Sunday, October 16, 2022 AM

Sunnyside Baptist Church

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Let's go to the Lord together in prayer. Lord, I thank you for bringing us together.

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Thank you for providing for us, and thank you for your faithfulness. Thank you that you always keep your word.

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Thank you for revealing to us who you are through your Son, by this unfailing word through your

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Holy Spirit. We thank you that in your mercy and in your goodness, for your own glory and by your grace, you save us through your

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Son. And you gather us together to give praise to you, to worship you, to rejoice in your truth.

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And I pray that you would help us with that today, and that you would lead us to encourage one another in your truth, that you would have your way in our hearts, and we would look ever more like your

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Son, Jesus Christ, our Savior, our Sovereign, in whom is all our hope.

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We pray these things in his name. Amen. I invite you to open your

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Bibles and turn with me to Acts 3, Acts chapter 3, and we'll be reading beginning in verse 17 this morning.

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Acts chapter 3, beginning in verse 17. As we begin the book of Acts, we hear

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Jesus speaking to his faithful disciples about his agenda for them.

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The time, the precious time that he had between his resurrection and ascension, those final days he had with them.

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He made it all about the kingdom of heaven, the kingdom of God, the gospel of the kingdom.

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He instructed them in this theme that he had already spent so much time on in the years that he had with them.

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And he instructed them to be his witnesses, beginning in Jerusalem and going out from there to Judea and to Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth.

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He told them that before they embarked upon this all -important commission to preach the good news of the kingdom to everyone, that they were to wait.

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They were to wait in Jerusalem for the promise of the Father, the promise of the new covenant, the

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Holy Spirit who would come and especially equip them and empower them for this work of preaching the good news of the kingdom to everybody everywhere.

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And the promise of the Father indeed came. The Holy Spirit arrived in a special way on Pentecost, which we read in Acts chapter 2.

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And in such a way that everyone's attention, although the understanding wasn't there, the attention was there upon the apostles as they preached the good news of Jesus Christ in languages they had never learned.

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And to answer the confusion and to answer the skeptics,

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Peter began preaching from Joel, explaining that the arrival of the

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Holy Spirit signaled the last days of the old covenant, which would be capped off with judgment.

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However, salvation, salvation was to be had in the Lord. Whoever would call upon the name of the

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Lord shall be saved. Who is that Lord? Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Christ, the Son of the living

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God. Indeed, we know him to be the Lord because he was raised from the dead the third day and ascended to the right hand of God, just like King David said would occur in his prophetic psalms.

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And after preaching this good news and laying upon his fellow Israelites the guilt of rejection of Christ and the murder of Christ, those who heard him and received that word said, what must we do?

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What now? And Peter called them to repent. Peter called them to, indeed, call upon the name of the

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Lord. And the Lord added to the church thousands and day by day added to the church those who were being saved and they were baptized, demonstrating their faith in Christ and were then included in the number of the believers.

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And so, just as Jesus promised, he built his church and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. And yet, this great excitement and this wonderful beginning to the church put into sharp contrast what was going on still in Jerusalem.

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Again, the Lord said, wait in Jerusalem till power from on high comes upon you and you'll be equipped to preach the good news of the kingdom beginning in Jerusalem.

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And so, equipped with power, Peter and John head to the temple at the hour of prayer, the time of the evening sacrifice.

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And there is a man who was lame from his mother's womb, a part of the system, just outside the beautiful gate, never allowed inside, never getting healing, never getting forgiveness, never getting deliverance, always kept at bay.

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And Peter and John, in the name of Jesus Christ, say to him, rise up and walk. And the man, by the grace of God, believes upon the name of Christ and is healed.

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He is indeed restored and saved. And he enters into the temple with Peter and John, walking and leaping and praising

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God. And all the attention, once again, is on these apostles and what wonderful work of Jesus Christ is going on now.

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And an explanation is in order. How is this man, lame for decades, a fixture of the temple system, how is he now whole?

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Well, he is whole by the power of Jesus Christ, the risen Lord. That's how he's whole. And Peter lays it on his brethren again.

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This is the same Jesus whom you crucified. But this man has been made whole by the name of Jesus, who has been raised from the dead.

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And that's where we've left off there in Acts chapter 3 and verse 16. And we continue on with Peter's sermon, beginning in verse 17.

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I invite you to stand with me as I read God's holy word, the preaching of Peter from the pen of Luke, by the inspiration of the

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Spirit of Christ. Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

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But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, he has thus fulfilled.

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Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the

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Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which

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God has spoken by the mouth of all his holy prophets since the world began. For Moses truly said to the fathers,

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The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things, whatever he says to you.

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And it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.

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Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow, as many as have spoken, have also foretold these days.

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You are sons of the prophets and of the covenant, which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

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To you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you, and turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

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This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. We're going to need to appreciate the challenge being set before the men of Israel who have gathered in the temple courts there among the columns of Solomon's porch as they begin to hear the preaching of Peter.

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They see before them the evidence. There's the power on display right before them.

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This man was born lame. He had laid there day after day at that gate, legs shriveled up, a pathetic man day after day, year after year, decade after decade.

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But now, he's walking and leaping and praising God, and he's got a hold of, and I imagine he's got a hand on one shoulder of Peter and the other shoulder of John.

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He's not letting go of his new brothers. And he's excited as all get out.

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And everybody is amazed. And in the explanation that Peter gives, he tells everyone,

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This man has been made whole. This man has been delivered. This man has been saved by none other than Jesus of Nazareth, who is the

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Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God, the one whom you crucified, whom

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God raised from the dead. And you need to have faith in Jesus too.

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You need to turn your attention to Christ as well. The challenge here is of a very tall order.

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These men have come to the temple because they are trying to be faithful. These people have come to the temple at the hour of prayer because that was what was required and that's what was customary.

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They're trying to follow through on what they know to be good and right and true. They're there at the hour of sacrifice, the evening sacrifice, where some lamb is getting its neck slit and the blood is being poured out.

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And it's being dissected and offered up as a burnt offering to God. And they're looking upon that, and perhaps some of them are reflecting upon the meaning of it.

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And they're trying to do what they've been instructed to do by their teachers, by their rabbis, by their parents.

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This is the way we do things. We're God's people. We come to God's place. We do what

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He says. We go through these things. And yet now,

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Peter is telling them that they stand guilty of opposing everything that their entire nation means.

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Everything about Israel was oriented upon the Messiah. Prophets they had, priests they had, kings they had had, but there was only one who was to be the anointed of anointed.

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They anointed their prophets, they anointed their priests, they had anointed their kings, but there was one who had been promised in so many different ways.

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The king of kings, the great prophet, the great high priest, the anointed of all anointed.

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The word anointed in Hebrew, Messiah. In Greek, Christos.

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The anointed one. Everything about them, everything about their lives was waiting for the Messiah. And they had jumped the gun so many times.

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This one and that one saying, oh, I'm the Messiah. No, I'm the Messiah. So many had been led astray.

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They had had so many false starts. But now they're being told, despite your devotion, despite the fact that you are the kind of people who keep to the customs and to the laws, despite the fact that you show up for the hour of prayer, despite the fact you've come for the evening sacrifice, despite all of that, you stand guilty of opposing everything

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God was doing through your entire nation's history. You stand guilty of murdering, of opposing, of raging against the

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Messiah. You are those raging and plotting and condemned in Psalm 2.

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Now that's a tall order to believe.

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Then again, here's this man who was born lame. And now he's as whole as whole can be.

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There's something to this. And yeah, we heard that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead, and the tomb is empty, and anybody can go check.

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And sure enough, we can't explain these things. But you know, if I'm going to turn away from the evening sacrifice and the morning sacrifice, if I'm going to turn away from these customs, if I'm really going to accept the fact that I have conspired together and I stand covenantally guilty of the murder of Messiah, you know,

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I'm going to have to have that in writing, right? It's not just about the experience of the sales job.

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This is impressive and so on and so forth, but I'm going to need that in writing. And that's exactly what Peter does, just as he did at Pentecost.

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So here, in Acts 3, he preaches and he bases the moment, the opportunity on the healing.

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But he bases their need for repentance and their trust in Jesus Christ upon the

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Word of God. The healing, the miracle, the power, the deliverance, this act of mercy from God is the opportunity to draw attention to their need of Christ.

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But when he tells them to turn away from their sins, from their selves, from their traditions, from their system and so on, to turn to Christ and Christ alone, he preaches the

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Word of God to them. He comes from the prophets. Let's talk about what the prophets have said.

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Let's talk about the holy scriptures, because they need it in writing. And the kind of writing, it matters a great deal.

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The only kind of reliable writing is indeed God's Holy Word. What we see in this portion of Acts 3 is that the

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Christ who is declared in Scripture, the Christ who is declared in Scripture is our

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Savior, and so we are to hope in Him. The Christ declared in Scripture is our Savior, and we are to hope in Him.

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And we begin with this word of repentance, just as we saw in Acts 2.

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So here again, Peter says, repent, verse 19.

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He says, look, you need to repent. You need to understand how you have sinned against God.

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You need to understand the nature of your guilt. You need to understand the kind of condemnation that you stand under.

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You need to understand the reality of the judgment that is pending upon you as you are a part of this perverse generation that has so thoroughly been condemned by Christ.

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Judgment is pending, and they need to repent. You know, this repentance needs to be clarified.

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Their need must be clarified by the Word of God, by the definitions that come from God's Word, not from somebody else's lived experience, not from some sort of emotionally moving anecdote.

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But who they are before God, their standing before Him, and their need to repent must all be given definition from the

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Word of God, from Scripture alone. And so the sinners are confronted.

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Peter says a little bit earlier, he says in verse 13, you delivered

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Jesus up and denied Him in the presence of Pilate. Verse 14, he says, you denied the

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Holy One and the just, and you asked for a murderer to be granted to you. He says in verse 15, you killed the

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Prince of Life, the crime of all crimes, the worst possible thing that anyone could have ever done.

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Remember Paul Washer mentioning that Jonathan Edwards says that man is so depraved, so evil, that if he could ever kill

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God, if he ever had the chance to kill God, he'd do it. Proof positive is in how they treated the

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Son of God. And so they stand guilty of the crime of all crimes, and they need to repent.

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They need salvation. They need deliverance. And praise be to God, there is deliverance.

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There is salvation. And Peter's going to explain to them biblically, scripturally, their sin.

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And he's going to explain to them biblically and scripturally their salvation. So he says in verse 17, yet now, brethren,

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I know that you did it in ignorance, as did also your rulers.

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He says you did it. And we need to recognize that.

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Unless sinners are confronted with the reality of sin, from what will they repent?

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Unless sinners are confronted with the reality of sin, how will they understand the judgment of God that is upon them whether they want it to be or not?

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Whether we like to think about it or not. The wrath of God abides upon sinful man.

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And they must be confronted, we must be confronted, with the Word of God if we're going to understand that.

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Do you remember the people of Nineveh? Do you remember the people of Nineveh who were wicked and cruel and hated the

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Jews and did awful things in the world? They were the

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Nazis of Jonah's day. And God said to Jonah, go to Nineveh.

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You'll preach to Nineveh. And he knew that that would give them opportunity to repent. He knew that would give them opportunity to be delivered from the judgment of God.

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And so he hated them so much he refused to go. But God made him go anyway. For God prepared a storm.

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And God prepared a fish. And took him to Nineveh. And look at the mercy of God upon Nineveh.

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Jonah, who was in the belly of the fish, bottom of the sea, for three days and three nights, came back out of that and then went through Nineveh, that great city, for three days and preached a very simple message.

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Yet 40 days and this city will be overthrown. Now where's the love?

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Where's the winsomeness, Jonah? But everyone realized that they were under the condemnation of God.

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That they were sinful and they needed to repent in hopes that God, who had no obligation to spare them, might spare them in his mercy.

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And so from the king on down, they repented and sat in sackcloth and ashes and repented of their wicked ways and their evil ways.

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And God spared them, much to the chagrin of Jonah. And how much greater mercy

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God shows upon this perverse generation. For they were given the sign of Jonah.

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As Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights, so the son of man was in the earth and he was raised the third day.

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And it wasn't just for 40 days that Jesus and his followers preached the good news of the kingdom and the need for them to repent.

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But for 40 years, they preached. And declared the need to repent and turn away from their sins before the destruction fell upon Jerusalem.

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Before this perverse generation was destroyed. But sinners must be confronted.

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And we read about the grace of God and thousands coming to the

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Lord. Thousands and thousands of Jews turning away from their sin. Turning away from the perverted system and turning to the

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Lord, the Savior. And trusting in Him and finding in Jesus of Nazareth, the

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Christ. How did this happen? How does the kingdom advance?

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How does Jesus ensure that the gates of Hades will not prevail against the church that He builds? How does it happen?

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It happens through the preaching of the Word. It happens because the Word of God is the sword of the

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Spirit. It is sharp. It is incisive.

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It lands at the very core of who we are. How could it not?

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We're made in God's image. God breathed the breath of life into us. We were made by His Word for His Word.

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And so when the Word of God comes, it cuts right to the heart of us all. And it's like the preview of Judgment Day when everything gets sorted out.

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And that's what the Word of God does. It sorts everything out in our lives and shows us what's what. From God's point of view.

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That we may understand where we stand with Him. And that's what's happening here.

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Peter is taking up the Word of God and he's preaching it to his brethren. So that they may know who they are in the eyes of God.

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It is a moment of judgment prior to Judgment Day. So the opportunity is given.

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The moment is arranged by the Lord for these sinners to repent of their sins. And to turn to Him by way of His Son.

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Now, make no mistake. When we read verse 17. When we read verse 17. It sounds like these folks ought not to...

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You know, it should be too hard on them. For two reasons. One, Peter says, brethren.

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We always give our family a little bit of a pass. Right? Blood's thicker than water.

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Brethren. And, ignorance. Brethren, I know you did it in ignorance.

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As did also your rulers. And we're all ready to atone for their sins.

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Simply because family relations and ignorance. But these two things are not atoning.

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And these do not stand as excuses before God. All the world is made guilty before God.

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Under His law. Without excuse, Romans 3 tells us. No excuses at all.

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So being called brethren is not an excuse. And being called ignorant is not an excuse.

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These men are responsible before God. Both covenantally and ignorantly.

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Now let's reflect. In verses 12 and 13. How does

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Peter identify these folks? These fellow Israelites. These men here in Solomon's porch.

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How does he identify them in verse 12? Verse 13. He says, men of Israel. Men of Israel.

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And then verse 13. The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The God of our fathers.

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You hear that? He's identifying them because they're all of Israel.

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They're all part of Israel. They're all part of that old covenant. And they all have covenant responsibilities before God.

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They have a covenant standing before God as the nation of Israel. And Peter said the same thing.

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To all those Jews from disparate places who came to the feast of Pentecost. That harvest feast in Acts 2.

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They came from all over for this feast. Men from a thousand miles that way.

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A thousand miles this way. Five hundred miles north. Five hundred miles south. All gathering together in Jerusalem for this

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Pentecost feast. And Peter points at them and says, men of Israel. You are guilty of murdering the

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Messiah. Well, were they on the Sanhedrin? Were all these people from hundreds and a thousand miles away, were they present there at Passover?

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Chanting in the crowd before Pilate. We have no king but Caesar. His blood be upon us and our children.

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Were every single one of those people there? No. So what right does Peter have to point at all these men of Israel and say, you stand guilty of murdering the

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Messiah? Oh, that's the way it worked in the old covenant, right?

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The whole nation would be guilty of something even though some of them didn't actively do it.

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The whole nation would be guilty of the worship of Molech even though some men groaned in despair about the matter.

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The judgment would come upon the whole nation at once. For the sins of the leaders. And so they stand covenantally guilty, covenantally responsible for the murder of the

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Messiah, for the opposition to the one to whom they owed all of their allegiance, to the one they owed all their worship.

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They stood covenantally responsible as part of that perverse generation of which

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Peter said, be saved from what? This perverse generation.

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Why? It's under the judgment of God. It's soon to fall. He says, men of Israel, he says, you delivered

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Jesus over. You denied him. You asked for the murderer instead and you killed the prince of life.

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And to strengthen that, Peter says a little bit later on in verse 25, you are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which

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God made with our fathers. You see how he's identifying them? You're covenantally responsible.

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You know, Stephen preached the same thing. You know, the sermon that got him killed? He said the same thing.

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In Acts chapter 7 and verse 52, he tells those who were getting really rather irritated with him that they all stood responsible for the deaths of all the prophets.

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How could they? They weren't alive during that time. You know, Stephen was just following the pattern of his Lord in Matthew 23 when

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Jesus said, you, this generation, on you shall come all the blood of all the prophets whom you killed, starting with Abel all the way to Zechariah, the son of Berekiah.

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You stand guilty of all that blood. Covenantally responsible. And so, this word brethren identifies that God will bring his judgments in accordance with the covenant cursings and the covenant judgments that he had told them he was going to do a long time ago in Leviticus and Deuteronomy.

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Because God is a God of his word. He keeps his promises. And he told them what he would do to them as a people and to their temple and to their cities if they continue to break his covenant, if they continue to oppose him.

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And you know what? He did exactly, exactly what he promised he would do. And so, when they realize that they stand covenantally responsible before God and that judgment is nigh, they are being told that they are in need of salvation, in need of repentance.

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Also, and this may surprise us, they're ignorantly responsible. Do you see that?

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Yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance as also did your rulers. Now, normally we would hear that and say, oh, well, you're off the hook.

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I mean, if you didn't know, you didn't know, so you're not at fault. Right?

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Justification by ignorance. Forgiveness by ignorance. Atonement through ignorance.

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Reflect upon what Jesus said at the cross. Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

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They know not what they do, but they still are in need of forgiveness. Do you hear that? Why is that?

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Because sin is understood not over and against the ability and experience of men, but sin can only be understood according to the character of God.

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Sin is lawlessness, the Apostle John tells us in 1 John. And the law is the expression of the character of God himself.

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Sin is that which is against God. We cannot understand sin or define sin according to the abilities or the experiences of men.

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We can only understand sin in accordance with who God is and His glory. For those who have sinned fall short of what?

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Not the epitome of human flourishing, but those who sin fall short of the glory of God.

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Who He is. And so although they are ignorant, they are still guilty.

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Now, let's consider of what particularly were they ignorant. Well, we are told that in the previous verses.

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Do you see what they did? Because Peter says, verse 17, you did it in ignorance.

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But what was the thing that they did? Well, they delivered up and denied

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God's servant Jesus, whom

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He glorified. They denied Him in the presence of Pilate, when

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Pilate was trying to let Him go. They denied the Holy One and the Just One.

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They would rather have a murderer be delivered to them and they would rather kill the

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Prince of Life, the one whom God raised up from the dead and set at His right hand as King of kings and Lord of lords.

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In other words, they were ignorant of the glory of Christ. They were ignorant of the glory of Christ.

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You did it in your ignorance. And when we reflect upon what they were ignorant of, this only adds to their guilt.

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It rather does not take away. How could they be ignorant of who the

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Savior was? How could they be ignorant that this Yeshua was to take them into the

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Promised Land, the next stage after Moses? How are they going to be ignorant of Christ being the

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Lamb of God? How could they be ignorant of the glory of Christ when

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He did all of those miracles right in front of them? When He spoke the

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Word of God with authority? When He was the epitome of the wisdom of God?

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How could they be ignorant of Him, God's chosen servant who brings in the new covenant?

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How could they be ignorant of the one who was raised from the dead the third day? How could they be ignorant after seeing

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Him act and seeing Him do what He did in the temple and how He opposed the corruption of the stewards of the old covenant?

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How could they be ignorant of the Prince of Life, the Chief, the

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Captain, the Archegos of Life? How could they be ignorant of who

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He is? They were like Philistines shredding the tabernacle.

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How could they be ignorant of the Lord who is our righteousness?

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That's what they were ignorant of. They were ignorant of Christ's glory. They did not know

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Him. And why? Why did they not know

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Him? He came to His own, but His own did not receive Him. Why did they not know

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Him? Because they were ignorant without the grace of God.

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I want you to think about that very carefully. People who lived in the days of Christ, who heard

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Him speak, who followed Him around, who ate the loaves and the fishes, those who witnessed mighty miracles,

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Him even raising the dead, did not know who

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He was. It's laughable. It's laughable. People today, the skeptics who say,

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I'll believe as soon as I see a sign. Those who lived in the days of Christ saw all the signs and they didn't believe.

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Why not? Well, without God's grace, none of us believe.

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And that's the truth. Paul preaches the same themes in Acts chapter 13.

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He preaches the very same themes that Peter does. It's an interesting study to see the preaching of Paul and the preaching of Peter in the book of Acts and to see how very much their sermons cover the same topics.

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But in Acts 13, in verse 27, I'll back up to verse 26.

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He says, Men and brethren, sons of the family of Abraham, my fellow

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Jews, my brethren, and those among you who fear

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God, to you the word of this salvation has been sent. The gospel came to the

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Jew first. In fact, Galatians says it came to Abraham first. For those who dwell in Jerusalem and their rulers, verse 27, because they did not know him, nor even the voices of the prophets, which are read every

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Sabbath, have fulfilled them in condemning them. Do you hear what Paul is saying? The people who lived in Jerusalem and the rulers were ignorant of who

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Christ was. Not only that, they were ignorant of the prophets that were read to them every day, every week in synagogue.

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They were ignorant of what those meant. And in fact, in their ignorance, in their opposition, in their murdering of the

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Messiah, they actually fulfilled the prophets they were ignorant of. We need the grace of God.

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2 Corinthians chapter 4, verse 3 says,

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If our gospel is veiled... Why are they ignorant? If our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, because whose minds the

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God of this age has blinded, who do not believe. Lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

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He did shine. He is the light of the world. He did come and tabernacle among us.

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And his light shone so bright, and yet the veil was over them the whole time. The veil,

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Paul is saying, is still on them. He says, verse 5,

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For we do not preach ourselves. Peter and John says, Don't look at us. It is not us who by our merits have healed this man, but Christ Jesus the

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Lord, and ourselves your bondservants for Jesus' sake. Now listen.

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For it is the God who commanded light to shine out of darkness. You know,

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Genesis 1. Let there be light. For it is the same God who commanded light to shine out of darkness who was shown in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

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That's why the hymn says, It takes a miracle. It takes a miracle to save us.

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Praise be to God for that miracle. And Peter, in the appointed fashion of his

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Lord, is doing exactly what God desires in the advancement of His kingdom to bring the light of the gospel of Jesus Christ to these in darkness that by His grace light would pierce into their lives and they would be saved.

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The same idea is in the verse right before verse 17.

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Verse 16, Peter is explaining how this man got healed. And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man strong.

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It's the name of Jesus Christ, His person and work, who has healed this man who was born lame. That's why this man stands on his two feet.

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This is why this man can jump around. Not because of who we are, but because of who Christ is. And it's through faith in His name.

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This man was healed because he believed upon the name of Jesus Christ, His person and work. That's why this man was healed.

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That's what made this man strong, whom you see and you know. Yes, the faith which comes through Him, the faith which comes through Christ, has given

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Him, this man, this perfect soundness in the presence of you all. Not only the object of our faith, but the origin of it.

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For every single blessing of our salvation comes through Jesus Christ alone. Even the faith and repentance by which we turn to Him is won for us by Christ on the cross.

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Otherwise, we're still in ignorance. Now, ignorance. Ignorance does not deliver us.

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All men are morally, spiritually accountable to God. We're all made in His image. We're all made in His image.

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We all wear the uniform of godliness. Have you noticed that those made in the image of God act so ungodly?

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I love that verse in Jude. He says the word ungodly four times in one verse. And isn't that the problem?

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That those made in the image of God act ungodly, betraying the uniform that we were created to wear in every fashion?

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This is why God is offended at us. We're traitors to our

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Creator. We are accountable even in our ignorance. Indeed, ignorance is especially condemning as we embrace it and nurture it.

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John 3, 17, we read these happy words that God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but the world through Him might be saved.

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Amen to that. Why isn't everybody a Christian then? He who believes in Him is not condemned.

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Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. But he who does not believe is condemned already because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten

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Son of God. There's no neutrality in this world. You're either justified in Christ or you're condemned opposing

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Him. And this is the condemnation that the light has come into the world, and men love darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.

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For everyone who practices evil hates the light and does not come to the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed. An embracing of ignorance, a fortifying of the darkness, an entrenchment in ignorance, that's all the more condemning.

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All the more condemning. Well, we don't have to remain ignorant.

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We don't have to remain ignorant by the grace of God and the mercy of God. We don't have to remain ignorant. Remember the sing -song words that floated over the wall when

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Augustine became a Christian. Tolelege, tolelege. Take up and read, take up and read.

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And he takes up the Word of God and reads. And you know, the Word of God is an imperishable seed.

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All these other things perish and fade away, but the Word of God is an imperishable seed. And planted in the heart, by the grace of God, it blooms.

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It bears fruit. Take up and read. Do not remain ignorant of the glories of Christ.

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Do not remain ignorant of the promises of Christ. When you take up the Word of God and read, you are taking up the

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Word of the Father of His Son by the Spirit. We're opening up this

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Word to know more about our Mediator. To know more about the

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God Incarnate. We're taking up this Word to know more about who Christ is. To know who our

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Savior and who our Sovereign is. Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for taking up the

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Word. He rebuked them for taking up the Word. Because they thought they could find eternal life in them outside of Him.

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Because they took up the Word of God and did not believe on Him. They took up the Word of God and did not look for Him.

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He said, it is these that testify of Me. So when we take up the

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Word to read, we are to look for Christ. We are to worship Christ. We are to rejoice in His truth.

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Whatever would keep us ignorant of our Savior. Whatever would contribute to our ignorance of who

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Christ is. Set it aside. Let it go. Throw it away.

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It's not going to last anyway. We are to humble ourselves and seek the grace of God.

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The final word from Ephesians 4, verses 17 -21. A word to believers about ignorance.

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And about learning Christ. Ephesians 4, beginning of verse 17.

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This I say therefore and testify in the Lord that you should no longer walk as the rest of the

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Gentiles walk. And that's really funny because he's already addressed the members of the church as both ethnically

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Jew and Gentile. But now, addressing them as those in the Lord, he says, don't be like those

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Gentiles. He says, do no longer walk as the rest of the

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Gentiles walk in the futility of their mind. Having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them.

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Because of the blindness of their heart. Don't walk like that. Don't walk like the world blinded to Christ.

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Don't walk like the world ignorant of God. Who being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness to work all uncleanness with greediness.

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Now Solomon says there's nothing new under the sun. Why is so much of our culture lewd and unclean and corrupt in all greediness?

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Because they are ignorant of Christ. Because of the blindness of their hearts.

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But, verse 20, but you, you have not so learned Christ. When you learn

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Christ, you don't give yourself over to lewdness. The more you learn

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Christ, the more you're delivered from uncleanness. The more you learn Christ, the more you're delivered from the love of money, which is the root of all evil.

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You have not so learned Christ. You're not ignorant. You're not blind. Praise God. Praise be to God who gives us the grace to know

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Christ. But you have not so learned Christ. If indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him as the truth is in Jesus.

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Let's learn Christ. Look at the condemnation of ignorance. Look at the disastrous kind of life that happens in ignorance.

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But we don't have to live that way, folks. God has given us His Son who is the light of the world.

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Who coming into the world enlightens every man. Shows every man for who he really is. The light is coming to the world, and by God's grace, we learn

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Christ and see Christ and know Him. Let's keep learning Christ. Let's keep growing in the truth of Christ.

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Never going to come to the end of His glories. Never going to wrap up our degree in Jesus.

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He's our chief. He's our captain. He's our head. And we follow

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Him. Let's give Him praise. Father, I thank You for the time You've given us in Your Word today.

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A reminder, Lord, of Your grace and Your glory. Lord, I thank

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You that we have such a great Savior who not only raises up a lame man to walk who never walked before, and gives sight to the blind who have never seen before, gives life to the dead who have never really lived before.

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I thank You for Your grace and Your mercy upon us. And I pray that You would work

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Your will in us and order our affections to know more and more of our

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Savior, Your Son, Jesus Christ. And I pray these things in His name. Amen.