Amen. I want to thank Hugh Player and the Missions Committee for putting on this conference. It's the second year we've done it in recent years. There have been conferences in the past. And I want to thank you all for coming. And traditions take a while to get ramped up, and we'll just keep going. And we want more and more to identify our mission with the mission that Jesus gave us. which is the spread of the gospel both near and far in South Carolina and around the world. And so I'm excited about this conference. I hope, ladies, you'll be able to attend the lunch tomorrow, which will be BJ Bateman is quite a zealous, evangelistic woman doing a great work for the Lord. CCEF, I know Al Wills is a board member of CEF. And that is an outstanding mission. In fact, one of the joys this weekend is we're interacting with some significant longstanding missions, Child Evangelism Fellowship is one of them. But another one is the Christian Witness to Israel. And we're very honored to have, before I introduce them, I do want to say, I hope you were inspired by the videos and will be thinking about going on one of our two trips. Sharon and I have a desire to, one of us will take each of our children on one of our missions trips. She went with our daughter, Hannah, to the EPCW church in Cardiff and did street evangelism and VBS. The women of Second Church have the spiritual gift of VBS. And we need to use that gift. And it was very significant for our oldest daughter. I had the privilege of going, I think, three years ago with my oldest son, Matthew. to Cajamarca. It was a tremendous experience. I plan to attend this year with my younger son. Jonathan is going with me. And then the little girls, even tonight, were complaining that they haven't been taken yet. But as in all other things, they are waiting their turn. But I hope that you too will say, I want to get involved. These are very significant missions works. One of the things that we are committed to as a church. I think you saw that with Octavius' video in Port-au-Prince. What a blessing that was to me. I remember 10 years ago when we said we need to do a work in Port-au-Prince because we've got to get some educated men, and that's where you're going to find them in Haiti, so that we can have church planners and we can have elders and deacons. And I was watching in those photo clips. It was wonderful to see the children. It was very wonderful to see the women. But in places like that, we need to reach the men, and Octavius is reaching the men. And one of our commitments is that our missions partnerships are not tourists. They are not incidental sort of missions works. All of our missions partnerships involve serious work being done consistent with the biblical philosophy of ministry. And we're really excited about the hills up in Cherokee. You may want to go there. We have some very loyal annual visitors there from our church. We have a lot for Peru. Think about going. You will be blessed. If you can't go when the fundraising comes around for it, think about giving to it. These missions trips not only contribute to real work. I did not know that that check had been written to finish the roof. And so the church where we, with other churches, did the manual labor, the people of God will be worshiping in those places. It is real work. But it also expands our horizons. Everyone who would go on one of these trips will say and always says, our many, many years of trips to Haiti produce people saying, I have a greater and more tangible sense of the worldwide kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ and our role in it. To develop a real tangible sense of that is frankly priceless. So let me encourage you to be personally involved as you are able. Now let me talk about Stephen Atkinson. Reverend Stephen Atkinson is a longtime minister of the gospel. He hails from Northern Ireland and he has pastored churches throughout the United Kingdom. I learned tonight at dinner that he was the first pastor of the Evan the epic you evangelical Presbyterian Church of England and Wales It's a mouthful, but if you go slowly you get right through it He was the first pastor of the church in in Cambridge and we're good friends with the current pastor there And he was lured over to the United States to take over the North America work of Christian witness to Israel now, this is an organization founded in 1842 You know one of the great legacies of the English-speaking evangelical movement, really Britain and the United States, have been a number of very significant, very faithful, very spirit-blessed witnesses. You think of the great work in China that Hudson Taylor was involved in. You think of the great work in the New Hebrides with John and Margaret Payton. Well, from that same era, Robert Murray Machine was at the first meeting in 1842, a desire to reach the Jewish people living primarily in Britain and now living in North America. And what a witness that is. Are you going to talk about Stan Telchin tonight or this weekend? I won't. I saw on his table the book Betrayed. And I'll leave it for you, but I'll just touch upon it. It's an example of a Jewish family where the daughter goes to college and evangelicals befriend her, witness the gospel to her. And through that, a very hostile to Christianity Jewish family meets the Messiah and launches an evangelistic ministry. What a great cause it is. In Romans 11, the Apostle Paul says that, and all Israel will be saved. Now reformed scholars are divided. I don't know how Stephen takes that. I take it, and I'd be happy to argue the exegetical grounds for it, that that is talking about a distinct future event. And while everybody needs the gospel, there's something that ought to be particularly blessed to Christians, that we would share back to those from whom we gained so much. The Apostle Paul says that we are those who, we are wild shoots who have been grafted into the natural olive tree that is Israel. We are, the church is the Israel of God, There ought to be something particularly delightful to us. I always argue, any time any Christian can do any kindness to a Jewish person, they ought to do so remembering David and Solomon and Jesus of Nazareth. We don't glorify in the flesh Judaism, but what a blessing it is to have this and other organizations Christian witness to Israel, and I'll stop right there. I'm worried that I'm trampling on you already. But no, no, you're going to preach it. So Stephen Atkinson, welcome to our church. Thank you for coming. Yeah, I'm quite happy to just give way and keep going because you were doing well there. You were doing my job for me. It is a pleasure. to be with you. I was with you last year and whetted the appetite with a midweek presentation and delighted that that was sufficient to make the desire even stronger so that I could be with you. Also, just again, thank you that not only I get this opportunity to share forth my heart and something of what we do, in Christian Witness to Israel, but also to open up the word. I was a regular pastor for 18 years, and I don't give up my pulpit easily to some strange Irishman with a funny accent. So yeah, I don't abuse that privilege. I'm very thankful for that. So it's good to be among you, and also good just to get several opportunities to hammer home a nail, and really that nail is simply a burden that goes back indeed to the burden of Robert Murray McShane and others, which was a theological burden, which we might even suggest goes back to the 1600s and the Westminster divines, Samuel Rutherford in particular, who prayed to be kept out of heaven, that he might see the restoration or the grafting in again of the Jewish people to their Messiah and to their Lord. But, of course, it goes back to Romans and to Romans 11, as has been referred, and goes back even further. Now, in your program this evening, you have Mobilizing for Mission. Mel and I had a little bit of a conversation. That's a PowerPoint or a keynote presentation So we're going to keep that for Sunday school. So this Sunday morning, I'm going to be doing that at the Sunday school, giving more of a visual presentation, both in terms of what we are in CWI, theologically, historically, and what we are in the present in CWI as well, what we're doing, where we're doing it. But this evening and on Sunday, I want us to be in the word. And so really, we'll be just a straightforward preaching of the word, but with reference, obviously, to the importance of Jewish mission. Yes, we are 175 years old this November, and it was indeed this November, 7th of November, that the first meeting was held in London in 1842, and Robert Murray McShane not only was present, but he prayed the opening prayer at that first ever meeting. I have a photo and I actually handled a Bible that was dated 1843 and belonged to Robert Murray McShane. And I know we're not allowed reformed relics, but that was a relic. And very precious, but I have some photos of it. In Romans 11, in McShane's Bible, he has underlined God is able to graft them in again. I was touching history when we saw the Bible and his underlining, underscore, he had a heart, he had a burden that God was able to graft in again the Jewish people. And so our historic literature is there, but also our present literature and what we're doing and where we're doing it is there as well, so please avail yourself of that. We are a mission to the Jewish people, a gospel mission. We're not interested. We are a reformed mission theologically, but we don't get sidetracked on eschatological things. We would be non-dispensational, if you want to put it in those terms. We are reformed. Our confession or our doctrinal standard is a consensus of the reformed confessions, Westminster Baptist confession, the Heidelberg and other reformed confessions. And so our workers are reformed theologically, but we're not so much interested in teaching eschatology. Sometimes people ask me, well, what do you think about this and what do you think about that? And even the all Israel question, is indeed one in which good men disagree. But I find no fault, my brother, in what you were saying, so we're on good territory there. But our desire is the gospel. It is the one thing needful. And so we want to bring the gospel to the Jewish people wherever they are. 45% of the people Israel live in the land of Israel. 45%. But 42% of the people Israel live here. So our mission to Israel, our Christian witness to Israel, the people, is here, and in the land, and in the UK, and in Europe, and in Australia, and elsewhere. where the Jewish people are, we want to reach them. And we do that by a number of means. We do that by our frontline missionaries. But we also do it by mobilizing the church. So I go to churches in Florida that have a ton of Jewish people on their doorstep and perhaps do some seminars, how to reach your Jewish neighbors. how to sensitively reach out to your Jewish friends. People will call me up. I have a Jewish dentist. Can you tell me how I share the gospel? I have a longtime Jewish friend of 30 years. She's dying. Can you tell me how to share the gospel with her? So part of our ministry is not only the frontline work, but also assisting the church in the church's mission to reach the Jewish people with the gospel. And so that's what I want to do as I open up the word and challenge and I trust instruct in Jewish mission tonight. And I see the time is already running. It always runs away from me. But please turn with me to the book of Acts, to Acts 2. And again, you know, I don't need to go into a great deal of background information. You know where we're at. It's the day of Pentecost. And Peter is preaching to a Jewish audience. And I wanted simply to bring this before us tonight so that we could see how do we preach Christ to Jewish people? In fact, how do we preach Christ to anyone? And we have a good example in Peter's sermon on the day of Pentecost. Again, we could read it all, but in our time constraints, let's simply read from Acts 2, verse 22. 24 and then from verse 36 to 41. Acts 2 and 22. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know. This Jesus, delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. And then skipping down to verse 36. Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified." Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and to the rest of the apostles, brothers, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, repent. be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself and with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them saying save yourselves from this crooked generation So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about 3,000 souls. You mentioned Stan Telchin. Stan had, before he passed, he had had some contact with our ministry in London, but also he was involved in Jews for Jesus, although he had his own ministry as well. I never met him, but his book, Indeed, and his testimony was a wonderful, wonderful testimony of the Lord's grace to a Jewish man. We have contact with a lot of different Jewish missions. I once a year go to the Lausanne consultation on Jewish evangelism, which is about 50 or 60 different Jewish missions. And CWI is kind of the right wing of a lot of Jewish missions. But we have good sister relationships with other Jewish missions, like Jews for Jesus, for example. I was recently given this little card, just a little card from Jews for Jesus, and it says on the bottom, Jews for Jesus established 32 AD, give or take a year. But that's right. Although the modern Jews for Jesus came into being in the hippie Jesus movement of the 70s, Jews for Jesus began in Acts 2. In fact, Acts 2 is really a Jewish festival that got hijacked by Jesus-believing Jews. And of course, those Jesus-believing Jews were the remnant, that spiritual remnant that were given sight, faith, and the Ruach HaKodesh, the Holy Spirit that would then take them to their synagogues back in all parts of the known world to tell about Jesus, and ultimately to tell us about Jesus. Also, again, a little background to Acts 2. We're referred to, we didn't read it, but we're referred also to the prophet Joel. So again, let us think, and we have in time, we need a ton of other sermons really to get the backdrop to even Acts 2. But just remember that the Jewish audience would have known Joel and would have known everything that Peter was talking about as he was bringing them a message which was from Joel and which was from the Psalms and which was about his Messiah and his Rabbi Jesus. I simply want to make three points. Again, it's not a detailed exegesis, but I simply want to draw three points as examples, perhaps, of how Peter preached to a Jewish audience and how we today would bring the gospel to a Jewish person or to any person. Indeed, the strategy we have is not anything special. It's the same strategy as we all would do in engaging in bringing the message of Jesus to lost people. Jewish people have certain sensitivities in certain things. we need to be aware of, but they're lost. We need to get that right first, despite what some tele-evangelists might say to you. They are lost. And it's not just a matter of being interested in the land. They can have the land and be lost because they need the Lord. And that's what we want, as indeed that's what Peter wanted of his ethnic Jewish brethren and sisters. First point I want to make is that he brings the point, listen, listen. This is what he brings to them. I've really got three headings for you. Listen, learn, and look. So we're trying to proceed as quickly as possible through these three headings. First of all, listen. He begins, men of Israel, hear these words. This is a listen up call. There are times when God causes us to listen up. There are times when he does it by significant circumstances. He often did it with his ancient people with life-threatening events that would be the blowing of the shofar, as it were, the trumpet blast to wake them up. Many, and indeed we may even say most, if not all, of the Jewish festivals are remembrances of God's deliverance from death. I'm not sure if I shared this with you the last time I was here, but if you want a very helpful summary of all the Jewish festivals, three sentences. They tried to kill us, God saved us, let's eat. That's the festivals in a nutshell. Well, Pentecost was a festival, a Jewish festival, the week of weeks, festival of weeks, 49 days, 50 days, Pente, the 50th day after Passover. It was a harvest festival. Also in Jewish mind and thought, it was a remembrance indeed of God's promise to Noah never again to destroy the world by flood. So in this particular festival, there's a number of things meshed. Harvest, thanksgiving, firstfruits, God's faithfulness, God's deliverance. And so in Acts 2 and verse 1 we read, when the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. Who were all together? Sometimes I've heard sermons where this is a lot of people that have gathered from all over the world. and they accept Jesus and they go back out to all the world. The problem with that, it's not entirely accurate. There were a lot of people from all over the known world, but they were all Jews because they had come for the Jewish festival of Pentecost. And they were expectant Jews. They were faithful Jews, at least in their observance of festivals. And this was a people who would have known the prophecies. So they would have known Joel whenever Peter made reference. Of course, there's a little bit of misunderstanding in the earlier verses that we didn't read. There were thoughts about drunkenness. But Peter immediately says, no, no, no, man, this is not drunkenness. This is Joel. And so we need to, again, remind ourselves what was going on in the time of Joel. If we had time, we could dip into that. But in the time of Joel, around 800 BC, he preached a message at harvest time. So again, you can see the parallels. And Joel preaches a message about a failed harvest. He talks about the locust horde, you might remember. And all the different kinds of locusts, one after the other, were coming in and decimated and devastating the crops. The prophecy of Joel was about a failed harvest. Now, what does that mean in biblical terms? Well, it means God is not pleased. God's wake up call, God's listen up was often a failed harvest. And so Peter, on the day of Pentecost, gathered with his Jewish friends to celebrate first fruits of God's favor, but he's effectively saying, guys, it's a mess. 50 days after my rabbi friend Yeshua was put on a tree, we're here. And so in verse 22, we read, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with signs that God did through him in your midst. You yourselves know you crucified, you killed with the hands of lawless men. In other words, the goyim, the unclean, the Romans. I think I might have shared with you when I was last with you about an incident when one of my colleagues who's married to a Jewish believer was preaching and the lady sat down in church, a Jewish believer sat down in church, a church lady sat next to her, nudged her and said, the Jews killed Jesus, you know. And my colleague's wife, sharp as a tack, she immediately said, that's really interesting. I thought it was the Italians killed Jesus. Who killed Jesus? My sin killed Jesus. In fact, it pleased the Lord to bruise him. And so Peter is saying, you're guilty though. You killed him with the help of the Romans, the Italians. And so he's saying, listen, it's a mess. Listen up, guys, it's a mess. But I'm going to tell you about mercy. I want to tell you about mercy. Well, before I move on to the second point, the listen up. It's a good example for us. It's a good applicatory principle for us. When we're talking to Jewish people, when we're talking to anyone, Jewish evangelism involves arresting words. Jewish evangelism involves arresting words. Jews for Jesus have a mission motto that we wish we had invented first, and sometimes we steal it from them. And the Jews for Jesus mission motto is, we exist to make the messiahship of Jesus an unavoidable issue to our Jewish people worldwide. Jesus must be unavoidable. That's our mission, to bring Jesus in front of Jewish people. And it involves arresting words. I was once speaking with a Jewish man. I was at a conference. I had a booth, a CWI booth at a conference. And there was a Jewish man that was selling Israel tours. And little did I know that, as I was actually talking to a friend, I think the guy was from RTS, in the other booth across the way, and we were conversing, and little did I know that this Jewish man was listening in. And myself and my colleague, we were talking about heaven, and talking about the earthiness of heaven, the physicality of heaven. And so we were chatting, when we finished our conversation, the Jewish man came over to me and he said, Never heard anything like that before. Tell me more." Arresting words. I had many conversations with him throughout that week. Very, very profitable. Nothing conclusive, but I told him as we left, I said, for your homework, go and read Isaiah 53. Have you ever read that? He says, I don't think I have. I said, go and read Isaiah 53. They don't read it in the synagogue. The synagogue readings stop at Isaiah 52. I told him, go and read Isaiah 53, since it was written some 700 years before Jesus, that unmentionable. And so I got an email from him when we were back at our own homes, and he said, how did they do that? And he said, I've actually now read the New Testament twice, and it's all your fault. Good, I'll take that to the bank. There's something arresting. In the things that we, whether we talked about heaven or I pointed into Isaiah 53 or whatever, I was talking with another Jewish lady from Arkansas. We had coffee together and she knew I was preaching that particular week. And she goes, what are you preaching on? I said, well, I'm actually about to preach on Psalm 67. We just sang it. that was unbeknownst to me, but Psalm 67. And I said to her, I'm preaching on Psalm 67. Have you ever read that? She said, well, I may have, because she was a Hebrew scholar. And she said, I may have read it, but I'm really not sure. And I said, well, did you know that you were praying for us Gentiles to know your God and his salvation 3,000 years ago? And she said, what? I said, you guys were praying for us 3,000 years ago, that we would come to know the God of Israel and His salvation. Again, we went home, 30 minutes later, I get a text from her. She has an actual picture of the Hebrew from Psalm 67, and she says, I can't stop studying Psalm 67. And you know that word that has salvation? You know the root of that word? It has Yeshua in it. I said, yeah, I know that. Arresting words. Men of Israel, you in Jerusalem, Jesus, you know him. You saw him. You saw him crucified. He's alive. Listen up into this mess. I'm going to tell you about mercy. Isn't that what we do in evangelism? Isn't that what we do to the lost around us? into your mess, in your failed harvest. It's God's wake-up call, perhaps, but I've got something to tell you. It's about Jesus. Second point, listen and learn, learn. Peter preaches sermon. In our Twitter age and social media age, a sermon kind of seems out of date. May it never be. many of our problems, sociological, theological, moral. Much of the mess is the lack of sermons, the lack of substance in our pulpits. These were Jews that were gathered for Pentecost and they needed to learn some things. And he took them to Joel. And Joel is about a failed harvest, but Joel is also about a full harvest. And if we had time, again, we could read some of the verses, but let me just remind you. Return to me, Joel 2.12. Rend your hearts, Joel 2.17. Weep, Joel 2.25. I will restore the years that the swarming locust has eaten, Joel 2.27. You shall know that I am in the midst of Israel. And then Joel 2.28, which is what Peter refers to in the earlier verses. I will pour out my spirit. So after listen up, Peter is going on to learn this. He's going on to teach them. Teach them about the prophet Joel. Teach them maybe about Jeremiah and the new covenant. Teach them about Ezekiel and the sprinkling that would come on. Teach them of Jeremiah that would prophesy of the law being put in their hearts, and that he would be in their midst as Emmanuel. Listen, Jerusalem. Learn, Jerusalem. Jesus was delivered up according to the plan and foreknowledge of God. You killed him, but he lives. And the verses in between those two passages we read, are from the Psalms, Psalm 110 and Psalm 16. And so he's using the Psalms, he's using the prophets, he's using the law, he's using the Tanakh that the Jewish people, he's using their Bible to tell them about Jesus. He's teaching, he's getting them to learn these things. We Gentiles, perhaps we need to try and slip into Jewish skin here somewhat. We need to see the radical nature of what he is saying to his Jewish friends. They are basically being told to leave the priests and come to Christ. He's hijacking a Jewish festival. Well, really he's simply teaching and summoning an observant remnant to believe in the fulfillment of all that the prophets have said. Some people say that Pentecost was the birthday of the church. No, it wasn't. The church goes back 4,000 years. But there is a unique outpouring of the Spirit upon the Jewish believers, the first Jews for Jesus, and they would then go and bring the message to us. Yes, they prayed for it 3,000 years ago. We're sitting here in fulfillment of that prayer. Although sometimes when we sing Psalm 67, to God show us mercy, we kind of steal it. Now, it's right, it's applicable to us. bless us Lord so that we could be a blessing to the world but the initial context of Psalm 67 is the Jewish believers a thousand BC saying God bless us so that we can take it to the nations and while they largely failed they didn't completely fail because this is a Jewish book about a Jewish man given to us by Jewish first century missionaries. So they went forth and told about Jesus. But there's a lot to learn. They needed to learn the law. They needed to learn about sin. They needed to learn the gospel. You killed him. God raised him. Again, perhaps the sermon is somewhat contracted in the text we have of Acts 2, but Peter would be preaching the law and preaching the gospel. And they were cut to the heart. I'm not going into any great detail. I want you to notice, and particularly those who are preachers here, that Peter's sermon was plain, practical, personal, and persuasive. Well, I could take the sermon on that. And potent! It was powerful. They were to learn in no uncertain terms that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah, that he suffered, that he died for sin, and that he was raised for our, for their justification. And these first Jews for Jesus had the privilege of seeing him and were now telling of him. Listen, listen up, learn. If Jewish evangelism involves arresting words, Jewish evangelism also involves patient teaching. We need to understand the Jewish context. And again, part of my ministry is to do that and help. Not that we have got the secret, not that we've got the strategy, but to help with our experience, to help you understand the Jewish world. Jewish people don't know what sin is. Jewish people largely don't know what salvation is. It's not in their vocabulary, really. Jewish people actually are allowed to believe pretty much anything except Jesus. The Orthodox, the men in black, will spit at the sound of his name. And when we're talking with the Orthodox, perhaps we will talk in a certain way. When we're talking with the secular, we will perhaps, people sometimes ask me, well, have you anything to help me, how to reach my Jewish friend? And I said, well, you know, where are they in the whole spectrum of Jewish belief and practice? Because you need to find out where they are and then bring them to where you are. We need to arrest them with words, with scriptures. But we need to continue the relationships and friendships, sometimes for a long period of time. That's applicable in any evangelism, of course. Some of my colleagues have witnessed to their Jewish friends for 10 years. But whatever we do, we do it to make Jesus unavoidable. What is the Jesus that we are presenting? Well, we'll deal with this a little bit more on Sunday when we look at the commission in Luke 24, so I'll not get into that. But sometimes I wonder about the little cherry on the cake, the kind of Jesus we're presenting to the American dream. What is the Jesus that we are presenting? Well, enough of that for now. We'll take that up on Sunday. Law, you killed him. Gospel, God raised him. Learn this. Listen. We need substantial teaching sermons, and we need patience in our evangelism to all, but we need patience in our evangelism particularly to the Jewish people. Well, we must move on to our third point. Listen up, learn, and then thirdly, look. Look. Peter is again referring to Joel, to the end of Joel and the In Joel 2, at the end of Joel 2, we read of the wonders of the heavens and the earth and the day of the Lord that's coming. But again, Joel is saying, blow the shofar, blow the trumpet, because the day of the Lord is coming. And this, in Joel's day, now in Peter's day, is a summons. It is a call to look, in Peter's case, to Jesus. Look to him, ends of the earth," says Joel. And again, in 2.37, when they heard this, they were cut to the heart. They wanted to know, what do we do? And so Peter says, repent, be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ. That's radical for a Jewish person. First century, 21st century. For the forgiveness of your sins. You see, when he preached arresting words, when he preached with patient teaching, they were cut to the heart. There was clear, unavoidable guilt. Having been convicted, they were counseled, then they were comforted. Again, permit me an aside, but I think in our churches, we get it the wrong way around. We want the comforting messages. We want the fix me a week, give me five points to a happy marriage, 10 points to a successful business. Give me the comforting message. No, we start with the convicting message. You've messed up. And we bring the counseling message. We tell you of the mercy, the comfort of looking to Jesus. This Jesus was delivered by the plan of God. You killed him. but God graced him. We have seen it. We beheld his glory. Hey, Thomas, do you doubt anymore? No, I had my finger in the holes. Do we know how radical it is for a Jewish man, Tomah, to look at another Jewish man, Yeshua, and say, my Lord and my God. Peter was summoning them to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Save yourselves from this crooked generation. This message is for you and for your children, for all who are afar off. God has made him, this man, my Rabbi Jesus, God has made him both Lord and Christ. This was the summons. This was the listen up, learn, and now look of Peter's sermon. And so 3,000 were added. Some reckon by the time of Acts 8, there were 20,000 Jews for Jesus in the first century. I may again give you the facts and the numbers when I was last with you, but forgive me. In 1948, there were 12 Jewish believers in Jesus in the land of Israel, almost like the original 12 all over again. In 1948, there were 12. In 1968, there were 50. In 1998, there were 5,000. Today, 20,000 Jewish believers in Jesus. ethnic Jews, Israelis, who are like the first century, 20,000 of our brothers and sisters surrounded by six million non-believing Jews. It's 21st century, it's first century all over again, a remnant. Listen, learn, look. Arresting words, patient teaching, Final point of application. Jewish evangelism involves a summons to look to Jesus. We're not good at summoning people, are we? We're not good at declaring sin as sin. But we need to. One of my friends, one of my colleagues, was witnessing to his Jewish friend for over 10 years. The friend, actually, the friend was quite a hard nut He was involved in, well, I'm told, mafia-like activity in England. And so my colleague had just befriended him, and they got on well. They argued, but they got on really well. But one morning, he got a phone call from this hard nut. And he said, I need some help. I had a dream last night. And I woke up, and I was clawing the walls, and I was punching the walls. What was your dream? Well, I dreamt that all my family were falling into the pit of hell, and I was trying to stop them. My colleague said to him, you know, we've talked about this for 10 years. This is your wake-up call. You can't do anything about your family, but save yourself from this crooked generation. Within a few hours, that tough guy was on his knees. And I remember actually going on a mission trip a few years ago with my colleague to Scotland. Just as we were setting off in his car, he got a phone call. Who was it? It was this tough guy. And he said, I know you're setting off on your mission and your ministry trip to all the churches in Scotland. I just want you to know I'm praying for you. With patient teaching, but with nonetheless a summons, that guy came to faith. I need to conclude. One final illustration and I'm done. Labor Day weekend last year, I was wakened by my whole house shuddering. I live in Northwest Arkansas. We live in Tornado Alley. We're just across from Oklahoma and we're about 30 minutes from the Missouri line. So when I woke up and all the place was, I didn't know there had been a tornado alert. No, this wasn't a tornado. This was an earthquake. I never, in Northern Ireland, you don't get earthquakes, or at least, well, maybe you do, but I've never experienced an earthquake. This was different. And you know, I go out in my backyard now. The epicenter of the earthquake was north of Tulsa, so it was like 100 miles away from us. But I go out my backyard and I look at my yard and this whole earth was shaking. This is not solid ground, people. And can I say to you, I don't know where you are. I trust you know the Lord and you hear it. But the great and terrible day of the Lord is coming. and the sky shall recede like a scroll being rolled up, and once more he will shake the heavens and the earth. So listen, learn, and look, and take this missional message to this lost mass that we have around us in South Carolina. in the United States, Haiti, Peru, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the ends of the earth. And may God give us another Pentecost. Let's pray. Our Father, Your Word, Your Gospel is the one thing needful rid us of the clutter that takes our time and our energy, and enable us to focus on our created calling, our re-created calling, to go and make Him known. Thank you for one another in this place. Thank you for the faithfulness of the preaching from this pulpit week by week. O Lord, give Pentecostal showers. Give the blessing. Build your church, Lord. The gates of hell shall not prevail. We commit ourselves to you, to your kingdom, and we're thankful for one another as co-workers under Christ. Bless and use us for your glory. In his name we pray.