Wild Preaching Series

And the entire congregation gasped in shock.

This was no way to talk about the President of the United States.

After the service, Andrew Jackson met the preacher at the door - looked at him in the eye and said "Sir, if I had a regiment of men like you, I could conquer the world!"

Jackson was impressed!!!

But why?

Because he’d just heard a preacher speak the truth to him, as nobody had ever done before.

He might have been the President of the United States… but he still needed Jesus.

That’s pretty wild preaching, because that’s a pretty wild message.

But the results of that message was even wilder.

When did Peter preach this sermon? What day was it? (Pentecost)

That’s right: Pentecost. Pentecost means the 50th, because it was a special holy day observed by the Jews 50 days after the Passover. This specific Pentecost is the last one ever mentioned in

And how many people responded to Peter’s sermon?

How many repented and were baptized? (3000)

This was the LAST Pentecost ever recorded in Scripture.

If there was a last Pentecost, there had to be a first Pentecost. And the first Pentecost would have been 50 days after the first Passover.

When did Israel celebrate their FIRST Passover feast? (in Egypt before they left their slavery)

So, if Israel was leaving Egypt the day after they celebrated the first Passover… where do you think they were 50 days later? (at the Mountain of God). When they arrived at that mountain, Moses went up to receive the 10 Commandments. But when he came down he discovered that Israel had made a golden calf to worship and were apparently engaged in certain behaviors that were offensive.

God’s mad. Moses is mad

Moses breaks the 10 commandments, storms into the camp, seizes the golden calf and grinds it to powder and puts it into the camp drinking supply and commands the people to drink from it.

Now, the Bible doesn’t say, but the story seems to indicate that there were certain people who rebelled against Moses. I get the impression they told him to go take a hike – they weren’t drinking that water.

Moses says “Whoever is for the LORD, come to me” – and all the tribe of Levi come to him. Essentially, Moses tells them, “go strap on your swords boys, cause we’re going to go clean house!” And they went and killed all who refused to repent.

Guess how many people died around the first Pentecost? (3000)

How many were saved at the last Pentecost? (3000)

Do you think that’s a coincidence?

I don’t.

I think God left that for us so that we’d see and marvel at the intricacy of His Word.

And in that simple truth, God drove home the truth that He revealed to us in 2 Corinthians 3:6

“the letter (of the Law) kills, but the Spirit gives life.”

But wait… there’s more.

Not only was the message wild, and the results were wild… but so was the invitation.

There was an offer made at the end of the message that was unlike anything anyone had ever heard before.