, the greatest king of all time that they knew of, and he wants them to listen to David as David calls into the debate, and he's got something to say about Jesus of Nazareth.

That's what we're looking at right here in this text. So Peter quotes the second half of Psalm 16 in which David, as a prophet, proclaims the resurrection, the death and resurrection of the Messiah. Indeed, even hints at the ascension.

It all fits really well with Jesus of Nazareth, and we looked at Psalm 16 last time we were together. So not only, so we see that David is a prophet speaking about Messiah, but also David is a patriarch of the Messiah, which Peter says in verse 29.

So let's look at verse 29, and we'll go back to verses 25 to 28 in a moment. But first of all, David is a patriarch. Second of all, David is a prophet. Why should we listen to David? Why is he calling upon David as one of the two witnesses?

Well, first of all, David is a patriarch of Christ. Verse 29, men and brethren, let me speak freely to you. Let me speak openly to you, robustly to you, of the patriarch David. He's both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day.

So let's talk about the patriarch David. That word patriarch caught my eye. When I think of the patriarchs, instinctively I think of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, right? That's usually the definition that we have for the patriarchs.

A word meaning chief father, chief father. But David here is called a patriarch. That's interesting to me. When we go and look in Hebrews chapter seven, verse four, we read about the patriarch of Abraham, right?

Abraham, well, we know he's the patriarch, father of Abraham. But what, but then we read in Acts seven, in Stephen's defense of the faith, that the sons of Jacob, the sons of Jacob, the children of Israel, they're called patriarchs as well.

So Abraham's called a patriarch, the children of Jacob are called patriarchs, and David's called a patriarch.

What's the deal?

Why are they patriarchs? Well, when we begin to reflect upon the way that the Old Testament reads, the New Testament reads the Old Testament, we reflect that Jesus Christ is the seed of Abraham, right?

He's the seed of Abraham. He's the promised one. We also reflect upon the fact that he's the sum of Israel. And everything that was said about Israel in the Old Covenant about their function and blessing is said again in the New Testament of Jesus.

So he's the seed of Abraham, he's the sum of Israel, and what else is he called? The son of David, the son of David. And that's why Abraham and Jacob's sons and David are called patriarchs, chief fathers.

And Peter says, we gotta listen to David. It's a fitting thing, Jewish tradition held that David died on Pentecost, on that harvest feast, that David had died on the very day that Peter is preaching. So it just makes sense to bring David up.

Besides the fact, in the last 100 years, David's grave, David's tomb had been infamously breached, first by John Hyrcanus and then secondly by Herod himself. So everybody knew David was dead. They'd checked twice recently, right?

So when David is prophesying in the psalm about you're not gonna leave my soul in the grave, you're not gonna leave my body in the grave, you're not going to allow corruption to afflict me in the grave, Peter says, he's got to be talking about somebody else.

You see how he's making his point? He's a patriarch of Christ. Now why is that so significant? It's so significant that Paul, in describing the message that he had been called to, in Romans chapter one, verses three through four, he's saying, I'm an apostle, I've been sent out to preach a message and my whole ministry is according to these facts.

Romans one, verses three and four, he says, concerning, his ministry is concerning God's Son, Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was born of the seed of David according to the flesh. Born of the seed of David according to the flesh.

And think about what he lays alongside of that. Declared to be the Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness, the Holy Spirit, by the resurrection from the dead. So he lays aside two things.

He says, he is the Son of David according to the flesh and he's the Son of God proven by the Holy Spirit in the resurrection. Why is that so important? Why is that so important? Because Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

He has two full natures, unpolluted, unmixed, brought together into one person. He is God of very God and man of very man, Jesus Christ, God incarnate for us and for our salvation. And he was truly humanly born of David.

You can trace his lineage back to David in two ways, whichever way pleases you, but it's doubly affirmed by Matthew and Luke. He's a descendant of David. Just like the promises said, track it all the way back to Genesis, to David's tribe, Judah, and what Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel, said of his son, the patriarch Judah, that the scepter would not depart from between his feet until Shiloh comes, the one to whom it all belongs and this line of Judah would reign and his kingdom is declared in the Old Testament to have no end.

This kingdom would be greater even than his father David, a kingdom that would have no restrictions ultimately upon its expanse and its timeframe. Indeed, all of Peter's audience knew that the Messiah would come from David.

They all knew that. They all knew that the Messiah was from the tribe of Judah. Their expectations in those regards had been well-established and they were correct that they should be looking for a son of David, somebody from the tribe of Judah.

And Peter says, well, it's even better than that. It's even better than that. The patriarch David speaks of his son in these following ways. But the hope for the son of David was strongly established all the way back in 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 16.

We need to look on that with fresh eyes because we need to remember what it was like to be living in anticipation of the Messiah and then to be told he has come, he has arrived, he has accomplished that which he had been prophesied to do.

So in 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 16, we come to a moment in David's life when he had had great success and a pause of peace in his life. And he began to reflect upon the blessings of God and the goodness of God and realized, I live in a wonderful house after so many years of being on the run from my enemies.

And here I am, settled in my city. But the throne of God, the Ark of the Covenant, the worship of the Lord himself is in a tent? No, this cannot be born. I will build a house for God here in Jerusalem.

And he tells Nathan his plan. And Nathan's like, you go for it, man. Sounds good to me. And Nathan goes home and God says, hold up. You go back and you tell David it's not his job. Not his job. The son of David will build the temple.

Son of David will build the temple. And God says to Nathan, you go tell David, thanks for the offer to build me a house, but here's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna build you a house. I'm gonna build you a household, a lineage.

And there's promises that I want you to hold fast to. So let's look at that 2 Samuel 7, verses 12 through 16. The prophet Nathan speaking for the Lord to David. When your days are fulfilled and you rest with your fathers I will set up your seed after you who will come from your body and I will establish his kingdom.

He shall build a house for my name and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. Remember all the conflict about which one of David's sons would reign? How many times was there conflict, violent conflict about which son would be the seed of David on the throne?

But God in his sovereign providence orchestrated things so that it was Solomon. It was the one of whom God said to the prophet call him Jedidiah for my sake, meaning my beloved. Put my beloved upon the throne.

Put the real son of David upon the throne despite all the contenders. He's the one who's going to build me a house. He's the one who's going to build the temple. Hope you're catching all of the anticipations of the Messiah in the way that the story of David and his son unfolds.

Verse 14, I will be his father and he shall be my son. Now that sounds familiar. Where else did God say that? Well, he said that in Exodus of a nation called Israel.

Israel.

And he rebuked Pharaoh through his prophet Moses and said, you let my people go.

Why?

Because Israel is my firstborn son. Israel is my beloved son and you've got a hold of him. In fact, you're trying to destroy him and to kill him. You're persecuting him and you've got to let him go. And Pharaoh said, no, no, no.

And ultimately God then said, because you have afflicted my firstborn, I'll afflict yours. And he sends the angel of death upon Egypt and the firstborn was being killed throughout all of Egypt. Why? Because Pharaoh had a hold of God's son.

And God said, he's my son, I'll deal with him. And he says what he says of Israel as the nation, as the whole throughout various portions of the Old Testament. Now he says this of a particular person,.

David's seed.

I'm gonna call him my son and I'm a father to him. Now, how does that work? Because in the monarchy of Israel, especially in the monarchy, the king could stand for the whole. The king represents all of them at the same time.

When we read in the Old Testament, for example, that king so-and-so went to war with king so-and-so, it wasn't just two guys with clubs in a mud hole. It was this whole nation versus this whole nation because the king stood in and represented the entirety of the people.

So it makes sense that God would say of the king who would represent the whole, my son, even as he said of the whole of Israel, my son. Do you see how the one stands in for the other? Now notice what he says about his son and how he's going to deal with him according to the standards of the Old Covenant.

God is consistent. Verse 14, I will be his father and he shall be my son. If he commits iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men and with the blows of the sons of men. Isn't that not what he promised to Israel, his son?

If you commit iniquity, if you transgress the covenant, I will punish you, I will afflict you, I will use the means of my pleasure to whatever they are at my disposal, I will use them to afflict you. He says the same thing of the son of David, meaning if he is a covenant breaker, then I will punish him.

But if he's a covenant keeper, then I'm going to bless him. Verse 15, but my mercy shall not depart from him as I took it from Saul, whom I removed from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be established forever before you and your throne shall be established forever.

Meaning God's promising an everlasting throne, an everlasting heir, a kingdom that will know no ends and will not be brought to an end by the cycles of sin and judgment, but indeed a kingdom that will continue on and on and on to the glory of God.

Ultimately, promising this in a descendant of David. That's the promise, and that promise is spoken of throughout the Old Testament and the New Testament, very significant promise of God. Now the question for the Jews, the question for the audience to whom Peter is preaching is indeed this, who is this descendant of David?

Who is the son of David who will reign upon David's throne? We're all very interested because the last one to reign on David's throne was a pretty bad king, his name was Zedekiah, and he got his kids killed in front of him and his eyes put out, and he died in despair in Babylon.

Last word that you have in the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, we call it, the very last word in 2 Chronicles. 2 Chronicles is the last book in the Hebrew Bible. Very last word is about Jeconiah.

Jeconiah, who is a descendant of David, who was in prison, but finally one of the pagan kings took him out of prison, put him at the table, and treated him kindly. I said, okay, there's a glimmer of hope there that God is showing his favor still upon the descendant of David, but here's the problem, in the city of Jerusalem, though it's rebuilt and the temple's rebuilt, there is no descendant of David sitting on a throne in Jerusalem on Mount Zion.

It's like, it's like there was this tree, a blessed tree, it was the lineage of David, and in judgment, God cut it down,.

And there's nothing left but a stump,.

Which is why Isaiah prophesies of the shoot coming out of the stump of Jesse. Indeed, the shoot is called a branch, a branch of righteousness that will be raised up out of that stump. Indeed, a descendant of David that would come to the throne and bring to pass those promises that God had made time and again, and although we reserve it for Christmas, we really ought not.

Isaiah 9, six through seven, for unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father.

How is the son called the father? The term father is a term used of kings. It's an honor to kings. He's an everlasting king, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace, there will be no end.

Same kingdom that we read about in other places that has no end to the kingdom. Upon, notice where the government and the peace will be established. Notice where the kingdom will be. Upon the throne of David.

No end will this one reign, this child, this son. He will reign upon the throne of David and over his kingdom to order it and establish it with judgment and justice from that time forward, even forever.

How will this even be able to come to pass and come together? The zeal of the Lord of hosts will perform this. If Yahweh sabaoth that the Lord of hosts who has everything under his control from the locusts to the galaxies, if he's really energetic about something, I think it's gonna get done.

Just try to stop it. So we know who this child is. We know who it is. We rejoice in his birth every year. We rejoice in his resurrection every year. And we should rejoice in his ascension every year. We should remember who this is.

This is the greater son of David. This is Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, the son of the living God. In Jeremiah chapter 33, verses 14 through 22, we can look over there. I'm just gonna read through this passage and briefly comment as we move.

We don't have time for a fuller study of it today. This is just one example of the new covenant promises that entail Jesus, that entail who the Christ is in relationship to David.

Just one of many.

But I think it's appropriate. Jeremiah 33, beginning in verse 14. Behold, the days are coming. Good news ahead. Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, that I will perform that good thing which I have promised to the house of Israel and to the house of Judah.

In other words, Jeremiah, if you've never read through Jeremiah, it's a lot of doom and gloom, but deservedly so, the judgment of God upon the covenant breakers. However, throughout is woven this promise, the new covenant.

This is not all that God wrote. There's a good thing coming. There's a new covenant coming. Verse 15, in those days and at that time, I will cause to grow up to David a branch of righteousness. Remember what the town Nazareth means, branch town.

It should be called Nazarene, right? He's the branch, a branch of righteousness coming out of that stump of Jesse. He shall execute judgment and righteousness in the earth. In those days, Judah will be saved and Jerusalem will dwell safely.

And this is the name by which she will be called, the Lord, our righteousness. Just like Joel said, whoever will call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. And you continue to read their salvation, their safety in Jerusalem, in Zion, that's where we must flee.

And everybody in that special city being ruled over by Christ will be known by the righteousness, the very righteousness of God himself. For thus says the Lord, David shall never lack a man to sit on the throne of the house of Israel, nor shall the priest, the Levites, like a man to offer burnt offerings before me to kindle great offering and to sacrifice continually.

All that's about to end, right? Jerusalem's about to be destroyed in 586 BC. There'll be no king on the throne and no Levites in the temple. The entire worship of God, the holiness of God that was being mediated through that place is gonna be completely stripped away and taken away.

The authority of God being mediated in that place through the king, the authority of God is gonna be completely stripped and completely taken away.

What then?

What happens when the holy city falls, when Mount Zion is overrun by the pagans and all of it's a desolate waste? Oh, this will not be the end. This will not be the end. God's authority and God's holiness will be mediated again and eternally so without ceasing.

Verse 19, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah saying, thus says the Lord, if you can break my covenant with the day and my covenant with the night so that there will not be day and night in their season, then my covenant may also be broken with David, my servant, so that he will not have a son reign on his throne and with the Levites, the priests, my ministers.

Now, God says, well, if you can stop day and night, you'll stop me from doing this. You just try.

What is he saying?

There's going to be a descendant of David who reigns and this is a kingdom that will be a kingdom of priests. What does the New Testament call those who were in Christ? Kingdom of priests. Verse 22, as the host of heaven cannot be numbered nor the sand of the sea measured, so I will multiply the descendants of David, my servant, and the Levites who minister to me.

Hang on a second. This host of heaven business was Genesis 15 and said to Abraham, and this sands of sea stuff, the grains of dirt and land, that was Abraham, Genesis 13. Why is this being said to David?

You know, Abraham was a patriarch. David is a patriarch. He's saying the descendants of David, Christ is the seed of Abraham. Christ is the son of Israel. Christ is the son of David and all the promises of God are yes in Christ.

So David is a patriarch, but let's clarify who has preeminence. Without Christ, David is nothing. David's glory is entirely attendant to Christ's glory. He is but the moon to the light of Christ. This is a satellite around the light and the gravity of Jesus.

And Christ is David's greater son. David is a patriarch of Christ and David is a prophet of Christ. Now, we need to be clear on how this is said. Verses 25 to 28 is a quote from the second half of Psalm 16.

And Peter quotes that and then says, you know, this couldn't possibly just be about David, right? David surely was writing out of his own experiences, but he's also writing by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

And remember that Peter says in his letter, and ultimately who's speaking through the Spirit and his prophets, it's Christ himself. So David is proclaiming his own experience as God's anointed, the perils of death that he often faces.

He is expressing hope in his resurrection, but ultimately this cannot be said merely of David himself. Verse 30, therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne.

He's alluding there to Psalm 132, verse 11. He's already quoted Psalm 16, now he's alluding to Psalm 132, 11. And then he says, he, David, verse 31, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one, saying what?

That his soul, the soul of Christ, the life of Christ was not left in Hades, Sheol, the grave, nor did his flesh see corruption. His body was laid in the tomb, but it did not decay, for he was raised the third day.

Verse 32, this Jesus, God has raised up of which we are all witnesses. See what he's saying? He's saying that David is the patriarch of the Messiah, but not only the patriarch, but the prophet. And he identified who the Messiah would be, who his son would be, and you would know him because God would raise him up from the dead.

That's how you would know who the true son of David is because God would raise him up from the dead. And he says, to this fact, we are all witnesses. It's undeniable that God raised Jesus of Nazareth up from the dead.

Those who were denying it and paying people off and spreading lies about it, I mean, it was such a blatant, obvious, gaslighting lie. I mean, you could just smell Satan coming out of their mouth. Yeah, come to think of it, we've got a lot of demonic halitosis today, too.

But Peter says it's undeniable. There's no denying these facts that Jesus Christ has risen up from the dead. And this, he says, is explaining why the Holy Spirit has arrived. These things that you see and hear, the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, this is just evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed the promised son of David, the Messiah, whom you, Israel, killed, crucified, but God raised up and even brought him up to his right hand.

Christ has now ascended. He is indeed that king who sits on David's throne, the critical promise that the new covenant has come to pass is indeed that David is reigning, that David's son is reigning on David's throne.

How do we know that's the fact? Because the Holy Spirit, also crucial promise of the new covenant, has arrived. That's how we know these things, Peter is saying. Let's phone up the goat, David, and he says, like John the Baptist, no, there's someone greater.

Someone greater. Track with the argument very carefully because there was a lot of Jews still waiting around for the son of David to reign on the throne in Jerusalem. But look what Peter says. Peter says to his Jewish brethren, welcome to the fulfillment of the promise.

He says, verse 30, David was a prophet. He knew that God had sworn an oath to him that the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne. Did God raise up Christ?

Don't we celebrate this, not just once a year, but every single day on Sunday, that God has raised up Christ? And where did God raise up Christ to? David's throne. David's throne. Verse 33, therefore, being exalted to the right hand of God and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he poured out this which you now see in here.

Yeah, so he's exalted, he's enthroned. Didn't David prophesy about this? Verse 34 and 35, Psalm 110. The Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand, or I'll make your enemies your footstool. Where is Christ now?

Where is he now? He's not in the grave. He's alive. He's not here. He's reigning from heaven. His kingdom is not of this world. It's in this world. It's not of this world. His throne is in heaven at the right hand of God.

That's where he's reigning. And verse 36. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly, and how important would it be for the Jew to know this assuredly, to have it down pat concretized in their minds that the Messiah has indeed come.

He has indeed fulfilled the promises. He has indeed been raised from the dead. He has indeed, as the son of David, ascended to the right hand of the Father to reign upon David's throne. Know this assuredly, know this assuredly.