Jesus is the Christ

...for you that I just really hope you listen. And such an important concept here. I thought about these verses in Hebrews chapter 3. I want to just quote them to you.

For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them. And you know, as someone who preaches and teaches on a regular basis, one of the things you get concerned about is, is this profiting people? Is there profit in it? Are people being helped? Are they moving into a Christ-like experience more and more? And the reason why it does not profit them, it's not being mixed with faith. I'm going to get to this in the end of the message this morning, but you have to mix what you hear today with faith.

Faith is, by definition in Hebrews 11, faith is seeing the unseen. Faith is believing the unseen. I'm going to give you an example a little later on in the message, but you have to believe and respond to the world seeing the unseen.

Hebrews 11 says, faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things, what? Not seen. Evidence. Evidence is real.

And I've got evidence. You know, when you do a crime, you're looking for evidence. There's evidence.

This is real. This is evidence. It's evidence of the things not seen.

If you live a life of faith, you're living a life where you are assured of the things you can't see. Because only because God said it was so. And God's going to show you some things, I believe this morning, that are so.

And if we can live in that reality, if we could only have eyes to see the unseen, we'd live totally different. You'd live totally different. Because you'd see things that you cannot see, physically speaking.

So I want the Word of God to profit each one of us and change us. I want it to change me. I mean, when I go through these messages, one of the first things I do is I want to be changed myself.

If I can't change me, how am I going to change anybody else? If the Word doesn't change me. Well, we go to Acts chapter 2. And for some of you who are visiting, we're preaching through the book of Acts. And we're on the sermon that Peter preached, being filled with the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

And just in review, there are three parts to this sermon. The first part answers this question in verse number 12 of Acts 2. Those who hear these men and women speaking in tongues, they ask the question, what meaneth this? What is going on? And then Peter, in the first part of the sermon, answers the question, what meaneth this? And he goes to the prophet Joel. And he brings out the prophecy of Joel that God is wanting to pour out His Spirit upon all flesh in the last days.

And so it's not going to come on a prophet like it did in the Old Testament or a king like David. I'm going to give my Spirit permanently to men, women, and young people and old people alike. And I'm going to pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh.

So we looked at that a few weeks ago. Then last week, we started out with the second section here, starting in verse 22. And Peter is trying to convince the Israelites who are listening to him that Jesus is both Lord and Christ.

Jump over to verse 36. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus whom you have crucified, both Lord and Christ. And so from verse 22 down to verse 28.

Last week, we talked about how Peter uses the prophecies of David in the Psalms to show Jesus is Lord. And now, he is going to show in this last section that Jesus is the Christ. He is both Lord and Christ.

So let's pray and then we'll jump in here and read this passage and consider it. Heavenly Father, we thank You not only for the blood of Jesus this morning, the body of Christ also, but we thank You for the Word of God. The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us, Lord.

So thank You for the printed page, the inspired Word that we can study. That which the early churches did not have and yet they prospered amazingly. And yet we have the Word of God.

May You anoint us here today and may faith rise up in our hearts. And may we change and let the Word of God move us in the right direction. Lord, bless this message this morning to our ears.

In Jesus' name, Amen. Alright, so I'm going to just try to convince you of something you probably already believe, at least in your mind. You believe that Jesus is the Christ.

Yes, He is Lord. God was manifested in the flesh, but He is also the Christ. And that's important.

And I want to go back and you don't have to turn there, but in Matthew 16, I want to read to you a good statement that Peter makes. He made some bad statements. He denied the Lord.

He told the Lord, you know, you're not going to suffer, Lord. And the Lord had to rebuke him for that. But he did make some good statements.

And here's one. In Matthew 16, when Jesus came into the coast of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples saying, whom do men say that I, the Son of Man, am? And they said, some say thou art John the Baptist, you know, another man. Some say Elias, another man.

Some say Jeremiah, one of the prophets, some man. But He said unto him, Peter, whom say you that I am? And Peter said unto Him, thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. Now that's the Lord and the Christ right there.

Thou art the Christ, the Son of God. You're a deity and you're the Christ. And Jesus answered, blessed art you.

Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jones. You're blessed. And I'll say this to you this morning.

If you in your heart believe that Jesus is Lord and He is Christ, you're blessed. You're blessed. Because flesh and blood has not revealed that unto you.

But my Father, which is in heaven, has revealed it unto you. And so the Christ, we're looking at that this morning. I want to define it real quick.

The Christ means the Anointed One. Primarily the Anointed One. We call Him the Messiah, the Savior, the Deliverer.

Throughout the Old Testament, God has promised a Christ. God has promised a Messiah. In the major characters of the Old Testament, God has given them a promise.

And He has told them that there's going to come a Christ, a Messiah. Adam and Eve were told this very beginning, as soon as they fell in Genesis 3.15. And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed. He's talking to the serpent here.

And between thy seed and her seed it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Here's a prophecy of someone coming out of the seed of the woman. He said, Eve, your seed is going to contend against the serpent's seed.

And the serpent is going to bruise his heel, but he will bruise the serpent's head. That's a picture of the cross. Jesus suffered on the cross.

But Jesus destroyed the devil and his works on the cross. So this Messiah, this Christ, was promised at the very beginning to Adam and to Eve. And then a little later on in Genesis, God promises to Abraham that a seed would come.

And this seed would bless all the nations of the world. And we know who that was. Galatians talks about the seed is Christ.

And how He would bless all men, Jew and Gentile. Then Moses, another great man used of God, was told that a prophet shall the Lord your God raise like unto you, Moses. Him shall they hear in all things.

And so they were looking for this one who would bruise the serpent's head. Israel was looking for this one who would bless all nations. Israel was looking for this prophet who the Lord would send.

And then finally in our message here this morning, David the king. Later on, he is promised. He is promised something.

And I'm going to read it to you to keep you from having to turn to a lot of places here. But God promises David something. And this is the message that we're going to be looking at this morning.

Here's what He says to David. And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish His kingdom. He shall build a house for My name, and I will establish the throne of His kingdom forever.

And so God says to David, I got someone coming. God says to Adam and Eve, I got somebody coming. God says to Abraham, I got somebody coming.

God says to Moses, I got somebody coming. And God says to David, I've got somebody coming. And this somebody is the hope of Israel.

This somebody is this Christ, this Messiah. And He is coming out of David's loins, out of his fleshly loins. God is going to raise up a king, and He is going to raise up a kingdom that shall stand forever.

And I believe, if you read the story in the Old Testament, that's why Solomon, and the temple, and the wealth, and the offerings, and the money, and they poured everything in. Solomon, who was David's son, Solomon's temple was immaculate. I think they thought Solomon was the one.

They believed that this kingdom was going to stand forever. And yet again, their mind was on the physical world. Gold, silver, monstrosity of a temple, beautiful, wealth, and yet you and I know God had something different in mind with regards to building a house.

And so Jesus, the Christ, He was promised through the seed of David. And that's why the blind man, when the Lord came by that blind man that Jesus healed, He cried out, Jesus, Thou Son of David, have mercy upon me. You are the Son of David.

We have hope that You are the Christ, the Messiah. And in the triumphal entry, there's many examples of this, but the people threw their clothes down and palm leaves down, and they cried, Hosanna to the Son of David. This is our Christ.

This is our Anointed One. This is our Messiah. These are all messianic hopes.

In Acts 28, He's called the hope of Israel. The hope. Now, Christ is a New Testament word.

It's not an Old Testament word. As a matter of fact, if you go to your concordance, you won't find the word Christ in the Old Testament at all. Not one time.

But in the New Testament, you'll find it over 500 times. And it doesn't take long in the New Testament to get it. Matthew 1.1 says this, This book is a generation of Jesus Christ.

There's your first time it's ever used. The Son of David. So, Jesus, the Christ, the Son of David.

So Peter here is going to talk about this prophecy that was given to David. God is going to establish a kingdom through David's seed, through his loins. That kingdom would be established forever.

There would be an everlasting king, and there would be an everlasting kingdom. Now, I don't know how they in their minds had a hope that Solomon would be this one who would live forever and establish a kingdom that would go on forever. But when God had in His mind, when He told David, I'm going to take out of your seed, and I'm going to establish a kingdom, it's going to go on forever.

In God's mind, that was Christ. That was the Lord Jesus. And of course, Jesus came from the house of David, from the lineage of David.

And I'm going to ask you maybe to turn just a few places this morning. Look at Luke chapter 1. Luke chapter 1, if you can, with me here in verse 26. And there's many examples of this, but I'll just give you a few of them.

In Luke 1 verse 26, And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth, to a virgin, a spouse, to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary. And so here we have Jesus.

And specifically, He's out of the house of David. Verse 31, And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of the Highest.

And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David. Jesus' father. Way back, six, seven, eight hundred thousand years, Jesus is coming out of the lineage of David, and He's going to have the throne of His father David.

Verse 67, This is Zacharias, And his father Zacharias was filled with the Holy Ghost, and prophesied, saying, Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for He hath visited and redeemed His people, and hath raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of His servant David. And then one more here in chapter 2. Verse 1, It came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed. And this taxing was first made when Cyrenius was governor of Syria.

And all went to be taxed, everyone into his own city. And Joseph also went up from Galilee out of the city of Nazareth unto Judea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was the house and the lineage of David. So we have a lot of mention here of the fact that when Jesus came into this world, He was of the house and the lineage of David.

So that's a foundation for what we're going to consider here this morning. Jesus the Christ, He comes out of the lineage or the house of David. So let's go back to Acts 2 now, and let's go down through these verses and consider them.

Starting in verse 29, we left off here in verse 29. Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us unto this day. And so there was probably a special place, there was David's tomb or David's sepulcher.

People would visit it. David is a hero. He's a patriarch.

Everybody knows David. Therefore, verse 30, therefore being a prophet, and David was a prophet, he prophesied in the Psalms, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins, out of his loins, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne. And so this idea that out of David's lineage, God is going to raise up this Christ, this anointed one, this Messiah, to sit on the throne of David, that which God promised to stand forever.

Now notice verse 31. This is important. He, seeing this before, David, seeing this before, prophesies, spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did seek corruption.

This Jesus has God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. So the fulfillment, prophetically, of God raising up his Christ to sit upon David's throne, that throne which would stand forever, was actually referring to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so when Jesus was raised up from the dead, he was raised up, and they watched him ascend up, and he is seated now at the right hand of God, and that throne at the right hand of God is the throne that God promised to David, the kingdom that would stand forever.

This is the kingdom of God. The kingdom of God, the eternal kingdom that God had promised, that God has now established. Now, I don't know what your theology is here.

If you've been here a long time, you have the theology I'm going to share with you probably this morning, but the kingdom of God is now, and it's functioning right now. We're living in a time where, and I'm going to share this with you a little later on, if we could go outside there and say, Lord, give us spiritual eyes, and we could look up into the heaven, same thing that Stephen saw, we'd see Jesus sitting at the right hand of God. Look, look, look up there.

He's there, I see him. He's sitting at the right hand of God, he is on a throne, and he's been sitting there now for 2,000 years, and he's established, he is king, he is king of kings, he is Lord of lords, and he's established a kingdom. Through his death, burial, and resurrection, he has been raised up and has been given the highest seat, and he's established his kingdom.

And you need to believe that, because that's important. Every demon in the world sees him every day of their life. Every demonic creature knows and sees the Lord Jesus, just like Stephen.

I see him, yeah, I see him. I know who he is, he's the Holy One. He's on the throne, and we're under submission.

And you saw that when Jesus came into the world. I command you to come out of him. And if you don't live life on a day-to-day basis, and especially confronting the darkness, if you don't believe that he has your back, and he's sitting on the throne, and you can use his authority and name, you're going to be in trouble.

And that's by faith. You say, I don't see him up there. Faith is the evidence of things not seen.

He told you he's there. And he's seated on the throne, he's the authority. All authority and power is given to me, he said, before he ascended up.

I have everything. You go now and teach all nations. You say, but there's a bunch of demons out there.

I've got authority. You don't have to worry about them. Go in my name.

Right? They're defeated. They're destroyed. Oh, they look fierce.

They look like wolves. But it's under control. So Romans 14, Paul says, the kingdom of God is not meat and drink, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.

And would to God that all of us could experience that kingdom and have righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. That's your right as a citizen. You know, some of these people from Mexico and Guatemala and Honduras are trying to get up into America and have citizenship rights.

And I know the Democrats are giving them all the rights in the world. And they're even giving them free health care, and they'll pay them. But you know, there are rights that every citizen of the kingdom has.

And your rights are righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. Wouldn't it be awful to live in America and not experience the rights that Americans have? You say, well, I can't see this kingdom. That doesn't matter.

By faith, you see the unseen, and you live accordingly. Jesus said, oftentimes, the kingdom of God is at hand. Look at verse 32 and 33.

This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. Now notice this. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, seated at the right hand of God, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost.

And this goes back to the prophecy of Joel. I will pour out of My Spirit upon all flesh. Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, He has shed forth this which you now see and hear.

And so, as a child of the kingdom, I get the promise of the Holy Ghost. If you jump down, and we're not going to probably get to it here this morning, but if you look down at verse 38, these people were pricked in their hearts, and oh my, we just killed the Lord and the Christ. What are we going to do? Verse 38, Then Peter said unto them, Repent, and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.

And this promise is not just for you Israelites, but it's for everybody that are far off. Even as many as the Lord our God shall call now by faith. I tell you, this is a beautiful thing.

Some of you young converts, some of you who are thinking about the possibility of coming to Jesus and getting saved, have an expectation that I'm going to receive the Holy Spirit of God. I believe this, and when we went through the book of Mark, God showed us this over and over again. If you don't expect anything from the Lord, you don't get anything from the Lord.

And over and over again, faith is expecting. That woman who pressed through the crowd, in her heart she said, If I can just touch the hand of His government, I shall be whole. That's an expectation.

If I get there and touch Him, I'm going to be whole. What happened? As soon as she touched Him, she's whole. She has an expectation in her heart that God is going to do something for her, and that's her belief.

You know, people come and they say, I don't believe God will heal me. I don't believe God will save me. I don't believe God will help me.

I guarantee you He won't. Faith is the confident expectation that He will do what He says. And so when you come to the Lord, that's why at the baptism, I try to encourage people, and personally, I think we've been so dumbed down.

We've been so dumbed down with culture and with just false concepts that are expectations. Who's expecting coming out of the baptismal waters, the laying on of hands, and someone glorifying God or prophesying or speaking in tongues? Who ever expects that? We don't expect that. Don't plan on it then.

Amen? How can God give you something you have no faith in? Anyway, so the proof of your citizenship, here's your green card if you want to know what your green card is. Your proof of citizenship is the Holy Ghost. We are citizens of another country.

Our citizenship is in Heaven, and the proof of who you really are is you have the Holy Ghost. As a matter of fact, Paul said, if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of His. He's an alien.

He has no part in this kingdom. He's no citizen. That's why you come to church, you say, I'm just going to come to church, I'll be a good person, I'll try to live by some of the rules and regulations, and maybe God will let me in in the end.

No, you're an alien. You're not a citizen. The only way you can be a citizen is being born of the Spirit of God.

As a matter of fact, Jesus said, except if you're born of the Spirit, you cannot see the kingdom of God. You never enter it. And so you become a citizen, not by doing good works.

You become a citizen by becoming born of the Spirit. So the kingdom of God starts out in the Spirit of man. You know, so many people, they come to church and say, I'm going to put on a bunch of clothes, I'm going to act a certain way, and I'm going to try to fit in.

And they think that's going to get them into the kingdom. I'll put on the church roll, my name's up there, and everything external will get it all done. They're going to be one of those who gets to the wedding and the Lord's going to come in and say, hey, you're in here without a wedding garment, throw him into outer darkness.

He's not a citizen of My kingdom. Right? So the real question is, have you truly broken your heart and you come to the Lord and say, listen, I'm done. I'm a sinner.

I have no hope. God have mercy upon me. I'm going to put my faith and my confidence and expectation in the finished work of Jesus Christ, and I'm going to get saved through Him.

And I'll be born of the Spirit. So the kingdom of God is not something that comes from the outside in. Let me read to you a passage here at Luke.

Jesus is speaking to the Pharisees here. He says this, when He was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, He answered them and said, the kingdom of God comes not with observation. You're not going to see it with the natural eye.

It doesn't come that way. Jesus said the kingdom of God comes like the wind. Nobody sees the wind.

All you see is the effects of it. And by the way, if you get saved, you ought to see some effects in your life. Amen? You know, when you see the wind blowing outside, you see the effects of it.

You see trees. Some people are converted in a hurricane. I mean, I've seen some people converted and it's like, things are going crazy.

They're changing all over the place. Right? Some people, unfortunately, it's just kind of a gentle breeze like, were they converted? I saw that leaf move a little bit. We ought to all have a hurricane conversion.

Amen? Anyway, the kingdom of God comes not with observation, neither shall it say, lo here or lo there, for behold, the kingdom of God is within you. This is a work that starts on the inside of you. It's a spiritual work.

God has to bring you to the place of a broken and contrite heart and true repentance. Now today, as we stood here this morning, we prayed, Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy, oh, here we go.

Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done. Here we go.

On earth as it is in heaven. Now, there is coming a second stage, I call it, of the kingdom of God. God is going to bring His kingdom to this earth.

And this is going to happen when the Lord Jesus appears. He's going to change the physical. By the way, is your physical body changed and you're already in the kingdom physically? No, you're not.

You still have that bio body, the same body you had before your conversion. It hasn't changed a lick to this day. All you've been doing is trying to keep it under and mortify it and crucify it, but it hasn't changed a lick.

You haven't changed that, but hopefully you've changed your soul, your heart, your emotions, your will, and certainly your spirit's been changed and made alive. But your body is still that same vile, thinking body you had before your conversion. Would you all say amen to that? I have the same one.

And it comes with the same temptation. But the Lord's going to change the physical realm when He comes at the second coming of Christ. And that physical body is going to be changed, but also, He's going to deal with this physical world.

And His kingdom is coming to this physical world. And that's coming at the second coming of Christ. The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.

Now, I've said this oftentimes, but it's something worth repeating. And that is this, that one of the reasons why these people, these Jewish people, did not see the kingdom of God for what it was, is because they did not want a Messiah that was a suffering Messiah. They refused to embrace a suffering Messiah.

And I've talked to Jews on the college campuses, and I open up Isaiah 53 to them, and I say, who is this? This is my Christ. He suffers. He is rejected.

He is killed. He is crucified. And they say, that's not the Messiah.

Well, then who is it? I don't know who it is. But most Jews reject Isaiah 53. They accept the kingliness of Jesus.

They accept the glory of Jesus, the Messiah. Or their Messiah. They don't think it was Jesus.

But when it comes time to embracing a suffering Messiah, they don't want anything to do with it. So they were blinded. You know why they were blinded? Because they had their own personal will and interest.

You know what blinds most Christians? They want it a certain way. And they try to twist things to get it to say what they'd like it to say. I won't have you turn here, but listen to what Jesus says to those who are walking on the road to Emmaus in Luke chapter 24.

One of my favorite passages here on this subject. Luke 24 verse 22. Here these men are talking.

Yea, and certain women also of our company made us astonished, which were early at the sepulcher. And when they found not His body, they came saying that they had seen a vision of angels which had said unto them He was alive. And certain of them which were with us went to the sepulcher and found it, even so as the woman had said, but Him they saw not.

Now this is what Jesus says to these disciples. Then He said unto them, O fools and slow of heart to believe all... I like that. I circle that in my Bible.

All that the prophets have spoken. And you love the Psalms, and you love the kingship, and you love the power, and you love the glory and all that about the Messiah. Unfortunately, you didn't listen to the suffering part of the Messiah.

He expounded unto them all the scriptures and how Christ should suffer these things and enter into His glory. One of the ways that the Jews failed to see who Jesus really was is because they had their own personal interests. And they interpreted the Bible based on their own personal wants and desires.

That's why I say if you're going to interpret the Bible correctly, just come to it and say, I don't have any interests or desires. If you want to take my life, I'm just surrendering. Whatever you say.

You'll get the right message. They were blinded. Verse 45 of Luke 24, it says this, Then opened he their understanding that they might understand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behooved.

It required Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day. So that was their stumbling block. Suffering, death, and the resurrection.

So God's perspective as He looked down upon Israel was I'm going to bring you the Messiah. My Messiah is going to suffer. You read the Psalms.

There's a lot of suffering of the Messiah in the Psalms. They rejected that. Suffering, death, resurrection, seated at the throne of David, an everlasting kingdom.

So they were looking for a non-suffering Messiah, a glorious Messiah, a Hosanna to the King Messiah, and all this, and Jesus dies, and this is not what we were looking for. So they rejected it. And many times as we go down through the, getting into times of great tribulation, people are going to say, many Christians are going to say, this is not what we were expecting.

This is not what we were expecting. We were not expecting to suffer. You know, we were supposed to be carried to the clouds of heaven on flowery beds of ease.

We were supposed to be raptured out of all difficulties. How are we going through this time of great suffering? The same thing is going to happen. Well, some of you know this example in the Old Testament.

There's a lot of beautiful types from this story, but Joseph is a wonderful example of a Christ. Let's just look at his life here for a minute, just briefly. Joseph is the man who had the coat of many colors.

I don't know how old Joseph was. Maybe he was 12, 15, 16. But his father favored him.

Jesus, the only begotten of the Father. This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. We read last week, God approved or stamped His approval by allowing His Son to do signs and wonders and miracles.

This is my Son, the Son of the coat of many colors. Then He was hated by His brethren. Why did they hate Him, by the way? Anybody know? What's that? Envy.

You saw Him coming. There He is. He's a favorite of our Father.

Got Him that coat. Let's kill Him. Why was Jesus crucified? The Bible says they envied Him.

They brought Him to the cross. They envied Him. Same thing.

He was envied by the Jewish leaders. The Bible says He was delivered up for envy, just like Joseph. Hated of His brethren.

Jesus said, They hated Me without a cause. Then Joseph was cast into that pit, way down in the pit. Jesus was put where? In the grave.

In the cave. He descended into Hades. Then Joseph is raised up from the pit.

People come and rescue Him. Three days later, Jesus came out of the grave. Then, interestingly enough, He is carried down into Egypt and He's seated at the right hand of Pharaoh.

The Lord ascends up and He is seated at the right hand of God. Then Joseph is in charge of feeding all the Gentile Egyptians. Jesus said, I am the bread of life.

Come and eat. And then here's something interesting. When Israel was starving... I like this.

When Israel was starving, there was no bread. They go down to Egypt and they meet Joseph. And they're reconciled.

You know, Jesus said these words. When Israel says, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord, you'll not see Me until Israel says, Blessed is He that comes in the name of the Lord. In other words, Israel's not going to see Me again until they're hungry.

They're famished like My brethren were famished and they came down to Egypt. We need food. We need corn.

And then Joseph showed himself. The Bible says God is going to save a remnant of Israel in the end. And if you look at Joseph's life, Joseph from Jesus' first coming to the earth to His second coming, is a picture of what the Lord is going to do.

And He is reconciled with His brethren, His family. So here's something important for us going back to Acts chapter 2, that Jesus right now is sitting at the right hand of God. He is the resurrected Christ.

He is sitting on an eternal throne, the eternal throne of David, and He has established His eternal kingdom. And if you and I went out in that yard and we were given the eyes that God gave Stephen, every one of us said, Look! Right? How many of you believe that? Look! There He is. Big throne.

I don't know why. It says that when Stephen saw it, he said, I saw Jesus. He recognized.

I need binoculars. I can see Him from this vantage point. I see Him standing at the right hand of God.

Now that's reality. Now faith requires you to believe that. You have faith.

By the way, that would change the way we live, wouldn't it? So much for doing things in secret. He's right there. He's watching.

He sees me. Now what we need here if we're going to accomplish God's purposes, and these people in the book of Acts have faith. What we need is to have eyes of faith.

Eyes that see the unseen. Eyes that believe the Word of God even though you cannot see it. And yes, sometimes the Lord will give glimpses.

Stephen got a glimpse. Elias got a glimpse. So the Lord is now seated at the right hand.

And I think we need to fear the wrath of the King. Someday He's going to come and crush His enemy. Let's keep going.

Look down here, and we'll come back to this, but look down to Acts 2, verse 34. For David is not ascended up into the heavens, but he saith himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand until I make thy foes thy footstool. In other words, sit here until it's time to bring your enemies underneath your feet.

Sit here until I tell you, okay, it's time to get up and go down to that wicked world and bring your enemies under your feet. Someday that's going to happen, by the way. It's not happened yet.

And it's going to be an interesting day when they see Jesus coming. The Bible says the chief men, the great men, they run for rocks and mountains and they crawl underneath like a roach and they hide themselves from Him that sits on the throne and the wrath of the Lamb on His right hand. And they say the great day of His wrath has come.

And who shall be able to stand? And He is coming. I can promise you that. He's coming to destroy His enemies.

And so you don't want to be an enemy of His. He is King. And He is the eternal King.

I like to hear what Paul says in 1 Timothy 1, in verse 17. He says this, Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be glory and honor forever and ever. Amen.

He is eternal. He is immortal. It means He cannot be touched by death.

And He is invisible. And if you have faith, you'll see Him that is invisible. He is the King of kings and Lord of lords.

Now back here to Acts 2. In verse number 33 it says, Therefore, being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, that goes back to the prophecy of Joel, He has shed forth this which you now see and hear. God gave His Son the promise of the Holy Spirit, and the Son shed it forth upon His people. Now that will tell you something here.

If you want to have the Holy Ghost, you're going to have to deal with Jesus Christ. He's the one who sheds forth the Holy Ghost. Two things I think we as a church need to think about.

Some of you are sitting here, you're not converted. Number one, if you want to first initially receive the Holy Spirit of God, you need to come and get your heart right with the King. He's the King.

He's the one that gives the Holy Spirit. And you need to come to Jesus. And you need to say, hey, you're the King.

King of kings and Lord. I believe the Word. I'm nothing.

I'm a sinner. Have mercy on me, oh God. Here I am.

I'm yours. And God will say, okay, I can give you the Holy Spirit of God. Now many of you, that's happened to you in your life.

Now you're 5, 10, 15, 20, some 30, 40 years down the road. And you say, I just don't experience the fullness of that Spirit. Well, here's one of the problems.

If you have the Holy Ghost and you're not experiencing the fullness, it's because you're in relationship, as Brother David mentioned, you're in communion, but there's things in the relationship that are not right. For example, my wife and I got married. How many years ago, honey? 23? 26.

See? When you're having a good time, time flies. I think it was 26. 26.

Now, we're in relationship by covenant, just like with the Lord, but sometimes that relationship is strained, right? You don't have any of those problems in your marriages. Sometimes there's strain and things need to be addressed and dealt with. And so as a Christian, if we're not experiencing the fullness of what we see in the book of Acts, it's because there's a lack in our relationship with the Lord.

Maybe it's a lack of faith. Maybe it's just a lack of, I don't believe you, Lord, like I should. Maybe it's some sin or some worldly affection or some care that you need to address.

You don't need to get converted again. You just need to get your heart in the right place. And so as the king sits there today, he's right up there, if you could see.

You need to, if you're unconverted, you need to address your relationship with the king and you need to humble yourself. That'd be a good thing to do. But also if you've entered into a relationship with the king, you need to make sure that everything's right in that relationship.

Verse 34, For David is not ascended into the heavens, but he saith unto himself, The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thy foes thy footstool. Now you may have a hard time understanding what that means, but David is prophesying and he says, The Lord, that's the Father, said unto my Lord, that's Christ the Messiah, sit thou on my right hand. And so David, a man, is calling this Christ, this Messiah, the Lord.

He's calling Him deity. Now I haven't asked you to turn to too many passages here. Turn to Mark chapter 12.

Mark chapter 12. And starting in verse number 35. Jesus actually uses this same psalm.

In Mark 12 verse 35. It says, And Jesus answered and said, while he taught in the temple, How say the scribes that Christ is the son of David? Alright, the scribes are talking about how David is supposed to have a son. That son is supposed to be the Christ.

So, how say the scribes that Christ is the son of David? For David himself said by the Holy Ghost, The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool. David therefore himself called Him Lord. And whence then is He his son? It's like Jesus is telling them, Okay, you believe in the psalms that David is going to have a son.

And that son is going to be the Christ. Well, David called that son the Lord. Well, that's interesting, isn't it? In the psalms you're just singing over here in your synagogue services.

Do you ever think about what you're singing? David called Him, He's my Lord. This son is coming out of my loins. He's not my son.

He's my Lord. And so Jesus uses that to teach that Jesus himself is the Lord, the deity of Christ. Back to Acts here.

And I'm almost finished. Acts chapter 2. Let's look at the end here. Acts 2 verse 35.

Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thy foes thy footstool. So the Lord's going to bring His enemies under His feet. According to John, He's going to grind them to powder.

That's not a pretty sight. You either fall upon the stone and let it break you, or you let that stone fall upon you and it grinds you to powder. Hey, I've got good news for everyone here.

We're still in the time frame where you can voluntarily throw yourself upon that stone and be broken. And you ought to do that if you haven't done it already. Just say, Lord, just break yourself.

Lord, I'm a sinful man. Lord, have mercy. Pull.

Save me. But if you stand up and say, I'm not going to do that. I'm going to run my own life.

One day you're going to look up and there's a stone coming. And it's going to fall on you. It's going to grind you to powder.

I believe that. You know why I believe that? Because the Lord said it. So there's a physical part of the kingdom that's coming.

It says the Lord's going to put all His enemies under His feet. God is going to come and deal with this physical world. People think the Lord's just left and He's left us to ourselves and nothing's going to happen.

But God's going to intervene. In this physical world, I was traveling. This is an illustration with a brother.

As a matter of fact, he was here a few weeks ago, Dan Mast. He's a good brother. Some of you met him a few weeks ago.

Some have been brought up with this idea that this physical part of the kingdom is never going to happen, that only the spiritual part is what's going to happen. There's no physical realm. And I was driving out to Colorado with Dan.

Dan was instrumental in bringing my wife and I together. And we were talking about prophecy and I mentioned about the future coming of Christ and He's going to bring the kingdom of God into this world, the physical realm. And of course, Dan, he was brought up with the mindset that no, that's not going to happen.

And he went back to John 18. We're driving along here. And he went back to John 18.

And he quoted John 18, verse 36. And he said this, Jesus answered, My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight.

See, my kingdom is not of this world. Why do you try to bring the kingdom of God to this world? I said to him, Dan, you didn't read the whole verse. He said, what do you mean? Let's keep reading here.

My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight that I should not be delivered to the Jews. But now is my kingdom not from here.

And yes, we don't fight. We don't have a physical kingdom to defend. We don't have to fight.

You don't have to go to war. By the way, if someone comes with a sword to kill you, you don't have to fight them. You can just be as a sheep before the shears as the Lord was.

But someday the Lord is coming, and you know what? Revelation says He's coming on white horses, an army, and they've got swords. The Bible says the blood will flow to the horse's reign. And the Lord is going to deal with the rebel, ultimately.

And His kingdom is coming. That's why we pray, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. So here in conclusion, as we get to the end of this sermon, I mean, these Israelites, they've been listening to Peter being filled with the Holy Spirit.

They've just crucified Jesus. Now, they hear that He's raised up. There's many witnesses.

Oh my, He's raised up. Well, what's going on here? And then Peter stands up. They hear these tongues and these marvelous works of God.

What is happening? And then Peter says, listen, you people have killed the Lord and His Christ. Oh, this Messiah we've been hoping for all this time, we've just murdered Him. And not only is He the Messiah, He's the Lord Himself.

Verse 36, Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus whom you have crucified, your wicked hand, both Lord and Christ. Boy, that ought to make you feel guilty. Especially those who are leaders, who were instrumental.

Verse 37, Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their hearts. That means they were convicted. And said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? It's like, oh my, oh my, what are we going to do now? We've killed the Messiah.

Then Peter said unto them, repent and be baptized. Now some people say, well, where's faith in there? They've already got faith. They're convinced He's the Messiah.

Now what do we do? Repent. And be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of your sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost for the promises unto you and your children and to all that are far off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call.

And with many other words that He testifies and exhorts, He starts saying, save yourselves from this untoward generation. That word untoward, we don't use that much now. It means crooked.

This crooked generation. By the way, we're living in a crooked generation. This generation is going to go down.

Save yourself from this crooked generation. Don't go down with it. Don't go the broad road that leads to destruction.

Don't go down. Save yourself. Now I want to throw something in here just in closing.

You know, a lot of people don't understand who say, God, why do I have to give you my life? I mean, what's the point? You're awful selfish, aren't you? Why can't I live for myself? Why can't I be saved and live for myself? Some people think God's a pretty selfish individual. I want you to stop and think about this. This is the right perspective.

God made you. He made the world a beautiful place. He gave man a wonderful Garden of Eden.

He blessed man with so many wonderful things. And unfortunately, if Adam and Eve would have done right and not disobeyed, we'd still be living in a paradise. Wouldn't that have been wonderful? But they didn't.

They chose to rebel. And ever since then, man is living in rebellion against a God who created them, who is benevolent, who wants to bless them with the right things and give them joy and peace and righteousness and all the wonderful things that man can experience. And yet, man wants to go his own way.

Now, first of all, God created you. He gave you everything you have. Second of all, He knows what's best.

He knows what's best. It's like your parents, they know what's best. So God has every good intention to save you.

He didn't have to save you. He didn't save the angels that fell. He saved you.

What is man that thou art mindful of Him? Why did you send a Savior not to the angelic world? God could have sent a Savior to the angelic world and saved the fallen angels. And those demons that are down in Columbus could have been saved. But you know, you talk to those demons, they don't have a salvation.

They have nothing. And demons are real personalities. They're real people.

People, they're real angelic beings. But you know, that devil that was in that man or a couple of them, they don't have any hope. They're lost forever.

And they're just waiting for judgment. God, in His mercy, has offered us an opportunity. You ought to be very grateful for it.

I have an opportunity to get back to the Garden of Eden and to Paradise. And God is bending low, coming all the way down here and dying. He's bending really low to get me in.

And you say, well, why is God so selfish? My question is, why are you so selfish? Why are you so selfish? I want my life. I want to live it. I want to do whatever I want with it.

You ought to be grateful enough to say, Lord, it's Your life. You can have it. For all that You've done for me.

Well, I want to ask you all a question. Are you a citizen of this kingdom? Are you a citizen? Now, if you don't have faith, fine. I'm an American citizen.

That's all I need. And that's all you need until you're about 75, 80, 85 and you breathe your last breath and you're a citizen of America. Okay, that's good.

But when you die, you're going to need another citizenship. Because you're going to go someplace else. And you don't want to go where there's no citizenship.

That's down in the heart of the earth. You want to go where there's a city and there's rules and regulations and there's peace, joy, family. You want to go there.

And you want to have a citizenship. Are you a citizen of this kingdom? Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. And maybe the bigger question is this.

Do you have a fullness of His power and blessing in your life? Are you getting from the channel that's flowing so that you don't fear? You have boldness. You have love for sinners. You're concerned about lost people.

You don't have strife and bitterness, anger and envy, jealousy. And your heart's in a good place. You know, if your heart's in a good place, God can pour out His Spirit on you.

If not, you're a Christian, but you're in many ways paralyzed. So when you think of the book of Acts, these individuals sold out. And the Lord is saying, okay, here we go.

And they were sold out and they saw amazing things. God did amazing things. We're going to see them over the next probably two years.

So Jesus this morning is both Lord and Christ. And what will you do with Him? What will you do with Him? Let's have the faith. Just this morning, I went to pray after I prepared the message.

It was reality. Just there in my office praying. And I could, in my heart, just see the Lord right there.

You're not talking to someone you cannot see, but He's right there at the right hand. I could see in my heart faith. So you're out and you meet a demonically possessed man.

And he comes up to you and he's got all kinds of demons in him. And you just say, hey, Lord! Lookie here! He's right there with you. Right? He's watching.

And he's behind. He's standing with you. Go into all the world, and I'm with you always.

Even to the end of the world. So we live by faith. We live believing the unseen world.

So let's, as the Scripture says, the word preached profited them. Being mixed with faith, it ended hurting. I'm just going to go back to my job Monday and just go back to my normal routine.

You can go back to your normal life, too. Right? So let's raise our level of faith. I want to do that in my own life.

I trust you do, too. Let's pray, and then we'll open it up for anyone who'd like to share. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, especially for the fact that we have the Lord