Acts 2:37-38 TPT When they heard this they were crushed and realized what they had done to Jesus. Deeply moved, they said to Peter and the other apostles, “What do we need to do, brothers?”
38 Peter replied, “Repent and return to God, and each one of you must be baptized in the name of Jesus, the Anointed One, to have your sins removed. Then you may take hold of the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
39 “For God’s promise of the Holy Spirit is for you and your families, for those yet to be born and for everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
40 Peter preached to them and warned them with these words: “Be rescued from the wayward and perverse culture of this world!”
41 Those who believed the word that day numbered three thousand. They were all baptized and added to the church.”
Peter was preaching to the Jews who were not Christians. In that moment in history, the term Christians was not known. But regardless, they were Jews. What is a Jew? They were a people called by God who were given the law, regulations, and statutes. They were given the oracles of God. They were given the knowledge of the true God. They were given access to His Presence through the Holy of Holies. They were given experience. Even though they were waiting for the Messiah, they all believed, in some sense, they would make it to heaven. They all, in most, thought they were the descendants of Abraham and the promise so they would be saved. But sadly, they thought they needed the Messiah to deliver them from worldly hardships more than their own sins because they just presumed they would go to heaven.
Today’s Christians, including many in our own church, are thinking the same. You are like the Jews who have received knowledge and experience. You presume just because you say you basically believe in His existence that, you will make it to heaven. So many wait for the second coming, thinking HE will deliver us from our current woes, and like the first Jews, we fail to realize, “Have we repented and fully turned to God ourselves?”
Verse 40 says we need to be rescued from the wayward, perverse culture of this world.
We think worldly culture is being the bottom feeders of the world, such as fentanyl or drug addicts, criminals, street hookers, robbers, being wanted by the FBI or police, people who do abortions, homosexuals, swingers, drug dealers, and the likes.
No, worldly is what normal worldly people do, which is humanism and dependency on a human system for their ultimate survival and existence over God.
Pastor Steve Kim