In this sermon, the Apostle Peter passionately exhorts the crowd to repent and turn away from the actions of Calvary. He warns them of the impending judgment that will fall upon a generation that crucified the Son of God. Peter compares his urgency to that of Noah, who acted out of fear and faith to save lives. The sermon highlights the religious world of the time, which had experienced a revival of religion without the true message of the cross of Christ.

Thank you very much, that singing is worth the drive up here. Wonderful, I'd like to get better acquainted with these fine young men. I believe I'll save the, whatever remarks are supposed to be marked till this evening, and we'll get right into the message. Bring you greetings from the Southland, and I'm going to do my dead level best to understand you Yankees. You talk funny, but I'll do my dead level best. I invite your attention to the second chapter of the book of Acts, and I begin with just one verse to start with, and it's verse 40. Acts chapter 2 at verse 40. You keep your Bibles open if you care to, because we wish to examine this verse of scripture in the light of the message, this message by the Apostle Peter on the historic day we call the day of Pentecost. And he concludes this first message after the crucifixion and resurrection of the Lord in these words and with many other words, with many other words. We'll have to go back and see the words that are recorded here. And in the same stream, he added other words, and he did it from some excitement. He was rather stirred up about it. With many other words did he testify and exhort. He put on the rousements like the old Methodists used to do. He thought that it was something important, that he was aroused by it. With many other words did he testify and exhort. And in this spirit of testimony and excitation, he was saying one thing to that congregation who had witnessed the crucifixion and had had some dealings with the witnesses of the resurrection and had heard the message from God's preacher, the Apostle Peter, and the whole of his message was summed up in these words. It's your move now. Save yourselves from this untoward generation. Roll up your sleeves. Spit on your hands. Get the wax out of your ears, the lead out of your feet. Judgment is bound to come on a generation acting for all generations who took the Prince of Glory and with wicked hands nailed him to a tree. Judgment is bound to fall on people who are guilty of the murder of God manifest in the flesh. It's time to save yourselves from the judgment that's coming on this generation. I think that Peter had something of the spirit of Noah. We're told about Noah running scared. In Hebrews, of course, chapter 11, I believe the verse is 5. I'm not certain about the verse. Yes, it's 7. By faith, by faith, God told it to him, and he believed God, and he believed him savingly. He acted upon it by faith. Noah, being warned of God of things not yet seen, moved with fear. It scared him. It scared him. God knows. I wish I had the power and the unction and the fire and the brain power and the heart power to stir this nice generation of self-satisfied worshipers. We'd get scared. We'd get scared. The biggest evidence a man knows God is that he's afraid, that he has a fear of God, that he treads soft legs amidst the footsteps of Almighty God, devised a familiar heritage of days sending this generation of church members to hell. We're all very familiar with Jesus, and anybody who's familiar with Jesus doesn't know him. He moved with fear. He was scared. God said, No, I'm going to judge this outfit. He couldn't see any signs of it. All he had was the word of God. To that man, that was enough. He moved with fear. He was scared. He ran scared. He tacked those nails in the ark with hands that were in a hurry. And he moved, he moved, and he moved in such a way as to prepare an ark for the twofold purpose, for the saving of his own house and for the condemnation, the judgment, the damnation of everybody outside of that house And in so doing, he became the heir of the righteousness which is by faith. Nor was afraid, nor was scared. Somehow or another, we've gotten into our heads that if we get a hold of truth, this world's dying to hear the truth. And I'm preaching just not so. The truth will not get the job done. The truth has got to be baptized in fire. The truth has got to be saturated in the power and the auction of the Holy Ghost. This world doesn't give a hoot what the Grace Memorial Baptist, no, it's not Baptist, excuse me. I'm a Baptist. What the Grace Memorial congregation believes, they're not going to grab hold of your coattails to find out your doctrinal stand. Those are fine. They're the foundation. You can't build unless you're on the right foundation. But what this world will sit up and take notice if it ever happens again in our generation is somebody that has the truth and it scares them. They're running scared. They're all excited about this. God kept us all, nor was scared. He moved with fear. He said judgment's coming and He tacked away on the heart and preached righteousness and thus did two things. And that's all that God in the covenant of the gospel ever set out to do. The gospel is the covenant God Almighty made with Himself. Nobody else present by which He'd save a people for His name and dispose of the world. And those things are going to take place. And Noah prepared an ark because he's scared. And he's scared because he believed God that the action of his generation back there in Noah's time, he is afraid. He said judgment's got to come. God's holy. He cannot overlook what's going on. And He prepared the ark. In that spirit, I think I hear a sob and an unction and a note of excitement in the voice of the apostle Peter. Oh, he said, I'm telling you the truth. I beg you to listen to me. I plead with you to pay attention. I exhort you. I exhort you. This is not two and two makes four. This is not cold-blooded statement of facts. He exhorts them. I can see Him waving His arms, lifting His voice. And I think I see tears running down His cheeks. He is on fire with the solemnity of being a human being in God's world living in a generation that took the Son of God and nailed Him to a cross. He said, get out of here, boys. Repent. Turn you back on the action of Calvary. Disassociate yourself from the spirit that was wicked, hands that reveal hearts full of hatred and malice. He said, separate yourself. Stand up on the other side. Turn you back toward the spirit of this age. Plead guilty. Cast yourself on God's mercy and say, I repent of my part in the crucifixion of the Son of God. I'm pretty well certain that judgment has to come on a world that murdered the Son of God. I'm pretty certain of that. If God is holy, and that's certain, if God's nature is so holy that He will send every last one of us to hell before He will forget to dot every i and cross every t in His inexorable, holy, irrevocable law, the transcript of His holy nature, if that kind of God we have to do with, God will have to apologize to the people of Sodom and Gomorrah. He wiped them off the face of the earth. If He doesn't bring the generation in which you and I live to judgment, then He'll have to raise up the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah and apologize, for He's not the same kind of God. And old Peter said, if God doesn't bring judgment on this crowd that took the Lord Jesus Christ in willful ignorance, so be it. But they took Him, and with malice and hatred in their heart, they nailed Him to a tree and put Him in another man's grave. If God doesn't bring judgment to that generation, then He'll have to apologize to the people of Noah's day and tell us that there were three billion people alive on the earth. I don't know or couldn't prove that. Scientists say there were more people on the earth in Noah's day than live today on God's earth. And with the exception of eight people, God wiped them off the face of the earth and drowned them in the flood and sent them to eternal hell, how holy God must be. My little mind's not big enough to conceive that. I rebel against that. No wonder they're believing the Bible with the exception of what's in it today. Everybody believes the Bible except what's in it today. No wonder there is a revolution going on inside of our churches everywhere that we do not believe the Bible. We can sit in judgment on the Bible. We can pick what part of the Bible suits us today. I tell you now, I cannot conceive of three billion people being cut off without remedy and drowned in the rising waters of a flood and sent out to eternity with no hope and no second chance. But the Bible tells us God did it. He must be Christ holy. He must be Christ holy. No wonder Noah was scared. No wonder Peter was scared. You see, Noah was called to be a witness in his day. And Peter was one of the people who had been designated as a witness in his day. And I trust I speak to somebody here this morning whom God saved by His grace in the instant He saved you. He designated you to be a witness of some facts, and the facts about the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, you've got to understand some things to be a witness. The devil believes in the cross as much as you do. But he can't witness of it. He's never experienced its power. The devil believes in the resurrection. He's right there when the stone was rolled away. But he can't be a witness of it in order to witness the cross and the resurrection. And the resurrection means that Christ Jesus is no longer subject to the acceptance or rejection of evil men. He's now enthroned. And men are subject to Him. That One who offered Himself and allowed Himself to be handled and finally crucified by evil men. God Almighty has made an answer to that. And the heavens are appalled before God will undo it. God took the same One that men with the privilege of accepting or rejecting, they rejected Him and hung Him on a tree. And God Almighty made a final, eternal answer to that. And He raised Him and sat Him down on a throne. And He's there until His enemies have made His footstool. And the most solemn thing we'll face and we'll face it every time you listen to me preach is God helped you. Jesus Christ is no longer the pitiable figure standing on the outside of your heart door hoping great big you will let it in. But He's now the enthroned, eternal Son of God with all authority in His hands and with your destiny in His nail-scarred hands. And it's not so much a question of whether you crucify Him or crown Him. It's a question of what He's going to do with you. That's pretty solemn. That's pretty solemn. But that's the God's truth. Save yourselves. Save yourselves. Save yourselves from this untoward generation. We're told in verse 37, now when they heard this, they heard something. And they heard it from a man that was a witness of it. In verse 32, this Jesus has God raised up whereof we all are witnesses. Not spectators, but witnesses. We know something of what the cross means and what the resurrection means. It's not just some facts. It's an experience. And we are witnesses of it. And God Almighty has done something with this Jesus. Men took Him and killed Him. God took Him and raised Him. And the resurrection means that following it, God enthroned Him. The one doctrine that we who would like to believe the Bible have mentioned much for the last 60 years. We haven't preached Jesus Christ where He is. We've preached Him as somebody knocking at our door. But He isn't knocking at your door. He's reigning on the throne. I don't know how the devil slipped us a curve, but he sure did. We're still preaching a little Jesus instead of the enthroned Lord. If we look about us and are perplexed at the ungodly lives of most who with their lips name Him as Savior, we shall find the reason for it when we solemnly face the fact that the power to transform the life of a human being is in the nailed, scarred hands of the Son of God. That absolutely all power is there. There isn't any anywhere else. There isn't any anywhere else. There's no power in a profession, a profession is good in its place. There is absolutely no power in my decision. A decision is good in its place. All power and authority is in Jesus Christ. And somehow or another, I preach in a generation of people who've got saved, but they never have got in vital contact with the Savior. For unto you this day is born in the city of Jerusalem a Savior. But who is this one who saves? It is Jesus Christ, the Lord. And where is he? Still subject to the actions of men? No, no. Enthroned at the right hand of God. All hell can't touch him, thank God. All hell can't sway his purposes, praise the Lord. Somehow or another, we've divorced salvation from Christ until we think we're saved because we believe some facts that that's so the devil saved. No, we're saved believing the facts of the gospel, but believing them to the extent that we do business with the enthroned Christ. For I know that unless you're touched by him, you'll not know what power is. For that's where power is. There's no power anywhere to transform my life or yours except that by faith I'm in vital connection with the only one who's got any power. Jesus said this is the one you kill. And the one you kill is the one God raised. And by raising him, Paul tells us he declared him, this is God's verdict, to be the Son of God. But he also exalted him and enthroned him and turned this world over to him. And the one you've actually killed is the one that's got you on his hands. Every human being was bought in this sense and paid for in this sense by the Lord Jesus Christ when he died on the cross. And every human being is a subject of Jesus Christ for two reasons. You're his creation. And in this Bible sense, he bought you, he redeemed you. The Scriptures speak of people denying the very Lord that bought them. Now a man doesn't buy a wife. There's a little difference in Christ's death for those who are saved. But we must never forget that no human being will ever breathe God's air. But God's Son doesn't have two claims upon. He created him and he redeemed him on the cross. It doesn't mean he'll go to heaven when he dies, but he bought it. And because he bought this world, God Almighty has answered the word of his blessed Son. And it's a solemn thought that every human being is a subject, willing or not, of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I'm sure glad I don't have his responsibility. Sister, the Lord Jesus Christ has been given a commandment. He's got to save you or damn you, one or the other. He's got to deal with you. He's got to deal with you. No way on earth he can get out of this. He purchased you. And it's solemn that he can do with you as he pleases you belong to him. God help us. But for aye or nay, for good or better, this world nailed to a tree, the one who from all eternity was God's Lord, the judge of all the earth, the disposer of the destinies of all men. No wonder Peter was excited. And when this crowd of people heard, and they heard truth saturated in the Holy Ghost, for this is what brings gray hair to a traveling evangelist like myself, broken body, with the most helpless people. We could bring mountains of truth, but if the Holy Ghost is not pleased with how helpless we are. I've gone away from services almost mad at God. I'd say it looks to me like a blind man could see the truth, but that's trouble, he's blind, he can't see. I've poured out my heart and sometimes God has been pleased to speak through me and people in the mass look at me and say, wonder what on earth that fellow is talking about. And I studied and prayed and cried and walked and wept. Oh, how can we get truth into the ears and hearts of men today? Can't, brother. You just believe in the doctrine, go on to hell. Unless the Holy Ghost takes the great truths, and there are but two real truths we need to have faith, that's the cross and the throne of the Lord Jesus Christ. And unless the Holy Ghost will take and explain and interpret and pierce hearts, for only the Holy Ghost can penetrate your spirit mind. If He takes the great truths of the cross of Christ and the enthronement of the Lord of glory and makes men see that salvation is a sweet, willing, glad, bowing at the throne of the One who was crucified. And because He was crucified, He's now enthroned. Unless the Holy Ghost takes that and puts it in here, we'll never hear men screaming, now when they heard this. Now when they heard this. You killed Him. God raised Him. You murdered Him. God enthroned Him. You rejected Him. God turned this world over to Him. He's Lord of all. Let it be known as a fact, He says in verse 36, that this same Jesus whom He crucified, God has made both Lord and Christ. No wonder when they heard this. Ah, beautiful building, wonderful, wonderful. Wouldn't it be wonderful if this week the Holy Spirit would enable some old hell-bound sinner to hear this, the truth about Jesus Christ. Hear it in here. If they ever heard it in there, they'd be pricked in their hearts, they'd be stabbed. They'd say, oh my soul, we've killed the Son of God. We've killed the Judge of all the earth. We've killed the disposer of the destinies of men. We're in a terrible shape. Is there anything under God's signing something we can do? Men and brethren, they cried, what must we do? And Peter said, disassociate yourself with it. Plead guilty. Cast yourself on the mercy of the court. Repent. Agree with God. You first agreed with men who nailed Him to the cross. Repentance is to reject that, to repudiate that, to plead guilty to my part in the murder of the Son of God, and to bow face, and to agree with Almighty God. God's verdict of the one who hung on the cross, this is my Son. God's verdict of the one who hung on the cross, this is the world's Lord. God's verdict of the one who hung on the cross was to enthrone Him at His right hand. Agree with God. No way on God's earth a man can get saved now is to bow at the throne of the one who sits there, and the print of the thorns is still on His head, and the print of the nails is still in His hands. The side is still riveted, but He's enthroned. Thank God there's a man, Christ Jesus, in glory now, with all authority given unto Him. And to baptize! There's no way on earth. Never has been. You can get this thing done secretly. Stand up on your hind legs in the atmosphere of murder, in the atmosphere of thousands of people who screamed, Away with Him! Away with Him! Release under us Barabbas and crucify Christ. In that mild psychology, in that carnival, gory, bloody atmosphere, Peter said, Reject your part. Repudiate your part. Repent of your part in nailing the Son of God to a tree and turning back without haste and agree with God and say, This one we took and put on a tree and put in the grave. He's my Lord. He's my despot. He's my ruler. He's my master. I sweetly bow to Him. And the only way they could do that publicly was to be baptized. Don't let that bother you. But that's the God's truth. The only way a man can make a public profession of faith in Christ today is baptism, whether you believe it or not. Your word of mouth is testimony. Your baptism is confession. You're saying if tomorrow they start shooting men and women who have sweetly agreed to what God says and what God's done about His Son, I bow to Him. God says He's my Lord. Amen. Amen. He is my Lord, my recognized Lord. If tomorrow is the day they're going to start shooting those people, well, I'm one of them. Stand up on your hind legs. Repudiate openly. Confess openly your agreement with the verdict of Almighty God. This is my Son. And He's the world Lord. And we are guilty of His blood. You know there's no way on earth you can get out of your responsibility, you're a member of the human race. And this is Bible truth, and I won't take an hour to explain it, but this is the wharf and roof of the Bible. You were in Adam when you reached up and tried to pull God off His throne. You were there. You're guilty. You threw your representatives. They did exactly what you would have done. You took Jesus Christ and nailed Him to a tree. It wasn't a simple little generation of people lived in, but it's the verdict of this world! For we with Him can deliver on the earth forever. No man's ever fixing to get saved until he has to look for a while pretty solidly at the fact that you with wicked hands took God's own Son and nailed Him to a tree. You're guilty. You're guilty. This world is guilty. No way you can get around it. Can't lay it on the Roman Empire. Can't lay it on the leaders of the Jews. If the Bible means anything, be on there because God's law is immutable. God's law must be established. God cannot overlook sin. And that takes in me. And it's not just pious. It's not just pious preaching. It is the solemn truth of God. My sins nailed Him to that cursed tree. Yours and mine. Yours and mine. I stand here this morning. I trust by God's grace a pardoned and forgiven sinner. And I may not be guilty of a lot of things, but there's two awful sins. Either one of them damned me in hell. I was present according to the scripture. When Adam acted, I acted in him for I was there, the Bible says. I told God I wouldn't be subject to it. I disobeyed Him. And according to the scripture, I was present when they took Him and nailed Him to a tree. Such sin I must have. A great Savior. Thank God the one in whom I trust as my Savior is the one that God Almighty has put on us from forever. If I can just get to Him. If I can be united to Him. If I can He be the vine and I'll be a branch. If I may take part in a holy ceremony of marriage and be joined in holy wedlock to the living Son of God. If I can be joined to Him, I can have an interest in what He did on the cross. Oh, Peter said, Save yourself. Turn your back on the world's verdict. Turn your face toward God. Turn your face toward God. I think if Peter were preaching today, he'd still be screaming and testifying and exhorting, Gather the spirit of this age. There's a carnival spirit today. You can't make a trip as I did up from North Carolina. My soul. I think there are three things that characterize the religious world of your day and mine. Peter would come and say, Save yourself. Disassociate yourself from a generation that has experienced the world's greatest revival of religion without the cross of Christ. Be hard for you to find anybody in this section now, drunk or sober, that isn't awful religious now. That's the God's truth. We've drunk at the well of religion. Every prizefighter, powerful religious, he thanks the Lord now that he knocked the stuff in out of somebody. The football players all pray. They'll gouge the eyes out of the opponent. All of the television and radio stars getting awful religious now, putting everybody in Hollywood and got converted. This is a powerful religious world. But there's one little detail that's being bypassed. Everybody's a powerful believer in God now. Even old Khrushchev mentions God every once in a while. We've fallen into the trap of listening to Satan's ministers who are ministers of righteousness without the cross. The scriptures say you can't honor God unless you honor the Son. Everybody believes in God now. Pray on Jesus. This is the most confused, religious, cocaine, day the world's ever known. Jew, Gentile, Protestant, Greek, Catholic, we're all working for the same place and believe in the same God. No matter if Jesus Christ, his cross and his throne, is bypassed, is being bypassed. This is the day when they say Russia's anti-God but America's anti-cross and anti-throne. Lord God of heaven, only you know how with religious language we are bypassing the one thing that from eternity to eternity God's put all the eggs in that one basket. And that's the word and the person of his blessed Son. And we're bypassing that. And I testify and exhort to you to save yourself from the spirit of a generation religious as all get out that does not honor the Son where he is. I say save yourself from a generation that's rapidly becoming full of apostates. Apostasy in the Bible is a departing from the living God. You can keep your name on the roll of a church. You can have your creed. You can read your Bible. You can go through your prayer life. You can go through all of that. Just one little detail you miss. That's vital faith in. A vital walk in a living God. Hebrews chapter 3, Take heed brethren, lest there be also in you an evil heart of unbelief. How would it express itself? While you keep your forms, that you just depart from a living God. Vitality is just about gone, dear young preacher. My God, there isn't enough spiritual power in a thousand of us church people today to make the devil tremble at all. We got our doctrines all on ice. Everything's fixed up fine. Seems to be one thing lacking. A vital connection. A vital walk in the power of a living God. Take heed, lest you go through the motions in all of our... God's going that way. You're going that way. This generation is characterized religiously by a refusal to acknowledge the Lord Jesus Christ and where he is now. I wish to speak about it this afternoon. I have the honor of speaking at the dedication of this beautiful building. God knows we don't need any more churches in America. But we do need some full people who are glad that Jesus Christ is on the throne. And they believe that one day every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord. And they think that salvation by grace is wonderful because nothing more or less than a God who one day is going to make you. He's going to make you bow. But in wonderful grace he holds back the day of his power when nothing shall stand against his word. And he sends a truce abroad to land for the life of the spirit of heaven on the way to heaven for the membership in the family of God for all who bow sweetly to his Lord now. That's what grace is. As I go up and down the land I think the most solemn thing I face is this. It is not a question of whether you're going to receive or reject the Lord Jesus Christ. That's all been settled. You do not have the privilege of bowing or not bowing to God's Lord. You do have the choice of when you're going to bow. Amen? You can't win by giving him a name that at the name given unto Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess Jesus Christ is Lord. That's what this book says. Isn't it? It doesn't teach anything else. I know what it says about him. It says he's Lord. Who says so? Almighty God. Where is he? In the body. Enthroned. Enthroned. To the damnation? No. To the salvation? No. Confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the what? To the glory of the Father. That's been the important thing all the time. Not your salvation. But God's glory. God's glory. Peter said Save yourself. I say Save yourself from the judgment that's got to come on your day. A day that names Jesus as Savior and denies him as Lord. The only way to do it is the only way there ever has been in the way. It's a sweet bowing day by day at the throne. And the one that's sitting on it is the crucified Son of Almighty God. And in that circle of his absolute dominion and lordship you find safety. That's how you get in the ark, brother. And when the storms come you're safe. Nowhere else. Nowhere else. Let us stand together. I'd like for the congregation to turn to page 254. The organist will come. The young preacher will lead us. I'd like for us to wait upon the Holy Ghost a couple of minutes as we sing past me not all the gentle Savior. Hear my humble cry while on others Thou art calling.