Acts 2.3 Peter's First Sermon

The Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, verse 14, rather a lengthy reading as we're going down to the 40th verse. But Peter, standing up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and said unto them, Ye men of Judea, and all ye that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you and hearken to my words, for these are not drunken, as ye suppose, seeing it is but the third hour of the day. But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel, and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

And on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit, and they shall prophesy. And I will show wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before that great and notable day of the Lord come.

And it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know, him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain, whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be holden of it.

For David speaketh concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad, moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance.

Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulchre is with us unto this day. Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his loins according to the flesh he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did seek corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear. For David is not ascended 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. Therefore let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God hath made that same Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Now when they heard this, they were pricked in their heart, and said unto Peter and to the rest of the apostles, Men and brethren, what shall we do? 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 ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you and to your children and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call. And with many other words did he testify and exhort, saying, Save yourselves from this untoward generation, Amen.

Now I will be particularly grateful this morning if you'll have your Bibles open at the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. And I stress my request because I shall be making several references to verses in this chapter, and I think your understanding will be helped if you can refer to a Bible. If you don't have one with you, then I'm sure someone sitting alongside you will loan you the use of theirs, or you can share one together.

I remember several years ago entering the pulpit for the first time. I was a young lad of about fifteen, and the opportunity presented itself to address an evangelistic rally in my home city of Sheffield. I don't suppose any of the congregation that were present then could recall the incident or have the foggiest idea about which I preached, but I remember the occasion well.

Turning to a verse in the book of Revelation, Thou art neither hot nor cold, and trying to preach on the subject of neutrality was my first attempt to bring a message to a congregation from the Lord. And I suppose virtually every preacher remembers the first opportunity, the first time that he was propelled into the pulpit and endeavored to bring a word of consolation or a word of challenge to a congregation of people, how the knees knocked and how it was difficult to put one's thoughts into some logical order so that people could follow. Well, let that serve as my introduction to the address that I want to bring this morning because we're going to look at the first sermon, not my sermon, but the first sermon of the Apostle Peter, Peter who was a fisherman and now by the grace of God has been turned into a preacher, into a great evangelist.

And let me, by way of explanation for folks who are just here for this particular Sunday, perhaps on holiday, let me say that we're engaged on a Sunday morning in going through the early chapters of the Acts of the Apostles in some series of studies with a view to looking into the emergence of the early church, working out what was the inspiration behind these early Christians that caused them to be so successful in their ministry, in their expansion, trying to recapture something of the glow of early Christianity, recognizing that within this book is the course along which we as 20th century Christians should be sailing ourselves. So we are looking into this book, I say, to ensure that we are traveling in the right direction to see that there is something here which is duplicated within our own lives, within our own experience. And so we've come to the point in our series when we're looking at this sermon which Peter delivers, his first attempt at preaching, I say, on the day of Pentecost.

Now with simplicity and clarity as my objectives, let me content myself with directing your thoughts along three different directions, because concerning Peter's sermon, I want to speak to you first of all about its occasion, and then its content, and lastly its result, giving most time to the second heading, its content. But immediately let me remind you of the occasion, and I can do this with a degree of brevity because the majority of you have been at our previous meditations on this book. It is as I have intimated, the day of Pentecost, when Peter first starts to preach.

The 120 men and women who had obeyed the instructions of our Lord Jesus Christ had spent some time ten days in prayer at Jerusalem, waiting for the promise of the Father. Before you remember how Jesus declared when he left his group of disciples that they had to go to Jerusalem where they would receive the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and it would be the power of the Holy Spirit which would make them successful in the ministry to which he had commissioned them. So they returned to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, and there they wait for the promise of the Father.

Ten days elapse, and then there is a consummation of all their hopes as God the Holy Spirit moves in upon them, and a church is born, and about 120 people are baptized in the Holy Spirit. And the net result of all this is a certain amount of noise, a noise which evokes the interest of many people who happened to be in Jerusalem at that time, and they come to the scene of this commotion, and they want to know what it's all about. Well, that's something that you have to have in mind as you approach this first sermon of Peter, because this is something of the background that there is as Peter starts to preach.

But remember that this is the day of Pentecost, and I feel that this is extremely significant. Why? Well, you see, the Feast of Pentecost was the rough equivalent to our harvest festival in Jewish thought. They came to the Lord to thank him for his goodness towards them in material blessings, in providing food for them through the natural processes of planting seed and germination and eventually growth and the bringing in of the harvest.

And in the ministry of Jesus Christ, reference was made on several occasions to harvest. In fact, you could say that there was a strain of harvest teaching within his preaching to the people who came along to listen to him. He spoke of a harvest which was ready to be brought home.

You remember when he ministers to the woman who was sitting by Syca as well, the disciples come along after he's engaged her in conversation, and they're astonished because he has been speaking to a woman, and a woman at that, who is a Samaritan. And the Lord Jesus tries to offset the criticisms, the difficulties of the disciples, because he has been so occupied by instructing them that the fields are white unto harvest. And as this woman was a potential candidate for glory, so there were thousands of people waiting to be brought into the kingdom of God, a veritable harvest to be cut down, to be bundled together, and to be brought into the granary of the Lord.

So the Lord Jesus Christ, I say, on a number of occasions speaks about a spiritual harvest, and this harvest theology, if you'll allow me that term, is still part of the vocabulary of the Savior during the forty days of his resurrection appearances. Indeed, the final word that he gives to his disciples as he stands on the Mount of Olives before he takes his leave of them is, Go ye out into all the world, and preach the gospel, making disciples of all men, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Now, what is he in effect saying? Go into the world, and bring in the harvest.

Now, it is, at least to me, very significant that it is at the harvest festival that the Spirit of God falls upon the one hundred and twenty early believers, and they are baptized in all the power, in all the glory of the third person of the ever-blessed Trinity. And amongst the people at Jerusalem on this occasion, because it's a feast day, are Jews who live not in Palestine, but in colonists throughout the Roman Empire, and they constitute the larger part of the congregation that gathers to inquire of Peter what has happened. It is not by chance that the Holy Spirit lists the places that they come from, from verses nine down to the eleventh verse of chapter two.

Why do I say this is significant? Well, here, if you like, is a spiritual harvest, an indication to the disciples of all that is encumbered upon them, of all their responsibilities, of going out into the whole world and preaching the gospel, bringing into the house of God, into the kingdom of God, men and women from every tongue, from every nation. So it is at harvest time that Peter preaches this first sermon and explains to the people just what has happened in his life and in the life of the other hundred and twenty-odd or so who'd been with him in the upper room. And I think, finally, as we look into the occasion of Peter's preaching, it's significant to note from the fourteenth verse that when they inquire, when these people inquire just what has happened, Peter stands up with the eleven and lifts up his voice and starts to preach.

What's significant about that? Well, Peter is no rabbi who will recline upon a chair or upon a couch, as was the typical fashion of teachers in those days. Peter is not a teacher in that sense. Peter is a herald.

Peter is someone who will stand as an ambassador of God to deliver a message that is applicable not only to the one hundred and twenty, but to all the Jews from throughout, from around the Mediterranean, the Mediterranean world, symbolic of all people of all nations. Peter stands, I say, to declare the word of God as he engages upon his first sermon. Well, then, that's the occasion of it, but let me inquire a little further into this passage and address you on the content of Peter's sermon.

Now, the fact of the matter is that he had no notes, but notes are not the most important thing in a sermon. What is the supreme thing for a preacher to capture is the power, is the unction of the Holy Spirit, and this Peter had. He was schooled suddenly, remarkably, ecstatically by the Holy Spirit, and he knew of the teaching of the Lord Jesus Christ, but now he has an added impetus, the dynamic of the Spirit to proclaim those things that he has learned from the lips of the Savior and to tell others about the great news of salvation in and through Jesus Christ.

What can we say of this first sermon of Peter's then? Well, it certainly lacks the dramatic imagery that one would find, say, in the prophecy of Ezekiel. It does not have the poetry, the metaphorical turn of phrase that you find in the Song of Solomon. What God, by the power of the Holy Spirit, does through Peter is this.

He employs Peter's natural ability as a one-time fisherman to bluntly and clearly and courageously declare the essentials of the gospel, and he does this, as we shall see, with power and with authority and with a tremendous measure of results. There are certain things, I reckon, embodied within this sermon of Peter which you and I could well learn from and look for in every sermon, in every address that we hear that is uttered in the name of God to test whether or not it has the blessing, the approval of God upon it. What are those characteristics? Well, let me work them out for you from these verses, and they're quite easy for you to latch onto.

The first is this, that Peter's address was biblically based. It was biblically based. He starts off explaining what has happened in the upper room, what the experience of the 120 is all about, by referring those who listen to him to the prophecy of Joel.

And from the 16th verse onwards he quotes the prophet Joel and the anticipation that that prophet had of this day in Jewish history when God would pour out His Spirit upon men and women. And later on, when the apostle makes reference to the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, as he does in the 24th verse, he is very quick to follow in the 25th verse with a quotation from the Old Testament, backing home his proposition that Jesus has been raised from the dead, and that the Old Testament scriptures, the Old Testament writings, they anticipate this miracle of the resurrection. So the apostle dips into the psalmist, and from the 16th psalm he underlines his position that Jesus Christ is indeed raised from the dead.

And later on he'll refer to the coronation of Jesus in the heavens. We find reference to this in the 33rd and 34th verses, and again Peter refers back to the Old Testament to underline the truths of what he has been saying. And so we could go on looking into this passage and seeing that there are many references from the Old Testament which Peter brings to bear to back home his argument.

And I say an essential characteristic of any message delivered in the name of God is this, that it must be biblically based. It is not the concoction of someone's own thinking, it is rather an address that is deduced from the word of God, as the one who preaches it is directed by the Holy Spirit. But another characteristic of Peter's first sermon is that it was Jesus-centric.

That means it has Jesus in the middle. Indeed it had Jesus at the beginning, and Jesus in the middle, and Jesus at the end. And this is what you are to expect of a sermon, of a message that purports to come from the Lord.

I remember Spurgeon in one of his sermons making an analogy. He referred to a map of England, and he says, from any town in England, from any village, from any hamlet, you can always eventually draw a route that will lead you to London. Because London, in one sense, is the centre of England, the centre of the United Kingdom.

So every text, every scripture, every chapter of the word of God can ultimately be traced to the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is the centre of this book. And I say the Apostle is concerned in his first sermon to be Jesus-centric. Remember his experience on the Mount of Transfiguration, when the other two characters from the Old Testament era who appeared alongside Jesus were blotted out, and were told that Peter and James and John saw no man save Jesus only.

And there is a Jesus-only theology which Peter develops in his first address, and he develops even further in the epistles that bear his name. So listen to Peter as he talks to these people who have come to listen to what he has to say about Jesus. The 22nd verse, ye men of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know.

And so he goes on. Within those verses from 22 onwards are compressed some remarkable truths concerning the Lord Jesus Christ, a man, his humanity, approved of God, his deity. Then he goes on to speak about his death in the 23rd verse, his death brought about on the human level by the plotting of evil people, and yet a death that was expected by God the Father as a fulfillment of his plan for redemption.

Peter goes on to speak about what happened after Jesus had been crucified, how it was not possible for death to contain him, but he burst its bands as on the third day God raised him in the power of an endless life. Peter goes on to speak of the coronation of the Lord Jesus in the 33rd verse, where Jesus is exalted at the right hand of God, receives the promise of the Holy Ghost, and places that promise now as part of the legacy of all who believe on him for them to receive. And this, says Peter, is really what has happened to us.

We have received this promise which God the Father gave to the Son, and the Son in turn has passed it on to us, the pouring out of the Holy Spirit. All the blessings that have come our way, says Peter, have come in and through and because of Jesus Christ. So you see the point, a sermon that has the stamp of God's authority upon it is one that is biblically based, and also one that is Jesus-centric.

But further, an address from the Lord must be audience-related. Audience-related. It involves the people who are listening.

I happened by chance to tune in, I think it was Saturday or maybe Friday when on holiday, to the program called The Critics on the BBC. Always annoys me that program, I don't see why they have a right to be as critical as they are. But one man was saying that when he went into a church, he never liked the preacher to speak directly at him.

He'd rather be a spectator. Now he wouldn't have got on very well at the day of Pentecost because Peter was directly addressing his audience, and there was, if you please, an audience participation. What he has to say is relevant to these thousands of people who've congregated together somewhere in the temple area.

You question my observation? Well, look what Peter has to say in the 14th verse. The people who've gathered have accused Peter and the disciples of being drunk with wine. Well, in one sense they weren't far off the mark.

They were drunk, but not with natural wine, with the wine of the Spirit. God had made new wineskins for the new wine of the Spirit to be poured into. And so Peter corrects their accusation and starts to speak to them about what really has happened in the upper room.

And he does so by answering their question, Ye men of Judea and all that dwell at Jerusalem, be this known unto you. Note the personal way in which Peter is addressing his comments here. Come down to the 22nd verse, and again there is an appeal to his audience.

Ye men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know. And Peter becomes even more bold.

For in the 23rd verse, again directing his comments to his immediate audience, he says that Jesus Christ was delivered unto death by wicked hands and he was crucified and slain. The implication is that those who were listening had some corporate responsibility in bringing about the death of Jesus Christ. In the 29th verse, Peter again addresses his congregation.

Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David. Why is he talking about David? And why is he bringing his audience into his sermon? Well, you see, Peter has been referring back to the psalmist who speaks about his soul not being left in corruption. The psalmist who goes on to speak of being exalted to the right hand of God.

Now argues Peter, this David could not have been saying of himself, because if you go over there, you can see David's tomb. It's there for everyone to see. David is a dead man.

Then to whom is David referring? He's referring to David's greater son. In other words, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is this man, this Jesus whom you crucified, he has been raised from the dead.

And now, says Peter, he is back in the glory, seated by the right hand of the father. So Peter involves his audience, his congregation, in thinking through the propositions that he puts before them. And this is essential to evangelical preaching, that the person who is listening is to be involved.

If you go out of this church and you say that what is spoken from this pulpit has nothing to do with you, then write a letter to the elders and get them to sack the parson because he's not doing his job. If you're not involved, if the message is not related to your life, then I say, the word could not have been from the Lord, certainly not from the Lord for you, if you feel that you can exclude yourself from everything that has been said. And so we could go on, showing how Peter involves the audience in preaching his first sermon, because a sermon from the Lord is always audience-related.

And furthermore, we could bring out the point that it's personally attested. Look at verse 32. Peter says, we are witnesses, witnesses that God raised up Jesus.

A preacher can refer to his own experience. This is what Peter was doing, and this is what the disciples did as we read of their ministry in the following pages of the Acts of the Apostles. So in short, we can say this about an address which comes from the Lord.

It is biblical, it is Christological, it is evangelical, it is personal. These were the contents of the characteristics of Peter's address. Now let's quickly have a look at the results.

And for this, we need to return to what I was saying 15 minutes or so ago about the thought of harvest. I say that when I look at Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost, I see him as a farmer, a farmer employed by God the Father to bring in the sheaves. We see all these thousands of people coming along and listening to this fisherman-turned-preacher as he brings to them a word from the Lord, and some of them are affected.

You imagine stalks of wheat in a field, and here they are ripe to harvest, and a wind starts to blow. And what happens? They're affected. They move one way, or they might move the other way.

Well here amongst this tremendous audience are at least 3,000 people who are really affected by what Peter has to say. Here is a man possessed by the Spirit of God, a man who has a scythe in his hand, and he's going to cut down these people. He's going to bundle them so that they can be—bundle them together so that they can be brought into the garner of God, can be brought into the kingdom of God.

Peter comes along and he preaches, and on the day of Pentecost he has a royal harvest for the king of kings. Listen to this congregation, and you see the participation increasing. Now they join in.

They say to Peter, what must I do? What must we do? We've listened to what you have to—we've listened to what you've had to say. We've listened to the great crime that you're indicting the Jewish nation with, the slaying of the Messiah. Nay, if what you have said is true, and we rather believe in our hearts that it is, then our position is intolerable.

Peter, man, tell us, what must we do? They were pricked within their hearts. What shall we do? Blessed question from a sinner's heart, the harvest crying out to be reaped. Peter's preaching had not flattered them, but rather flattened them.

He had not pleased. He had pierced. He had penetrated the inner man.

A noble man was once referring to preachers at the time of Latimer, and the man said, To all preachers I have an ear, but when I listen to Latimer, I have a heart. For Latimer was able to reach down into the depths of the noble man's being and to affect him under the power of the Spirit of God. The man once went to hear George Whitefield preach in Exeter, and he got some stones in his pocket, with the net result of silencing Whitefield before he got on with his sermon too far.

But as Whitefield started to preach, the man was convicted, and at the end of his sermon he went up to Whitefield and he said, Sir, I came to hear you with a view to break your head, but the Spirit of God through your ministry has given me a broken heart. They asked Peter on the day of Pentecost what they were to do, and Peter says, Repent. Repent every one of you.

Turn right around. Do an about turn. Go backwards upon the way in which you have been living your lives, and turn to Jesus Christ and be baptized.

Indicate your inward desire by the outward observance of water baptism, showing that your faith in Jesus has caused your sins to be washed away, and you too enjoy this gift of the Holy Ghost that we have received just hours ago. For the promise, says Peter, is unto you and to all that are afar off, even to as many as the Lord our God shall call. What an amazing sermon that was.

Peter's first attempt at preaching, Peter who has an evangelistic concern, Peter who is quoted from the prophecy of Job, the prophecy which concludes that it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. Now Peter reveals this text to all the thousands of people who have listened to him, and he underlines the fact that in and through Jesus Christ salvation is possible, and the gist of Peter's preaching is as applicable today as what it was yesteryear on the day of Pentecost. You see, the message of the church has never changed.

We can never be brought up to date because we've never been old-fashioned. What Peter had to say two thousand years ago needs repeating today. What he had to declare about Jesus Christ, I declare to you in the name of Jesus Christ.

You wish for salvation. You want to have peace with God. There is only one way, how? By returning to Jesus Christ.

By recognizing that He and He alone can cleanse you of the sins that you have committed. It's all spelt out in this early sermon of Peter, how the Christian church was to go throughout the whole world proclaiming the gospel. I say the principles are here, and the Pentecostal preaching of the Apostle Peter was rewarded by God as thousands of people were brought into the church.

May we know that same unction from the Holy One upon our preaching and upon our ministry that will be a means of bringing men and women to the Lord in these days, in the needy twentieth century, for Jesus' sake. Amen. May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, the friendship and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be our experience now and until the Lord calls or comes.

Amen.