Wonders in the Heavens and Signs on Earth | Acts

You'll remain standing. We'll be reading the Word of God from Acts chapter 2.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Acts chapter 2. We're continuing our series through the book of Acts.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Beginning with verse 1, we'll work our way down to verse 21.

Listen now, because this is the Word of God. When the day of Pentecost arrived,

they were all together in one place.

And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind.

And it filled the entire house where they were sitting And divided tongues as

a fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them And they were all filled

with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues As the Spirit gave them utterance,

And now they were dwelling in Jerusalem, Jews, devout men from every nation

under heaven And at this sound the multitude came together and they were bewildered

Because each one of them was hearing them speak in his own language,

And they were amazed and astonished saying are not all of these who are speaking Galileans?

How is it that we hear them, each of us, in his own language, native language?

Parthenians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia,

Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt,

and parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and even visitors from Rome,

both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians.

We hear them telling in their own tongues the mighty works of God,

And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, What does this mean?

But others, mocking, said they were filled with new wine.

But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them,

Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you and give

ear to my words, for these people are not drunk, as you suppose,

since it is only the third hour of the day.

But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. And in the last days

it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see

visions, and your old men shall dream dreams.

Even on my male servants and female servants, in those days I will pour out

my spirit, and they shall prophesy.

And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire and vapor of smoke.

The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon to blood before the day of

the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.

And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall

be saved. This is the word of the Lord.

You can be seated.

When I read the words in our text this morning, that will draw us to the conclusion

where we hear Peter say, everyone who calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Before that, that little section, these words, let me read them to you in.

Think about what comes to mind for you. It says, verse 19 and 20,

and I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below,

blood and fire and vapor of smoke.

Verse 20, the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the

day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day of the Lord.

When I worked in Dayton, the church there, we had a, we're right on the crossroads.

We had a UPS delivery guy that would come regularly. I love this guy.

He was a sweet, wonderful Pentecostal fellow that would always come in.

Praise the Lord. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Praise the Lord. I'm just always happy, always enjoying him.

One day he walked into my office and he said, Pastor, guess what?

I said, what? He said, blood moon.

I said, okay, what is blood moon? What is that supposed to mean?

Blood moon, brother, don't you know the Lord's coming soon?

Next week, he told me all about it. He had it He had it planned out.

The blood moon was going to take place. The blood moon, if you don't know,

is a phenomenon where I guess the sun somehow interferes with the path of light

to the moon and it darkens it out.

But the shining of the sun, the reflection, makes the moon to be like blood, appearing like blood.

And he said that means some prophecies are going to be fulfilled.

Maybe that's what comes to mind when you see it, because it says in our text,

the moon will be turned to blood. The sun shall no longer give its light.

It will be turned to darkness.

And so what is the meaning of, what are the meanings of these words?

And what are these words supposed to tell us about what's happening in our text in Acts chapter 2?

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Most people, I think, when they see this language, they think of what we sometimes

call apocalyptic language, which it is.

The Bible is written in a lot of different styles or genres.

There are wisdom literature. There are praise literature. there's law literature,

there's didactic epistles or letters, there's mostly historical narrative.

And so when you come to certain passages that are using the language of fire

and blood and the sun darkening and the moon turning to blood and stars falling

from heaven, it's apocalyptic language. But what does the word apocalyptic mean?

I looked up just for the fun of it on, we used to call it Uncle Google.

I asked Uncle Google, what is apocalyptic?

And he said, Apocalyptic means of

or relating to the total destruction of something, especially the world.

Okay, that's what a dictionary or that's what AI Google would tell you that

the word apocalyptic means. It actually doesn't mean that in the Bible.

So in other words, the most common understanding of apocalyptic symbolic language

is that this is language that's telling us the world's about to come to an end.

Everything's going to be destroyed.

Something like the end of days movie that I saw years ago with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Maybe you imagine burning chunks of fire falling from heaven,

smashing into cars, people running, buildings falling down, all this sort of

end-of-the-world speculation.

In the Bible, the word apocalypto or apocalypse actually means simply to reveal,

to unveil, to show something.

It's not necessarily always pointing to the end of the world.

It's important to get that. What is then being unveiled to us?

What's being shown to us today?

And by the way, if you look at this passage, and many people do,

many people come to the passage and say, okay, we see the tongues,

we see the visions, that's happening. By the way, the tongues are happening right then and there.

So in terms of our context of our story, we have Peter teaching these people

that the prophecies of Joel are coming to fulfillment right now, right here.

And when you look at the tongues, you say, okay, that's it. It's happening.

In other words, it's contemporary.

But then they look at this language and they say, whoa, wait a minute.

The sun has not fallen from the sky, and the moon has not turned to blood,

and there's no blood and fire and vapor of smoke.

So therefore, they say, this must be language referring to the end of the world. Why?

If you do that, by the way, you have a bit of confusion in the context because

you're reading normally, and that's how we should read the Bible,

in the context, reading normally of an event that's happening right in front of us.

And Peter tells us that the prophet Joel predicted these things,

the visions and tongues and other things.

And he also predicted that at the same time, there would be signs from heaven

and wonders on the earth to indicate the great and dreadful coming of the day

of the Lord, the judgment of the Lord.

Is there confusion in our text? Because if we see the language of blood,

moon, and dark suns as only and always referring to the end of the world,

then it looks like we have to look at this differently.

But what if there's no confusion? What if it just means what it says?

That right here and right now in this generation, there will be signs and wonders.

There'll be tongues and there'll be miracles and there'll be visions.

And there will also be, are you ready? Judgment.

Because if I could just boil that phrase, that entire section we've just read

down to one word, it would be judgment.

It's very common in the Old Testament. The Old Testament is filled with solar,

lunar, and stellar language. That just means sun, moon, and stars.

To indicate social upheaval that's taking place on the earth,

particularly the rise and fall of kingdoms.

They are often described as simply falling from the heavens.

We just read a passage that we'll get back to in a moment. When the Lord said

Babylon is about to be judged, it says the stars will fall.

But the problem is no literal stars actually fell.

No sun came out of the sky or turned to darkness. No lights in the heavens were

actually literally put out.

So what does this language mean? The only way you can discover the meaning of

biblical language is to look at the Bible and look at how the Bible uses it

So when you look at this language, instead of just jumping to the end of the world, just say,

well, how does the Bible generally speak of judgment?

In the Old Testament in particular The Bible oftentimes uses images of stars

and symbols that are apocalyptic By the way, apocalyptic is just symbolic language

that is revealing something, unveiling something to you in a different way,

In Judges chapter five, it says, the kings came out and fought.

Notice there's a battle on earth. There's something going on among the nations.

The kings of Canaan fought in Tanakh and the waters of Megiddo.

They took no spoils of silver. They fought from the heavens.

The stars from their courses fought against Cicero. What?

What does that mean? It means that the things that were going on here on earth

in terms of battles and someone winning and someone dying was used of language

from the stars of heaven.

Revelation does this. It's Revelation, by the word, the last book of the Bible

is called the Apocalypse.

And it's written in symbolic language that's unveiling to us how the covenant

is being unfolded before us.

In Revelation, it says, now a great sign appeared in heaven,

a woman clothed with the sun and the moon under her feet and under her head.

A garland on her head was a garland of 12 stars.

And then being with child, she cried out in labor and gave pain and gave to give birth.

So, are we seeing in this language literal sun and literal moon and literal stars?

So far the answer is no. In fact, we could even summarize it,

if you look at the Old Testament use, you could summarize it by simply saying,

at least that's the way I think of it because I'm a simpleton, lights out, right?

You ever watch the boxing match and a guy gets hit, he falls down,

the commentator will sometimes say, lights out.

He's gone. He's knocked out. Literally, the Bible will use symbolic language

saying those things. Lights out for Babylon. Lights out for Edom.

Lights out for Assyria. And how does it describe it?

Their stars will fall from heaven. That's the language.

For instance, in Isaiah, we read this.

It says in Isaiah 13, verse 10, and it's speaking of God bringing another nation

Isaiah 13:10

to judge the nation of Babel.

Babylon was about to be judged and says, verse 10, for the stars of heaven and

their constellation will not give their light.

The sun will be darkened in its going forth, and the moon will not cause its

light to shine. Did that literally happen?

No. The sun kept shining, the moon stayed in its orbit, and the stars were in the heavens.

This is simply symbolic language where we see even in Genesis.

Remember, when the stars and the sun and the moons were created,

they were created as symbols of governing.

They governed the world. They governed their places. And so many times when

the Bible speaks about nations on the earth, it uses stellar language or lunar

language or the language of the sun to indicate something on earth is happening. That's Isaiah 13.

Go to a few others. Lights out for Egypt.

Ezekiel chapter 32, verse 7 and 8, describing the judgment of Egypt.

Ezekiel 32:7

When I put out your light, I will cover the heavens and make it stars dark.

I will cover the sun with a cloud and the moon shall not give their light and

the bright lights of the heavens.

I will make dark over you and bring darkness upon your land.

Did the sun stop shining when God judged the nation of Egypt?

No. Did the stars fall out of the heaven? Not literally, but what happened is

when God brought judgment on a nation, he used this apocalyptic language to

speak about his judgment upon them.

Lights out for Edom, Isaiah chapter 34. All the host of heaven shall be dissolved. Think about that.

Isaiah 34 · chapter mention

If you think that this language only refers to the end of the world,

we're in big serious trouble because we're not at the end of the world.

But in Isaiah 34, it says, All the hosts of heaven shall be dissolved,

and the heavens shall be rolled up like a scroll, and their hosts shall fall

down as the leaves fall from the vine, as the fruit falling from the fig tree.

My sword shall be bathed in heaven.

Indeed, it shall come for Edom, and on my people, and on the people, my curse for judgment.

These are simply redemptive images, apocalyptic images of judgment that come

to nations when God has said, you're coming under judgment. Are we together?

Are you sure? I know maybe you're drifting now because the end of the world,

I'm not, maybe I'm not, it's not as fun, I have to admit.

If I were about to predict the end of the world or a massive worldwide famine, you'd be like, when?

If I said, when I get back from Colorado after our missionary training,

God's gonna judge the world. See, I can even tell now, you're listening.

You weren't listening as well before, but it's more exciting,

I know, if I could somehow bring a chart up here and predict the end of the world.

And many people do that, particularly in the New Testament. They look at these

images and they say, well, that couldn't have happened.

Now, why do they say that? Because they have an idea in their head,

a theology that says that this language means end of the world.

And if that's true, then there must be a problem with our passage That's not

the way to read the Bible Read the Bible and pull out of it its meaning We call

that exegesis Pull out of it its meaning,

Well, when it says that this is happening according to the prophet Joel It must

have happened Which means that instead of taking your system And making the

Bible say what you want the Bible to say Drop your system and listen to the word of God,

That's it, simple So what is it saying?

Very simple, lights out for Jerusalem Awesome.

Lights out for Israel. The nation of Israel was coming under the wrath and curse

of God for the very last time, such as, it says in other places,

such as has never been seen or ever will be seen again in the world.

Why? Because Israel had been the apple of God's eye.

This is the great and dreadful day of the Lord when lights will come down,

the sun will no longer shine, and the moon will be turned to blood.

That's simply the same language Isaiah used of Babylon and of Egypt and of Edom and so forth.

It's language of redemptive judgment.

This means, and this is the way the sermon will move to a conclusion.

This is Peter's sermon. I love Peter's sermon on a number of levels because

again, he doesn't just use apocalyptic language.

He uses apocalyptic language and then he ties it together as he's speaking about

the signs and the visions and the wonders and the stars falling from heaven.

At the end of this little section, he says in verse 21, and it shall come to

pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Wow.

That means that this judgment is coming on Israel so that the whole world can

be blessed and a new age and a new time can be introduced.

Our time, beloved, the time in which we live now, beyond the last days,

now in the age of the kingdom.

It's fascinating. If you read the book of Luke, Remember, Luke wrote Acts.

Sometimes speaks of the coming of Jesus and the coming of Messiah and the coming

of the kingdom as what he calls the age of regeneration, the age of new birth for all peoples.

The old barriers were brought down. We see it in the languages.

All the different tribes that were once scattered in Babel are gathered together

in Christ, and they understand their confession of faith.

This is the age of salvation. We're not looking for the end of the world in the passage.

We're rejoicing that the judgment of Israel doesn't just mean the judgment of Israel.

It means the blessing for all of us.

We live in blessed times. We live in the age of regeneration,

the age of light, the age of the Holy Spirit.

And so characteristic of our age is not signs, wonders, and tongues, and miracles.

We've already said over and over that Paul said, these things will fade away.

But you'll notice what happens in the life of the apostles is that the voice

of prophesying through the preached word of God remains.

And it is probably the most powerful way in which people receive the regeneration

and salvation of the Lord.

That's what Peter is saying. Call on the name of the Lord.

Apostolic preaching is amazing. It's bold. These guys, remember,

were given the Great Commission, just 11 of them.

And now the Lord really souped up the band by adding, oh yeah, one more guy, 12 people.

Go take over the world, boys. Sure.

But now, this small band that was hiding and waiting for the promise,

Peter steps out and says, God is going to judge Israel, but he's going to bring

blessings to the whole world. And he's bold in his proclamation.

He's Christ-focused and God-centered in his preaching.

He's focused on Christ. Everything that we'll see in apostolic preaching will

be bringing people to Jesus Christ, calling people to come to Jesus,

to call on the name of the Lord.

It's God-centered. How did this all come about? very beginning of the book of

Acts, we say, this is the promise that the father made that I also told you

and that you now are experiencing. And I might add that we are experienced.

We're in the age of promise fulfilled, of the blessings of the Lord.

Apostolic preaching is bold. It's God-centered. It's Christ-focused.

It's also response-oriented.

I hope, I don't expect everyone to stand up and scream and shout at the end

of the sermon like they did at Peter's sermon, but I hope by the end of the

sermon, I have at least pointed you to some kind of response.

You need to call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, one way or another.

Remember, this is in the context of redemptive judgment. The Lord does not tolerate endless rebellion.

He will judge. And that's the context we need to see it.

So if you're holding out for some reason, foolish as it may be,

stop holding out and call on the name of the Lord.

Over and over you see that in the preaching of the apostles.

It says in verse 21 again, It shall come to pass that everyone who calls on

the name of the Lord will be saved. At the center of this is the word Lord.

Kurios in the Greek, master, king.

The Lord is the same word used for Yahweh in the Old Testament.

Here we have Jesus Christ coming in the preaching of the apostles as the one

who is the Lord and master, the God who created the world by speaking things

into existence. This same God has come to us in the form of Jesus Christ.

And he's calling all men everywhere to repent and believe.

The promise is to you and to your children. But what a beautiful thing we saw today.

Two young girls bringing, being brought into the promises of God as they literally

called on the name of the Lord.

Yes, we believe Jesus is our Lord and master. There's no other way for salvation. It's happening.

The power of the Holy Spirit bringing people into his kingdom as he promised.

And what does the word call mean, by the way? What are they called to?

The vows included it. Repent of your sins. Resist the devil. Forsake the world.

Flee the devil and the world. and turn only into Jesus Christ.

The apostolic preaching in the book of Acts from here, chapter 2,

all the way through the book of Acts, is filled with a call to repentance.

Repentance. Reminds me of not these two little girls, but one little girl as

she was interviewed for membership.

It's a bit dodgy in our circle. Some people like kids to be 13 or 14.

I like them to be lower. I like to have to look down to little children. That's what we want.

We were asking a four-year-old girl about this, and you ask them, what is sin?

And what do you mean by sin? And do you sin? And they all say, hopefully, yes, I sin.

What do you do when you sin? I ask for forgiveness. This little girl had a little

ask for forgiveness, she said. Sure, that's right.

I was about to go on to the next question. She said, wait, wait, you also have to repent.

I said, I wanted to stop there and say, you're in. Let's go.

I love this kid. You're in.

Repent, she said. And she even knew what repent meant.

Repent meant. And she said to be sorry for your sin, to hate and forsake it

because it displeases God.

Again, there was just two elders. The other two elders were liking them a little

older, but it was just us two guys who like them young. We're like, we're done.

You're a communicant member. This little child understood at a very four years

old, you sin, you confess, you repent, and you're forgiven.

You call them upon the name of the Lord. Repentance is central to preaching

the gospel of the apostles and of the New Testament age.

What is repentance? Well, it means you turn the other way.

You literally do a 180. You were going in one direction and you stop and you turn the other way.

Repentance is central even to the preaching of Jesus.

Matthew 4 says, from that time, Jesus began to preach saying,

repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

The apostles preached repentance all throughout their sermons.

Acts 2.38 says, the apostles heeded these words beginning with Peter on the day of Pentecost.

Repent, repent. It's a central part of the gospel message.

When I grew up, that wasn't a central part of the gospel message I heard.

It was simply, accept Jesus Christ into your heart as your personal savior,

and you'll be saved. It even provoked a controversy.

If you grew up Baptist like me, there was a controversy like,

can Jesus be your Lord and also your savior?

Some said, yes, he can be your savior without being your Lord.

Answer, very simply, according to this, no.

What is that? Call upon the name of the Lord. He is Lord. He is master. He is king.

And in doing so, you turn away from yourself and all of your sins,

and you turn unto him alone for your salvation. There is no other hope.

There's no other way. And there's no other life. There's no such thing as getting

saved out of hell and going into heaven without calling upon the name of the

Lord. That's who Jesus is.

Repentance, by the way, is a command.

It's in command form multiple times in the preaching of the apostles.

And throughout the New Testament, Jesus himself said, repent, repent, repent.

Sounds like a, when you read those words, it sounds like some sort of country

preacher in the backwoods screaming and shouting repentance.

But every time you see the gospel presented, you see this idea of confession

and repentance. It's a command.

Notice the apostles are not begging people. They didn't use the illustration

I heard as a kid. Heard a great illustration.

Not really great, but it was a common illustration where it says,

Jesus Christ has come with the keys and you're in jail.

And he's come and he's unlocked the door and he's thrown open the gates to the

jail. And all you have to do is walk out.

Just walk out. Jesus has done all he's able to do for you.

That's not what you hear in the preaching of the apostles.

They don't say, well, it's all up to you. They just simply say, repent, repent.

And Paul makes it clear that the time has come. The time of repentance and renewal has come.

He said when he spoke at the people of Athens, he stood there and he said,

and God has made it clear to all men everywhere that you must repent by raising

Jesus Christ from the dead. You must repent.

There's no such thing as Jesus as Savior without him being your Lord.

Repentance involves turning around and changing your mind. Have you done that?

In the end, we're gonna, as we close, I'm gonna try to force you on the horns of a dilemma here.

You're only in one of two places.

You're either someone who hasn't repented and hasn't called upon the name of

the Lord, or you have, and this sermon hopefully will provoke you to further

admiration, thanksgiving, and love, and humility.

And I also would add, if you haven't done that, you are heading to the same

wrath and destruction that Israel was receiving for their stubbornness and hard-heartedness.

Repentance means a change of mind. Repent. When our Lord and Master,

this is from Martin Luther. Martin Luther famously said, when our Lord and Master

Jesus Christ said, repent, he intended that the entire life of believers should be repentance.

Even if you have believed, even if you have called upon the name of the Lord,

maybe this morning you realize, I need to continue to repent.

I need to continue to dedicate my life to Jesus Christ fully and completely.

An unrepentant heart leads to death. It leads to destruction.

The weeping prophet Jeremiah cried out to the Lord, O Lord, do not your eyes look for truth.

You have struck them down, but they felt no anguish. You have consumed them,

but they have refused to take correction.

They made their faces harder than rock. they have refused to repent.

In this whole setting of fire, vapor, and smoke, and blood, and darkness of

the sun, is the judgment of God coming on a nation that was stubborn.

But in the middle of it is blessings and hope for anyone who calls on the name of the Lord.

And this is what the Lord desires. Christ Jesus came into the world,

says Paul to Timothy, to save sinners of who I am the foremost.

But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost,

Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience.

If you repent today, if you call upon the name of the Lord, it's testimony of

the great patience of God to you.

Even if you renew your commitment and say, I haven't lived a repentant life,

it's also testimony of the faithful patience of God in your life.

Repentance leads to life. The way of life is outlined in Acts chapter 11,

Acts 11 · chapter mention

where it says, when they heard these things, they fell silent and they glorified

God saying, then to the Gentiles also has granted repentance that leads to their life.

Repentance leads away from death and to life and worship to God.

If you have not repented, if you

have not called upon the name of the Lord Jesus, I call you now to do so.

What are you waiting for? Judgment?

Because judgment comes to those who are stubborn. You need to now today,

as the prophets would always say, today is the day of salvation.

If you call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it's kind of an invocation as well as we close. There's some kind of an

invocation indicated as an act of worship.

When you call on the name of the Lord, you recognize him as Lord and master,

as king, as the only hope of your salvation.

And you're saved from your sins and from the judgment that is rightly due to you.

Jesus is Lord and only Jesus saves.

And the sovereignty of God is comfortably mixed in this. I don't know if you realize it.

All throughout apostolic preaching, they will preach and say,

the Lord has foreordained it, now you get busy and do it.

Say, wait a minute, I thought you believed in predestination.

Yes, and you'll even hear it from Stephen and from others who say,

the Lord was foreordained to this path, but you with your evil hands took and crucified him.

Say, wait a minute, that's the sovereignty of God and the responsibility of

man together. Yes, always.

It's a mystery that we don't understand it. I don't have an easy answer for

it, but it's always there.

God has sovereignly put you here this morning and he also calls you to be responsible

to what you're hearing, that you need to call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And if you don't, judgment will come to you as surely as it came to the nation of Israel.

We're saved from the sin and wrath of God and reconciled in our relationship with him.

And repentance, as Luther said, is a way of life. I'll close with a quote from John Stott.

I love this. He says, and this is from a commentary on the book of Acts.

He promises to those who respond to him both forgiveness of sins,

that is to wipe out their past, and the gift of the Spirit to make us new people.

Together they can constitute the freedom for which many are searching,

freedom from guilt, freedom from defilement, freedom from judgment and self-centeredness,

and freedom to be the persons God has made and meant us to be.

Call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. Amen. Let's pray.

Lord, work a work by your spirit in our hearts that all of us today,

as we come to this table of the Lord, as we eat and drink the body and blood

of the Lord Jesus Christ, help us to feast on the forgiveness of sins we have through Christ.

Help us to marvel that, as Paul said, you called sinners of whom I am the foremost.

Help us to have this incredible, unbelievable experience of the immeasurable

grace and love of Jesus Christ as we come to him.

And Lord, if there are those here who haven't come to him, I pray by the power

of the Holy Spirit that they would do exactly what Peter said,

call on the name of the Lord and they will be saved.

Thank you for doing that among us. Thank you even for bringing these two young

girls this morning to this table where they can feast on the grace of God to whom they have called.

We pray that you would continue that work among us with many more,

even bringing many people from our community to call on the name of the Lord Jesus and be saved.

This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.