Our text for today's meditation is taken from the Acts of the Apostles, chapter three and verse nineteen. It reads like this. Repent ye therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord. I'm sure the Lord will bless to us the reading of the verse. Now in order to understand the meaning and the application of this verse, it is essential that we should understand the background as presented to us in this chapter. The church begins to make its advance. In chapter two of the Acts of the Apostles, the record is given of how the church was formed and how the church was empowered. and how they had to commence with their great mission. But in chapter three the church begins to make its move. Now you'll find first of all in chapter two there is an outstanding incident takes place and then that incident is followed by a sermon preached by Peter. When you come to this chapter, chapter three, there is another incident recorded. And it's out of that incident there arises the need for Peter to preach another sermon. And it's in the midst of this sermon that he says, Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. But I draw your attention to the fact that in chapter two, where we spoke in a previous message, we pointed out this, that when the people listened to Peter and they were pricked in their hearts, and they said to Peter, what shall we do? And then Peter said to them, repent, repent. and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. In chapter two when men were convicted Peter said they must repent. Here in chapter three again he says repent therefore and be converted that your sins may be blotted out. Now repentance is a Bible truth. It was preached by John the Baptist. And remember, he was the greatest of the prophets, according to the verdict of the Lord. There was none greater than John. And John's message to the nation was a message of repentance. I remind you that when John came on the scene, that there was a great generation gap. The fathers and the children had become separated some way or another. And John's mission was to get the children and the fathers reunited, to turn the hearts of the fathers towards the children and the hearts of the children towards the fathers. Now, it's obvious that something had gone wrong along the way. Perhaps there was neglect on the part of the parents that fathers may have... neglected their duty of instructing their children, or it could be that the children were rebelling against the parents, one way or another, may have been both, and John's job was to get them reunited, to effect a reconciliation. And John's great message was repentance, for the simple reason that both the fathers and the children were out of touch with God. You see, things that are equal to the same thing are equal to one another. And if the fathers had been right with God, and if the children had been right with God, then the family unit would have been kept in holy harmony. But unfortunately, the parents were out of touch with God, and the children were out of touch with God, and it so happened then that the family unit... had gone into a state of disharmony. And John's great message was, repent. He spoke his message to the plain people and also to the rulers. And the rulers didn't like it. One of the outstanding rulers in John's day was Herod. Herod was living in sin, living an immoral life. And John told him so. And as a result he hated John because John told them the truth. He had John put in prison and then ultimately beheaded. And then the Lord Jesus Christ began his preaching ministry, and he preached the same message, Repent, for the kingdom is at hand. And the religious rulers of his day resented his preaching when he told them they were hypocrites. And ultimately they put the Lord Jesus Christ on a cross. Now when you come to Acts chapter two, you are on the resurrection side of Calvary. And the Holy Spirit has descended when Pentecost was fully come. And these followers of the Lord Jesus Christ were then charged with the power of the Holy Spirit and were able to go out and proclaim the message. Now he pointed out to you that the first sermon that Peter preached As recorded in Acts chapter two, he emphasized the need for repentance. Here again in chapter three, he brings again to the notice the need for repentance. But look first of all at the incident that preceded this. It's the incident of the miracle. Here is a man, a helpless man. Now this helpless man had a daily habit. His daily habit... was to be brought to the beautiful gate of the temple and there begged for help. A daily habit, begging for help. A helpless man, at the mercy of the multitude. A few well-meaning friends, all they could do for him was bring him to the place where he could beg from the multitude that were wending their way into the place of worship. But we're also arrested by the fact that there were two holy men, one called Peter and one called John, and they had a devotional habit. Their habit was to go to the place of prayer at the hour of prayer. So you see there was a few well-meaning friends who cared for the man, a whole multitude who passed by, Perhaps they would toss him a little coin to use modern language. They would throw him a dime or a nickel. But that was all. They couldn't do anything for the man in his helpless state. But then there was the two preachers. And these two preachers were prepared to help the man. First of all, I draw your attention to the fact that they had an eye of sympathy. They saw the man. They looked on the man and they stopped. Or they were going on holy business, of course they were going up to pray, but here was something that drew their attention, a man in need. And they stopped to cast their eye of sympathy on the man. They also had words of encouragement for the man. It's nice to be able to look on people in their need, but it's going a step further if we can grant them a word of encouragement. But not only did he speak to the man, he stretched forth his hand to help the man. I'm sure you've heard often of the helping hand. Here was the true helping hand when Peter stretched forth his hand to help the man. Now, I want you to notice when he spoke to the man what he said. He said, Look on us. I wonder why. For the simple reason, the man, no doubt, had been looking on himself for a long number of years. And as he looked on himself day by day, morning by morning, he must have pit himself and said, What good am I in this life? I'm such a helpless, hopeless creature. I can't even walk. I can't enter into the things that other people enter into. I'm not able to walk. Perhaps he had looked on himself for years and it only made him depressed. A lot of people like that. A lot of people are just looking at themselves, looking at their own circumstances. And the longer you look at yourself, the more depressed you become. Or is it possible that for a certain time as he lay at the gate, that beautiful gate of the temple, he may have been looking all the time he was lying there, on the people who were passing him by. He may have had strange thoughts about these people as he watched them. Oh, some would be dressed in gorgeous robes, going up to the Holy Temple. Others, of course, would just be ordinary people, and some may have been poor people. And he watched them there. Various kinds of people, all going to do the same thing, going into the Holy Temple. He may have looked on them. And as he looked on them, he wondered just how much they would give him. Would they cast him a dime? And he had been looking on men. Now says the apostle, look on us. Look away from yourself. Look away from these people. Why did Peter say look on us? Because Peter had something to say to the man. He wanted the man's attention. He wanted his ear. He wanted his heart. Now I want you to notice what Peter said to the man. Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. Peter said silver and gold have I none. Peter had no money. The church in these days was just a group of poor people. You know, it's a strange thing in the early days, according to Acts chapter three, the church was poor, they had no money, they hadn't taken up any collections at that time at all. They didn't have any money, but then they had a lot of power. But you know, when you come to the last stage of the church as portrayed in Revelation chapter three, the Laodicean church there is saying, we are enriched and in need of nothing. And yet the Lord was outside of the door. They had a lot of money, a lot of activity, a lot of program, but no power. Oh, my friend, as you'll listen to my voice today, may I suggest that what we need today is a church that has power. Not pence. It's not money the church needs. It's more power. We need to have an expression of the power of God's spirit moving in our midst. Men and women today need to be gripped. My friend, you may be poor today. You may be like this man. You're looking for a handout, and you're wondering who's going to give it to you. May I ask you something? Have you trusted Christ yet? The most important thing in life is to come to know the Savior. He says, with no money, but such as I have, give I unto you. Luke to Christ. You see, he presents Jesus Christ to them in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. You will remember his name, Jesus. He was to be called that because he would save his people from their sins. But may I remind you, my friend, that not only was his name Jesus, he is the Christ. He is the anointed. He has been exalted, placed at the right hand of the Father in heaven, able to save to the very uttermost all that come unto God by him. And he stretched forth his hand, and the man stood, and he walked, and he leaped, and he went into the temple, praising God. You see, this man was cured, and his cure was immediate. It was complete. It was permanent. It was a work of God in the man's life. And might I say this, that you all need, we all need, every one of us, we need a work of God in our life. We need the indwelling Spirit of God to regenerate. And when God saves a man, it's an immediate salvation. It's not a process at that point. Oh, no, it's a crisis. There's a crisis in the life of this man. May I suggest this, my friend. When Christ saves a man, he does the saving. It's not a little bit of what Christ can do and a little bit of what you can do. It's Christ that saves. And when he saves you, it's permanent. You never lose it. Now it's out of what happened to this man that the crowd come together. And as they met in Solomon's porch, then Peter is able to speak to them. He introduces his message. Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this? Why look so intently on us as though by our own power of godliness we had made this man walk? You see, he introduces his message. Then he gives us his theme. He takes us back to the fact of God. He brings them face to face with the challenge that God was the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He says the God of our fathers. You see, these people were those who had come down from the prophets and they had come down from the fathers in Israel. For this was a new generation, but he throws them back. They had neglected the God of their fathers. But he says the God of our fathers glorified his son Jesus, whom ye delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go. So the theme of his message is simply this, that Christ came, that he was rejected by the nation. They denied the Holy One. They asked for a murderer. Yes, they wanted a murderer, said at liberty. But they wanted an innocent man to be put to death. And he said, you denied the Holy One. And then he said, you killed him. But remember this. And here is the critical, crucial point of the gospel message. God has raised from the dead that same Jesus. God has raised him from the dead. Of whom he said, we are witnesses. Now, He said in verse seventeen, brethren, I know that you did it through ignorance, as did also your rulers. But those things which God foretold by the mouth of all these prophets that the Christ would suffer, he is thus fulfilled. He throws them back again to show this, that if they had been reading their Old Testament, if they had been reading their Bible, they would have known what the prophets said, that Christ must need suffer, then enter into his glory. So therefore he takes them back again to the words of Holy Scripture and tells them what the prophets had said. Now as he comes to the conclusion of his message, he throws responsibility upon them. He shows them that they were responsible for the rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That they were responsible for putting him on the cross. It's no use saying the Roman soldiers did it. It's no use saying our leaders did it. He brings the accusation against every one of them. They were responsible for rejecting their Messiah. They were responsible for placing him on a cross. Let me say this to every listener today. Don't you try to shift the blame onto someone else. We all stand guilty before God and we must accept responsibility for the rejection of Jesus Christ. If you have never received him and acknowledged him as Lord, then you're still rejecting him. And the message today is this. Repent, therefore, and be converted. Unless there's repentance, my friend, there can be no conversion. Unless there's repentance and conversion, there can be no forgiveness of sins. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. And the question of your sins may have been a big problem with you, my friend. And you may wonder, what can be done about them? Here is what can be done. You can repent. And when you repent and turn to God, remember repentance is towards God and faith is in the Lord Jesus Christ. So therefore they've got to remember what the Prophet said. They've got to repent for the responsibility towards God. And if we are responsible for our attitude to the Lord Jesus Christ, then God calls us to repentance. And where there is repentance, there will be conversion. Because if a man truly repents, then he turns to God. It's repentance towards God. I have sinned, said the people in the Old Testament. And we have sinned. You see, one man says, I have sinned against the Lord. The nation says, we have sinned. And so therefore we come to this point today where the repentance will be able to say we have sinned in that we have been rejecting the Christ of God who died to save us. And where there is true repentance, there is conversion, a complete change. Writing to the Thessalonian Christians, Paul says, ye turn to God from idols. That's repentance. That's conversion. Ye turn to God from idols to serve the living and true God and to wait for his Son from heaven. So therefore, his call to us today is repent. Repent, therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out. Suppose you forget all else that you've heard on this broadcast. Let these words sink deep into your heart. Keep repeating them to yourself. And every time you think of them and say them, try to get the meaning of them. Repent, therefore, and be converted. Have you repented, my friend? Have you been converted? If not, then your sins are not blotted out. But if you repent and be converted, your sins will certainly be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord. Now it may be that many of my listeners have been religious people most of their life. It may be, my friend, that you have showed great respect for the Bible and for the teachings of the Bible. But in spite of your attitude towards the Bible, and in spite of the fact you may have been raised in a religious circle, my message today may have reached your heart. Was there ever a time when you repented and turned to God and confessed that you were a sinner in need of the salvation that God provides? You know, there's a wonderful book. called The Pilgrim's Progress. It used to be that most people who had religious inclinations read that book. But I'm afraid it hasn't been read now for a long time. A new generation has arisen that don't take any interest in these things. But in that book which was written by John Bunyan, there are two parts to it. In the first section of that book, there's a man who leaves the city of destruction sets out on his pilgrim journey towards the celestial city. But his wife and children did not go with him. It was sometime later in that story written by John Bunyan, before that his wife, that is the pilgrim's wife, he who became the Christian, and then his wife later on she left with her children to follow the same path as her husband. Now it is in that second part of the pilgrim's progress where we come to these words, where this lady who is following in the path of true repentance, going on the same journey as her husband has trod, she gives vent to these words. As she goes on her way, she begins to sing, and her song is something like this, Blessed be the day that I began, a pilgrim for to be. and blessed also be that man that thereto moved me. It is true, t'was long ere I began to seek to live forever, but now I run fast as I can, tis better late than never. Our tears to joy, our fears to faith, are turned as we see, thus our beginning, as one saith, shows what our end will be. You see, my friend, it may be that you're late in life. It may be that it's been a long time since you first considered these matters, but it's not too late yet. It's not too late. She said, this truth was long here I began to seek to live forever, but now I run fast as I can. It is better late than never So I suggest to you, if you have never had the experience of conversion, if there has never been a time of repentance in your life, if you have been trusting to your own good works, may I suggest that even now where you are, if you are in your home, why don't you get before the Lord in true heart repentance and tell them that you need to be saved? Tell him you're willing to trust him, and you can trust him today. Repent, therefore, and be converted, and the times of refreshing will come to you.