“BE SAVED FROM THIS PERVERSE GENERATION”
C. Hammond
This preaching of Peter’s is, so far as I know, the first public preaching in this dispensation, after Christ had gone on high and the Spirit had come down. There were about a hundred and twenty in that upper room when the Spirit came, and the first effect publicly, as we know, was that they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke with other tongues. Tongues were a sign gift. The effect of that was that the many who happened to be at Jerusalem for the passover, who came from many nations, heard the apostles speak in their own dialects or, as it says later, in their own tongues. They were amazed at that, but we do not read of wholesale conversions. Some said, “What would this mean? But others mocking said, They are full of new wine”; but that is as far as the Spirit of God records.
Then a man with gift stood up, and things happened. The gift of an evangelist is a valuable gift. We should not in any way belittle it, because it is part of the divine provision and is referred to in Ephesians 4 (although it is absent from 1 Corinthians 12). This shows that there never should be such a thing as differences between those who have, as we may say, a church outlook and those who are evangelists, for one is the complement of the other, and what Mr. Raven said is, I think, about right, that he would preach with his back to the door of the room.
He did not mean that literally, of course. What he intended to convey was that if he preached the gospel, it was in view of souls coming into the full thoughts of God, not only for eternity, but for the present time.
Peter was given the keys of the kingdom and now he is using them in very great power. So the epitome of what he has to say is, ‘ You have crucified and slain Him’. He makes no apology for saying that, for we need to be direct in our language at times if we are to carry conviction. He says, “Know assuredly that God has made him, this Jesus whom ye have crucified, both Lord and Christ”. You could not think of a greater contrast of treatment between being crucified and being made Lord and Christ! That was a tremendous assertion for a Jew to accept because they had believed a lie. They really believed the report that His disciples came and stole Him away while the guards were asleep; and they still believe this lie. I was speaking to a Jewess once and she said that she considered Jesus to have been an imposter! The veil still lies on their hearts.
But God had His Peter and he is going to preach. He has gift; he stands up with the eleven, and he is not going to apologise for what he has to say. Paraphrased, he says, ‘You are quite mistaken in talking about our being full of new wine. This is what Joel spoke about’. He has a scripture for it! If you are going to make a point, it is very important that you have a scripture for it, then there is a basis for conviction. The effect here is that conviction sets in, for it says,
“Having heard it they were pricked in heart, and said to Peter and the other apostles, What shall we do, brethren?”.
What I want to come to is what is said lower down, where Peter exhorts them to be “saved from this perverse generation”. The gospel is to save us from this perverse generation—not perverted generation, for that would call attention to the agent of the perversion; but perverse shows the character of the persons. Of course, they were perverse when they rejected their Messiah, and men are perverse at the present time in rejecting God’s glad tidings concerning His Son. We feel the lawlessness which is rampant; not only corruption, but lawlessness extending from top to bottom of society, and affecting the younger generation to an extraordinary degree. All this makes us realise that we are in the midst of a perverse generation and Peter’s exhortation is to “be saved from this perverse generation”. The gospel will help us to that end, but we must fully accept it. It says in verse 41 that some “accepted his word”. Have we fully accepted the gospel? What scope there is in the gospel! the forgiveness of sins; an eternity of bliss, and the certainty of it; justification and consequent peace; salvation from the world; deliverance from yourself; the reception of the Holy Spirit—all that is included in the glad tidings. I wonder whether we have received it fully, without reservation. If we have, we are on the road to being saved from this perverse generation.
So Peter speaks with conviction, for he was a man who had been disciplined into the truth. Such a man will speak with power. Some of us speak from knowledge, which is good, although you can just entertain people with knowledge; but when we have been disciplined into the truth there is a moral power in what is said. Peter had been recovered, so fully recovered indeed that in a
later chapter he accuses the Jews of the very thing of which he himself had been guilty, “Ye denied the holy and righteous one”, Acts 3: 14. They could have retorted, ‘You did the same thing’; but there was such convicting power with Peter that three thousand souls were added.
So God has something here to which He can add souls. It is not said to be the assembly, although this is implied. The thing itself was here in substance without being named, and that is what God is doing at the present time—adding to something that exists on the earth in the power of the Spirit. You have noticed, I expect, that when Peter was speaking to Cornelius, “the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were hearing the word”, Acts 10: 44. Peter spoke the words, the rhema, that he used to express his thoughts, but God blessed the word, the logos; for in fact Peter’s words became the word of God. I would like to feel that what we say in our preachings in fact becomes the expressed mind of God. So it says that “the Holy Spirit fell upon all those who were hearing the word”. The Spirit fell, we may say, horizontally there, like the father in Luke 15 falling on the prodigal’s neck and kissing him.
The Spirit of God had a basis of operations here on the earth. He did not come into the world; He came into the assembly, and He has been among the saints ever since. You may say, Where was He in the dark ages?—He was with individuals. You see wondrous glimmerings of light in the hymns of that period. If one individual held fast, and doubtless others with him, God could say, ‘It is there’ and so, dear brethren, the great thing is to be brought, through the glad tidings, into what God has on earth at the present moment. The only real place for the work of God in any soul is where the truth and enjoyment of the assembly are. It is striking that at the end of Romans, which is the gospel epistle. Paul finishes up with “my glad tidings”, Romans 16: 25. His glad tidings included the truth of the assembly.
So Peter speaks as a man who has been disciplined into the truth. If I have any understanding of God’s ways, it is that He disciplines us so that the light we have becomes formative in us. That is a great thing. So here you have a man who is disciplined into the truth and thus there is power in what he says; not only gift, but power. Mr. Raven said that some gifts are lost to the church and, referring to a preacher in the south of London in one of the nonconformist sects, remarked, ‘That man has gift—he should be where the light of the assembly is’. We should be thankful that we have the Spirit of God in whom the gifts are vested according to 1 Corinthians 12, so that there need not be any lack.
But I would like to ask. Have we fully accepted the word of the glad tidings? The fact is that God leaves us here, not only to work out the truth substantially with us, but that we might be recovered for His pleasure. He has in view not merely that we should be with Him in those eternal scenes above, but that we might be recovered for His pleasure now; and for that you need fully to accept the truth of the glad tidings.
So I say to our young people, Are you forgiven? ‘Oh’, you say, ‘you know I am breaking bread’.
I once met a young man who was breaking bread who came to me in great distress because he questioned whether he was saved at all, and what came to light was that he had not got settled peace. I wonder if everyone here is saved in the full sense. What does Peter say?—“Repent”. That is the first thing, a change of mind. We need to keep in that attitude of being prepared to change our minds. I expect you have read that gospel address by Mr. J. Taylor, ‘A Change of Mind or Repentance Toward God’ (N.S. Vol. 13, p.142). It is a classic. If you have not read it, read it! So, repentance is the first thing—change your mind! You will not come into the gain of the glad tidings if you do not change your mind.
I wonder if you have settled peace. I suppose you get troubled about things that you find in yourself. That was the difficulty with the young man to whom I referred just now. He said to me, I find I am more wicked since I was converted than I was before’. I said, ‘It is just that you are more conscious of the fact that you sin. You have a sensitivity now, through the work of God in your soul, that makes you aware of your capability of sinning, whereas, before, you were quite insensitive’. It may be that that confusion is with someone here, that you have not seen that your acceptance before God is in another Man in another world. You say, I believe He was delivered for my offences. Well, thank God for that. There will be myriads of the redeemed who can plead that precious blood. That heinous suggestion, that the Lord might have to leave some of us aside in an ante-room and see whether He could accept us, was really a horrible discredit to the efficacy of the atoning sacrifice of Christ. We shall be received up there on the basis of the redemptive blood of Jesus.
But why have you doubts now? “Delivered for our offences”, yes; but, “raised for our justification”, Romans 4: 25. That is, God has raised Christ from among the dead and He is free from all that He underwent vicariously for you and for me. As He is free, so you are free in the sight of God, just as though you had never committed those sins. God not only puts them behind His back, so to speak, but they have been obliterated from His records. Think of God being prepared to accept us as He accepts the Man in His presence! Christ is free from everything which He undertook when in flesh and blood not on His own account, as you will understand, for He was without sin, but vicariously—and if you have this knowledge of justification you have peace in your soul. You not only have peace with God—that is the rendering in the Authorised Version—but peace towards God, because the trouble is not with God, for God is not against men. What is needed is peace towards God. Men need the sense that not only has the distance been bridged, but that the distance has been removed. It is a wonderful thing that, as before God in Christ, I am before Him as accepted in Another.
How could we have our children baptised if it were not that there is a new Head for man? Where do you get scripture for that thought? Acts 16, Lydia and the jailor, used to be a favourite scripture at baptisms, but we could have gone to Romans 5, where a new Head is presented for man, and that new Head allows God to hold the whole world in provisional reconciliation at the present time. If it were not so, I could hardly come here to preach, unless to preach judgment, for I should not be sure of my own ground. A new Head for men, however,
means that God can come out in the overtures of His grace. The new Head, I need hardly say, is the Lord Jesus Christ.
After telling his hearers to be baptised, Peter exhorts them to be saved from the world, from this perverse generation. You see around you—at school, in the office, in the streets, everywhere—this perverse generation. Not perverted merely, but perverse—what they are characteristically. If you want to be saved, you need to change your ground. If you want salvation you have need not only to believe in your heart, but confess with your mouth. Have you confessed with your mouth Jesus as Lord? You believe in your heart, but you will be caught up in the stream if you do not confess with your mouth. I should fear for you if you do not confess Him. Peter says in this remarkable preaching, “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved”, and in Romans 10: 9 Paul tells us that salvation is not only by believing in your heart that God has raised Jesus from among the dead but by confessing Him with your mouth. Young people may say, ‘It will bring reproach’. Yes, it will, and that reproach will be your salvation, because your acquaintances will leave you alone, which is the best possible salvation that could come your way.
Baptism is a change of ground, but publicly I change my ground as I put on, as I believe Mr. Coates said, the regimentals. If a soldier has his uniform on, he is manifestly serving the Queen, and the believer, in this particular aspect, puts on his regimentals when he confesses Jesus as Lord. You say, ‘I am afraid my testimony will be very weak’. You will pardon me if I tell you that that is of little account. The virtue and power is in the Name, not in the measure of your confession. “The name of Jehovah is a strong tower—the righteous runneth into it, and is safe”, Proverbs 18: 10. It is important for young people to get hold of this. I remember coming to it over sixty years ago, in a print shop, in the presence of infidels, higher critics, blasphemers—all sorts—and how simple everything became. Of course, they leave you alone, and that is the very best thing and brings salvation in itself. So I would urge you to be true to Him, because I want you to accept the glad tidings fully, without reservation. Do not stop half-way. Let us get fully into it now.
Then what else is there? Well, of course, you have yourself to contend with because the flesh in you is no different from that in anyone else. I think we christian parents sometimes think that our children are made of different stuff from the neighbours’ children, but I hope that by now we have discovered the error of that outlook, because they come from the same root as everyone else and that is from the man who disobeyed God and fell. We all come under that titular head and we are all born in sin and shapen in iniquity. So what you need is deliverance from self. How do I get that? Mr. Raven said that deliverance is the expression of the divine nature in the believer, because in Romans 7 he is beginning to discern between evil and good.
He says (Romans 7: 19), “I do not practise the good that I will; but the evil I do not will, that I do”. There are the makings of a priest in that chapter, because the believer is discerning between evil and good, but what was needed was the power. He comes to realise that “There is then now no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus”, Romans 8: 1. Before God you are regarded as “in Christ Jesus”, the anointed Man in the very presence of God. What a wonderful position to be in!
Now, what about the power for deliverance? Firstly, do you think you can improve the flesh? How many of us have tried to do so—the years we may have wasted trying to improve the flesh! We really ought to regard it as not belonging to ourselves at all, as before God. Mr. Raven used the illustration of a piece of sugar. You may take a piece and it may have a bitter taste, but that is not the sugar but a foreign substance in it. The point is that your true identity before God is the work of God in your soul, and that is what the man in Romans 7 comes to, “I myself”. He identifies himself with the work of God in him and says, ‘That is my true identity’. What happens when a saint dies? We bury the body, for the spirit has gone to be with Christ, and the spirit of a believer is his true spiritual identity. It represents the work of God in his soul, and that is going to be clothed with a body that is suitable to it.
The next thing is, what about current state? The Holy Spirit is generally connected with the state of the believer. Not only is He the great formative power, but He is connected with the believer’s state and that is why, almost always, in the Scriptures when the Spirit is connected with believers the title Holy Spirit is used. Have you received the Spirit consciously?
Receiving the Spirit is part of the gospel. The epitome of the gospel is that God gave His Son for me and gave His Spirit to me. God will not have pleasure from our lives unless we have received the Spirit consciously so that we “do not walk according to flesh but according to Spirit”, Romans 8: 4. If you want the question of your state to be resolved you will have to give place to the Spirit of God. Then the Spirit will give you the sense of being to Another. Romans 7 is written almost like a psalm; the crux of the matter is stated in the first few verses and then the way to it is through the verses that follow. In the early verses of Romans 7 you are “made dead to the law by the body of the Christ, to be to another”.
Now deliverance comes practically by preferring Christ to yourself. That is a simple truth. When something arises and you get correction from your parents and you rebel against it, what are you going to do? Submit! Why? Because you have got to? No, but because you are now to be to Another, and you want to please Him in everything. In Ephesians, as well as in Colossians, the children are brought into consideration, which shows how directly the truth applies to our households. The solution to the question of state is that the heart-knowing God will grant—not automatically, nor does it say when—the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will meet the question of the power to do what is right and to refuse what is wrong. That applies to those of us in the eighties as well as to those in their teens. The Spirit is the power for rejecting the activities of the flesh in me. I am not responsible for the flesh in you, nor you for the flesh in me. Galatians 6: 8 helps as to that, “For he that sows to his own flesh, shall reap corruption from the flesh”. That is, you can only sow to your own flesh, but it yields a characteristic crop.
Well, we do not want to be corrupt as to our state. We want to be saved from this perverse generation. But do you not find perversity in yourself? Though brought up in a christian household, have you not found yourself to be extraordinarily perverse? The power of the Spirit of God alone is the solution to that. Being perverse is what I am characteristically as in the flesh, and the solution to that is the power of the Spirit of God.
So those that heard Peter’s word were baptised. They immediately changed their position, not only their minds. Think of what it must have meant to a Jew to range himself under the banner of a despised Jesus the Nazaraean. Think of the reproach that would follow his being baptised, publicly accepting as God’s Christ the One whom the others would regard as an imposter! But how powerful such a testimony would be. So “those then who had accepted his word were baptised; and there were added in that day about three thousand souls”. Added to what? They were not taken to heaven, but were added to what God had here. Have our young people a sense that they have been added to something which God has on earth at the present moment? You look at the edifice of the cathedral here with all its regalia and architecture, which you may admire, and then over your spirit comes the sad reflection that when the real church has gone, that will remain, with the services and the curriculum. When the disciples pointed out Herod’s temple a magnificent building apparently—the Lord says, “Not a stone shall be left here upon a stone”, Matthew 24: 2. What the Lord is indicating in that is that there will be complete moral disintegration; but the solemn fact is that religious profession will go on when the real church has gone.
Then those that were added “persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles”. How far back does our fellowship go? They asked me, when I was an apprentice, How far back does your movement go?—and as far back as they could trace was to the Plymouth pilgrim fathers who went to America! I replied, ‘You have not gone back far enough; our movement has been on for nearly two thousand years’, and so it has, dear brethren. If we are connected with anything that is of God, it goes back nearly two thousand years, and it is going on to the end of the dispensation. I want to be in it to the end in vital life, and I want the young people to be in it. I have the utmost sympathy with our young people because they look at older ones with wide-open eyes and they observe far more than we give them credit for, and what they see sometimes upsets their equilibrium. But I am telling them that the most privileged place they could be in is among the brethren. Soon Christ is going to rapture us all to heaven; He will catch away what is of Himself. Meanwhile, we must persevere in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles. That is as far back as we go. Could you have anything more confirming than that?
What else? The “breaking of bread and prayers”. How simple that expression is! It also comes into Acts 20, “We being assembled to break bread”. It is just a simple thing, but how profound! We did so this morning in this room, on the first day of the week (that is Acts 20 again); but what the breaking of bread leads on to is the great spiritual realm into which we can enter as the Lord has His place as Head and we are united with Him, the ascended Christ.
We then have our part in what lies beyond the breaking of bread. Publicly that is connected with the Lord’s day, but in secret it is connected with the first day of the week. Do you believe that what we invite you into is entirely new, and not a reformed Judaism? It is not a new piece of cloth on an old garment. No, it is something entirely new belonging to the first day of the week.
Well, it is a great thing to be added, and to persevere in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers. How simple christianity is when you resolve it to its elements. What is piety but that I not only bring God into my considerations in my circumstances, but that, so far as lies in my power, I arrange my circumstances so that God can come into them. There are things you can avoid which you know God could not come into. If you were invited to go to some place where they do not acknowledge God, well, you would not go, would you?—because God would not go there. I do not say He could not, because I could not limit His power, His omnipotence, but I am saying that God could not be with you in going there. Mr. Gill once said to a young believer, ‘You were at the theatre on Monday night’. ‘Mr. Gill’, she said, ‘ you were not at the theatre?’ ‘I was’, he replied to her surprise, ‘You were there, so you took me there’. You see the point. If you handed the loaf to me this morning, it means you are in fellowship with me, and if I were to go to a place that God cannot honour, or touch things that God cannot acknowledge, I am taking with me those I am breaking bread with. It was a great surprise to that young woman, but it cured her of her theatre-going, as you can imagine. May God bless the word.
Preaching at St. Albans
9 June 1974