Bible Study: May 26, 2021

Thought I would do. Okay, thank you. We've covered so much. The book of Acts is just full of information, full of guidance, full of direction, full of things that we can learn and compare to ourselves as we're living today. Is the church where God would want it to be? Are we doing things the way God had orchestrated? As it began in chapter two, we see what the apostles did under Christ's leadership. They noticed he was with them, and he talked with them the 40 days before he ascended. We see many things, and we can see what God's will is. And into that early testament church, he kept adding people and adding people. And when God is pleased with what we're doing and are living in the environment that he wants us to be, he will add to his family because he is interested in adding to his family as he desires. You know, I think what I'm going to do, I ran out of time this morning with some phone calls and everything, we've covered so many things through Acts 1 and 2 that I might put together kind of just a little sheet of what I see are perhaps the salient things we want to take out of it. You know, in Acts 1, we have an admonition that is so hard for us, you know, sometimes as Christians to do, and that is to wait for God. I think we can't stress that enough. Sometimes we look at our lives, the things that's going on, and we ask God for this, and we ask God for that, and he'll do it. We say that we trust that he will do it, but we just don't wait for him to do it. We tend maybe too many times to just take matters into our own hands. You know, we have the example of Saul who made that mistake in his kingship, if you will. He didn't wait for God. He thought he had to just take matters into his own hands. He offered that sacrifice, and you see what Samuel said. It was at that point that God made a determination on Saul that he wasn't doing things, and he wasn't going to be the man that God wanted him to be. So it's a lesson for us. Wait for God. Wait for God. He is in control. Jesus Christ is the head of the church. Jesus Christ will work these things out as sure as we are all on this line here today in one place, and looking at each other, you know, God will bring his kingdom about. He knows what he needs to do, and he knows what he wants us to be. So lesson from chapter one would be wait. You know, wait for God. Trust in him. Let him do what he says he's doing, show him by our willingness to wait and have faith in him that he will do. What he says he will do. In chapter two, there's just so many of them. You know, we've got the one place, one accord. We have the sermon that's full of information that Peter spoke. We have the admonition if you, you know, turn back to God with repenting, believing, being baptized, receiving the Holy Spirit. You know, we come into chapter three where we are to know we have, of course, the lesson of the church in verse 42 of Acts 2 there of the four things that, you know, God specifically mentions about that church as it begins. They continue to the apostles' teaching. You know, in the Word of God, that's the foundation of our church. It should be the foundation of our faith, the foundation of what we do.

They were in a fellowship. They understood that they were part of a body that God put them in, and they had responsibility to God and to each other to live that way of life. If they were going to take God's name on them to be in that, that we are, we have that responsibility to live up to what we say we will do and to be part of that, part of that body. In the breaking of bread, they got to know each other, and of course, in prayers, the relationship with God, because He is the reason, the reason we're in this fellowship. So, as we ended last week, we read through the first several verses of Acts 3. As we have, you know, the church meeting there, we have the church growing, we have the church, the people have decided that they want to be together. Then we have God drawing attention to the church through this miracle that occurs in the first 11 or 12 verses of chapter 3. I'm not going to read through it again. You remember that they're going to the temple, and there's this man who's been lain from birth who is there at the temple. People have been accustomed to seeing this man there each week, you know, seeking alms. And so, as Peter and John approach the temple, they heal him. And it's not them who heals, and they stop, and they ask God to heal him. And God does. And it's a magnificent miracle, and all the people are amazed. You know, a couple times in the first 12 verses of Acts 3 there, we see that they are amazed. This is something that just doesn't happen. It has to be a God for this man to be healed. And so, you know, we can pause and we can think, why did God do that? Did he do that? Because Peter and John were, you know, he just wanted to give them the gift of healing at that time. Certainly, God is compassionate. Certainly, when we ask God to heal, that's what he wants to do. But in this case, he took the time when the people were there going to the temple at that time, a man that was well known to the people that were coming to the temple. He was there every week, and Peter paused, and they asked God to heal him, and he healed. And the man was praising God. He was leaping around. He was jumping. It was well-jumping and praising God. It was well known. God took that occasion, that miracle, for Peter and John to do what God had said in Acts 1 that would be one of their major witnesses, or missions, and that is to be a witness of Jesus Christ. So yes, God loved the man. Yes, God healed him. Yes, it was something that only God could have done. But when you look at verse 12 in Acts 3, you see that God gives him the words and the proper reaction to that.

Everyone is happy to see the man healed, but Peter took it, and God led him. This isn't something that they planned that morning. They didn't get up and think, you know what? We're going to ask God to heal. It all happened. It was by God's orchestration, God's timing, and Peter's words were impromptu. What God gave him to do, and look how he witnessed of Jesus Christ, which is exactly what the church needed to do at that time, as God was drawing attention to the man, Jesus Christ, the Savior, Jesus Christ, the one that they had crucified. So in verse 12, it says, when Peter saw it, when he saw, you know, he saw what was going on, he responded to the people.

And he said, men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Why do you look so intently at us, as though by our power or godliness we made this man walk? Well, of course they were amazed. They were going to look to them. They were the ones who asked God to do this, but Peter uses that occasion then to witness of Jesus Christ, the God of Abraham, he says in verse 13, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers glorified his servant Jesus. And he reminds them he was there among us. And I'm sure he reminded them that Jesus Christ, wherever he went, when people were brought to him, he healed. You've seen this healing. It became well known in Judea what Jesus Christ could do. And this man, his servant Jesus, you delivered up, and you denied in the presence of Pilate when he, Pilate, was determined to let him go. This miracle was above, was there. You should have known that Jesus Christ was a Messiah. You should have understood where these miracles were coming from. They were coming from God and not from Satan as the people wanted to, as the Pharisees wanted to do that. So now they see this same power and this healing as Christ alive, Christ the head of the church, Christ still working through his church, still the ministry that Jesus Christ began of the gospel being preached to all people, to all nations, and the gospel of repentance and turning to him. Here they have a continuance of this in this healing, and Peter's using it as an occasion, as an occasion for, you know, to witness of Jesus Christ. You know, something that we might want to bear in mind in our lives, as we have things happen that are clearly, you know, clearly not of our doing, right? That so many times God works in our lives and in healing sometimes. He doesn't do immediate healing all the time, but we see the process that he brings us through in healing. Now, as we go through the process of healing, we do learn things along the way on how we should live, how we respond to God, and we can ask him, as his people, what do you want us to learn? Teach us! Teach us what you want us to know about healing, so that we learn what we, you want us to learn as we go through these things, because there's many reasons that God brings trials upon us. You know, we'll see that later on as we get into a little bit of chapter four as well. It's how do we respond? How do we respond to God? Are we understanding that he does these things, that it's a learning occasion, and something he wants us to do? Here, Peter, Peter the Holy Spirit, leads him. This is an opportunity to witness and to remind them what they did. They delivered Jesus Christ up. They killed him. Pilate didn't want to do it. The laws of the land didn't convict Jesus Christ. The people, the people, determined that. So in verse 15, he says, you killed, you killed the Prince of Life, whom God raised from the dead, of which we are witnesses. We're here, all 12 of us, we're here to tell you this is what happens. This is who he was. We saw him die. We saw him. We saw him laid in the tomb. We saw him resurrected Jesus Christ. We touched him. We felt him. We heard him. We were with him. And then in verse 16, there's so many Hallmark verses. I could use that term in Acts 1, 2, and 3.

Verse 16, Hallmark verse in healing as they've done this, as God has brought this healing on him. And his name, his name through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know.

Faith in Jesus Christ. Faith and belief in him. That's what made him whole. It might remind us of chapter 4, if I can look across your page at chapter 4 verse 12. Peter will again, when he's talking to the assembled leadership of the Jewish religion there, as they get called before them, later on in chapter 4, he says, there is a salvation in any other name, though there is salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven, given among men, by which we must be saved. So the power of Jesus Christ. And we have to remember that when it just says through his name, yes, we need to be, you know, reverent in his name. We need to, you know, be in fear in all of God. Every time we hear the name Jesus Christ, to recognize who he is, you know, the world under Satan's sway, it, you know, it will just minimize Christ's name. You can walk down the street, you can go to the store, you can turn on the TV, and you hear Jesus Christ over and over, his name just abused. Very common. Just, you know, not any meaning to it at all, the way Satan has led people to do that. You and I can't be that type people. You know, when we hear people using Jesus Christ's name just as a common expression, or God's name as a common expression, that should cut us. That should cut us to the core. We should, you know, we should recognize the abuse that's going on in there, and you and I should be people who reverence his name. But it's not just the physical name, it's everything that it represents. When the Bible says, you know, his name, it just doesn't mean just say Jesus Christ's name. Now, if when when we when we say Jesus Christ's name, or God the Father's name, or the other names of God, with everything it conjures up in our minds, you know, that's where faith comes from. It's not just the name. So many people just want to say the name. If I just say Jesus Christ, there has to be the whole backing behind it. When we take God's name, when we're baptized in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, there's a huge responsibility on us to do what God said, God says, and to develop that faith and that trust and that reliance and that obedience to him in all things. Taking his name and saying his name encompasses all of those things. And the apostles, you know, the apostles are living that. So it's a verse, you know, a very a hallmark verse. His name, through faith in his name, has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes through Christ has given this man this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.

We believe in him. We know the power of Jesus Christ. We know who he is. We know what his will is. And many times when he was on earth, you know, he would talk about faith. He would chide the disciples even as he would talk about, oh you, oh ye of little faith, oh ye of little faith, you know, he warns us, those of us who live in these end times, when Christ returns, will he find faith on the earth? He certainly gives us the opportunity to build faith. But do we do it? But do we do it? I do want to turn to three verses. You know, three times when Jesus Christ was healing people, he referred to, he made the comment to them that your faith is what has made you made you whole. Let's turn back to Matthew 9.

Didn't say it every single time, but it's noticeable that at some points that he did say that.

You know, we know today it'll be our faith, you know, that that makes us well. Here in Matthew 9 20, we have the occasion of the lady who has suffered for 12 years with this flow of blood. Matthew 9 20 says, suddenly a woman who had a flow of blood for 12 years came from behind and just touched the hem of Christ's garment. That's interesting. Just the faith, just touching him. She didn't have to have him pause and turn around and anoint her. She believed it and she knew if she could just touch the hem that she would be healed for. She said to herself, if I can just touch his garment, I'll be made well. Jesus turned around and when he saw her, he said, be of good cheer, daughter. Your faith has made you well. And she was made well from that hour. She'd been through all the doctors, all the physicians, all the tests, all the medicines, all the things that she could do and the world had to offer at that time. She came to the point, you know what? It's only God, only God who can heal me. I have to completely rely on him, completely rely on him with all my heart, mind, and soul. And she had come to that point and he says, your faith has made you well.

Mark 10. Now he recorded the same sentiment as well. Mark 10 verse 46.

This is a demon, a very difficult, very difficult thing. A man's life is just completely devastated when demons take over Mark 10 and verse 46 says, when they came to Jericho, as Christ went out of Jericho with his disciples and a great multitude, blind Bartimaeus, the son of... well, okay, this is another occasion. Blind Bartimaeus, the son of Timaeus, sat by the road begging. And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me. And then he warned him to be quiet, but he cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. He wasn't going to be quiet. He wasn't going to say, Christ is too busy. People are not... don't bother him, don't bother him. Never, never, never think you're bothering God. Never, never, never think you're bothering a minister when you need help. Never, never, never think anyone is too busy, right, on this. So these people said, don't bother him with this, but the man persists, son of David, have mercy, have mercy on me. So Jesus stood still and commanded him to be called. And they called the blind man, saying to him, be of good cheer, rise, he's calling you, and throwing aside his garment, he rose and came to Jesus. And when Jesus came to him, he said, what do you want me to do for you? Tell me what it is that you want me to do. The blind man said, Rabboni, that I might receive my sight. And Christ said to him, go your way.

Your faith has made you well. And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.

He wasn't going to be dissuaded by anyone. He was going to be persistent. Here he was. He knew that God's will can heal. God's will is to heal. And his faith was in God, and he wasn't going to let someone say, don't do this, don't do that. And to stop him, he was crying out, God, heal me, I know you can do it. And Christ responded. He saw his faith and said, your faith, your faith has, your faith has made you well. Luke 2, not Luke 2, but Luke also recorded this in Luke 17.

And verse 15.

And this is... make sure I've got my... Yeah, these are the 10 lepers. These are the 10 lepers. And Christ heals them, right? He just gives them the healing. In verse 13, they cry out, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. Verse 14, when he saw them, he said, go show yourselves to the priests. And so it was that as they went, they followed his instructions. Sometimes God will give us things to do. And there was the law of the leper, what you need to do to be cleansed. And he said, go, go do that. And as they were obeying him, they were healed. And as they went, they were cleansed. But only one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God. He fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan, not an Israelite, not a, not a Jew. And Jesus answered and said, weren't there 10 cleansed? But where are the nine? Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? And he said to him, Arise, go your way. Your faith has made you well. Your faith has made you well. The other nine were made well too. Well, what happened to them later? We have no idea. But your faith has made you well.

Now, it's lessons for us as we might enter times of illness in our lives, situations that occur, sometimes can be harrowing diagnoses that we get. You know, have faith in God. Trust in Him.

Put your faith in Him. He is more than capable of healing anything that comes our way.

And sometimes, you know, He will give us the opportunities to develop that faith.

Excuse me. Develop the opportunities to have that faith. We would never learn the faith if we didn't have trials, if we didn't have tests, if we didn't have things come upon us.

Do we take those opportunities? Do we look at those things that way and pause and not be afraid?

Not be afraid, but instead tell God, you know, get on our knees before God and say, I know this is an opportunity for me to build faith. Help me to build faith in you. I trust in you, and I will continue in that way. So, anyways, I said, well, we'll get into chapter four. We'll see more of that as well. And what happens? Let's go back to Acts 3. You know, here's a momentous thing as the church begins. It's settled. Some time has passed. The church is operating there in Jerusalem, and in God's perfect timing, Peter and John, as they go to the temple, this man is healed, and it gives them an occasion to remind people Jesus Christ. It's not me.

It's faith in Jesus Christ. It's in his name. This man that you rejected, he's the one. He's the one to whom we look. He is the Messiah. And so, we, you know, as we move down to verse 17 of Acts 3, you know, Peter softens it. Remember, God is the one inspiring these words. Peter didn't prepare his words. He's not reading from a script. He didn't sit down in the morning, get his computer out, write down every word, and read it. In verse 17, he says, yet now, brethren, I know that you did it in ignorance, as it also your rulers. So he softens it a little bit, you know? It's like, yes, you did it. You murdered Jesus Christ. You, through your mob and your will, clearly your will, you murdered the Messiah. You killed him. Yet Peter says, but you did it in ignorance. You did it in ignorance. I accept that. And he's also going to let him know it is God's, it was God's will, as he's reminded them before. This was part of the plan that had to happen. And so, this is not something that they got won over on Jesus Christ or won on God. This is exactly what would happen.

Keep your finger there in Acts 3. Probably reminds you of Acts 17, as we come back to this, you know, later in the book. Paul, as he's speaking at the Areopagus in Athens, makes the same type comment to the people that are gathered there, as he is witnessing of Jesus Christ, as he is letting them know, you know, of the Messiah. And speaking of the Scripture, so that those who God would call that day, their minds are being opened. In Acts 17 and verse 30, he says another one of those Hallmark verses, truly these times of ignorance got overlooked. I think the old King James says, God winked at. Doesn't mean that he says it's okay. Doesn't mean that he says it isn't a sin, but he winks at. The same thing I, you didn't know better. You didn't know it at that time. Same thing Peter is telling the group assembled. I know that you did it in ignorance. You didn't know who he was, you know, but, but you still did it. But now you understand. This is what he's telling the Greeks here, too. These times of ignorance, when you didn't know who God was, when you didn't know who Jesus Christ was, when you didn't know these truths, the times of ignorance got overlooked. He understands when he calls and when our minds are open. Doesn't mean he condones it. Yes, let me finish. But now commands all men everywhere to repent. Once we know the job is to repent. Yes, why no, ma'am. Why didn't the Jews know who he was? They was there. They should have known who he was, right? That's, I mean, they knew the scriptures, but they were blinded. Remember, we talked about how the leaders of that day, they were basically jealous. Pilate saw through, he said that he knew that they delivered Jesus to him because of ending. They were jealous because crowds followed him.

They didn't want to lose their positions. They didn't want to lose their leadership roles. If he was the Messiah, everything was going to change. They were no longer going to be the people, the ones that people looked up to follow. They weren't setting the rule. They would have to yield to someone else. All those things played into it, and they simply did not want to hear what he had to say. So they closed their mind to who he was, even though they had every sign that he was the Messiah, but they closed their mind. They just didn't want it. They didn't want what God was offering. A big lesson to all of us, too, right? That we can do the same thing. Sometimes we have to kind of catch ourselves and think, well, what is God teaching me? And just because I don't want it to be that way, it has to be the way God says it. You know, we have to be willing to humble ourselves, yield ourselves, get rid of anything in our lives to do what God's will is. Because he will show us where those gods in our lives and where our self-interest and our pride is that needs to be needs to be weeded out. Okay, make sense? Make sense. Okay, so let's go back to Acts 3. So, you know, Peter here, as he's talking, he kind of lets us know, you know, you, I know you didn't know any better. But now that you know, now that you know you just can't get on with life and say, oh well, you've got to repent. You've got to turn to God. You've got to give yourself to Him.

Once you know your responsibility, if you respond to the calling that God has is turn to Him. Yet now, brethren, I know you didn't do it in ignorance, as did also your rulers. Verse 18, But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all His prophets that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Now, I remember on the day of Pentecost, you know, Peter had gone through the Scriptures and he spoke more than what the words we have in Acts 2. He convinced them and he proved to them that Jesus Christ is a Messiah and everything that happened to Him was foretold in the Bible. The Bible came alive to the people. And that day when they saw the prophecies and saw that's exactly what happened. And we put Him to death and He's reminding them of that here.

All these things happened for a reason. God said they would happen. God foretold by the mouth of all of His prophets that the Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. Now, we could turn, you know, to many Scriptures. We, you know, we could go back to Luke when Jesus Christ was on the road to Emmaus. And remember, He was walking with Cleopas and the one other man that was with Him there. I remember as they walked and He listened to what they were saying, that Jesus Christ began to expound to them from the Scriptures who the Messiah was. And He was showing them as they walked everything that they needed to know. He would talk about this verse, the Messiah fulfilled. This verse, the Messiah fulfilled. And they had all that way on the road to Emmaus to do that. But it wasn't until He broke bread with them that evening when they sat down that everything came crystal clear. Oh, this is the man. This is the man we were walking with. Why didn't we have to expound to the Scriptures to us? Why didn't we know it at that time? But He did the same thing that Peter and the church is now doing, expounding who Jesus Christ is, explaining from the Scriptures. And as we see Peter and John, and as we'll see Paul and the others, you know, preach, they always preach with the Bible, backing them up. The same thing that the church should do today. What we say should always be backed up by Scripture. So, let us do turn to Revelation 13.

We know today those Scriptures that foretell, we read many of them on Passover night. We read many of them in our study. But here in Revelation 13 and verse 8, you know, again, it reminds us that Jesus Christ, His death, what He went through, everything we read in Isaiah 53 and Psalm 22 and all those Old Testament prophecies that are back there.

You know, verse 8, for those of us who are near the end of the age, says, all who dwell on the earth will worship Satan, right? Because it'll be His sway that the world is firmly under at the end time. All who dwell on the earth will worship Him, whose names have not been written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. People whose names are being written in the book of life now are the first fruits, as we talked about on Pentecost, you and me, the ones God is calling.

This is our time, the time the judgment is on, you know, the house of God. This is the time that God is looking to us, but He reminds us the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. It's His purpose, it's His plan, it is progressing exactly as God always intended it to. So, okay, so verse 18, He's reminding them. And again, remind, anytime you want to pop in, you know, with a question, comment, observation, or even just a thought, that's okay.

Just do that. All these things that the prophets said would happen has happened. They've been fulfilled. He was among you. You saw what He did. You saw that He was kind, He was gentle, He preached the kingdom of God, and you put Him to death. You put Him to death, and now He's resurrected and sits at the right hand of God. Verse 19, another one of those hallmarks, verses, you know, oftentimes we'll read this around the Feast of Tabernacles as we come to the Fall Holy Days. But He says, He reminds them again, now you know that, you know that, you've seen it from the Bible.

You know who the man is. Repent. Repent, therefore. You know these things. Turn to God, and remember, for those who may be newer among us, and as I'm looking at the people that are on, we've been around, we've been in the church, most of us, many times. We know what repentance is. Repent, therefore, and be converted. You know, there's four words here in verse 19. Repent. I think we all know what the meaning of the word repent is.

We should by this time, that it's not repent as the world defines repent, but repent as the Bible defines repent, a heart, a complete turnaround in our lives and our way of thinking. Repent, therefore, and be converted. Now that we know what converted is, you know, when we receive the Holy Spirit, we say, oh, we're converted.

We've changed. Our lives have changed. You know, in Paul, when he's writing in Romans 12, 1, and 2, he used the words transformed. Now we are transformed. Our mind is changed, you know, when we have God's Holy Spirit, we see things differently.

We understand things differently. We see the world differently. We might react differently than we did in the past. We might, you know, scratch our heads on how we ever could have done some of the things that we did before, but we're transformed, you know, by the Holy Spirit and into a way of thinking. But the word converted here, when you look it up in in in Strongs, literally means turn, you know, literally means turn. Turn to the worship of the true God is how they define it. And we can see sometimes when these words are used, you know, God does want us to be converted, right?

But in the same book of Acts here, you know, authored by Luke, of course, inspired by God, the same word, Greek word that's translated, converted in 319 is translated turn to God or turn to him in other places. Let's just look at a few of those. Acts 9. Acts 9 and verse 35. Here again, you see Peter. Peter in healing in verse 34 and verse 35, he says, So all who dwell, so all who dwell at Lita and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

It's the same word converted, the same word translated converted in Acts 3 19.

Okay. All those who saw him and they turned to God. They have yet to be transformed. They have yet, you know, but we repent and we turn to God. And that's what Paul is saying here. Again, in chapter 11 and verse 21. So sometimes as we, you know, see some of the Greek words and there's one word it's used, we see how the author used it in every other place in the book that he had he used it. We see the sense of what that Greek meaning is. Acts 11 and verse 21. The hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.

They were, you know, we use the word converted, they turned to the Lord. They changed from their way and began to look at him. 14, Acts 14 verse 15.

Next 14 verse 15. We begin in verse 14. The apostles, Barnabas and Paul heard this.

They tore their clothes and ran in among the multitudes crying out saying, Why are you doing these things? We also are men with the same nature as you. And we preach to you that you should turn from these useless things to the living God who made the heaven, the earth, the sea, and all things that are in them.

You should be the word turned to God that you should turn from these useless things is the same word in 3.19 that's translated converted. We'll do a couple more just so you can see. 15, 15 in verse 18. I can't even read my own writing. I do 19. 15 in verse 19.

Therefore, therefore he says, I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles and this is the chapter about circumcision and what responsibilities or what we need to relay on the Gentiles. Therefore, I judge that we should not trouble those from among the Gentiles who are turning to God. Same word. We repent and we turn to God. There is the time that we show through our actions that we return to God. Just one more. 26, chapter 26, verse 18.

I'm going to start with the sentence verse 17.

Jesus Christ actually speaking here says, I will deliver you from the Jewish people as well as from the Gentiles to whom I now send you to open their eyes in order to turn them from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God that they may receive forgiveness of sins and inheritance among those who are sanctified by faith in me. To turn them from darkness to light, that turn is that same word used in Acts 3 and verse 19 that's translated as converted. Now, we do become converted. That's what the goal is, converted to God. But the process, if we go back to Acts 3 and verse 19, if we use the same word, the author and God uses in every other place in the book of Acts and replaced converted with turn, it all depends. Understand that people, their minds are being opened at this time. Here they've had this healing. People are hearing Paul or not Paul, Peter talk. They're understanding God used this occasion to open the minds of some people. They're now, oh, Jesus Christ. Yes, he was God. We put him to death. And he says, repent therefore and turn, and be turned. I guess we could put it that way. Turn to God. You've been turned away from God. You've been turned toward the ways of the world and the ways of the leaders of your church. You are not following God. Repent therefore and be turned to God that your sins may be blotted out. Now, that's the process. Repent, turn to God, and then baptism. It's when we repent and when we are baptized and we go through water baptism and attest to God through that physical act.

And really to those who know us too, that we bury our past. The past is gone and then those sins are blotted out in that act of baptism. He's repeating here in 19 what he said in Acts 2, 30-38 in slightly different words. Repent, turn to God, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Now, let's look at the word refreshing for a moment here. The times of refreshing come from the Lord. It means a recovery of breath, a recovery of breath, or a revival. When something is revived, it's brought back to life, right? So what he's as the people here, just like you and I went through this process, as we began to understand God's truth, as we he began to his Holy Spirit be with us, and we understood we haven't lived in accordance with God's way at all. What we've done in our past lives is we have done nothing but earn ourselves death. That's what we've done. Our way only leads to death.

And so when we repent, and when we turn to God, and when we're baptized, it's like God revives us. Now there's life. There is no life in us until his Holy Spirit is in us. His Spirit is life. His Spirit is that seed of eternal life. It's that breath that revives us and takes us from the dead people we were to the living people we are now that have the potential of eventually being born as Spirit beings in God's family. So he says these times of refreshing, these times of refreshing, these times of revival, this time of newness of life in you, just exactly as it says in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, I believe it is, that when we come up out of the waters of baptism, you know, God sees us as a new creature, a new creation. We're alive now. The dead, the past man is dead. Yes, Winoma.

I'm sort of confused. I've been confused about this. Is there a big difference between the Spirit that God puts in us at birth and the Holy Spirit? Yes, there is. Yes, there is. Remember?

Yeah, remember in 1 Corinthians 2, he differentiates between those two spirits. Every man, woman, and child, when they take that breath of life, right, as we're born, the Spirit of man, the Spirit of man is put in him. Gives us the ability to know the world, to have dominion of the world, do the things that we do in the world. The man is incomplete until he turns to God, and the Holy Spirit is put in him after repentance, turning to God in baptism, and then with God's Holy Spirit, then we can understand and do God's will. So yes, there's a difference.

Okay, so the times of refreshing. So the times of revival may come from the presence of the Lord. It's in his presence that we have life. Jesus Christ said, he's the life, he's the truth, he's the way, he's the resurrection. He tells us, eat the bread of life, keep me in your presence.

You know, he's saying it here in very eloquent words, repent, turn to him, be baptized that your sins may be blotted out. So that times of revival, so that there is life in you again, because what you've done up until the time of repenting, genuinely repenting, and turning to God has done nothing but bring you death. That's all your pathways have done. If you're going to be revived, this is what you need to do. So the times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before.

Well, Jesus Christ, you know, comes to us, but I think he's also talking about that, you know, there will be the time when God the Father sends Jesus Christ back to earth. When the work is done, when the first fruits, the number of the first fruits that are invited, who respond, and when God's wedding supper table is, when God's wedding supper table is filled with that 144,000 who are the first fruits, when that's done, Jesus Christ will return. Until then, there are people who are invited, who may start. We read that in Luke in one of the parables of the wedding supper, people that will begin, have an excuse, leave, God replaces. God replaces. If you don't want what I have to offer, I'll fill it with someone else, but there will be the first fruit. So when that first fruit table is full, Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ will return. Only God knows the timing of that.

Do this. Do what God has to say so that Jesus Christ, that he may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before. He reminds them. You've read this. You know the Old Testament. You know that the Messiah was coming. Now you know that he was here and it's passed, but now there's this opportunity to turn to him. And he reminds them that in verse 21, Jesus Christ was dead, buried for three days and three nights, resurrected. He was with us. Peter might have said for 40 days he ascended into heaven. And now where he is, he is sitting at God's right hand, says, whom heaven must receive. He stays in heaven. He will be there at God's right hand until the times of restoration of all things. It will be at that time when all things are restored until that times of restoration that God will send them back. Until then, Jesus Christ remains in heaven, which is exactly where God wants him to be. Now I think I had something on restoration here as well.

Oh, I should mention too that times of refreshing, that word, the only time that that word record appears in the New Testament is right there in verse 19. Read that revival, that new left, that new breath, that putting the breath back in. Until the times of restoration, you know what I looked it up, restoration is a good translation of that. It just means that things will be restored to their original condition. You know, if we look back at Genesis 1 and see where God created all the things that he created in that chapter when he was done, he said everything is very good. Everything is very good. And you have this beautiful picture of the earth, you know, the perfect creation earth. You know, man and God, they're in harmony and, you know, walking with each other. And then they're in accord until Satan comes and leads Eve away, deceives her into what she's doing, and the separation comes. When Christ returns, the world will be at one. That will be what God wants to do. Things will be restored to their condition, you know.

We can turn, and maybe we should. It's a feast of tabernacles. We always often turn there, but let's go back to Isaiah 11 and just read what Christ said there about when he returns, you know, what even the animals will be like. At that time, the Holy Spirit will be shed upon, it will be given to all of mankind. God's way will be taught. God's way will be followed.

You and I will be teachers that time. You know, our job now is to be learning and applying what we know into our lives now so that we can work with people and help them understand the value and why we need to live the way we do and the benefits of it. But in verse 6 of Isaiah 11, you have the beautiful millennial scriptures of a world that is put back into the state that it was in before Adam and Eve sinned, and the world became corrupted, you know, as it says in Romans 8. The wolf, the wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the young goat, there will be peace even among the animals that, you know, we see so much violence and so much, you know, bloodshed, you know, today in this world that's marked with violence and worked with marked with violence even among God's creation. The wolf will dwell with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the young goat, the calf, the calf and the young lion and the fatling together.

Unity, everyone getting along, everyone in concert. And a little child shall lead them, the cow and the bear shall graze, their young one shall lie down together, the lion shall eat straw like the ox, restored to its original condition, the appetite for meat, the valuance, that'll all be taken back, God will restore what the original, I guess, what's the word I'm looking for, instincts of the animals will be.

The nursing child will play by the cobra's hole, the ween child shall put his hand in the viper's den, they shall not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain. For the earth, and here's the reason why, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea. When God's way is on earth, when people are living by His ways, when they're led by His Holy Spirit, when Jesus Christ is the rule and the rulers of the people who are overseeing and by definition of overseeing serving the people that are there, you will see, and we will see, a land of peace, a land of harmony, a land that we can't even imagine, a land that we can't even imagine now. That's what we have to look forward to. And as verse 20, if we go back to Acts 3, talks about it, you know, Jesus Christ.

This time of man, this time of man, this time of him being under the sway of Satan, the first six dispensations of the Bible that God talks about that we've spoken back of a few years ago, when this, as long as Satan, God has given him the sway of the world, you know, the world is a mess, right? It's everything we read about, and it's just waiting for the restoration of all things as well when we read alliteratively in Romans 8. But here it'll be the time that everything will be restored. But Jesus Christ, until the time He's sent back, He stays in heaven.

He sends us His Holy Spirit. We have His Holy Spirit. He's always with us.

He's there at our side, but He is in heaven, who heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all of His holy prophets since the world began.

Over and over, Peter talks about, you knew this. The verses were always there. This isn't anything new. This isn't a twist in the story. You knew it. You just didn't understand it. But now you see God's hand at work. This is what God's will is. This is how it was meant to be.

Verse 22 even draws them back to Moses, someone who they held in very, very high esteem. For Moses truly said to the fathers, reminding them of what is said there, the Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren. Him you shall hear in all things whatever he says to you. Listen to him. Moses is saying with this prophet that God is going to raise up, listen to him. I won't take the time to turn back to Matthew 17 and the other places where the transfiguration took place. But remember when Peter and James and John were there in vision in the kingdom and God the Father says to them, you know, this is my son in whom I am well pleased. This is my son in whom I am well pleased. Hear him. Hear him. And he's telling them that. And I'm sure as those three were there, they would have remembered those words, hear him. When this prophet comes to you, you shall hear him. You shall hear in all things whatever he says to you, whatever he says, follow. Peter, James, and John learned that. And again, the people who were who were gathered there that day, who were Jews who knew those scriptures so well, again, they would have heard those hear him, hear him words, and it would have stuck in their minds. Oh, that's who that's who Moses was talking about. This messiah that we've put to death. And it shall be, verse 23, it shall be that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people. Everyone who won't listen to him, everyone who won't do what he says to do. You know, Matthew 28, verse 19, Christ says, teach all nations to observe all things I've commanded you. You know, he's the one by whom our progress, our spiritual maturity, has to be measured as by what he says. And we'll have all these tests, we'll have all these trials, we will have things that work on our minds, whatever Satan can do, whatever Satan can do to lure us away or to get us to turn from God and where he's placed us, he will do.

But we have to keep Christ's words in mind of what his will is, always his will. It can be deceiving sometime to us to think we are doing his will, well really we're doing our will and not his. That's another subject, though. Okay, verse 24. He reminds him of what all the Bible has said. Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel, remember Samuel even said Samuel was disheartened that Israel wanted a king. He thought, God's your king, just follow him. You don't need a physical king, but no, no, no, we have to be the nations around us. We have to follow a man.

You are all the prophets from Samuel and those who follow as many as have spoken, have foretold these days. Go back and look at the scriptures with what you know now. Go back and look at the scriptures from what has happened, this has transpired, and as they did that, the Bible became just illuminated to them of what had gone on as it is to us when we read it with God's Holy Spirit with us before we're baptized, in us after we're baptized.

Verse 25, you are sons of the prophets, you're descended from these people, and you are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with our Father, saying to Abraham, and in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

You remember that in Genesis 12 verses 3 through 5 there, when God says, you know, in you, in you, in your seed, all, everyone will be blessed. And we know that God is originally blessed, the world physically, through Abraham's descendants. The biggest blessing here, you know, Paul or Peter talks about in verse 25, Jesus Christ came through that line. Jesus Christ was a descendant. He was born in that lineage, and in your seed all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. Not just the Jews, not just the 12 tribes of Israel, but all the world. Everyone will ultimately understand the blessing that comes from Jesus Christ. As the people were there that day, and remember, you know, to us it's just routine knowledge that we know who Jesus Christ is. Now we have a world that believes Jesus, that says they believe Jesus Christ is the Savior. They don't do anything he says, but they say they believe it. But this is brand new to the people right then. They had to understand who Jesus Christ is. We need to understand that too. We understand it, but that it goes hand in hand that we follow everything that he says. And when that happens, as it will in the millennium, then all the families of the earth will be blessed.

Verse 26, you know, he says something here and inspires something that the people that were gathered there that day didn't understand. Peter didn't even understand it at that point. He says, to you first, Jews, to you first, God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to bless you in turning away—and that's not the same word, turn from the little we talked about and converted before—in turning away every one of you from your iniquities to you first. Remember what Paul said in Romans 1.16?

As he is speaking to the church in Rome, the book of Romans is a very sound—well, of course, sound book—a very foundational book, if you will, talking to those who are being—to are turning to God and the plan of salvation and what our responsibility and that is, what God is doing, how he's working. In Romans 1.16, Paul says, I'm not ashamed of the gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes, for the Jew first, and also for the Greek, for also for the Gentile. So even here in verse 26 of Acts 3, God is already coming to you first, but you're not the only ones—you're not the only reason that Jesus Christ died and the descendants of Abraham. All the families of the earth, every man, woman, and child will be blessed as a result of his life, of his death, and what he's done for us.

He sent him to you and turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

Okay, pause there for a moment. We'll get into chapter 4 here. I hope we can get that in the verse 11, and then we'll pause for the day, I think. We'll catch our breath here for a minute.

Let's move into—let me make sure I have it—this is something that I intended to talk about here.

Okay, let's begin or go to chapter 4 then. Okay, so as they spoke to the people, you know, you can imagine a crowd formed here. They were hearing something that they hadn't heard before. They were hearing about this man Jesus Christ. They were hearing about the Messiah. They were hearing about where the healing came from. They're hearing words like, if you want to be healed, you have to have faith in this man Jesus Christ and this one who is the Messiah. As they spoke to the people, and you know some of the crowd there, they didn't want to hear what was being said. Many of them did. They were a captive audience, but there were some who would run back to the Pharisees and say, do you know what they're talking about? Do you know what's being said over here? Do you know why this crowd is gathering here? As they spoke to the people, look what happens. The priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them.

What's going on here? What's going on here? They were greatly disturbed that they taught the people and priests in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. Remember, the Sadducees didn't even believe in a resurrection, but here we have Peter and John the Apostles talking about Jesus Christ was resurrected from the dead. What happened to him is the same thing God has in mind for us. The plan is that we will be resurrected if we turn to him and if we live our lives in the way God wants us to.

Greatly disturbed that they taught the people and priests in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. What do they want to do with the message they don't want to hear? They want to kill it. It's ancient censorship. Today, we see that beginning to happen in our society. That's not our truth, it's your truth. Our truth, and we have the power, is that's the only thing we want people hearing. Anything else, let's censor it. Let's blot it out. Let's not even be out there. We see that happening in the world around us today. As some decide what we should believe and drown out other things, we see the same thing happening here. We don't want you preaching about a resurrection from the dead. We don't want you talking about Jesus Christ. We are going to end this. You have the leaders here coming to Peter as he's speaking. They don't like what they're hearing. They laid hands on them.

They're not playing around. They're not just saying, could you please leave and disperse?

Laid hands on them. They put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening.

Now, were Paul, or not Paul, Peter and John, were they doing anything against the law?

No. They were just saying things that the leaders of the Jews, the Sadducees, didn't want to hear. That was their only offense. But look what they had the power to do. They put them away and put them into custody until the next day when they could deal with it. So they weren't free to go home that night?

Mr. Shady, it has trickled onto our day as well about the resurrection. Because most denominations today, they preach. You hear them being a member saying, well, if the relative is already dead, he's gone to heaven right then and there. So the question is, if they go to heaven as soon as they die, what's the use of the resurrection? So they don't preach the resurrection. They don't. They don't. It's just like, because there is no need for it. If you have the wrong, you're going to heaven anyway. Why do you need to be resurrected? You're already gone. So it's a truth, you know, truth of God that Satan, you know, Satan has led churches away from what the truth is. But you're exactly right. It's in the day, too. People don't want to hear about it because they want to believe what they want to believe.

Now, it's interesting in verse three there, you know, here they had the authority to throw them into custody until the next day. You know, over the last year or so, I guess I never understood what the difference between jail and prison were. And I've come to understand through a few things, and even watching some of the events of what's going on in the world recently with some of the arrests and whatever. But I understand that if you can be put into jail, you can be put into jail, and you can sit there for, you know, I know someone, the reason I know this, who's been there for almost four years waiting for a trial date. Because, just because they can do that, then he's not free to leave, there's not a trial, I think now there is something that is being scheduled for him and everything. But you can just be held, you can be held until the powers that be decide, you know, what it is without a trial or anything else like that. Maybe on the news you've heard of some of those things that people have been arrested and they've been sitting there for 40, 50, 60 days, and nothing's being done. And that's just kind of law of land. You can put someone in jail until the trial date, you know, with cause, if you have cause. This is what happened in verse 3 to to them. They laid hands on them, they put them in custody until the next day. They didn't have to go and get a court order, they didn't have to have a trial, they didn't have to do anything. It's like, you know, what? We're going to lock you up, you know, what's going on today. And as we see those things happen, you know, we often, you know, I don't know any preacher, although I know some of you have sent me some stories along the way where a preacher here or a preacher there not in the Church of God has been, you know, jailed for something that he's saying or defying a, you know, defying a a mask ordinance or something like that. But we can see the time where, you know, people don't like what we say, and we continue saying it. They can say, you know what, throw them in jail and we'll deal with them later. We can shut them up that way. So we may, we may see something like the New Testament, yeah, the early New Testament Church where some of their, some of their preachers and some of their ministers, some of the apostles were put into jail. Not because of anything wrong they did, but because they were following what Jesus Christ said. And it'll, that, you know, as we look at the world where we are, that's different than what we thought of the world a year ago, you know, we can see some of these things. In verse 3 we see that, right? However, in verse 4, many of those, so they tried to come and shut it down, the Sadducees and these leaders, however, many of those who heard the word believed. So they tried to shut it down, but when God wants to get his word across, so when he, when it's his will for minds to be opened, it happened, you know. However, many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about 5,000. So they listened to the words. God gave Peter the opportunity to witness of Jesus Christ. He did it. He did it. God gave him the words to do it, and, you know, they were eventually put in, where they were that day, put into prison, but many believed. And you see the church growing as God does that, to the number of the men came to be about 5,000. So there were even more than that, you know, that were there when you count women and children, I suppose, as well.

So in verse 5, the next day, it came to pass on the next day that there, look at, look at the assembly that's there, just because these men were preaching about Jesus Christ. It came to pass on the next day that their rulers, their elders, their scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. Wow, this was no small event. This is all of Congress. This is all of the Senate. This is the whole Supreme Court. We're all here. This is important. This is what was going on yesterday. We want this to stop. This Jesus Christ preaching has got to end. So we have every single ruler and person of authority in the Jewish church coming together at Jerusalem. They're here because this is an important event. They thought they had it. They thought they killed that when they killed Jesus Christ, but here they are dealing with it again because you can never stop the Word of God. You can never stop the Word of God, Jesus Christ said in Matthew 16, nothing would stop His church and His message from going forward. So here we have all these people gathered, and look what they did. Look what they did to Peter and John. When they had sat them in the midst. Can you imagine if you were called into Congress and the president was there, the vice president was there, all the Supreme Court was there, every single senator, every single representative was there, or a good portion of them, and they sent you right down in the center. It would kind of be an intimidating type situation, wouldn't it? It would be an intimidating situation, but that's what they did because that's what they were intending to do. We're going to show them that this message has to stop. When they had sat them in the midst, they asked the same question. They asked Christ, by what power or by what name have you done this? Remember well back in Matthew 21, I'm not going to take the time to go there. You can look that up.

You can look that up, but when Jesus when they asked Jesus Christ, by what authority are you doing these things? And He didn't answer them. He answered them with a question. He said, well, let me ask you a question. The baptism of John, was it of God or was it of men? Or something I'm paraphrasing there. And they reasoned among themselves. Well, if we say this, you'll say, why don't we believe that this this, you know, the people are going to get all mad or whatever. What's the politically correct answer that we should have in this case, the Pharisees? And they said the answer they came back with, we don't know. That was the most politically correct because they couldn't have people turn against them. They were all politicians. They weren't really servants of God. And so, and so Christ said, well, neither will I tell you. By what authority I do these things. And it was left at that. But they asked, they asked, they asked Peter and John the same thing. Again, at some point in time, Jesus Christ said what they did to Him will be done to us. Maybe at some point in time, we'll have a question asked of us in a similarly intimidating situation where everyone that's gathered around us is like, we don't like what you're saying. We don't like what you stand for. What will we do at that time? What will we do at that time? Well, Peter.

Let's go back and let's think about Peter, right? Okay, Peter when Jesus Christ was arrested. Remember, he was brought in and the Sanhedrin was meeting there. And Peter, at that point, denied Christ three times. When someone would mention, oh, oh, you are with, you are with this, this man, Jesus. Oh, no, no, not me. He was afraid of the powers that be. He ran from it. He denied Christ three times. Here's Peter now with the Holy Spirit. Here's Peter at the Day of Pentecost where the Holy Spirit was put in him, now sitting in a situation where he's right in front of those people that he ran away from and he was afraid of before. And this time, he speaks boldly to them.

Shows you what the power of the Holy Spirit can do for all of us, you know, in these situations. Peter didn't run in fear. Peter let the Holy Spirit, you know, Peter turned to God and he let the Holy Spirit speak through him. And exactly what Jesus Christ said back in Luke 21. Remember when he said, well, let's turn back to Luke 21. I keep referencing these scriptures, but you may as well look at them so we can tie it all together because what Jesus Christ said in Luke 21, we see being fulfilled with Peter here in Acts 4. You're fulfilled for us with us as well.

And verse 12, Luke 21 verse 12. Christ speaking of the end times and, you know, not even just the end times because what happened to Peter was, you know, right after the New Testament Church started. Verse 21, he says, but before all these things, they will lay their hands on you.

That happened in Acts 3. And they will persecute you and they will deliver you up to the synagogues and prisons. That happened to Peter and John. They were delivered to the synagogue. They were sitting there in the midst of it. They had spent the night in prison in that. They will deliver you up to the synagogues and prisons. You will be brought before kings and rulers for my name's sake.

That's exactly what happened. All the powers that be in Jerusalem were gathered together that day.

What does Christ say? It will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. It will turn out for you as an occasion for testimony. Now, Peter, you know, could have sat there and thought, man, this is the worst thing that could ever happen. I don't know what to do. How do I get out of this? Why did you put me in this situation? God, what am I going to do here?

But look at how Peter looked at that and looked at what the Holy Spirit led him to understand.

This is an occasion for you to give a witness of Jesus Christ.

This is an occasion for you to witness to all the assembled leaders here of what you believe, who Jesus Christ was, and what you're doing. Peter was learning a lesson that we will need to learn when we find ourselves in tough situations, when we find ourselves in tough trials, when we find ourselves fixed with something that the natural human reaction is, I'm afraid, I'm afraid. If we're being led by God's Holy Spirit, if we're developing in the way that he wants us to, we will see it as an occasion that God has given us to grow. Grow in faith, an opportunity to witness of him, an opportunity to use his strength, and turn to him. There's a transformation of the thought of the trials and the tribulations that we go through. Not, oh, how does it affect me? Oh, I hurt. Oh, I don't want to do this anymore. Oh, I need to do whatever I need to do to to stop this. I'm not going to wait for God. I'm not going to do whatever I need to do to do that. Use it. Use it and see it as an opportunity that God has given us. He is preparing us, but we have to use as an opportunity to build the things that he wants us to see, and he will keep giving us those opportunities until we learn them. So we may go through the same trial over and over and over again until we learn.

Have faith. Believe. Trust. I'll give you the words. I'll give you the words. I'll give you what you need at the time it happens if you will just grow in your commitment to me and trust in me.

And as we look at Acts 4, now we see the transformation of Peter from Peter who denied Christ three times because he was afraid of even the thought of them, of the Sanhedra, knowing who he was. And he ran. It wasn't even at Christ's side when he was crucified.

Here's Peter sitting in the midst, and this time in Acts 4, the Holy Spirit in him, Peter sees it as an occasion to witness, an occasion to testify. And I didn't read the rest of Luke 21 there, but remember it says, don't even worry about what you're going to say ahead of time. Don't prepare your notes. Don't have your script written. God says, when that happens in that very hour, I will give you the words to say. Peter had no idea this was going to happen. He didn't have a prepared script. God gave him the words that he would say. So if we go back to Acts 4, and I'll, I'm going to finish up here to give us some time here to discuss. Verse 8, then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, filled with the Holy Spirit, might underwrite thy back. This is a different Peter than before Christ was crucified. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole.

Peter didn't mince any words at all. He knew, he knew why they were assembled there. He knew they wanted Jesus Christ canceled. He knew they wanted Jesus Christ, and they talk about him censoring. But he was going to use it not as a time to appease them or to skirt around the issues because he wasn't ashamed of the gospel. He sat there and he boldly told them exactly what happened and gave the credit to God and said their name. We'll stop there. We'll stop there and we'll pick it up next week in that and see the reaction because the people assembled there were very surprised, very surprised by what had gone on. Let me do it there and we see the power and we see the power of God's Holy Spirit there. We also learn a very valuable lesson that I hope we'll meditate a little bit on too, is that when these things come, we need to begin seeing them as opportunities that God gives us to grow in the manner that he wants us to grow and see them from what he sees them as. Opportunities to grow and to become like him just as we see the growth in here. Let me end it there. We got 10 minutes that we get to take, but if there's any questions, observations, comments, anything you want to talk about, doesn't even have to be about what we talked about today, anything at all, we'll just kind of use this time for anything that you want to talk about or ask about on anything.

Go ahead. Yeah, Eduardo? Yeah, going back to verse 3, the two words that you talked about before, refreshing and restoration. And you said that the refreshing is used only when it's in that section. The same thing is true of restoration. It's apparently the only place in the New Testament where that word is used. Those are special words. Yeah, you know, I didn't pick up on that. I just noticed that that was a good, but I didn't pick up on the fact that that's the only time. Yeah, that's very important. If something's used only one time, that's important. Yeah, very good.

I think I will make a note of that.

Mr. Shave? Yeah, I know. Yes, getting back to the resurrection. If you had noticed, when people bury their families and they say they're going to heaven, have you noticed that they're not in a hurry, they gotta go to heaven. Now, if I believe, especially the way the world is today, if I believe I was going to heaven and be happy in that peace and enjoying life up there, I would want to leave this earth like yesterday.

You would want to, yes. I would! You know, it's chaos down here, but people, they're not ready, but they said their families are enjoying having up there walking the perilous streets, and it makes you wonder, is something wrong with those fans? Yeah, you're right, right? We wouldn't, we wouldn't cling to life with every, wouldn't go through all the things that we do. It'd be like, you have to paint over with, right? Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wouldn't go to the doctor. Hey, let me get out of here.

Yeah, they actually contradict in the same sentence, they could say both things. They could say, they are in heaven, but then they are waiting for the resurrection. They are doing both things.

They don't, they don't get it at all. They have no idea what they're saying.

Mr. Shavey? Yes, hey Wayne, welcome back, by the way. Thank you. It was a very enjoyable time.

Notice that the healed man was at this meeting, and I wonder how many of the other 5,000 were also present, which might put some pressure on the rulers and Sadducees and stuff, but it doesn't mention that he was there. I don't know about the other. I would think many of the others would be there, too, depending upon what kind of an auditorium or what kind of a facility they had to house all these people or maybe out in the open. Yeah, I know that's interesting to see.

We don't know. It doesn't say how many supporters that were there of Jesus Christ, so.

Or maybe they had a closed meeting, right? But they just, it was just the intimidation, just them and the rulers. So. The healed man was there, of course. Yes, yeah. Peter references him, yes.

And the thing with him is that, you know, he sat there at the temple every day, so, you know, they might have said if the rulers had never seen him, but he was there at the temple, so they all had seen him, but they all knew he had been lame from birth. They couldn't deny that.

They couldn't deny what had happened to him. If it had been someone from another province or city or whatever, it would be like, oh, later on, I don't remember the exact examples. Like, really, they have the parents come in, remember, and say, really? Has he been this way since birth? And try to challenge that.

Mr. Shavey. Yeah, perfect. Yeah, so, it was just kind of interesting as I'm just listening to this conversation, and I think that the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin and all of the officials were so caught up with law and caught up with just their religious ways that they're missing the whole point that there was a man there that was actually working with the people to heal people. I mean, they missed the whole point that he was healing, fixing, you know, addressing problems in their world where they're supposed to be there to support the people, and they were so caught up in just their traditions that they missed that whole aspect of what Jesus was doing on earth. And it just kind of dawned on me as we're talking about it that they're so focused, so focused on proving him wrong and not realizing the good that he was actually doing. Yeah, you're exactly right. They were just too focused on themselves and how it affected them, that they couldn't see the rest. It kind of also shows up their priorities. Yep. The priorities were us first. Yep. You know, one of the things I remember reading about John the Baptist, and it's a good thing for us all to remember, when Christ is beginning his ministry and his John's disciples are saying, well, what about him? Well, what about him? And John the Baptist makes the comment, he must increase and I must decrease. And that just shows the complete humility that John the Baptist had, because he had this following as well. And yet when he saw that Christ was coming, it's like, you know, this is the plan. I yield to him. It's time for me to decrease and for people to follow him. Tremendous, tremendous, tremendous humility there, so that we all need to have as well.

Okay, anything else?

Okay, well, I'll tell you what, I will, I will let you know. Yes.

Yeah, hi, Linda.

I just wanted to say hi to everyone.

I know it's been a while since I've talked to any of you.

Hi, Linda. Hi, Linda.

Linda's been in rehab for a long time. Linda's, I think, is your discharge day still this Friday, Linda?

Yes, it is. Okay, well, very good. I'm sure you're looking forward to going home, so.

Very much so. And I think you've probably learned a lot and feeling a lot, a much, much, much better since you've been there, I'm sure, so.

Yes, I am. Very good.

Okay, so let me, let me end.

Let me think where we are here on Sabbath. For those in Orlando, services are again at 230.

The Sabbath in Orlando and Jacksonville services are at 11. 11. Yeah, I'll be in Jacksonville and Orlando this coming Sabbath. So 11 o'clock in Jacksonville, 230 in Orlando. And again, next week at this time, for those who aren't in our areas here. So great to be with all of you. Thank you for your attention. And have a good rest of the week, and we'll see you either Sabbath or next week.

Thank you, Mrs. Shaby. Thank you. Thank you. Bye, everyone. Bye, everyone. Bye. Bye. Have a good one.