Darris: Okay. Good morning, everyone. We are back in the book of Acts 2, and I think we are going to finish it here this morning. At least Chapter 2, a lot to deal with and to discuss within this very important chapter. And so never fear, we will get through the entire book of Acts. We have multiple hours, especially when we get to the second semester here.

I wanted to just back up. I think we had gotten through the point in verses 12 and 13 where they accused the disciples who were speaking in the known languages at the time of being drunk at 9:00 in the morning and drinking too early. Peter stands up and tells them that they are not drunk, in verse 15, as you suppose, since it's only the third hour of the day. We did talk about that being 9:00 in the morning as the Roman counting from sunrise. I did want to reemphasize, though, the fact that all of the nations that are mentioned in verses 9, 10, and 11, we will be introduced to travels of Paul, especially in many of these.

But disciples...Jews, not disciples necessarily at this point, but there were Jews in for Pentecost from all over these regions. And as they witnessed what had taken place on Pentecost and went back, then you have a seed bed being laid down by at least eyewitnesses to the Pentecost experience in these regions to which Paul will go, Peter will go, and other disciples that we don't have the accounts of from the Book of Acts. And so, this was what this was being used for in one of its purposes as well as a very strong witness. And so, we will see that, especially in the areas of Frisia, Pamphylia, and Cappa...well, not necessarily Cappadocia but those in Rome, especially when we get further into the Book of Acts.

Let's go ahead and pick it up in verse 14, where Peter stands up with the 11, the other apostles, we'll go ahead and call them apostles at this point.

Acts 2:14-15 "And he raised his voice and he said to them, 'Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and heed my words for these are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.'"

Now, what is happening here is a significant event. There will be two other instances of speaking in tongues in the Book of Acts, and that is, number one, when the house of Cornelius is visited by Peter and signifying then just a full-blown opening to the Gentile nations. And then, secondly, in Acts 19, when we find the beginnings of the church in Ephesus and the disciples that have been baptized with the baptism of John are baptized again, and they speak in tongue. So, those are the three instances in Acts where this takes place.

But what is happening here in Chapter 2 with the accompanying sound of wind and flames like fire, as well as the speaking in languages, is a dramatic impact. And it's a shame that it gets caught up in the misunderstanding, misapplications by other groups in terms of speaking in tongues as a sign of the Holy Spirit. And it creates whole other denominations and obscures really the deeper meaning of what's taking place here in Acts 2 with the beginning of the church, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit which begins with the disciples here in Jerusalem among the Jews, but then prefigures what is going to happen with all nations, all others as we see Paul take the gospel to the Gentiles and know that then the opening for salvation is now made possible for all peoples, all nations, not just those of the dissent from Abraham or Israel. And it's a dramatic change.

Plus, there is the dramatic change of repentance and to receive the Holy Spirit. And it's a new beginning in so many different ways here, and it is accompanied by this disturbance. And I think I mentioned earlier that this can be connected to what we see throughout the Book of Revelation as we see the events of the day of the Lord and the end of the age prior to Christ coming. We hear noises from heaven, we hear thunderings and there's lightnings, and a great deal of physical manifestation and disturbances, even then throughout the Book of Revelation, which is heralding obviously a huge significant change in the world order in the days prior to the coming of Jesus Christ. Bring this down to the individual level, the receipt of the Holy Spirit based on an individual's repentance and faith.

That is a dramatic change, and in a sense, disturbance in the status quo, your status quo, mine. I remember what I wrestled and struggled with in the period leading up to my baptism and wanting to make sure that I was repentant and that it was going to, you know, I knew that this was not just a casual step that I was taking for any, you know, to please my friends, to please my family or, you know, in a sense, to just be considered a part of the church. I recognized the spiritual implications of it, and in a sense, there was a disturbance in my life. And that's how it should be. There's a struggle between the old and the new when it comes to repentance and faith, and especially at this point.

And what is being shown here with the coming of the spirit and the dramatic spiritual phenomena that is taking place here should never be lost upon us. Collectively when it comes to all that it shows and means regarding the purpose of God, but most importantly, individually when it comes to our life and the receipt of the very essence of the life of God through the spirit. And that becomes then a part of us. It is the most significant, most important event in our life. And I don't know that I recognized that at the beginning of my conversion or my spiritual life when I was baptized. I think I've grown into that. And don't worry if you haven't at this point in your journey, if I can use that term, but understand that that event is the most important event in one's life, the receipt of the spirit of God. And so, the implications are huge because we're talking about eternity. And that individual connection is what's so important to us.

And so, what is taking place here is in a context of a major occurrence of a few hundred thousand people that have come in for Pentecost and the festivities of the temple. I have on the screen here a model of the 1st century AD temple, what is called the second temple in Jerusalem. This is a scaled model. It's something that is found in Jerusalem. It's kind of a significant tourist attraction. It's a whole model of the city of Jerusalem at the time of the 1st century and gives us a pretty good depiction of that. So, a lot of these pictures I'll have here, and especially in the next lecture when we are still in the temple with the miracle of healing that Chapter 3 talks about. So, let's go on to verse 16. Peter then begins to quote from the prophet Joel. This is what was spoken by the prophet Joel, and he's quoting out of Joel, the second chapter here.

Acts 2:16-18 Where it says, "It shall come to pass in the last day, says God, that I will pour out of My Spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, your old men shall dream dreams. And on My menservants and on My maidservants, I will pour out My Spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy."

Now, this part...this is not the whole quote from Joel, but at least a comment here on a few of these ideas here. Peter goes back to the minor prophet, Joel, to begin and to bring this forward into the context of what was happening in the 1st century. So, several hundred years earlier, Joel had given this prophecy, and now Peter draws it into this event. And what he says about it, he says, "It will come in the last days that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh."

Now, how do we understand this? Was that period of the day of Pentecost in the 1st century? Was that the last days? We've had nearly, let's say roughly 2000 years of experience since then. We even today feel that we are in the last days. Christ has not yet appeared, nor have many of the events of Revelation begun to transpire signifying that, but we continue to watch, and we do understand that because of certain modern developments, one of which being the development of a nuclear bomb and weapon at the end of World War II, which created the conditions by which all flesh could be destroyed, fulfilling one of the statements that Jesus made in Matthew 24 as a sign of the end. Prior to that, that possibility didn't exist. Even though war waged through the centuries, the potential of wiping out all flesh grew significantly with the advent of the nuclear bomb at the end of World War II. And that put us into not just the nuclear age as it is called, but it also helps us to understand that we are indeed living in the last days. Now, there are other key thoughts and events that we could talk about regarding that. One of them would be the emergence of the state of Israel as a Jewish state there in the ancient land of Israel. But we do understand and realize that we are living in these last days. But Peter draws this into his context.

Now, probably the best way to understand is this is...that with the pouring out of the spirit, the beginning of the church, there is a change that is taking place in terms of history and within the purpose of God, history as it pertains to the purpose of God, the beginning of the church. Now, this doesn't bring the kingdom of God to the earth and through the work of the church, as we were talking about the other day when we were discussing the second coming of Christ doctrine. And I showed you that picture of how the Catholic Church looks upon itself as the kingdom of God on the earth today. That is not a true concept. However, with what began on Pentecost, the beginning of the church and the work God is doing with the church in preparing a people and the preaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ and the kingdom of God, the world, for the purposes of God, entered into a new period that will culminate in the last days. But 2000 years of history have been continuing on. And you will see that Peter, later Paul in his writings, they do speak and write with an urgency that they understood their time. They felt that... I think they properly did feel even in their initial days of the church that they would see the appearance of Christ. But you can also see in the writings of Peter, especially at the end of his life, he realized it wasn't going to happen in his lifetime. But they had this urgency.

And motivated by God's spirit, Luke records it. He drew this in from the prophet Joel, which tells us that there was an application on the event of Pentecost, and there's still an application that's continued to grow through the ages and something that we can look at because the spirit of God has been poured out and there has been inspired teaching. It is poured out upon both male and female, and ultimately, it will be poured, you know, we're going to see that it's poured out upon all the old nations. And so, there's a gradual building of the implications and meaning that begins with Joel's prophecy interpreted by Peter in his time. And as we will see as we go further in this, we'll be in...you know, there'll be additional applications of what Joel began to talk about in our time. But understand that Peter is speaking under the inspiration of God's spirit. We take it as such, we don't neglect that. And that motivated them with an urgency. Now, if we look at verse 19.

Acts 2:19-20 He says, "I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath, blood and fire, vapor and smoke." Those are pretty significant signs that he's quoting from Joel. "The sun will be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord."

That projects it forward into the events that we see described in Revelation with the plagues, the trumpet plagues that are poured out, and huge cosmic shaking and signs that are unmistakable. They didn't, you know... Did the sun turn to darkness at the time of Peter here? Yes or no? Well, it did. Remember when Christ died middle of the day it became very dark. And so, you know, those that were there and heard this and made the application, it made it its point. Did the moon turn to blood? Well, we don't have a scriptural indication that it did during the time of Christ. An earthquake did take place, people came up out of the grave. And so, there's not a totality of that being fulfilled at that time, but again, you see how they were looking at it, and no doubt interpreting it in their own day as, I think, ultimately, it gave them that urgency. Now, that's a good thing. I think that every age of the church doing the work of God has got to have a certain level of urgency to the times, and an urgency to the very meaning of life and the scriptures and how they apply to us.

We can't go back 100, 300, 400 years and kind of gauge the fervency and urgency of the church at any given time in the past so much. We have the 1st-century experience from the New Testament, and then essentially, we have what we have been a part of in our own time. And I would say that as we read this and apply it down to our lives as anybody, any of those who are a part of the body of Christ at any given time would have to do, and that is to take that urgency upon themselves at their time. For us today, there is a great deal more impetus to take an urgency because of the times in which we live. And so, I won't go all into that, but that should motivate us to righteousness, to good works, and to a sense of being a part of the work of God preaching the gospel, and doing our part to see that work advance, knowing that these matters are going to pass in their fullness according to Joel's prophecies as we see them fulfilled in the prophecies of the Book of Revelation.

Acts 2:21 It says, "It shall come to pass that whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved."

And this ends the quote, and it comes out of Joel 2:28-32. Verse 21 does give a very strong teaching to that whoever will call on the name of the Lord shall be saved. I was struck. I watched the funeral of Elizabeth, Queen Elizabeth, Monday night when I got home. I dialed it up on Sky News and watched the full funeral at Westminster Abbey, and I was struck by the opening. First of all, the whole funeral ceremony was based on scripture. I mean, politicians and others got up and read scripture. And keep in mind, Queen Elizabeth prepared and she designed her funeral ceremony. She picked the music, she picked the scriptures that would be read, who would do it, etc. And Westminster Abbey, this great cathedral in the heart of London, was full of dignitaries, leaders from all over the world, broadcasted to billions of people in the world. It was being watched all over the world. And it began scripture. The prime minister of Great Britain, currently, Liz Truss, got up and read scripture. Others of the Commonwealth and certainly, the bishops of the Church of England were reading scripture. The music was the 23rd Psalm and other songs that were set to scripture. And setting out in the audience were people from all over the world. Frankly, most of them, agnostic, atheist, non-believers. They could have cared less about the Bible, what it says, and didn't believe it.

And there were some Muslims out there from their parts of the world, Jews, and, you know, all kinds of people. And as I said, most of them not believing, and yet, the Queen, it's almost as if she said, "I'm going to have the last word. And what you're going to hear at my funeral is almost like a witness." And it was stunning as to what was said, but from the opening words, I think it was prime Minister Liz Truss quoted out of the Gospel of John, Christ saying, "I am the way and the truth." And basically, what that says is that there's no other way to salvation other than through Me, which is what we just read here in verse 21, and what is also said in Acts 4 that there is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved as Jesus Christ. It's not Allah, it's not some theory or philosophy, it's not Buddha, it's not some other idea, there's only one name. But it began with a reading from John, "I am the way and the truth." And you talk about a powerful witness that was given, ecumenicalism went out the window for a few minutes in this. And that goes against the grain of every norm of our society today and especially, in England, which is a post-Christian world. They're closing down churches in England. And it is officially considered a post-Christian culture in Great Britain today, but the Queen had her faith on display as she put that out. And I found it to be remarkable. Now, going back here into the text here in verse 22. Peter then now turns to those who are in front of him.

Acts 2:22 "Men of Israel..."

And so, there were Jews, there were those from the tribe of Benjamin, and perhaps even scattered in unbeknownst to us because of it not being explicitly mentioned in the text here, but he's speaking to Israel. And Israel is the entire 12-nation tribe of Israel, it is not just the Jews, and what eventually became Judah. The nation of Judah were composed of the two tribes of Judah and Benjamin, and they mixed together. And there were some others that had filtered down from the northern nation of Israel at the time of the captivity, and they had mingled in at that time as well. That's understood, but Peter's address is to Israel.

Acts 2:22 "...hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth." So, it's very clear, unmistakable as to who he's talking about. "A Man attested by God to you by miracles, wonders, and signs which God did through Him in your midst, as you yourselves also know."

And among his audience, they were people who had been eyewitnesses of Christ's ministry, certainly in Jerusalem if not in Galilee if some from Galilee were probably present at this time. So, they were witnesses.

Acts 2:23 "Him," it says in verse 23, "being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified, and put to death."

Very powerful statement here. This is a scene displayed in Israel today of three crosses or forms of crucifixion, which is interesting. We will kind of talk more about this when we talk about the sacrifice of Christ, but you've got three different forms of crucifixion or crucifixes here in this display, all of which were used by the Romans, a couple of them. The one in the middle and the one on your right is...clearly, it is your right, is clearly taken, you know, out of just a raw tree trunk while the one on the left has been fashioned and plained and sawn down to more appropriate proportions. But they were all three instruments of crucifixion. This is from a biblical garden display between Jerusalem and the city of Bethlehem. But when Peter says that you crucified Him and you put Him to death, we know from the gospels how that worked. The Jews were insistent upon Christ dying. And they finally had seized the moment and the opportunity. They had enticed Judas to betray Him, and they set the moment, created the scene, and employed Rome to do it. They had to do that. They could not do it all by themselves. And so, it was a joint effort by the Jews and the Romans. It was the Roman soldiers who eventually after the trial before Pilate took him to His death and actually crucified Him.

But I want you to notice something here in verse 23. As Peter indicts them, he says that this was by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God. Now, we read in Ephesians 1, for example, that the purpose of God was set before the foundations of the world. At some point long before Adam and Eve, in that pre-history before the creation of Genesis 1:1 and the subsequent verses there, a determined purpose was made between the two beings that made up the Godhead. The one who became Christ, who was called the Word in John 1, and the one who became the Father. And that's in a nutshell how we understand from scripture, the divine family of God or the Godhead, the two beings, one God family, two beings. But at some point, there was a determined purpose and foreknowledge. I don't want to focus so much on that awesome part of it here as this. God knew what he was doing, even down to the design of the death, and that men, both Jews and Romans, would be involved, that people, human beings would be responsible. Now, Peter has them right before and right now, and he is not letting them out.

Acts 2:23 He said, "But it was all by God's purpose, and yet..." He said, "You've taken by lawless hands, you put Him to death."

Now, Christ's trial was not legal in many different ways, and there were false charges that were being made. It was done quickly without anything near what we would call due process, by our standards today.

But as you move into verse 24, you see the reason God raised Him up.

Acts 2:24 "God raised up, having loosed pains of death because it was not possible that He should be held by it."

Again, this too was part of the purpose of God, that Christ would be raised from the dead. He would be brutally killed, and men would be involved in doing that, but then the purpose of the plan of God was going to transcend treachery, betrayal, human avarice, death, through the resurrection. And as Luke has moved to record this from the eyewitness accounts that he compiled this together, it's a marvelous display of God's purpose in plan. Now, in verse 25, he goes on and he begins...he quotes now from a psalm, this is Psalm 16.

Acts 2:25 "David says concerning Him."

This is out of Psalms 16:8-11. I'm going to write it on the board. What happens when I write it on the board, Gwen?

Gwen: Take a note of it.

Darris: You should take note of it, which means you pick up pencil and paper, or you tap your keyboards and you write it, and you get engaged. That's how you get engaged. And not this type of engagement. All right.

Acts 2:25 "I foresaw," he says, "the Lord always before my face." This is a quote from Psalm 16, "For He is at my right hand, that I may not be shaken." That's a powerful statement right there. And it's a messianic psalm, so it's applied to Christ. "I foresaw the Lord always before my face. He's at my right hand, I may not be shaken."

There is no question, you know, the two, the Father and the Word were up in complete agreement and understanding as to what would take place, how it would all work out.

Acts 2:26-28 "Therefore," he says in verse 26, "my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest in hope. For You will not leave my soul in Hades," which he's talking about the grave, "nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. You have made known to me the ways of life, and You will make me full of joy in Your presence."

And so, this ends that quote from Psalm 16 here. His body was not left long enough to see corruption. After three days and three nights, Christ was resurrected. And before the body could begin to corrupt itself, remember, and we'll study this on that particular doctrine, they hardly had to bury Christ in the tomb after they took Him down off of the cross. And they didn't prepare the body. And that's why the ladies were going to prepare the body in the morning and found the empty tomb. They were going to then finish the funeral preparations and treatment of the body there in the grave and they found the empty tomb. And so, for this scripture to be true, and it is true, He did not see corruption which got Him, you know, He was out of the grave before the end of that third day there at that particular time. And then He was resurrected. Now, verse 29.

Acts 2:29 "Men and brethren..." Again, now Peter shifts, and again, he turns back to his own words. "...let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day."

And there were the tombs of the kings in Israel, in the valley of the kings or the valley next to Jerusalem at that day where the kings were buried. You read about that through all the different kings of the Old Testament. And the point here is that David is dead, he's buried. His tomb is with us. This particular psalm that he's just quoted has meaning beyond the life of David because David's body was corrupted. In other words, it decayed, and, you know, in a tomb. This is a picture of the garden tomb, which is not the actual tomb in which Christ was buried, but if you go to Jerusalem today, you see this as a part of the tourist trail in Jerusalem. And it gives you an idea, at least, of the type of tomb of the 1st century, but this was not the tomb. But this is what's called the garden tomb. We'll talk more about Christ's burial on the doctrine about the crucifixion. I've been in this tomb. When I spent the summer in Israel in 1971, the area there wasn't even built up as a tourist attraction. You could just walk in off the street, walk into that tomb. And I'd do that on a Sabbath, take my Bible there and read my Bible in that very spot. And at least, you know, I wasn't thinking that that's where Christ laid, but it at least gave you some type of a sense and an understanding. You can't do that today, but you can still see that and peek into it. But there was a time you could just walk into it and sit in there as long as you wanted. Nobody else was around. The other traditional sight of the tomb of Christ is within the what is called the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. But Peter is making this point here that David is corrupt, his body decayed where Christ did not.

Acts 2:30-32 "Therefore," he said, "being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, He would raise up the Christ to sit on His throne. He, foreseeing this, spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ," the Messiah, "that His soul was not left in Hades," or the graves, "nor did His flesh see corruption. This Jesus God has raised up, of which we are all eyewitnesses."

And he's speaking of the 120 that were there from the disciples that have been with Jesus to that point, but the others who had...among, you know, the people that understood that He had been raised up, that we are eyewitnesses of that.

Acts 2:33 "Therefore," in verse 33, "being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He poured out this which you now see and hear."

And of course, this had been described by Christ in the night before His crucifixion as He explained to His disciples that by His leaving, the spirit would come that would be available. And this was what was happening. And now Peter and the others were beginning to realize what all of this meant.

Acts 2:34-35 "For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself. The Lord said to my Lord, 'Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool."

And this is a quote from Psalm 110:1. And it's a very important application of that psalm, "Sit at My right hand till I make Your enemies Your footstool" because this is describing the very work of Christ today as He is at the right hand of the Father in heaven as our intercessor, as our high priest, all described in the book of Hebrews from that position. And so, He was resurrected and He was seated. Daniel 7 talks about this as well as other verses, and it describes the work of Christ today.

Acts 2:36 "Therefore," verse 36, "let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ."

So, He's Lord and the Messiah, the one whom you crucified. Verse 36 is Peter's closing, closer, let's put it this way, in the whole sermon. This is what makes the point that you...he said, "God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.” You crucified him. You are responsible. And he's speaking to those there, and they were cut to the heart. This is a scene off of a sarcophagus, off of a tomb from the mid-2nd century AD, but it shows mourners and can give you a bit of an idea of how, you know, the grief and the shock, the stunned look that some of these people would have had as they heard this indictment handed down. "You crucified him. You were responsible for it."

Acts 2:37 Says, "When they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?'"

They were cut to the heart. And that's the essence of what repentance can describe. I mean, there's many other scriptures to talk about repentance, but this one verse, you know, summarizes a great deal being cut to the heart. It's a spiritual experience, it is having remorse. It's not just showing remorse, it is having a convicting sense that I am responsible for the death of Christ. My sins must be forgiven. And taking it that literally, that personally, we have to. Repentance is not a light matter, nor is baptism something to just casually stroll into, it is a very, very important matter. And Peter gets to the heart of it here. And their response is, "Men and brethren, what shall we do?" They said to Peter and the rest, "What do we do?" And in verse 38, then Peter gives them the directive.

Acts 2:38 He said to them, "Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

This is Acts 2:38. If you are one of those that mark your Bibles, take your yellow, red, blue, polka dot, purple, pink color, whatever, mark Acts 2:38. You need to not only mark it but you need to put that one on your heart. That Acts 2:38 is kind of a key verse to understand about repentance and baptism.

In this, Peter says...he lays out. He says repentance, baptism, remission of sins, receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. You can look at it as a...there's a sequential process. You first repent, you're baptized, and through that, you have the remission of your sins, your forgiveness of sins, and then you receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. There's a lot packed into this here, and it is essentially what Peter gives them. I mean, he's given them a sermon. Look at verse 39.

Acts 2:39 He says, "For the promises to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call. And with many other words, he testified and exhorted them saying, Be safe from this perverse generation."

Verse 40 is where Luke tends to wrap it up without telling us everything that was said. Scholars kind of try to explain this away and debate, you know, back and forth. It's kind of a familiar method of history from the ancient classical period of quoting speeches. They know that they don't, you know, in the classical Greek and Roman accounts of speech is given, you don't have every word. I don't think we have every word that Peter spoke this day or in some of the other sermons because it's, well, we're told that here in verse 40. I think we have the essence of what God wants us to have. Always, you have to understand that as you read the scripture, realize that this is God breathed. Every scripture is given by inspiration of God. It's profitable for doctrine, reproof and instruction, and righteousness.

God used human beings to record the Word, but God inspired them to write what He wanted to write. And so, Luke is being led by God's spirit to write what Christ wants, not what Luke thinks as a historian/doctor, 1st-century individual using the methods of rhetoric and history and everything else of his day. You read the commentaries, and that seeps up through, just virtually, every distinguished commentary on scripture. And it is the nature of theologians and Bible scholars, and even those who believe in the inspiration of the Bible. But they tend to, in a sense, get off into the rhetoric of history and interpretation. And they talk about what Luke wrote or what Luke's intent was. And you always have to step back from that and say, "No, it's really what God intended. And it's what God inspired." And yes, He used human beings who were a product of their time and culture, but God gives us what He wants through Paul, through Luke, through any of the other writers. And though we may not have a complete record, in this case, of every word spoken by Peter that day, we have what God wants us to have. And it is sufficient here. So, they were baptized.

Acts 2:41 Tells us that “On that day, they gladly received his word, were baptized, and about 3,000 souls were added to them.”

3,000. Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls in the whole world, and the ships at sea, that's every minister's dream to give such a powerful sermon that 3,000 people respond to it and agree with it, much less be baptized from it. I've never given that sermon. I don't know any of us in the church who have. Peter gives it, and it is a lollapalooza. It brings them out. Now, some say that they couldn't have baptized 3,000 people in this one day. Well, yes, they could have. And number one, it says that they did. And it's best just to take what it says here. But around the temple, there were baptismal pools. This is such a one on the southwest corner of the Temple Mount. You see the steps going down into what would have been a pool. People going into the temple had to go through ritual washings to be ritually pure to go in and take part in any service in the temple. And so, they had many baptismal pools. They're called mikvehs. And here's the word on the screen. You want to write... I'm not going to write it on the board, but it's on the screen. So, you should know that one. A mikveh, M-I-K-V-E-H is a Hebrew term for these baptismal pools.

Here's another one. You see two sets of steps. Because, you know, people would be using this, people would walk down one side, go into the pool, be ritually cleaned, then come back out the other side far enough away from anyone else going in so as to not be tainted by their "impurity." That's how it kind of worked. You can see these if you ever go to the...it's an archeological park around the Temple Mount today, and these are all there. So, there are dozens of them that they have found. And so, the point is this, yes, they could have baptized 3,000 in one day. There was enough water, and there were places in which to do that. And it's hard to imagine. The most I've ever baptized is 17 at one time, not 3,000 in one afternoon.

That was an experience, 17. It was in Africa, Kenya, on the 8th-day festival. We were at this 10 years ago this year. And we'd come into this one feast site in Kenya, and the pastor there wanted me to help him counsel a group of people that were, he thought, ready to be baptized. And so, the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles, we sat in a little room and talked to about 17 people. I didn't know these people. The minister talked with them, and all I could do was just kind of be a part of it. Well, they want to be baptized. And so, the next day between services, we drove out into the country and found this big pond out in the middle of a field. And members followed us out. We had this big caravan of cars going out. And this is Africa, you don't just go walking into bodies of water in Africa because there were things called crocodiles there.

So, we had somebody go around the edge and make sure there weren't any known crocodiles. And we walked out into the water, the minister and I, and we started calling people out. And we baptized them out in this big pond. About halfway through that episode, we heard a bunch of cattle start to come over a hill down to the pond we were in. We were in a farmer's pond, and it was the middle of the day, time to water is cattle. And I thought to myself, "Oh, no." So, here we were trying to get all this baptism done, here come about 30 cattle, 30 head of cattle into the water walking all around us. And you know what cattle do when they get in the water? Yeah, that's what the cattle did when they got into the water. And they did more than just drink water. And it was a mess, but we had to get the baptism done. And so, we got the baptism done, got out of there. We didn't have any crocodiles, but we had cattle through all of that. And 17 people, that's the most I've ever baptized. I got the sickest I've ever been in my life two days later out of that. I think I picked up some kind of a bug out of the water that particular day, and I spent two solid days in bed and other places we won't get into. That was a rough occasion. 3,000 people, they could have easily done it here in this setting. And Peter, you know, exhorts them in verse 40.

Acts 2:40 "Be saved from this perverse generation."

That's really a call to every generation. Not only did they live in the midst of a perverse generation then, we live in the midst of one today. And I don't know that it's any worse than it was in the 1st century. Sometimes I think that it was even worse then, as bad as it might be right now. But 3,000 people were added. And you've instantly got a movement going now in Jerusalem.

Acts 2:42 It says in verse 42, "They continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, and the breaking of bread, and in prayers.”

And so, I thought I would get through the end of this, but I should know better after 10 or more years of teaching the book of Acts that I can't follow a schedule on this. There's just too much to talk about. And so, I think I'll end it right at verse 42, and we'll pick up there next week because there's a lot here, even in these last few verses of Chapter 2 for us to understand, regarding the church today and how they were at that time and the lessons that we can learn in terms of our own unity and fellowship within the church. So, I don't want to short change that and a few other doctrinal matters that we should understand out at this particular section. So, we'll pick up here with verse 42 in the next class.