So just for a little bit of review. The last time we were together, the Holy Spirit had come upon the apostles and the believers in the upper room. The crowd in the street had heard the entrance of the Holy Spirit that heard the roaring violent wind. And the apostles had seen the tongues of fire come upon all the people in the upper room, and this represented the pouring of the Holy Spirit upon them. Just after this, the crowds heard something amazing. They heard that wind, and it got their attention. And then they saw the Galileans, and they heard them speaking in tongues of languages from their own native countries and lands. And they were astonished by this, because we talked about how the Galileans were viewed as an uneducated people. And then they realized that the Galileans were speaking of the wondrous works and deeds of God. And that brought about different reactions. We saw that some people in the crowd were asking questions like, what does this mean? What can this be? And we talked about how there's the possibility if they're seeking to understand, salvation may be in their near future. If they want to understand the word and they want to know about the wondrous deeds of God, they may be open to hearing the word. And then we also saw that there were mockers in the crowd who regardless of what was said, they were immediately ready to stand opposed to the gospel, to the words that were being spoken. And they accused the apostles and the people in the upper room of being drunk And this led to a long conversation concerning the state of man's heart outside of salvation. This discussion led us into the doctrine of total depravity. And then we come to Peter, who's gonna start his sermon in chapter two. This evening I intend to cover Acts chapter two, verses 16 through 21. And one would think that five verses wouldn't be that difficult, but you end up with a holiday on Monday and you try to do the right thing and let these people take vacation and you lie to yourself and say, well, I can handle it for a day or two by myself, it'll be all right. And you end up with all these distractions. And when I came into these verses, I really had a really good notion of where I was going to go with this, what this needed to look like, what the teaching was going to be. And the more I studied and the more I tried to prepare, the more I prayed. Really interesting how that you end up somewhere where you didn't think where you would be. So we're gonna see how this works out. Acts chapter two, starting with verse 16. We're gonna read through 21. If you would please stand for the reading of God's inerrant and fallible word. We'll start at verse 16. Most of these verses, except for 16, all of these verses are coming from the book of Joel in chapter two. Verse 16, but this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel, and it shall be in the last days, God says, that I will pour out my spirit on all mankind, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male slaves and female slaves, I will in those days pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. And I will put wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Father, we thank you for your word and ask at this time that you clear our minds, that you help us to focus on you and your teaching. I thank you for bringing us back together again. Please have your way in this service and we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So in verse 16 it says, but this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel. Now, Joel is a little-known author in the Bible. We don't know a whole lot about him. There's very little that we can truly verify, but we can infer with certainty that Joel's writings, from his writings, is that he lived in Judah, and in all probability, his prophecy was given in Jerusalem. The actual dating of Joel's writing is debatable. Different opinions exist, but most agree that he was one of the earliest of the 12 minor prophets. Some even say that he was earlier than Isaiah. This section of Peter's sermon comes from the last half of chapter two in Joel's book. And if you go there and read through that last half of the chapter, you're going to find that people are being called to repentance. There's a promise here because there's a plague in the land of locusts eating all the crops of Israel. And there's a promise here that those locusts will be destroyed. There's a promise to bestow a rich harvest blessing with abundant rain and restore the crops that have been lost. There's a promise here to pour out the spirit of God, which is where we are in our study tonight. God promises to sit in the judgment upon the nations who have scattered his people and divided his land. There's a promise here to shelter his people from his throne in Zion. And God promises to glorify his land by rivers of abundant blessing. So Peter is now beginning his sermon. And while we're only covering the first few lines today, I want you to see that this sermon in its entirety has four different characteristics. The first one is that this is the first apostolic sermon. This is the first sermon an apostle is giving, and it's biblical throughout. Arguably, this is an expository sermon. There were no latest views of public opinion, and this isn't a psychology lesson. He didn't spend time trying to scratch itching ears in the crowd. Peter takes the hearers immediately to God's Word. Truly, this is the only kind of authentic preaching, right? 2 Timothy clearly tells us to preach the Word, to preach it in season and out of season. What does in season and out of season mean? Well, basically, it means all the time. Whether you want to or not, preach the Word. The second characteristic, Peter takes the people to the person in the works of Jesus Christ. And I think you'll find as we go through the book of Acts, many, all of the sermons that the apostles give are Christ-centered. The third characteristic is he preaches these sermons. This sermon is preached fearlessly. And the fourth would be that it's preached reasonably. He shows the hearers the rational character, the truth of the word of God. And this Peter who, and when I say that, there's a lot of things we could talk about about Peter. Peter so many times acted in haste. He was the one that pulled the sword and cut the arresting guard's ear off. when they came to get Jesus. This is Peter who showed great faith. He's the one who walked on water when Jesus was walking on the water. And he basically said, I want to do that. And Jesus said, well, come on. He stepped out of the boat and he walked to Jesus until he looked away. This is Peter who has shown a lack of faith. This is Peter who denied Christ three times, even after Christ told him he was going to. This is Peter who earned great praise from Jesus. Who do the people say that I am? And Peter immediately said, you're the Christ. You're the son of the living God. And Christ went on to tell him, man didn't tell you this. God revealed that to you. And then immediately after that, this is Peter who earned rebuke from Christ because Jesus was talking about the fact that he was going to be taken and he was going to be killed. And Peter said, he wasn't going to let that happen. And Christ turned to him and said, get behind me, Satan. So this Peter, who all these things now stands proudly. before this congregation, and I call them congregation now because they're not just a crowd, they're getting ready to hear the word. He stands before this congregation as the leader of the apostles and the spokesmen for Jesus Christ. Now he speaks to the crowd in the beginning steps of the fulfillment of, when he does this, it's a fulfillment of the Great Commission. This is the beginning steps thereof. But he does it with courage and with confidence. And here he states, and I'm going to go through verses 17 and 20 all together, because there's many of them connected. And it shall be in the last days, God says, that I'll pour out my spirit on all mankind. And your sons and daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions. Your old men shall dream dreams, even on my male slaves and female slaves. I will in those days pour out my spirit, and they shall prophesy. But I will put wonders in the sky above and signs on the earth below. Blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun will be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. That's a lot. We're going to cover all that at once. Because it seems that Peter is indicating that the era of the last days has begun with the Holy Spirit being poured out. And if you went over to Hebrews and looked at verses, chapter one, verses two and three, it would appear that the author of Hebrews included the life of Jesus in these last days. But either way, we're obviously still in the last days today. These are the last days. How long will these go on, none of us know. But we know that these are the last days. And then Peter uses some verbiage concerning the spirit being pulled out on all mankind. And one could literally interpret this as though everyone's going to be saved. And when you read that, I could see where you might get that. And that, that would almost attempt to turn this verse into something that supports universalism, but that's not what Joel had intended here. What the prophet intended here was that the spirit would not be withheld from any race, gender, age, nationality. All of mankind was going to be involved in this outpouring of the spirit. And I thought, wow, that's kind of like the equal opportunity employer that I read at work from time to time to the new employees. He's the equal opportunity savior. His spirit will rest upon men and women. It will rest upon the young and the old, the Jews and the Gentiles. Similarly, in Acts, Luke makes no distinction between men and women. And I mean that in the way that in chapter eight, verse three, he talks about both suffer. They suffer persecution, both men and women. Both join the church. And that's in chapter 17 verse 4. And both end up teaching. With a T, both end up teaching. And that's in 18 verse 26. So this is the fulfillment of one of the Old Testament's greatest promises. He will pour out his spirit on all mankind. R.C. Sproul stated that the Holy Spirit has been poured out not just on apostles and not just on men, but on women, on servants, on every believer in the upper room, and God will pour his spirit on every believer from now on. There's no such thing as a Christian who has not been anointed by the Holy Spirit for some level of ministry or work. Peter goes on and talks about your sons and daughters shall prophesy. Now, in the Old Testament, prophecy, a vast majority of the time, speaks about predicting the future, or warnings of the future, or things to come in the future. But in the New Testament, you find this word most often used in regards to preaching and teaching. Occasionally, throughout the Bible, you will see it used where people are engaged in praising God. One example there is 1 Chronicles, Chapter 25, Verse 3. Since the Bible clearly instructs us that only men should preach, I think we can rule that definition out with this word prophecy in verse 17 and 18. And we have no reason to believe that these people are predicting the future. So that leaves us where that they are teaching, witnessing, praising God. That must be the definition of prophecy here. As noted last week, when we discussed speaking in foreign tongues or languages, they, men and women, were speaking of the wonderful deeds of God. So we clearly see that women play an integral role in delivering the message of Jesus Christ. They play a role in fulfilling the Great Commission. Luke records in chapter 21, verse 9 of Acts, that Philip the evangelist had four daughters who prophesied. That's in chapter 21. Anytime a person has knowledge and understanding of God, and they're sharing this information, they're prophesying. So just make a note of that as we go through these chapters. Next, the verses speak of visions and dreams. Visions and dreams are used repeatedly in the scriptures as a mode that God used in revealing himself. Numbers 12, chapter 12, verse six states, hear now my words. If there is a prophet among you, I, Yahweh, shall make myself known to him in a vision, and I shall speak with him in a dream. The prophet Joel uses further language here that says my slaves. And God is claiming the slaves as his own here by using the word my. These slaves, whoever they may be, are believers. Now there's two opinions here regarding who these slaves are. There is an opinion that says these slaves are the same people in verse 17. There is an opinion that says these slaves were actually people who were owned by others and performed work either in whatever their profession or ownings were. And I like both, but maybe both end up being true. But to say that my slaves refers to the people in verse 17, the sons and daughters, the young men, the old men, We are referred to as slaves of Christ in many ways at many times in the scripture. First Samuel chapter three, verses nine and 10. And Eli said to Samuel, go lie down and it shall be if he calls you that you shall say, speak Yahweh for your slave is listening. And some of y'all's translations may say servant here. Servant, slave, they're synonymous. Either is correct. Serving is probably a little more politically correct So Samuel went and laid down in his place and Yahweh came and stood and called as at other times Samuel Samuel and Samuel said speak for your slave is listening Psalm 31 reads make your face to shine upon your slave Save me in your loving kindness Even Ephesians chapter six, verses five through seven. Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh, with fear and trembling in the integrity of your heart as to Christ, not by way of eye service, nor as man pleasers, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God. One more is Colossians chapter four, verse 12. Epaphras. One who is one of your number, a slave of Christ Jesus. So if all believers are slaves, then there is a level of redundancy here. And I like that. It fits. But it could also be that Joel is referring to actual slaves that are owned by someone here. So you can develop your own opinion there. But give that some thought. This is one of those things that it's not salvatory, but it's interesting to think about. So in the next verse, as we look at 19 and 20, we hear verbiage that indicates God's judgment. or an extreme appearance of God, and we associate events like the flood in Noah's day, or the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and we see that God uses natural events, earthquakes, cosmic disturbances to show his might. And of all these that are talked about in verses 19 and 20, I only see one that is possibly fulfilled. Fulfilled even today. Turn, if you will, to Luke chapter 23. And bear in mind, this is like 53 days before this happened in Acts, okay? 23 verse 44. And it was now about the sixth hour and darkness fell over the whole land until the ninth hour because the sun was obscured and the veil of the sanctuary was torn in two. So it's possible the sun being turned to darkness has happened here. And when I think about this, and I was telling Brandy earlier, I had to visualize things to be able to understand. But when you think about this happening, Right before Christ says, Father, I commit my spirit to you, the son goes out. And you've got three guards standing here prepared to kill him. They're going to break his legs, which they end up not doing, but that's the standard practice. They're going to put a spear in his side. And the sun goes out, and in the dark, Christ cries that out. Father, I commit my spirit. Can you imagine what went through those three guards' minds? I really wonder if they thought, man, I'd rather be doing something else right now. Now, it's likely that the majority of this crowd were there when this happened. Like I said, it was only 53 days before this that Krauss was crucified. And if they weren't there to witness it, it's very likely they heard all about it in the streets. You should have been here when they crucified that guy. The son went out right before he died. I'm sure that that was a talk in the street. So as we go on, recognize that of these wonders in the sky, we do not see any of these fulfilled except potentially the sun going out. And it's not clear that that one fulfilled this. John MacArthur stated, nor did the wonders in the sky above and the signs on the earth beneath occur at Pentecost. There was no blood, no fire, no vapor of smoke, The sun did not turn to darkness here at Pentecost, nor the moon into blood. These events are associated with the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord, which it states at the end of verse 20. Another thing about this darkness and light, prophetically, turn to Amos chapter five. Then we're gonna jump in at verse 18. Amos chapter five is one of the minor prophets. And it reads, whoa, you who are longing for the day of Yahweh, for what purpose will this day of Yahweh be to you? It will be darkness and not light, as when a man flees from a lion and a bear meets him. Or he goes home and he leans his hand against a wall and a snake bites him. Will not the day of Yahweh be darkness instead of light, even thick darkness with no brightness in it? So when we think about this, not only may the sun go out, but when you read about the day of Yahweh here, you see that there's gonna be anguish. There's gonna be trials in that day. For the unbeliever, this day means eternal punishment. And for the believer, it signifies a day of salvation in the presence of the Lord. Jesus discussed some of these events in Luke chapter 21. I'm gonna turn over there and read that to you. Just a couple of verses. 21 verse 25. It'll be 25 through 27. There will be signs in the sun and the moon and the stars and on the earth. anguish among the nations, and perplexity at the roaring of the sea and the waves, men fainting from fear and the expectation of things which are coming upon the world, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken, and then they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. This is the words of Christ. Kistemacher made a really interesting note about this portion of the Book of Acts. He found it really interesting that outside the angels at Christ's ascension, Luke does not address Christ's return in detail anywhere in the Book of Acts. His purpose or goal here, the purpose or goal here of Luke is not eschatology. His purpose is to show that the apostles are witnesses from Jerusalem to the ends of the world. And so this kind of concludes the discussion of the cosmic events described by the prophet Joel. And it leaves us with only one more verse to cover this evening. What a verse it is. Verse 21 reads, and it will be that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. This verse is commonly used by those in the Armenian camp To indicate that man in general has the ability to recognize the wrongs in his ways. And then he can turn to Jesus on his own to be saved. And I find this very close to an interpretation that a universalist would use. Because in actuality, we are taught that no man will turn to the Lord of his own volition. We talked about total depravity last week. And just to make sure we're clear, flip over here to Romans chapter three and read these few verses one more time. Starting at verse 10, as it is written, there is none righteous. No, not even one. There is none who understands. There is none who seeks God. All have turned aside together. They have become worthless. There's none who does good. There is not even one. Their throat is an open tomb. With their tongues they keep deceiving. The poison of asp is under their lips. Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness, their feet are swift to shed blood. Destruction and misery are in their paths. And the path of peace they have not known. Ephesians 2.1 states, and you are dead in your treads, passes, and sins. A dead person can do nothing. And this is talking about being spiritually dead. But they cannot and will not reach toward Christ for anything in this state. All a dead person can do is stink. And that's it. As stated previously in Romans, there are none who seek God. I don't know how else to explain it, but we were nothing more than spiritual rotting corpses before we were saved. Even the best things we could do, maybe we donated a huge sum of money to an orphanage or to some great cause. If we're lost, we couldn't have done it for the Lord. We couldn't have done it for God. And if we did it for any other reason, it doesn't carry merit. And I'm not saying it's terrible for somebody to do such a thing. Absolutely, in a worldly sense, trying to help orphans, that's true religion, right? But if you do it for any other reason than to glorify God, it doesn't have merit. So this is kind of a reminder of total depravity, which we discussed last week. And now we're going to enter into the realm of the doctrine of election. We're going to talk about adoption. So we're moving from the bad news to the good news here. So if you wanna turn over to John chapter one, I'm gonna start at verse 12 and read through verse 13. The doctrine of election is a hated doctrine by some people. It's a denied doctrine by some people. But I really believe that I can show you more verses in this Bible about election than you can about making a choice for Christ. I may be able to find double the amount. John chapter one, verse 12, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in his name. who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Not of the will of man, but of God. It was God's will. Verse 12 kind of gives us man's perspective and 13 kind of gives you God's perspective. In Ephesians chapter one, verses four and five, it says, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before him in love by predestining us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. Who chose us? He did. God did. When did he choose us? Before the foundation of the world. Why did he choose us? That we would be holy and blameless before him in love. How did he choose us? According to the good pleasure of his will. It's clearly stated in the book of Ephesians chapter one. John chapter six, another good example, verses 37 and 39. You can read 38 if you want to. All that the father gives me will come to me and the one who comes to me I will never cast out. Now this is the will of him who sent me that all that he has given me, I lose nothing but raise it up on the last day. Those who God chose, he gave to the Son. Before any sinner is drawn to Jesus, they have already been given to Jesus. All that the Father has given to Jesus will come to Jesus. The giving precedes the coming to Christ. This is the will of him who sent Christ. God had made a determinate choice according to his sovereign will. Romans 9 verses 11 to 13 teaches us that he chose Jacob over Esau even before they were born. And it goes as far as to state that he hated Esau even. Jacob I have loved, Esau I have hated. First Thessalonians 1.4, your election in regards to the brothers in Thessalonica. First Peter 1.2, who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father. And one more time, John 15, verse 16. And this is Christ speaking. And he says, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit and that your fruit would abide or remain so that whatever you ask of the father in my name, he may give to you. 1 Corinthians 12 three states, no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. We go back to this verse. Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. 1 Corinthians says no one can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. You gotta put those two together to understand where it's going. Paul isn't simply talking about an utterance of words. What's meant here is to speak truthfully and believe what you're saying. How can we expect a man to believe in Jesus, in God the Father, in God the Holy Spirit, or even the Bible, when he thinks it's foolishness? In our fallen state, that's what we do. A regenerated heart is needed for these words to be believed. The Holy Spirit performs this regeneration and enables one to believe these words. So I'll tell you a little story. John and Jane Doe had been married 12 years. John and Jane Doe had not been able to have children. They really wanted to have a child. So they said, hey, you know, God has chosen for us not to have our own child, so let's go down to the, here I'm gonna use orphanage again, let's go to the orphanage and let's see what you have to do to adopt a child. So they went down to the orphanage and the administrator there at the orphanage said, well, there's a lot of paperwork you're gonna have to do, you gotta be approved, we'll have to do background checks and we'll have to make sure you've got enough money to support a child and all these different things that you may have to go through. And they fill out all the forms, and they turn them in. And days turn into weeks, and weeks turn into months. And finally, one day, the orphanage calls them up and says, hey, y'all been approved. Everything's good to go. We need to set up a meeting. And they get a meeting, and they go down to the orphanage. And they sit down with the administrator. And the administrator says, here's 10 folders. 10 children that we have that need to be adopted, that need a family. And they hand them the folders. And they take the folders home and open them up. And they've got a picture of the child. And they've got a one-page description of how old they are and what they look like. But there's not a lot of details about the background there. We don't know where they've been, what they've done, what they've seen, what they've been a part of. Did they know their parents? And they call the orphanage up, and they say, you know, we're really trying to choose a child out of these folders. And the orphanage says, well, what we can do, we can put them all in a room. And you just come on down, and we'll take you in the room. And you'll have to address all the children, talk to all of them. But maybe you can form an opinion to help you there. So they go down to the orphanage. And the administrator takes them into a room, and sitting at a table are nine kids. In one corner of that room, one corner of that room sits a child, kind of an outcast. They walk in the room, and they tell the administrator, we've seen enough. We know which child we want. It's just you haven't even talked to anyone. And they go into the office, and they say, we want the child that's sitting in the corner, the one that's weak, the one that's cast out, the one that's downtrodden. We want that one. And then the adoption process began. God came and pulled every one of us out of a corner. God chose us and he adopted us and he made us his own. The same people who deny this doctrine of election will oftentimes use verbiage such as it isn't fair. It isn't fair for God to choose some and not others. It just isn't right. How could he be that way? How can you really believe this, Richard? Simply fair in our sinful state. We don't want fair. We've all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We all deserve hell. If you want fair, we're all going for the ride. We're all going to hell. That's what fair looks like. What God has done is not a fair scenario. It's a mercy scenario. It's by God's mercy that we were chosen. Romans chapter 9 verses 15 through 16 states, for he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion. So then it does not depend on the one who wills or the one who runs, but on God who has mercy. It does not depend on the will of any man, not yourself, not anyone else. It depends on God. I remember Dr. Andrews describing mercy and he went up to that old chalkboard that he had and he took a piece of chalk and he drew this big circle on there. And then he started making dots in that circle. And it probably took him five, eight minutes to fill that circle up with dots. And he said, this is all the people that have ever lived. This is all of them. God, at the beginning of time, is looking at all these people that will ever live. And he took his chalk and drew a line from it and said, I'm going to save these. Instead of letting them all go to hell, he saved some. That's mercy. Even though we were dead in our sins, even though we were at enmity with him, he showed us mercy. And I even got to thinking about this further. When we think about election and adoption, we should consider the fact that the nation of Israel is God's chosen people. And these same people who deny This teaching have no problem with that. These same people who reject the doctrine of election, they have no problem with the way the disciples were chosen. Christ basically walking down the beach and he sees Peter and says, hey, follow me. All right, and here he goes. Same way with all the disciples. They didn't say, let me think about it for a few days. They didn't say, I really need to pray about this or let me go see the priest. They just went. You think that wasn't the power of God? Not one of them turned, not even Judas turned him down. Josh and Jason have been speaking about Abraham of late on Sundays. What about Abraham? The wretched Chaldean. who has no inkling of who God is. And God appears to him and says, hey, I'm gonna give you land that you've never seen. And he had no notion of who God was, but left everything behind to seek a promise from a God that he did not know. But he got to know him quickly. So we should not be questioning why God did such a thing as this election. Why would he do this? We should really be concentrating on the why me? Why did he choose me of all people? The rich that I am. And it should bring not arrogance to us. It should bring thanks and humbleness into our heart. So why does Joel or Peter use a verse like this? Why did they state it this way? Because it's true. All who call upon the Lord will be saved because only the elect, the adopted, the ones to be adopted will truly call upon the name of the Lord. And if those people who deny this would read just a little further into chapter two, they would find in verse 38 and 39, And Peter said to them, repent and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises for you and your children and for all who are far off. Pay attention to this last part. As many as the Lord our God will call to himself. These people who deny this doctrine will tell you that everybody receives the calling. And if this verse is true, once again, everybody's getting saved, right? Everybody gets that call, as many as the Lord our God will call to himself. He doesn't call everyone according to this, unless everyone gets saved in the end. And I do not believe that. That's not what the scriptures teach. So I've rambled way out in the weeds here. Let me get back to verse 21. Peter uses this last verse from the prophet of Joel as an introduction to his explanation of Jesus Christ's gospel. The wording of this particular verse from Joel indicates that Peter is no longer addressing the multitude in general. He's confronting the individual listener in the crowd. He's confronting them with Jesus Christ's gospel. He tells the listener to call upon the name of the Lord. Verse 21 was the most important verse to Peter. He went through all this other stuff to get their attention. They knew the prophet Joel. They were men of the Old Testament. They were Jewish. And he used this verse to get their attention. And then, holy irony, this last verse in Joel, all those that call upon the name of the Lord will be saved. For Peter, the Lord in this context of his sermon was Jesus Christ. Everything that follows in the sermon is Jesus Christ, his death, his resurrection, his exaltation. It's all pointed in the same direction. Peter was not concerned about the meaning of tongue speaking. He was not concerned about the tongues of fire. He was concerned about the significance and redemptive history of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to the whole community and the whole world. His desires are to see souls saved. That's the message. As much as I wanted to study prophecy and come in here with a lot of different things for you all, the message here is the last verse. If you're here this evening and have not called on the name of the Lord, I pray the salvation will be granted to you this very evening. If you have any questions concerning salvation, this teaching, this doctrine, feel free to reach out to any of the elders, deacons, myself, whomever. That's why we're here. And we're more than willing to help you with any concerns that may be burdening your heart. Let's pray. Dear Lord, we have heard your message. Now I ask that you help us to understand more fully as the days go by. Let us meditate on your word. Pray for your clarity through your Holy Spirit, Lord. Help it to absorb into each of us. Thank you, Father. I thank you for each family that's here this evening. Each person, each individual sacrificed some time and came here at a devotion to you. And I ask, Father, you deliver them home safely, and you'll bring us back together at the next appointed time. And these things we pray in your son's name, the name above all names, Jesus Christ, and all God's children said, amen.