37Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” 38And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.” 40And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation.” 41So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls. ESV

What an expression! ”Cut to the heart”. It points to the sharpest conviction of sin. God Himself was at work. The ”sword of the Spirit” – God’s Word (Eph.6:17; Hebs.4:12) was so effectively wielded by Peter that many were deeply affected. His answer to their earnest enquiry, ”what shall we do?” was not a message of ‘easy-believe-ism’ He called for a radical turning away from sin, and a clean break with their past lives (expressed in water baptism).

Notice in vv.38,39 both the human and divine sides of conversion. On God’s side there is His (effective) call; but on the human side there has to be a receiving of God’s Word, shown in repentance and baptism. This is how we ‘save ourselves’ from ”this crooked generation”. We have to deliberately step out of it, and into God’s Kingdom. These verses again take us back to Acts 1:8, I feel. The response will come not only in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria, but from the ends of the earth.

On the day of Pentecost, not only was there a huge harvest reaped, but a miraculous catch was hauled in. That’s another way to speak about. May God grant that we see such a move in our day!