PREACHING OF THE WORD OF GOD
David Wright
Acts 2: 21-23, 37,38; 3: 1-11; 4: 11, 12
We started our meeting this morning with the hymn:
All hail the power of Jesus’ Name (Hymn 9)
The power of that Name is seen in the One who is mighty to save. In the early Acts the Lord Jesus was no longer here, but His Name was presented. His Name was still there, and His Name is still here today, and it is a Name that is mighty to save. They said, “When will he die and his name perish?” The Lord Jesus died but rose again and His Name has never perished and it never will. The potency of that Name being proclaimed in the streets of Jerusalem days after the Lord Jesus was publicly crucified, and the fact that three thousand souls were converted by Peter’s preaching underlines the power of the Name. Peter says, This Jesus whom ye have crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ (see Acts 2: 36). Where we began reading in chapter 2 it says, “And it shall be that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”. That comes in three or four times in scripture and it is a wonderfully positive verse, because there is not a shade of doubt in it. Anyone who calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved. I trust everybody here has called upon that Name, and knows what it is to be saved in the power of that Name. There are many persons who may have been on their deathbed and have called upon the Name of the Lord, and if they have done that, have been saved. We may not know how many, who or what they are at the present time, but the day of display will show how many persons have called upon that Name and been saved. It may be somebody who has led a completely godless life, but if at the end there is something that causes them to call upon that Name, then they are saved. We have that on the authority of scripture.
This is Peter speaking in Jerusalem, the first preaching of this dispensation, and he says, “Men of Israel, hear these words: Jesus the Nazaraean”. The Name of Jesus the Nazaraean is referred to, the despised, rejected, lowly One who traversed the streets of Palestine and was ultimately hung upon a cross. It is in the power of that One who is now living and glorified at God’s right hand, that the gospel goes out and the Holy Spirit has come. Peter was talking to persons who had had part in the current events – it was not a matter of history, it was a current event in Jerusalem at this time – and he reminds them, “a man borne witness to by God to you by works of power”. He says, you cannot gainsay it; you had it in your very midst, that the works of power were wrought through Jesus the Nazaraean. That could not be gainsaid; it was witnessed to. He says, “the wonders and signs, which God wrought by him in your midst, as yourselves know”. It was irrefutable, it was there, persons who had been blessed through these works of power were there, the effects could be seen. Then he says, “him, given up by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye, by the hand of lawless men, have crucified and slain”. There are the two sides there. Men thought it was their hour – He was allowed to be committed into the hands of lawless men who put Him upon the cross – but that would never have been allowed if it was not in the first place in the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. It was in the foreknowledge of God that the Lord Jesus should die and that He should suffer for your sins and mine, that He the One who knew not sin was made sin for us that we might become God’s righteousness in Him. It was in the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God that man might be recovered to God through the finished work of Christ. Man was incapable of recovering himself, but God moved from His own side with a view to recovering man for Himself. What love, what grace that is! Everything that we have come into is on the basis of sovereign grace and mercy, nothing attaching to ourselves. If we repented it was the goodness of God that has led us to repentance. The gospel would make nothing of you, nothing of me, but it will make everything of the Lord Jesus, everything of Him, the One who has secured everything for God.
Think of the greatness of His Person and yet being prepared to be led as a Lamb to slaughter; that was involved in “ye by the hands of lawless men have crucified and slain”. The public position in this world remains the same in relation to our Lord Jesus Christ, in relation to the One who bears that Name of Jesus. He has been given a Name which is above every Name “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow” Phil 2: 10. A day is coming soon when every knee will bow, there will be no question about it, but in a day of grace the gospel is presented to us in order that we bow the knee to Christ now, we own Him as our Lord. Paul could say, “who has delivered us from the authority of darkness, and translated us into the kingdom of the Son of his love” (Col 1: 13), that is he was delivered from one order of things, but he was translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love. God has placed authority where it is most attractive in the Son of His love. I often think that when Paul wrote that verse in Colossians he put in a nutshell his conversion, that is that on that Damascus road he was delivered from the authority of darkness, but not only that, he was translated into the kingdom of the Son of His love. He was led into Damascus, he was blind, but what he found there was a representation of Christ Himself: Ananias who was a vessel prepared by the Lord Himself in glory went to Paul and said to him, “Saul, brother”. There was a true representation of Christianity, Paul never forgot that, the greatness of the mercy that had reached him remained with him: even when he speaks of the greatest truths in Ephesians he speaks about redemption and God who is rich in mercy. We can quote those scriptures, but Paul wrote them down out of his experience. He had experienced that there was a God who was rich in mercy.
Further on in chapter 2, Peter’s words were powerful because they were spoken in the power of the Holy Spirit. “Having heard it they were pricked in heart”, that is they were convicted sinners. Have you ever had a sense in your soul of being convicted of sin? Then they ask a question, “What shall we do, brethren?” Convicted sinners often ask questions; the gaoler says, “What must I do that I may be saved? … Believe on the Lord Jesus and thou shalt be saved, thou and thy house” (Acts 16: 30-32). But what if there was no answer to those questions? What if you were a convicted sinner and there was no answer to those questions? How terrible it would be. It underlies the greatness of the dispensation of grace in which we are, that as you feel you are a convicted sinner there is an answer to it. The first word of Peter here is “Repent”. That involves on the one hand coming to a sense of our own unworthiness, like the malefactor on the cross who said, I am suffering here justly for what I have done (see Luke 23: 41. He saw things as they affected God, the prodigal Son saw things as they affected God. On the other hand repentance also brings you to the sense of the worthiness of Jesus. This man, the thief says, has done nothing amiss. That is what repentance would bring you to. It will not just leave you with a sense of your own unworthiness and the depths of sin and depravity that you may have descended into, but it will lift you up, take you from the dunghill and set you among princes. It will lift you up and put you in relation to the One in whom there was no sin – “this man has done nothing amiss”. That could not be said of anyone else; it could be said only of Jesus. I offer Him to you as an Object for your heart’s affections and belief. It says, “Repent, and be baptised, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ”. The Name comes in there again: that is why I read this verse. Salvation is accomplished through the power of that Name. “Be baptised, each one of you”. It brings in the individual side in the gospel, that we do not come into salvation en masse, but by an individual transaction with the Lord for ourselves, “each one of you”. The gospel is not a time to put it on to the person sitting next to you; it is a time to take stock of yourself, where you are in your relation to the Lord. He is knocking on your heart that He might find entrance in there, and that you might prove the power of salvation, and the joy of it. Think of the joy that came into the gaoler’s house having believed on that One.
Peter says here, “in the name of Jesus Christ, for remission of sins, and ye will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit”. What a wonderful gift that is, as well as knowing that your sins are forgiven. Is there anything else that this world can offer that can compare to that? Can anybody else forgive you your sins as God can? The good news is that He is ready to impart that forgiveness on the basis of repentance towards Him and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. It just requires an action of faith on your part to embrace all that has come within your reach through the finished work of Christ. Embrace it and make it your own and set yourself up here in relation to the Lord and be brought into a circle where He is the centre, where everything is related to Him.
Are you conscious of receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit? You say, How can I be sure? Scripture says, “the Father … give the Holy Spirit”. It also refers to those that ask Him (see Luke 11: 13). On the other hand, looking to your own experience, is there a sense in your heart that you desire to do what is right? Maybe you do not feel that you have the power to do it, but if there is a desire in your heart to do what is right; it is the working of the Spirit but He will give you the power to do what is right, and to hold in check all that would hinder your being here for God. That is a simple way in which we can test the Holy Spirit in our hearts, He will help you to do what is right.
In chapter 3 it was in the power of that Name that this man was made to live. Peter and John went up together “into the temple at the hour of prayer” to pray. I believe they have been spoken of as ‘heaven’s best on earth’ – I think what that means is that there was what was sovereignly wrought in their hearts and it was radiating from them. I think that Peter and John would have been approachable men. This man was carried each day to the temple, unable to help himself. That is what we are in our sins, unable to help ourselves. He was taken to the temple each day and he begged there. What a sad state of affairs that was! He sees Peter and John about to enter into the temple and he asked to receive alms, “Peter, looking stedfastly upon with him John” – he had asked Peter for alms – but Peter looked upon him and he had something that he was able to impart to him that was much better than alms, that he would not have to go and beg for alms any more as he had done. He said, “Silver and gold I have not”. What we have to present in the gospel is priceless. The world system is made up of silver and gold. If you have silver and gold, if you have money, it will give you many things, influence, status, but it cannot give you salvation. Peter says, “Silver and gold I have not; but what I have, this give I to thee”. What did Peter have? Peter had Christ dwelling through faith in his heart, he had the gift of the Holy Spirit, he had the enjoyment of Christianity, and he said that is what I want to give you. Could he give it himself? He could not give it himself, but it was in the Name of Jesus Christ – “In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazaraean rise up and walk”, power in the Name.
All hail the power of Jesus’ name
Jesus Christ the Nazaraean, the lowly, despised, rejected Man, yet now in the position of power and authority at God’s right hand, there as a Prince and a Saviour available to this poor man. Peter would seek to attach him to that Man in what radiated from his own heart, attach him to the Man in the glory. “Taking hold of him by the right hand” – the hand of power – “he raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankle bones were made strong”. He is mighty to save, “And leaping up he stood and walked”, he did not just get up, “leaping up”, the fulness of life coming into that poor man’s heart and his bones, made him responsive to God where there had previously been no power to respond at all. Have you ever responded in your heart to God, to the Lord Jesus? If there has been no response before, He is looking for a response now. I can point you to the Man in the glory, as Peter did: He is the One who is able to bring in life. It says, “leaping up he stood and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”. He had part in the service of God; it went back to God, the glorious source of all. He had part in it in a living way, just as Peter and John did; he was brought into the same portion. Think of that! God desires that all men should be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. What is available to you is available to the poor drunkard out there in the street, it is available to anybody – it was available to this poor man who up to now could not even walk, but his ankle bones were made strong. “All the people saw him, walking and praising God”; it could not be gainsaid. They had witnessed the works of power of the Lord Jesus when He was here in manhood: there was a work of power here in the full power of Christianity, Christ on high and the Holy Spirit here. The effect of grace is still affecting men’s hearts today in this poor benighted world in which we are. They saw him walking and praising God. But it does not say they saw him leaping. I think the gospel experience in conversion is a through-and-through thing; leaping was an inward thing, responsiveness to God. God could take account of that, but these people could take account of one who was walking and praising God. What a witness that was! I feel tested as to how much I am a living witness to Christianity. What can people take account of in me? Am I maintained in the joy of my salvation, or do I get bogged down? The enemy would seek to take the joy of our salvation away, but being maintained in a living link with a living Man in heaven would cause us to be maintained in the joy of our salvation and therefore to be a living testimony here to others of what the joys of Christianity are. It radiated out of Peter and John, it radiated out of this man. You are on safe ground if you speak from experience. We see that in Saul of Tarsus, how he went over his conversion and the power of his words. The man in John 9 says, “One thing I know, that, being blind before, now I see” (v.25). He had experienced that one thing in his soul. Nothing could shake him from it because he had experienced it. Martin Luther experienced the truth of justification by faith and withstood the whole power of Rome. How could he do it? Because he had experienced it in his soul, he was justified by faith and not by works. Oh that we might have a greater sense of the enjoyment and conviction of Christianity and be able to present it in power. I feel tested by it, but the resources are here.
One thing I have been burdened about this weekend is to take account of the resources that are there for us in Christ on high and the Holy Spirit here, and that we can have our part effectively, as Peter and John did. They were apostles – you say they were special – but we can share with them in the experience that they had, and the experience that this man had. It goes on to say, “they recognised him, that it was he who sat for alms at the Beautiful gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him”. In persons who have led a godless life and have been converted, there has been a complete change. That is a powerful witness in this world to the power of the Name of Christ, what it can affect in the souls of men, women and children.
In chapter 4 another impression we had this morning was that the Lord is the centre of an order of things the other side of death. Here he says, “He is the stone which has been set at nought by you the builders, which has become the corner stone”. The Lord Jesus is still rejected here, but as brought to Him, brought to the living stone, you are connected with another order of things where everything takes character from Him, where everything is measured by Him. From the corner stone of the building everything is measured in Christianity where it finds its measurement from Christ and you can find your relationship in it as related to Him. It says, “salvation is in none other, for neither is there another name under heaven which is given among men by which we must be saved”. There is no alternative; if you want salvation there is no alternative but through the Name of Jesus; it is the only way. There does not need to be another way, there is no other name given amongst men by which we must be saved. That poor woman who had the flux of blood tried everything, physicians, this and that, but eventually she came in touch with the Lord Jesus Himself who was able to cure that flux of blood and life came into her soul and being. It would be the same with you, the same with me.
I thought as we sang that hymn this morning how it is very much related to the power of the gospel, how it proceeds, how it goes out and the effect that it has in men’s hearts. May each of us here know the power of that Name for ourselves. Do not rely on the experience of anybody else; you cannot rely on that, it must be your own experience, the power of the Name that is able to cleanse you from every sin, so that you can stand before God completely justified in Christ. What a wonderful truth that is! May we be maintained in the enjoyment of it and know the power of it for His Name’s sake.
WALTON
16 June 2002