THE FIRST GOSPEL SERMON (1)
“Ye men of Israel, hear these words; Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you, as ye yourselves also know: Him, being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain: Whom God hath raised up, having loosed the pains of death: because it was not possible that he should be holden of it” (Acts 2:22-24).
That is the main section of the first gospel sermon ever preached. There is a sense in which the good news of what Christ would do had already been proclaimed. Paul told the Galatians that the gospel was preached in advance to Abraham (Galatians 3:8). But this is the first sermon following the actual death, burial and resurrection of Jesus. And it was a powerful discourse.
3000 people got saved that day by responding in faith to a simple message of redemptive love. Not that it was easy for them to hear. Peter and the other apostles preached the resurrection of Jesus in Jerusalem, the very city where he was crucified. The very city that was controlled by the religious leaders who assured his murder. But there were many honest men and women in town for Pentecost, all of them Jewish, who responded to the gospel and took Jesus as their Savior. The church began in Acts 2 because thousands of fine Jewish people admitted the truth about Jesus and acknowledged it publicly.
Peter’s sermon, if you read it in the archaic language of the King James Version, is wonderful from a literary standpoint. But it is very difficult to understand what he was saying. A modern translation will turn what seems to be a difficult sermon to interpret into an easy one. That’s the benefit of modern translations. Peter did not preach his sermon in a language that was hundreds of years old and hard to understand for the people doing the listening. God’s message is meant to be understood.
Though there was much more said to buttress the main points he made, it all boils down to the message of these three verses. Point number one: Jesus was God’s Messiah. This was proven by “miracles, wonders and signs.” God verified the authenticity of what Jesus said about himself by his ability to perform real miracles. There was no excuse for anyone to reject him. Always remember that God did not ask people to take even his own Son’s word for things, but gave him miracle working power to prove what he said.
When Peter said “as you yourselves also know,” that was like a spiritual punch in the face. The miracles of Jesus could not be denied. And yet many denied him anyway and killed him. Yet there he was, willing to forgive them. The reason the apostles were preaching that day was because God was willing to forgive people for rejecting his Son if they repented.
No matter what you have done, God is willing to forgive if you are willing to repent and ask for his forgiveness. That is one of the main points of the first gospel sermon ever preached.
Dewayne Dunaway
