If you go ahead and open your Bibles to Acts chapter 2, Acts chapter 2, I'm going to read a passage of scripture from Acts chapter 2 beginning in verse 22, and then we'll pray. If you'll remember, last week we kind of ended in this section. We were dealing with some things, looking at the apostles propagating the gospel. And we had looked at some other scriptures, but there's some things that I want to close up here as we kind of move forward this morning. So apostles have been called. They were now preaching in the tongues, intelligible languages of men. Those gathered, these Jewish men and women from all the different regions could come and they were hearing in their own language of the preaching of the gospel. And some were saying, are these people drunk? And Peter begins to preach and says, no, they're not drunk. This is what the scripture says. This is from the old Testament and Joel and what the scripture said. And for the, through the prophet, Joel is being fulfilled. And then he, after he says that in verse 22, he says, men of Israel, listen to these words. Jesus the Nazarene, a man attested to you by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him in your midst, just as you yourselves know this man, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God, you nailed to a cross by the hands of godless men and put him to death. But God raised him up again, and putting an end to the agony of death, since it was impossible for him to be held in its power. For David says of him, I saw the Lord always in my presence, for he is at my right hand, so that I will not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue exalted. Moreover, my flesh also will live in hope, because you will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor allow your Holy One to undergo decay. You have made known to me the ways of life. You will make me full of gladness with your presence. Brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. And so, because he was a prophet and knew that God had sworn to him with an oath to seat one of his descendants on his throne, he looked ahead and spoke of the resurrection of the Christ, that he was neither abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh suffer decay. This Jesus God raised up again, to which we are all witnesses. Therefore, having been exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured forth this which you both see and hear. For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we come before you and give you praise and honor and glory for who you are and all of your being. You are perfect and holy in every way, just, merciful, good, right, kind. And Lord, we call out to you in all of your magnificence and praise you for your sovereignty. You alone know all things. You alone have all power. You alone, God, are the one who is present and everywhere at once, simultaneously. We give all glory and honor unto you. You are immutable, and yet you are merciful, gracious, and kind to us as sinners. We praise you for your word, the time that you give us to spend in your word, and we ask that you may, by the power of your Holy Spirit, deal with our souls, that we will be those who are strengthened, we are moved according to the truth of your word by the power of the spirit. That we are encouraged. And Lord, we know that your truth alone is what sustains us each and every day. Lord, there are those who are unable to be here due to illness today. We ask your mercy upon them. Some may be still dealing with the remnants of what was left over from this winter storm. Lord, we ask your mercies upon them as well. And Lord, be merciful to us as we spend time in your word that our minds would be focused on your truth. In Christ's name, we pray. Amen. We're still working under this heading this morning, God particularly and personally called his apostles to propagate the gospel. God particularly and personally called his apostles to propagate the gospel. When we see this propagation of the gospel, we have to recognize that the apostles were personally called, and we can note that from Matthew 10, 2 through 4 and Luke 6, 12 through 16, and that even Paul himself was personally called in Acts chapter 9. We can recognize that. And yet when we see that idea worked out, it's worked out in the book of Acts so that we will understand that there is a connection to all of the scripture, to the whole of its truth, that it may be applied to the life of every single believer. The book of Acts is an unfolding of the acts of the apostles. Primarily, they're preaching and teaching. Yes, there are signed gifts, healings, and wonders that are performed. But if you note, throughout the book of Acts, the main emphasis is on the preaching and teaching that goes forward in planting these churches not only in the area of Judea and in the eastern Mediterranean shore areas, but it moves all across North Africa and especially into Europe and what we would call Rome. And so the idea here is to recognize that God's word was going forward. We're seeing that in the book of Acts in a very practical way. But our time spent has been trying to see what was the emphasis of that message. And we noted the emphasis of the message of Christ was he was saying, I'm fulfilling all of scripture. He was bringing forward the Old Testament. He preached using the Old Testament scriptures. He also stated clearly that this is identified, let's not try to apply that and say the smart thing to do is not to worry about snakes, especially the venomous ones. We'll just handle them and stick our hands in with them and if I find one, I'll just play around with it. The scripture's not teaching that. The Scripture is saying this is a particular happening in the apostolic order of what was unfolding. These signs were necessary for a time and a reason. But the main emphasis of what the book of Acts is giving us is not only the unfolding of that history, but the main emphasis is on the content of the preaching and the teaching. And it gives us a sense of understanding what was unfolding. We see this in Peter's sermon, and we spent some time looking at that first portion of sermon, verses 14 through 21. We said a few things about that. But note in 22 to 36, Peter then begins to give an emphasis of, okay, these men are not drunk, but what you're hearing and seeing is a fulfillment of scripture. Then in verse 22, where does he move In verse 22, from the fulfillment of scripture being in what you're seeing in front of you, being a fulfillment of scripture, now he starts to preach to them about who? The Christ, Jesus. And what does he say of the Christ? What does he recount for them in verses 22 to 24? All right, this is what happened. Here's how his life worked out. You crucified him and he was raised up. What kind of emphasis does he give there on the crucifixion and the resurrection? Alright, prophecy. He says this is a fulfillment. Now, before he states an Old Testament passage, how does he say it's a fulfillment in verse 23? Peter plainly preaches the sovereignty of God in not only all things but specifically in the purpose of Christ's coming. This man, speaking of Jesus, delivered over by the predetermined plan and foreknowledge of God. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. Before time began, we don't have a ton of information in the scripture about that, but we have enough information to know before time began, before the world ever began, there was a predetermined plan that the Son would come and the Son agreed to come and He did come. And the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit were in one accord in that. And so Peter, which is interesting here, because you have to note, this is just a little mini version of what Paul's gonna open up in his letter to the Romans and his letter to the Ephesians, right? Paul's gonna give more information. But before Paul is even an apostle, The idea of the predetermined plan of God to save a people is starting to be unfolded in a new covenant way in this very sermon. So once he makes a statement like that and says, here's how the predetermined plan was worked out, godless men did what? They nailed him to a cross. Yeah. Yes, that's right. Yeah. All the Messiah I had told you about that was given to you, Jews, and would come through your line, through the line of David, which is going to be his point from the Old Testament quote here. Once he came, you didn't accept him and you hated him, and then you handed him over to godless Gentiles, as you said, the dogs. You know, the Jews, they looked at the Gentiles as they were worthless dogs. So it's just another stick of the knife into the Jews. But here's a further stick in the knife when Peter quotes the Old Testament. And when he quotes the Old Testament, he says, for David says of him. Now, when you read this Psalm, this Psalm is given by David and it's in a time of David's covenant context of kingship. And now, what does Peter do? Peter takes that covenant context, opens it up, and the very first thing Peter says is, for David says of him. David wrote this psalm dealing with the context of his kingship, and yet even David, he goes on later in the text to say David was a prophet because David knew that David would die. So David was not only king, but in this instance, in this psalm, David was being used as a prophet. Now the emphasis of, Oh, excuse me. The, the emphasis here in verse 27, well, verse 26, therefore my heart was glad and my tongue exalted more over my flesh also will live in hope because you will not abandon my soul to Hades nor allow your Holy one to undergo decay. And Peter says in verse 29, brethren, I may confidently say to you regarding the patriarch David that he both died and was buried and his tomb is with us to this day. That means the Jews of that day, they knew exactly where the tomb of David was. Peter's not making that up. That's a historical fact of the day that Peter is pointing to and saying, we know where the patriarch David is buried. We know that tomb. You know it. I know it. Everybody knows it. And we know he was buried in that tomb. And he wasn't raised from the dead. So he goes on to unfold and say, this Old Testament passage was always about who. It had a primary emphasis in the time that David could speak of it in a particular way of his own kingship. And yet at the same time, David was being used as a prophet to speak of the coming king and now he's saying that coming king, he came, he lived, he died, and he was raised again from the dead and it is Jesus. You see, this emphasis of the Old Testament is being used by the apostles to give all the proper connections to identifying the Christ. Now, let me ask this question. I want you to think for just a moment. This is not necessarily just a Sunday school answer here. I want you to think for just a moment. Why is it important that Peter not just walk up there and say, y'all know we've been talking about Jesus, and a lot of y'all seen the guy, so you know what happened to him, and they put him on that cross, and now he's alive. So you better believe. Why is it important that it's not just Peter getting up there kind of talking in some common vernacular and just making a brief statement about who Jesus is? Why is it important that all of this is being pulled from Old Testament to new or Old Covenant to new? All right. That is an important point. There is an authority and credibility given to the witness of Peter when he's able to establish it from the scriptures of old. And to say, this is what was always meant to be. Because Peter's not just saying, I in and of myself, had time with Jesus, and so now I in and of myself am proclaiming to you who Jesus is. That's not what he's doing. He's not just basing this on personal experience. What is he basing it on? There's a whole covenant context. of several thousand years being worked out by God in Providence in his predetermined plan, and God gave us a word that told us that this is how it was going to be, and now I am here to tell you that that which was written of then through King and Prophet David has been fulfilled in the Christ, and I am standing on the truth of God's word, not just my personal experience. So it lends an authority and a stability to that witness. Think about it this way in the idea of credibility. You know, you can hear one person tell you a story of something that occurred and the story sounds a little bit outlandish and you think, oh, they're just embellishing. And you say, yeah, I mean, that person embellishes sometimes. And you don't quite want to take that at face value. But what happens if, say, several people come and give the same exact information? And then maybe there's some writings that are found to prove the same exact information. And they're even older than the people that were giving this information. You see how you're starting to build a case and you're giving authority and stability. And the authority that Peter is standing on here is not just saying, I just want to talk to you guys from my own personal experience. You know, I ate dinner with that guy, Jesus, and he was so nice and sweet. Let me just tell you about him a minute. Now, not that those experiences aren't important. Because those experiences form a lot of things, form a lot of ways that Peter will begin to preach and teach. But if we take this sermon in and of itself, in its proper context, when Peter first begins to preach, it's not personal experience that he's basing the testimony of the Christ on. He's basing it on what? God's word. Yep, go ahead. Well, we've had those discussions before. I mean, probably most of us have been a part of some Bible study where you sit in a group of people and maybe a leader in the group or someone in the group said, well, you know, I'm going to read this passage and you tell me what you feel like it means to you. Well, that's never a good thing because I can feel like it means something to me and it not really mean that at all. Um, that's the importance, importance of building a case of scripture, interpreting scripture, the whole of its context. Yes. God has a plan, and it's gonna happen. Yeah, yeah, and... I mean, we're in modern day now, we think we're so smart, we're gonna shape the world and send it the way we want it to go. I can just tell you, God's got a plan, and it's gonna go where he wants it to go. Yeah. Yeah, I think there's a context to that. You know, God's plan is certain, it's for sure as Jackie said, and in God's plan being certain and for sure in all these things, it gives us a sense of understanding that where do we come to understand how certain that plan is, but in God's word. It goes, you know, remember our emphasis here is sola scriptura. Scripture alone is our base foundation for everything in our faith and understanding and our living. And it's being established that we're trying to show what scripture alone really is. To some, in modern evangelicalism, scripture alone is portions of the scripture. To some, it's mainly the New Testament. But what we're trying to show is that when we say scripture alone, we're looking at the whole of it. And the reason we're looking at the whole of it is if you really want to have sure footing, you're building a case for the purpose of God being planned and perfect and worked out. that it's sure and all of its way well God's been saying that all the way along and furthermore when he gets to the new covenant he doesn't stray from things that he said in the past God uses his Apostles now to carry the weight of that old covenant context and to preach it forward and to say here's the fulfillment of all that so it is sure Because David died. If David was only speaking of himself, and we know where David's tomb is, and David only had in mind that it would apply to him individually, then what hope would we have in that prophecy? But now what does Peter do? Peter says, that was never the intention, and David knew it was not the intention. We've now seen that fulfillment of that psalm and we've seen it in who? The Lord Jesus Christ. And so he begins to present and preach Christ from the old covenant context and saying here is how it is fulfilled. Now, this sermon becomes very important because when you go through and you start to look at the Book of Acts, notice how they're always working out the content of the New Covenant from the context of the Old Covenant and bringing it forward. I debated, there's a part of me, I just wanna go through the Book of Acts and show all this stuff. That's really what I want to do. But we'll never finish any of these studies. They'll just never get done. So I'm using this sermon as a way for you to see this is the emphasis. As you study the book of Acts, as you read it at home, make this one of the notations in your mind. Look at these Old Testament quotes and recognize they're pulling this forward saying this is the fulfillment. This is the right way to view these Old Testament passages. At the time, even the prophets who spoke some of that didn't have the clarity that we have now because the Christ came. And he gave his apostles to bring that to the masses. So that's an emphasis I want you to see as you read the book of Acts and be careful not to take the book of Acts and go, well, we have to replicate every single verse exactly as they did it. No, that's not the point. They're giving you the history of the burgeoning church, but they're giving you the foundation of how the church was formed. And it was formed for the preaching and teaching of the apostles because signs and wonders, they will pass. And we're going to get to that in Corinthians because ultimately the tongues were meant for unbelievers as a sign. We don't need tongues in the church, we need the preaching of God's word in the church. So you'll see the unfolding of this. Now, I want to give a little bit of a broader context now to the opening of the New Testament. As you go through the New Testament and reading your New Testament, you need to note Just as you've seen here, a lot of your Bibles, your different versions, Old Testament direct explicit quotes will be in all caps, okay? And you need to see that there's quite a bit of that throughout the New Testament. And they're always saying, what was said then in that way was a precursor Looking forward to the Christ and once he came now we're telling you what it means as the Christ has already come, ascended and will come again. One writer says the New Testament writers included approximately 250 express, that's another way of saying explicit Old Testament quotations. And if one includes indirect or partial quotations, the number jumps to more than a thousand. Referring to all the Old Testament books except Obadiah. Now this writer said something later on a little interesting and I want you to note this because I think this is important. It goes along with our Reformation idea and Sola Scriptura. He says, it is to be noted that the whole New Testament contains not even one explicit citation from any of the Old Testament apocrypha which are considered as canonical by the Roman Catholic Church. This omission can scarcely be viewed as accidental. So the Roman Catholic Church has, as we said before, added books to the Bible. It's an Old Testament. It's the apocryphal books that they have. And they said, these are to be included in the canon. And historically, the church said, no, that's not the case. There's just the 66 books, Genesis to Revelation. Don't add any more. And the Roman Catholic Church said, no, no, no, no, no. We're going to add these other books to the canon. But what this writer notes is if you go through the New Testament and you look at the New Testament, there's not one, not even one express quote, not one from the whole of the Old Testament apocryphal books that are included in the apostles writings that are in the New Testament, not one. Now, if those books were really that important in the sense of being called scripture, I want us to be careful. We're not saying you can't read other books. This is not a teaching called, there's a solo scriptura, which is me alone with my Bible alone. That's solo scriptura. No, this is sola scriptura, which means we have the scripture alone as the foundation of our faith. We always go back to the scripture first and foremost. We check up anybody's writing outside of scripture with scripture, and yet we can still read the writings of others who are good, solid Christian thinkers, pastors, theologians, and so on. Doesn't mean we'll always agree with them, but if we're going to disagree with them, we need to disagree according to scripture and so forth. What's interesting here, though, is that these apocryphal writings have been included as scripture. That means they're including them as a way that those apocryphal books, you have to say, thus says the Lord. But none of the New Testament writers take any quote from any of the apocryphal writings. Nothing, nothing. It gives you an indication of the importance, though, of the Old Testament writings being brought forward in the New, that there would be so many direct quotes and so many allusions and inferences. Another writer postulated that 33% of the New Testament is either direct or indirect quotations and allusions from the Old Testament. You got a direct quotation. We've seen some of that here in Acts chapter two as we've looked at Peter's first sermon. Those are direct quotations. There's also inferences from the Old Testament that are brought forward and explained in the New Testament. And then there are allusions. Sometimes those illusions are ideas or even some of the history. 1 Corinthians 10 is an allusion back to the time of Moses and the law being given and what was the purpose of the people being under the cloud and the pillar of fire, okay? And he brings that forward, that allusion to that Old Testament time, Paul brings that forward and says this is, all of this is for our good and to be used for us because it's pointing to the Christ. So we have that kind of information. So think about that for a second. 33% of the New Testament in some way directly or inference or illusion is pulled from the Old Testament. This writer, he calculated that out of the 7,967 verses of the New Testament, that 2,606 were references in one of those aforementioned ways from the Old Testament. So a third of the New Testament is some kind of calculation, pulling forward, explanation of the prophecies of the old and using them properly in the New Testament, yes. Yeah, Dr. MacArthur is not the only one. No, but I think you all need to be aware of this. I think it's fair. We're not being ugly. We have an appreciation, Dr. MacArthur. Yeah, I mean, Dr. MacArthur has helped many of us, especially early on and coming to the doctor's grace and things of that nature. So by the way, be praying for him. His health is not, he's not doing well at all right now. And he's in the hospital and has been for a couple of weeks. So the Lord may be taking him home soon. And that would be a large loss of a great conservative voice. in our nation for the importance of the scripture. So we're not denigrating him, we appreciate him. But it is true, he does fall into a camp, along with several others, that if it's not expressly repeated, if the Old Testament is not explicitly repeated in the New, then it's not to be dealt with or looked at or considered or obeyed. I forgot his name. Southern Seminary's president, Moeller. Thank you, Ryan. Dr. Moeller. He has a book on the Ten Commandments. I was so excited years ago when it came out to get it because I thought, here's going to be a great Southern Baptist voice. that's gonna really explain the commandments to, you know, these upcoming Southern Baptist pastors, you know. And he said so many good things in the book, but when he got to the fourth commandment, all of a sudden, just to be able to say the fourth commandment doesn't apply and there's not an actual single one day of rest anymore and we don't have to apply that and you can worship God on any day, all that. He just did all this mental gymnastics to get away from that, and one of the things that he did was, is this commandment's not explicitly restated in the same, almost exact way. He wouldn't take Jesus saying, I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill it. Christ's fulfillment of the fourth commandment doesn't abrogate the fourth commandment, doesn't abolish it. Christ's fulfillment of the fourth commandment says, now the fourth commandment is to be done in me. And that's why we changed the day of rest as the last day of the week on Saturday, given to the nation of Israel to the first day of the week, because he was raised from the dead on the first day of the week. So that's an important emphasis. You also have New Covenant theologians who use that same idea, and if you read any of them, they're very prevalent now. Thomas Schreiner is one of these New Covenant theologians. A lot of books and commentaries written by Thomas Schreiner. He is a very, very good scholar, says a lot of good things, and yet at the same time, He walks away from understanding these principles of pulling forward properly the old covenant into the new and reading properly, not just that which is explicitly quoted, but these allusions, these inferences that are there. And you just have to be careful. I'm thinking about, well, there's some others. I won't name all. No, no, no. No, no, no. I mean, you need to be aware of that. Some of you are out there asking about what books to read, and some of you are picking up books to read. You need to be aware of what you're reading. You need to know that some people don't properly really apply this kind of thinking to their interpretation of the New Testament and so therefore they walk away from certain doctrines. And it's not just the Sabbath either. So you can see how this can become important. So we have to recognize that the New Testament scripture includes the background of the Old Testament and its correlations and further weaves the Old Testament into the clarity of the New Testament. I spoke of this example earlier, but you can turn here to 1 Corinthians 10, move from the book of Acts to 1 Corinthians 10. Paul, in speaking to Corinth, of course, he first went to the synagogue. and spoke to the Jews. And then when the Jews got mad and didn't want to listen anymore, he said, you know what, I'm going to go out to these Gentiles. And so you had some Jews that became believers. They went with Paul and then you have some Gentiles that become believers. And now they start to form a, you know, a new covenant church, this new Testament church. And in Paul writing to them, he Interestingly enough, the Corinthian church was filled with Gentiles, and yet notice he doesn't walk away from the importance of the Old Testament. He could say, well, you Gentiles, y'all don't get all this. This is not really in your history and your background. You got Aphrodite and all these other gods and goddesses in your background. You don't get this, so I'm not even going to mention this. But that's not what he does. He says, for I do not want you to be unaware, brethren. I do not want you to be unaware, listen, Jew and Gentile alike in the church, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea and all ate the same spiritual food and all drank the same spiritual drink for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them and the rock was who? Christ. He's giving this illusion back to the time of Moses and Moses being the one who God used to feed the people not only physically but spiritually. Moses led them in the wilderness. He says this was all to point to the one spiritual rock who is the Christ. Look at that illusion to the Old Testament. In Romans, you don't have to turn there because I don't have a bunch of time. But in Romans, Paul says you can all call Abraham your father. Well, the church at Rome was not just Jews, was it? How can a bunch of Gentiles call Abraham their father? There has to be some kind of covenant context that's being pulled forward, right? Paul's not divorcing the Old Testament and throwing it out. He's saying no, even as a Gentile, because the covenant, the promise of the covenant, that all the families of the earth shall be blessed in your name, it's given to Abraham that way in Genesis chapter 12 verses 1 through 3. He says that covenant being worked out properly in Christ, and because you are justified by faith alone in Christ alone, Abraham was justified by his faith, his faith in the Christ to come, and so it is true that you are justified by faith, faith in the Christ who came and who's coming again, Abraham, the Christ who's to come and will come again, us, the Christ who came and who is coming again, but you can call Abraham your father. You and I, as believers, are attached to that covenant context. I don't have time. I have to close there, for the good of all. I was just getting going too, I was ready. We were about to go into the latter parts of the New Testament and I was excited. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, you're merciful to us to give us your word. We thank you for a time spent to think about how your word is connected Lord, we praise you that your word was not happenstance and although you used men, their personalities and their minds to bring about the truth of your word and your spirit carried them along to write it and to preach it, it was you who gave your word, sovereignly administered. So we give all honor and glory to you that your word has no error is not fallible in any way and it is sufficient for everything we need in salvation and life to glorify you. We praise you alone. Ask your mercies, Lord, for those who are having to travel back to school today As they're traveling back, Lord, please be merciful to them. We ask that you would grant traveling mercies to their families as well. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.