The New Testament Church, Part H

Taped by John Greene, transcribed by Mary Kay Lynd

Bible quotes are from NKJV unless otherwise stated. Let's continue with Peter's sermon. But look at what happens because of this sermon. It says, "Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?"" Wow!! The people that had gathered around following the sound of heaven and the 120 being in drunken like states as the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they fell out and they were speaking in other tongues, and all that noise was sounded around and people gathered together. "Gossipers, hey did you hear this, did you hear this, do you know what's going on over there? Hey let's go on over there. Hey so and so was walking by there this morning and heard this." And so they had all gathered around and all these people were outside and Peter had a chance to now preach to them. And now in that crowd it says, "they were cut to the heart", and they asked a question what can they do? What do they do now? Is there any hope? Are we hopeless? We did kill the Christ. It is our fault Jesus was crucified. Yes we were consenting. Wow! This just amazes me, just 50 days before that wow. They admit the truth. Fifty days before that they were responsible. Some of them were in the crowd saying, "Crucify Him, crucify Him!" Yes, they were stirred by the chief priests and the Pharisees and Sadducees but they still did it. They still said it. Now they are cut to the heart. And look what Peter says in Acts 2:38.

Now again there's another heretical group out there that'll tell you that this is the only answer to life. So it says, "38 Then Peter said to them, "Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins" The word remission and forgiveness are the same word. We already looked at that in Luke Chapter 24. "...and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Now here Peter calls it the gift of the Holy Spirit. Joel prophesies it as the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Jesus called it the promise of the Holy Spirit. John the Baptist called it the baptism of the Holy Spirit. It's the same exact event, the same exact glorious event that can happen to a believer. First they have to be a believer so Peter says, "Repent." That's pretty simple. Repent. Now some people will tell you that repentance means I'm sorry God. Repentance means one thing. You have a complete change of mind of your sins, totally. If you're an adulterer you stop being an adulterer because you're going to change your mind about it. If you're a homosexual you stop being a homosexual because you're going to change your mind about it. Now am I saying that all sins are the same? In one sense they are. In another sense that sin itself, is not sin unless God shows it to you as sin. Now I'm not saying this to let people off the hook, but I'm saying this to keep it in line with the Scriptures. Only does something become sin when the Holy Spirit shows you that it's sin. If you don't know it's sin then, it's not sin. For example, some people just freely talk. Now we in the church who have studied the Scripture will tell you that's gossip when you just share events about other people back and forth using rumors, that's gossip. Some people in their lifestyle, practice gossip, but they have no clue in the world that it's gossip. When the Holy Spirit shows them, whether they're reading their Bible or they're in prayer, whether they're in a church and listening to a sermon, whenever the Holy Spirit shows them that it's sin, it's sin.

There are some things, however, that are clear cut, that God has no promise whatsoever to leave aside anything. There are some sins, such as adultery, that affect the flesh in a very dramatic way, the house of the temple or temple of the Holy Spirit, where the indwelling Holy Spirit lies. Because the born again person has a house. We all have a house. We all walk around in the flesh. We're body, soul, and spirit. Our house, if it's violated, that particular violation is a clear-cut violation that the Holy Spirit will show as sin when we come to Him. I speak of that from the nature of sexual sins because they violate the temple of the Holy Spirit, and God is not going to allow that not to be known at the moment that they are being convicted of the Holy Spirit. They are going to be convicted of specific sins. A person can't just say some pretty prayer and think that they're saved. The Holy Spirit cuts to the heart as we see here in this passage. And Peter says that they must repent. Well what do they repent of? What they are cut to the heart doing!! In this particular case because of what they're talking about here, they were cut to the heart about how they treated Jesus Christ, because our sin does that, it sins against God. And the specific sins like homosexuality and adultery and fornication, those sins are going to be convicted of the moment that we come to a point when we say, "What do we do"? So the individual who repents of those sins will go and be no more what they were. The individual is going to be changed, challenged by the power of God. So the reason I say that is because there is some move out there from this God is love group, and I say that kind of laughingly because God is love, but God's love does not eliminate and overlook all these other characteristics. And somehow from this group of God is love, we have the idea that you can be homosexual and be called a Christian. You can be an adulterer and be called a Christian. You can be a fornicator and be called a Christian. But the Word here from Peter is that they've got to repent.

The Holy Spirit hasn't changed. The house that He is going to reside in in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the house that He would reside in in the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, must be a pure house. And so the house that has those sexual sins involved, because sexual sins involve the ripping away and the tearing apart of the house, and it prevents and eliminates the possibility of any kind of genuine relationship with God. So because of that when somebody is in the process of coming to know Christ, one of the things that the Holy Spirit will do is reveal those sins that are against the flesh. So if a homosexual repents of his sins he's not going to get up and walk away from that altar with God and still be a homosexual. He may have a mind that remembers the acts that he has done, an adulterer may have a mind and remember the acts that he has done, but when they get up from the altar of God and they leave, the Holy Spirit will have convicted them and changed them from being what they were to a new man. That temple that's going to house the Holy Spirit will be clean. That's what repentance is about. Now those homosexuals that want to say that they're Christians and that they believe the Bible and then they go along and justify why it's okay to be homosexual, and then they go on and on and on and on until they have twisted all of the holiness of God out of the Scriptures and they've replaced it with this God is love, I'm okay, you're okay, everybody's okay, they eliminate repentance is what they've really done. They've said, "I'm going to justify by putting together my belief system in such a way that my heart feels okay but I'm not changing my life." So, in essence, their life isn't changed. And because their life isn't changed they're not changed.

So don't tell me if you're a homosexual that you're changed by the power of God. Then you've got that grace crowd that says, "Oh yeah, well they said the prayer they're okay." So look at what Peter says, "Repent." That's it. Repent. What's the next thing that happens? Well it says, "let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins." So the baptism of water is an identification with Christ that you have genuinely repented. It's the proclamation to the public that you have taken that step of repentance. Now again that heretical Pentecostal group that wants to tell you that this means that unless you're baptized in water you can't be saved. They haven't read the Scripture passage properly. Let us read what it says. After you repent, you see, repent means you're going to get saved, repent means that the Holy Spirit comes upon you and has convicted you, and has washed you clean because you had a change of mind about your sin. Therefore, you're born again. Step one: you must be born again. Step two: identify with being born again by being water baptized. And then it says, "and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit." Once you've repented, you're a candidate for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. What's the gift of the Holy Spirit? What happened on the day of Pentecost? The outpouring of the Holy Spirit. All of that is the gift of the Holy Spirit. If you are a believer, if you believe these Scriptures, you'll have the gift of the Holy Spirit come. Again and like in my case it took 2 years because I over-analyzed, I over-thought it. I had everybody in the whole world praying in different ways from one of the churches that I was in, and a few friends that were there and were in other churches. I did everything but stand on my head in the corner. You don't have to do that. You just have to pray and believe God. Ask Him for the gift of the Holy Spirit because then you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now look at the parameters that Peter gives for the promise. What promise? The gift of the Holy Spirit, the outpouring of Joel. "For the promise is to you." Who's' the you? Those in front that have repented, those who were spoken to that have been shaken by the convicting power of the Holy Spirit. But it's not just to them! Look at the possibilities. It says, "and to your children." Your children!! The children of those standing in front of him, if they repent, then the gift of the Holy Spirit is for them. Now look at this, "and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call." Now I can't think of anything that can be any clearer than that. For those who have tried to eliminate the gift of the Holy Spirit, they don't read this passage of Scripture. Anybody who repents of their sins and believes this passage of Scripture, they will act upon it by asking the Father to give them the Holy Spirit. They will believe the gift of the Holy Spirit is for them. They will see that the necessity of the Holy Spirit empowerment in an individual's life is the promise of God to the lost world because we're to be witnesses to the lost world. We're to go and preach and make disciples. We're not to go out and make everybody say great prayers. We're to go and preach commitment. We're to go and preach discipleship. Line up with the Word of God. And if somebody starts to line up with the Word of God, to be able to line up with the Word of God people are going to have to commit their lives to Jesus Christ. And to do that they're going to have to repent. So that's what we preach. That's what Jesus said in Luke Chapter 24. You preach repentance. So if we get sin out of the way, if we get sin washed in the blood, if we get genuine repentance operating, we get the empowerment of the Holy Spirit as prophesied by Joel, we get that promise of the Father, the baptism of the Holy Spirit of fire. We get all of that. And it's for anybody who will call on the Lord our God, anybody. Anybody in a right relationship with Jesus Christ. It can't be any clearer than that. When is this going to happen? It started on the day of Pentecost! And when does it end? It ends when the Lord Jesus Christ himself appears in the smoke in the clouds of the sky, the day of His return. That whole entire time frame. Anybody that calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Anybody that is saved, anybody that is washed in the blood, anybody that is committed to Jesus Christ is a candidate for receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the gift of the Holy Spirit will then bring about in a maturing believers life the gifts of the Holy Spirit. And perhaps in the next tape we'll look at the gifts of the Holy Spirit, so that we can understand what these terrains are all about, what this power of God is all about when we see the Spirit falling in these last days, how they prophesied, how they have seen visions. All these are gifts of the manifestation as the Spirit of God ordains and sees a need.