Clough Acts Lesson 14

Second Persecution and Gamaliel’s Counsel - Acts -5:12-42

Some feedback card’s questions: What exactly is the charismatic movement? For a detailed answer I would refer you to the tape we did on Acts 2. Basically it’s the movement that emphasizes the subjective which attempts to pass for the bona fide work of the Holy Spirit in our day. The second question is: does the term Yahweh refer specifically to Jesus in the God head or is it the covenant name for all three personalities of the God head as a whole. The answer is it can refer to both; Yahweh can refer to the Second Person of the Trinity, God the Son, or it can refer to all three persons of the Trinity. It just depends on the usage; we’ll see one of those usages today in the book of Acts.

Turn to Acts 5; we’ll continue our study of Acts and the early history of the Christian church. One of the things to remember about the book of Acts, what it’s telling us here is something that is often overlooked, something that is neglected by Christians and that is that the Church was born in an environment of civil disobedience. This seems kind of odd, particularly in this part of the country that creates a bad taste in everyone’s mouth, having gone through the recent Vietnam thing and all the protests that were waged against the United States in connection with the Vietnamese war, but civil disobedience is the means that the Church had to use in its early days and it’s no accident that the Holy Spirit preserved this text. There’s a certain political philosophy that comes out of Acts, and I think Christians tend to be naïve about it.

In fact, I know they are naïve about it; I can remember after I had been in Lubbock for about two years the issue came up as to whether or not the city council was going to pass an ordinance requiring the ratings of all the films in town and was going to make this mandatory for all the theater owners, and the city itself was going to pass judgment on films. And I was asked by some Christians to testify on (quote) “the Biblical position,” (end quote). And I went down and testified to the best of my ability and what I thought the Biblical position was and I think if they’d had dentures they would have dropped them because what I did was go back to the great Puritan of the Puritans, John Milton and his work Areopagitica in which he argued against all censorship, the Biblical position basically being it is unbiblical to censor films or anything else that has to do with an art form. The reason isn’t because Christians grant their approval to everything that goes on; the reason is more basic than that and that is that if you give government the power today to censor what we consider to be evil, tomorrow the same power will be used back against us. And this has always been the Christian position. And much to my amazement as I walked out of the city council chambers I was besieged by several ladies from a well-known church in town that insisted that I had totally compromised the Biblical faith in front of the city council. And I proceeded to ask them, then where in the Scriptures do you get your position from, and of course they were unable to answer.

And the answer basically is, and the picture that you get from the book of Acts is that the Christian always looks slightly askance at state power for the reason that we never can be sure that tomorrow the whole thing won’t explode into a paroxysm of violence against the Christian position. Therefore we’re very careful before we grant any further powers to the government. So since we are in the area of civil disobedience in the book of Acts and since it figures so prominently in this section, let’s review this doctrine.

The doctrine of civil disobedience: what does the Bible say about the Christian disobeying properly constituted authorities; when does this become legitimate. The first thing to remember about civil disobedience is that it’s analogous with divorce. God has certain divine institutions, these divine institutions cover every area of life, and because of sin in the fallen world, obviously there comes problems with sin in these divine institutions and so we have to have, shall we say, emergency procedures. And in the second divine institution we have the issue of divorce; in the third divine institution we have the problem of adoption; in the fourth divine institution we have civil disobedience; in every divine institution we have sort of an emergency escape valve that God has designed because of sin. It’s not that we glory in divorce, it’s not that we glory in civil disobedience, but as realistic Bible-believing Christians we understand that God is realistic and He operates realistically in history.

So in the area of doctrine of civil disobedience we come to the fact that the first thing that we want to know is the there are certain legitimate issues and these legitimate issues have to be there in order for civil disobedience to occur. What are these issues? These issues are when the state dictates to Christians what they will and will not do with regard to teaching of the Word of God. When the state says that evangelism is wrong, usually it does so under the guise that evangelism disrupts the unity of the community, etc. etc. etc. But whatever the reason for the command is, at that point we are called upon to disobey, by going ahead with evangelism. If the state decrees that the Word of God shall not be taught then we disobey. We will deliberately teach the Word of God. If the state decrees that we cannot gather for assembly worship then we gather for assembly worship in defiance of the state. So these are issues which are legitimate.

But then there are illegitimate issues. Daniel did not rebel in civil disobedience against the authorities because he didn’t like the brand of legislation that the Babylonian administrator were passing, for that would be illegitimate. So understand that civil disobedience is valid only… only for legitimate issues. Daniel is your model book on proper civil disobedience.

Then we studied something else beside the fact that we have to have a legitimate issue; we always, during whatever process is involved, we have to have a respect for divine institution number four or the fourth divine institution, no matter who is in charge. It could be the antichrist himself that would be in charge but we have to respect the institution, even when we are disobeying the institution we have to respect that institution. This is why every three or four years I try to bring back the film, Oliver Cromwell, so you can watch how the Puritans defied the government but they always respected the government. In that famous scene at the beginning of the film you have the king’s men coming into Parliament in London and they’re about to arrest Cromwell, and what does Cromwell and the Puritans do? They stand up with proper parliamentary procedure and procedure to indict the king, all the while the threat of the soldiers there. Everything is done legitimately and in respect for the fourth divine institution. That’s the attitude that we must have.

Another point to the doctrine of civil disobedience, when we get caught in that situation, as well Christians in America may get caught some day, the thing to remember is you try to sell your position pragmatically; we call it the pragmatic sell. That is, we try to appeal to the authorities on, not the basis of the Word because they won’t listen to that, but we try to appeal on the basis of simple pragmatism, it works. Daniel, to use an illustration of Daniel 1, had a kosher diet, a reasonably kosher diet, and the Babylonian authorities would not let him have his reasonably kosher diet. And so what did Daniel do? He appealed on the basis of the nutritional benefits of the kosher diet. He didn’t say I demand my kosher diet on the basis of the Word of God. No, he said look, how about us making a deal, I go on my kosher diet and you have a control group over here that has this pagan diet; now let’s see after a certain time interval who has nutritional superiority, the Jews on the Kosher diet or the Gentiles on the pagan diet. Let’s observe. That’s called a pragmatic sell. It’s an appeal to the authorities on the basis of what works.

Now also in connection with the pragmatic sell, another example is what we find in Acts 5 and that is what we call the power of the body politic. What this means is that because the Word of God has gained respect in a maximum number of people in public, the Christian have not a popularity but they have a basic respect by the mobs of the street and in this situation, when the authorities to go make an arrest or go to go in and grab the Christians, they face the power of the mob who is sympathetic at that point with the Christian faith, though they may not be Christians themselves. We’ll see this operate today in a very, very clear passage. So these are ways of the pragmatic sell. Quite frankly stated this is simple political power, that’s all it is, and the Christian is taking advantage of political power.

Another point to the doctrine of civil disobedience, all during this time while we are exercising respect to the authority of the fourth divine institution, we are to pray 1 Timothy 2 type prayers. These prayers have to do with God, let there be no confrontation; we don’t relish the confrontation, help us avoid the confrontation. 1 Timothy 2 type prayers, let us lead a peaceable life, let us lead a life without this constant harassment and upset. So these are prayers that have to be made.

Then another principle under this concept, and that is that when the time comes for actual civil disobedience you are going to have to choose whether you’re going to go overt or covert. There are two Biblical alternatives here. Your model for overt disobedience is found in Daniel 3, Daniel 6, Acts 3, Acts 4, Acts 5. Here are passages that show what it looks like when believers are overtly, clearly, publicly defying the government. But then there are also covert examples. This is where believers do it underhandedly. You say that’s not Christian. Oh yes, it is quite Christians. As we pointed out in the book of Proverbs, it’s scriptural in these times of pressure for Christians to offer bribes to officials; understand the Scripture, it’s not a sin to offer a bribe, it is a sin to accept a bribe. There’s a tremendous difference. Modern law doesn’t allow for this; in the modern political scene we’re worried, for example, about Lockheed Corporation, offering bribes to foreign governments to buy. The problem isn’t Lockheed offering to bribe, the problem is they’ve got corrupt people that are accepting them. So the issue, scripturally, is who accepts the bribe, not who offers the bribe. Bribery is authorized in the book of Proverbs; bribery goes on today, how else do the underground Christians behind the iron curtain get their Scriptures. Because our missionaries are bribing these German guards to look the other way. Obviously bribery has been going on for the last 15 years along the iron curtain and Christians have been the major ones that have been offering the bribes. So bribery is one of the covert systems of Christian civil disobedience in times of pressure. Another example of Christian covert operations is the Exodus 1, where the midwives of Egypt lying and using deception against higher authorities than the health, education and welfare department of the Egyptian government.

So we have these two options and in the day of civil disobedience, according to Luke 12:11-12 the Holy Spirit will guide us in that day. Now that’s the context of that famous passage, the Holy Spirit will teach you what things you shall say. He’s not talking about don’t study, don’t think about doctrine, and then when you get in a situation the Holy Spirit is just going to put words in your heart. That’s not the point of that passage. That passage exists as a promise that in special times of persecution the Holy Spirit will guide the Church to make the right decision. In Holland, this isn’t just theoretical, in Holland during the Nazi occupation, the Corrie Ten Boom story, there was a situation that happened with our own generation. What do you think about the Dutch Christians? They had to make a decision; look, they’re persecuting Jews all over the place, what do I do, do I attack the Nazis in an overt way or do I disobey the Nazi police in a covert way? That was an operational decision that all of the Christians of Holland had to make, and had to make in our generation. So this is not theoretical stuff, this is very practical stuff. Today it’s being made in Chad; it’s being made in numerous African countries where Christians are being persecuted by the neo-paganism, they want to develop an African culture, add the white man’s culture, since Christianity is identified with white man’s culture, throw out the Christianity. And so they’re pressuring black Christians in Africa to undo their allegiance to Christ and swear their allegiance to the powers of animism of classical pagan culture. What do you think believers are doing there? You’d better believe they’re bribing and you’d better believe they’re lying and you’d better believe they’re deceiving. They’re hiding Christians by the ton in the underground, in the African underground to protect their lives. So covert and overt operations are being waged against civil authorities.

Finally, the last point in the doctrine of civil disobedience is that when the time comes be prepared to take your punishment in the name of Christ. If you get caught you can’t claim special treatment, you’re going to have to stand there and take it, whatever it is, whatever the state wishes to dish out, you take it and take it in the name of Christ and thanksgiving that you are accounted worthy to be glorified by receiving this kind of punishment.

Now we resume where we left off last time in Acts 5:12. Remember in verse 11 we had the first mention of ecclesia, the word “church” in the book of Acts, and this is because the book of Acts is a book of transition. We have to understand the transitional nature of the book of Acts. Acts starts out with Peter and the apostles proclaiming the kingdom. As the book of Acts goes on watch what happens; the kingdom becomes less, and less, and less prominent, the Church becomes more and more prominent until the very last the kingdom isn’t even being mentioned in Acts. This feature in the book of Acts you have to be sensitive to or you’re going to get trapped some day because somebody is going to come to you and say hey, look at this, in Acts 2:38 look what they’ve got there, and set that thing up as a norm and a standard for the entire Church Age. You can’t do that; Acts is a book of transition. What you read in these chapters is not standard operating procedure for the rest of the Church Age. So as we see Acts develop we are now just about at this point, the church is becoming visible. The word “church” occurred in verse 11.

Now in the next section beginning in verse 12 on through, we are going to see the Church become physically visible in a concrete sense, the people. Up to this point it’s just been visible kind of as a name but there are certain characteristics now that we’ll observe. Beginning with verse 12.

Acts 5:12, “And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. [13]And of the rest durst no man join himself to them: but the people magnified them.” Now there’s a subtlety to Luke’s reporting here and to catch the subtlety I want to refer you back a chapter to the prayer that the Christians made in that time of emergency. They were just like we are, we pray to the Lord for something and three weeks later He answers it and by that time we’ve forgot what it was we asked Him and so we never bother to thank Him because it’s completely escaped our mind what it was that we asked Him. Now it would help sometimes if, when you do make petitions to the Lord, you write them down so you remember. He’ll remember them, He has perfect memory, but we don’t and often times things will happen, blessings will come into your life, hey, where’d this come from, look at that, God’s gracious. It may be that God just answered a petition that you yourself prayed and pestered Him about a month ago and now you’ve forgotten all about it. Well, the Christians pestered God in a very interesting way, in such a way that He’s going to very humorously answer their petition.

Remember back after the time after the first persecution Peter and John came back to the church and said hey, look what happened; this happened, this happened and this happened. Now look boys, we’ve got t sit down and pray about this one because if we don’t we’re all going to get killed. So they made a petition, Acts 4:24, “…they lifted up their voice to God with one accord,” and on the basis of the creation doctrine of verse 24 they went on and made the petition. But in so doing, in verses 25-26 they quoted an Old Testament Psalm. Please notice the way those Christians prayed, they didn’t get up and say O God, O God, why did this happen to me, blah, blah, blah. They thought through Scripture and in Psalm 2, some of you have been in choirs and you’ve sung Handel’s Messiah, you’ll recognize Psalm 2 by those two verses; it’s a Messianic psalm that has to do with the reign of God’s anointed one, His Messiah, and in particular what is happening in Psalm 2 is that you have a tremendous amount of negative volition on the part of the nation to the world, so you have this constant assault against the Messiah. And all the human kings think they are so powerful because the say let us break the bonds asunder of Yahweh’s Messiah. And then in the middle of Psalm 2 Jehovah speaks, and there’s a description of the way He looks when He’s speaking, it says behold, Yahweh has them in derision, He laughs at them. The best picture of Psalm 2 is think of Gulliver’s Travels and God is looking down from heaven and He’s saying are you guys really serious, do you think you’re going to push me around in history? Do you know who it is that you’re trying to push around? So it’s a picture of God as the superior sovereign laughing at men who think they are sovereign.

Keep that in mind because in this section we’re going to study now God is answering that petition based on Psalm 2 and he’s going to answer it, not only specifically but He’s going to answer it with the same humorous attitude that Psalm 2 was written in. And also while we’re in this section of prayer, not only in verse 25-26 do we have Psalm 2 but do you notice in verse 28-29 they emphasize God’s plan superior to man, that they are going “To do whatever Thy hand and Thy counsel determined before to be done.” And notice in verse 30 on the petition they ask, Lord, let it be that “by the stretching forth of Thine hand to heal; that signs and wonders be done.” All right, now keep that language in mind, “signs and wonders,” “the Lord will have them in derision.”

Now turn to Acts 5:12 and Luke is reporting the answer of that prayer. “And by the hands of the apostles were being done many signs and wonders among the people,” were being done is imperfect tense in the Greek which means a continuous type of action in the past. It goes on, it’s a verb of state in the past time. So we have the state of the apostles executing signs and wonders and they are doing it, mind you, in an atmosphere of civil disobedience. They are doing this in defiance of an actual decreed government edict; the government has said you cannot do this, we do not want you on penalty of jail if you continue this Christian operation of teaching the Word any longer. So the apostles went and they prayed Lord, help us do it, help us defy the state on this point, and so they are. And God is answering the prayer, because the apostles can’t have the power to make the signs and the wonders, only the Holy Spirit can. So obviously the Holy Spirit is sympathetic with their plan of civil disobedience. “…and so they were all with one accord on Solomon’s porch.” Now that is going to be added to the system because later on, we’ll show Solomon’s porch and you’ll see God is going to have a little touch of humor to the location where all this occurs, so that we may understand and appreciate God’s sense of humor, let’s look exactly where Solomon’s porch is in the temple of that time. [He shows slides] This is Solomon’s porch, all along here and around the corner and it was here where the apostles were doing all their teaching. Why is this important to know to appreciate God’s sense of humor. Because right here, in the corner of that area was the office building of the Sanhedrin. So the irony is that not only are the apostles disobeying what the government told them to do, they’re doing it right on the “White House” steps, as it were, right out here on the porch, constantly going up and down here teaching the Word and the authorities are right in here telling them not to teach the Word. You couldn’t have a closer juxtaposition of the Christian disobeying with the government insisting they stop the whole operation. Keep that picture in mind, it figures later in the text.

So as the apostles do this, they’re all with one accord, in verse 13 there’s a characteristic that now arises with the church. “And of the rest,” that means of the rest of the people that are coming in to the temple, of all the rest of these people that are coming into the temple, no man was daring to consort, or to mix with these believers. Now in order that we not misinterpret verse 13, Luke quickly adds in verse 14, don’t think the people aren’t becoming Christians, it’s just, Luke says, it’s just that the Christians begin to have an aurora about them, a reputation that grows. And so the person that walked in the temple before they just kind of walked their way through, oh yeah, you’re teaching about Yeshua and so on and then walk right on. But he says what’s happening now as these people walk through the gate and it’s quiet, there’s respect, hey look at those guys, what are they teaching over there to the left of the gate as we walked in. There’s a separation and here Luke reports now the church becomes socially visible. See, before the name, numerically there was a group, but now this group takes on a new identity, an identity that’s a little different than just Jews as part of the nation Israel; now they have their own identity. And this is how the Church grew and keep in mind the environment in which this Church grew. It grew with the internal discipline, the Ananias and Sapphira, purifications on the inside, and then you have this pressure applied to the Church from the outside. That’s always been the case in history, where you persecute the Church it grows most rapidly.

Acts 5:14, a report on what was happening, “And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.)” Now verse 14 happens to be quite a loaded verse because of a few little terms that are used. Number one, don’t think verse 14 is saying well, there were more Christians at that time and more people trusted the Lord. That’s not what verse 14 is saying; what verse 14 is saying is that they were being added at a faster rate; it’s not talking about the absolute number, it’s talking about the rate of growth of the Church. So as the heat was applied on the inside, on the outside the Church began to grow and grow and grow fast. Already 30% of the people in Jerusalem, if our population statistics of 30,000 are correct, and 10,000 believers, we’ve got over 30% of the people committed to Christ now in the urban area of Jerusalem and if this grows you can obviously see that there’s tremendous influence on the part of these Christians. Now as he continues Luke adds that they were “added to the Lord.” They were “added to the Lord!” Now he doesn’t say they were added to the Church, he says they were “added to the Lord.” Now what’s the significance of that little change? This, over and over again you hear it stated that Paul was the one who came out with the doctrine of the body of Christ. It was Paul who was the one who first had the idea that all Jew and Gentiles born again are (quote) “in Christ.” Well now Paul did emphasize this and he was certainly God’s key man in developing our doctrine of the Church, but even here, according to this verse, people identified this little group of Christians off here in Solomon’s portico, they said somehow Yahweh’s identified with them and when you join the group socially by water baptism, you are identifying yourself to the Lord Himself. So already the body truth is growing here, even though Paul hasn’t come along yet to really develop it.

But even more is stated by this term. The word Lord is the word Kurios, now Kurios could be used of Caesar, it could be used of human beings, but we have to control our interpretation of Scripture by asking ourselves how do the Scripture writers use the Greek word Kurios? Let’s look how Luke uses the word. In Acts 2:39 [“For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord, our God, shall call.” Luke is quoting the Old Testament; he’s quoting a particular Old Testament translation called the…we refer to it as the LXX, that’s the Latin Roman numeral for Seventy, and we call it the Septuagint. The Septuagint was simply the Old Testament translated into the language of the people which was Greek. Put another way, the Septuagint was the Living Bible of that day. And Jesus and the apostles quite frequently referred to the Living Bible, the modern translation, which was at that time was called the Septuagint; they taught out of it, everyone understood it. So here is a quotation out of that modern translation and in that translation they used Kurios for who? Obviously they’re using it for Yahweh. Kurios becomes the popular translation word for Jehovah or Yahweh. In the Hebrew Yahweh looks like this, it’s called the Tetragrammaton and it’s unpronounced.

I taught this, some people didn’t believe me and when we went to Israel last summer a friend of mine was talking to this person and he dropped the word Yahweh and if this Israeli had had dentures I’m sure he would have dropped them right then because his shocked look, we don’t talk about Yahweh. So even today in the 20^th century you dare not mention the word Yahweh around a good Jewish person or you’re in trouble fast. If you want to get out safely, the diplomatic thing is to talk about God but don’t talk about Yahweh, that is the unpronounced name of God Himself.

And so because that name came to be unpronounced it was substituted in the translation, Kurios. Kurios is used interchangeably with Jehovah. Now turn to Acts 3:19, here Peter is preaching, he’s talking about the millennial kingdom coming and what does he say, he says “the times of refreshing shall come from the [the presence of] Yahweh,” from Kurios. So again it’s being used of God. Acts 4:29, in the prayer that they made they prayed to Jehovah, Yahweh, and by what name did they call Him? Kurios. Now isn’t it striking that in Acts 5:14 we have the same word Kurios now no longer being used of Yahweh but now apparently being used of Jesus, which therefore is one more proof that I have given you as time goes on through all this teaching of the book of Acts, this kind of three-step proof for the deity of Christ. This occurs again and again and again and don’t let some little kingdom person come knocking on your front door and saying that the New Testament doesn’t teach the deity of Christ. The deity of Christ is presupposed. Look, you have Yahweh in the Old Testament. He’s referred to by Kurios. Two, you live in Jewish areas which are monotheistic, meaning they believe, mono, in one God. Now if we were in India and they had 1800 different gods it wouldn’t be a problem to say well, they just used Kurios for one god and they’d use Kurios for another god, no problem there, in India, but it sure is a problem when you get in Israel because you don’t live in pantheistic, polytheistic India, you live in monotheistic Israel. And it’s in monotheistic Israel where Kurios is now used for Jesus Christ name, so therefore we develop the equation, Jesus Yahweh and that is presupposed throughout Acts. That is the revolutionary nature of the claim of the Christian faith.

So when Luke says they were “added to Yahweh,” that’s what he’s saying, they’re added to Jehovah, to the God of the Old Testament, and he says “multitudes of both men and women,” he distinguishes men and women, as the New Testament does with all due respect to some of women’s liberation writers who claim identity of role in the Church between men and women. Men and women are distinguished in the New Testament and kept distinguished.

Luke 5:15, the result, “Insomuch” in the King James means “with the result that,” and this is a result, a fall out of the tremendous growth and explosion of this Christian movement. And the results was some phenomenal kinds of healings. I want you to notice in verses 15-16 that here is real divine healing, not this business of frothing at the mouth and working up some emotion and saying oh brother, if you just believe then you can be healed. There’s no belief mentioned in verses 15-16, these people are not necessarily believers, they just happened to be…hey, I got somebody sick, I know the apostles are going to go by, I’m going to stick them out in the street and when the shadow goes by they’re going to be healed, and at the end of verse 16 it says everyone was healed, regardless of whether they believed. This is true divine healing by the hands of the apostles and that is not going on today, need I say. In fact, it’s not going on by the time we get to the end of the book of Acts. [15, “Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets, and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. [16] There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed every one.”]

Acts 5:17, this begins the little humor. See, God has a sense of humor; some Christians have a hard time appreciating it but if you’re around the Jewish society, for example, one of the things you’ll notice is they enjoy God. They respect Him but they also enjoy Him and Christians ought to learn to do this; God is enjoyable, one of His attributes is that He has a sense of humor and we’ve seen that in many Old Testament stories and here we’re going to see it again. God has a very good sense of humor and he’s going to show the Christians of that day, He’s saying well Christians, you know when you came to Me to pray about your problem, I appreciate the fact that you pray on the basis of Psalm 2 because that referred to My sense of humor and since you Christians were so wise as to design your prayer petition along the lines of Psalm 2 I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll not only answer your prayer petition, I’ll even answer it with My sense of humor that you referred to in Psalm 2, so now begins the scene.

“Then the high priest rose up, and all they that were with him, (which is the sect of the Sadducees,) and were filled with indignation,” obviously we have a problem of rebellion on their hands. This is civil disobedience. [18] And laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.” This is apparently an area of maximum security. [19] But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, [20] Go, stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.” Now it’s very interesting that in verse 18 Luke shows us something else’s that’s happening. Who was arrested back in chapter 4? It wasn’t all the apostles, was it? It was just Peter and John, just two men. Now what do we find here? All the apostles are arrested. Do you see the expanding area of persecution, it’s growing and growing and growing. By the time we get in chapter 6 not only are the apostles being arrested, the deacons are being arrested. So persecution against the Church is increasing.

Something else that Luke points out here too, is the extent of persecution is increasing in the sense of its severity. The first arrest of chapter 4 was just a verbal reprimand. In this chapter the apostles are almost murdered, except by Gamiliel gets up and says whoa, don’t do this, and so they get off with 39 beatings. This little beating that occurs to the apostles wasn’t just some little beating, you can imagine somebody who was strong, the men who held the whips in those days weren’t some little milk toast type individuals. These men had muscles and when they’d wield those whips they hurt, and each apostle got 39 hits with the whip, that’s how much these men were beat up when they walk out at the end of this chapter. They were beat and they were almost murdered and by the 6^th chapter they were being murdered. You see, fulfillment of prophecy. What did Jesus say? I will offer the kingdom a second time to the nation, and so I will send out My servants and My servants shall be beaten, they shall be arrested, and they shall be slain. So the persecution operation is functioning.

Notice something else about verse 18, the only people that are arrested are the apostles. Why is that? It must mean only the apostles are in civil disobedience. Then what does that imply as to who’s doing the witnessing and teaching? Only the apostles. And that’s something else that’s interesting in the book of Acts, all the way to Acts 6 you do not have every Christians witnessing, you only have the trained apostles doing the evangelism. You have only people who have adequate training on the front lines. The problem today is we have too many Christians witnessing, people who are incompetent and should keep their mouth shut. Now every Christian, obviously, God wants us to witness but the point is that we ought to have the patience to get the training to witness. And to know enough to just open our mouth casually or something like this, but then when we get the training then God will provide the opportunity. Some of you come out of Christian organizations and you’ve been taught this song and dance about you accept Christ today and this afternoon you’re going to go out witnessing and share Christ. Well there are some things you can share but most of it you can’t, so don’t get a guilt complex because you haven’t witnessed t 85 people in the last 24 hours. But in this early age of the Church it was the apostles alone who witnessed because the apostles alone had the training. And then as they trained men others would join in.

Then in verse 19, we find them in maximum security and so an angel shows up; this angel has been very busy in the early years of the Church, he was a jail buster angel and he came in three or four times before Acts is finished, every time they’d lock up he’d get in there and get the keys and open it up, he had a little game going with the jailors. But however this angel showed up and we don’t know, we know apparently later on he just suddenly becomes visible, he’s dressed like a normal individual, didn’t show up with wings flapping, with a white shimmering garment; an angel apparently appeared to wear the clothes of the time and these men were in prison and the angel was just there and he opened the door and said come on, let’s go. Later on Peter is asleep in the jail while the angel shows up and the angel has to wake him up, so he goes whack and he hits him; it’s not just… it says in the King James he smote him, but the word in the Greek means he came up and punched him. And we find the same treatment the angels do to Daniel; angels love that, apparently, they like to have fun with us and so when they’re on an assignment to handle some Christian that’s in trouble they like to rough us up a little bit physically, probably just to show the believers in that situation that they’re not pure spirit, that the angel has shown up and actually has a physical corporeal body so he punches us to let us know, hey, you know, that hurts, so we know that you’re not just a dream or a vision or something.

This angel comes in and notice what he tells him. They let the guys out of jail and then in verse 20 the angel commissions them to defy the authorities in the most direct manner imaginable, “Go,” says the angel, “stand and speak in the temple,” right where you were arrested guys, I’m letting you out of jail tonight, by morning when they open that temple gate at sunrise I want you to go in there and I want you to stand exactly where you were standing yesterday when you were arrested and I want you to be teaching exactly what you were teaching yesterday and do it right under their window. God is going to set a trap because these Christians prayed on the basis of Psalm 2, “I will have them in derision.” So he says go there. And notice what he says, “speak… all the words of this life,” what’s “this life?” Resurrection, what’s the theme of the book of Acts, what’s the witnessing about? The objective historic fact of the resurrection; the life of immortality, the life of eternity is now available because of the resurrection. [tape turns]

You know, you can really blow the mind of this mob, tell them that I came to jail, you guys got out by an angel, give your testimony, share what the angel did for you, tell them all that nice feeling that you had, I was sacked out in cell number four in last night and all of a sudden there was a rattle on my door and I looked and here was this angel and he got me out of the jail and here I am folks and here’s my glowing testimony. No emphasis on that; the emphasis is upon the resurrection.

All right, verse 21, implicit obedience. I imagine they were afraid, probably very much afraid of this situation because they were in a situation they could be arrested or killed but, “when they heard that,” when they heard the angel, when they heard that order, “they entered into the temple” it says “earliest in the morning, [and taught,]” that means the earliest time they could possibly get in, the first thing they did was go back and defy the government by continuing to teach the Word. [22] “But the high priest came,” now here’s the irony and there’s a split scene here, Luke will join he two scenes but he’s giving you meanwhile back at the ranch kind of thing right in the middle of verse 21; he has us looking first at the scene in that courtyard. He says okay, now that’s where they are, now the scene shifts in the middle of verse 21 to the office building in back of that Solomon’s porch area. The apostles are out here teaching the Word of God, we’ve got the apostles out here, Luke drops them for a minute, and now he says let me take up the scene that’s going on in the office. So “the high priest came, and they that were with him, and called the council together, and all the senate of the children of Israel,” now that’s an unusual word, “the senate of the children of Israel,” and that’s a harping back to Old Testament imagery; “the senate of the children of Israel” is a term that was used in Exodus 12:21 to refer to the nation in 1440 BC at the time of the Passover Exodus. At that time it was “the senate of the children of Israel” that said Yahweh, we trust in the shed blood for our salvation. It goes back to that historic moment when the nation was born into existence by a trust in atonement. It’s a key term.

So Luke, to describe the Sanhedrin adds the comma there, “and all the senate of the children of Israel” is really appositional with “the counsel together.” What he’s saying is this counsel, a counsel that in AD 30 is performing the same function as that same counsel did in 1440 BC centuries and centuries ago, as that first counsel made that fateful decision to put their trust in Jehovah and His atoning work, so now observe; this counsel rejects Jehovah’s Messiah and watch what’s going to happen. Again, in the light of Psalm 2, the counsel, and the rulers take counsel together to defy God, and I, says Jehovah, will have them in derision. And so they “sent to the prison to have them brought.” It’s passive voice, the idea of the passive voice in verse 21, the subject received the action, is that the counsel, these people, the counsel has authority over the apostles. The passive voice emphasizes that; they see themselves as we are in charge. It is our [can't understand word] authority that controls the situation.

Acts 5:22, “But when the officers came, and found them not in the prison, they returned, and told,

[23] Saying, The prison truly found we shut with all safety, and the keepers standing without before the doors: but when we had opened, we found no man within. [24] Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them whereunto this would grow.” Now notice in verse 24 the term “captain of the temple,” now that’s not idle talk. Do you know who the captain of the temple was? He was the commander of the temple police. He would have his detachment of temple police under the authority of the Levites and he was the CO. Now why do you suppose Luke brings the CO into the situation? Because Luke doesn’t bring a very important detail into this conversation. There’s something strangely missing in everything we read from this point to the end of the chapter.

And the thing that’s missing is the whole story of the angel; how come that never came up. How come the apostles never gave testimony to it? In fact, the liberals say that was just stuck in those verses and it just kind of appeared in the history of the book of Acts. Not at all; you see, the CO, the commanding officer of the temple police was extremely concerned because of something else. When he said “they doubted of them whereof this movement was growing,” they were concerned with what? If you were the CO and you had these guys that were the leaders of a revolutionary movement, you had locked them in maximum security, you put your trained police to patrol outside of the cell block, you came down in the morning to the cell block, found your same squad patrolling, up and down, up and down, your trusted men, they were going back and forth and they had everything under control, and you walk in and they’ve disappeared. Now I don’t know about you but I know what I would think if I were CO in that situation: this movement has grown so far I’ve got sympathizers on my patrol, the Christians have begun to infiltrate the temple police. And this is what’s on their mind, you see, it’s unsettling isn’t it, very unsettling, very spooky. They don’t know that it was an angel. It might have been a traitor. And so that’s why at the end of verse 24 we have this very… the word doubt is too mild, in the Greek it just means go into a panic; the whole national leadership is placed in a panic because of this.

And while they’re in this scene of panic, verse 25 “Then came one and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye put in prison are standing in the temple, and teaching the people.” Look you guys, look outside the windows, open the blinds; looking for them? Take a good look, there they are. This is God’s sense of humor, I will have them “in derision.” The Christians had prayed for protection. Did God give them answer to that petition? He sure did, He sent an angel. And now God is going to protect them a secondary way. You see, one way God protects, the supernatural way, the angelic way. Now we’re about to witness another way God operated in history to protect Christians. Verse 26, “Then went the captain with the officers, and began to bring them without violence: for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.” That’s what I taught earlier in the doctrine of civil disobedience. If Christians get a popular sympathy then even the most fierce and most tyrannical of governments have to back off. This is why I have called for, as well as some Christians leaders in other parts of the country have called for demonstrations on the streets against wherever you see a Soviet embassy. We don’t have one in the city of Lubbock but if we had one once a week I would lead a demonstration on the sidewalk in front of it, protesting the Christians that are being persecuted in the jails of Russia. This is what the Jews have done; even the Soviets have to listen to world opinion. So you mold world opinion against the tyrants and you embarrass them. If Christians did that you would see a change in the Soviet policies toward the Church as you have already begun to see change in the Soviet policy toward the Jews. Jews aren’t able to immigrate so the Jews in New York have great, great demonstrations before the U.N., constantly reminding the peoples of the world, here’s what the Soviets and all their Marxism do to human freedom. Where are the Christians? Christians haven’t caught on yet. But here is the manipulation of people in verse 26, the mob protects the Christians against the tyrannical powers of the police.

Acts 5:27, “And when they had brought them, they set them before the council: and the high priest asked them, [28] Saying, Did not we straitly command you that ye should not teach in this name?” The indictment again against the principle of civil disobedience. Now in the middle of verse 28 Luke does one of his little things that he often does in the book of Acts. Luke has a way of complimenting Christians, but Luke always does it by having the enemies of the Christian faith give testimony to the Christian faith. This is a very powerful kind of evidence and so notice what he says in verse 28, “and, behold, ye have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine,” isn’t that a magnificent compliment, “you have filled the city of Jerusalem with your doctrine,” and notice not with your sharing of all of your warm feelings in your depraved heart. That’s not what filled the city of Jerusalem; what filled the city of Jerusalem is doctrine, “you have filled the city of Jerusalem with your doctrine,” your teaching. This population may not all believe your doctrine but they all know it, you’ve made the issue and you’ve made it loud and clear. And then they add at the end of verse 28, and what do you intend to do, indict us for the murder of Jesus, [and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us?.” And that’s exactly what they intend to do.

So in verse 29 Peter responds, still in civil disobedience, see the process is continuing, it’s escalating, “Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men. [30] The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree.” See, God did this, you did that; God did this and you did that, that constant apposition opposing. And notice what it says, “you slew and you hung Him on a tree.” The word “hand on a tree” is a phrase from Deuteronomy 21:22, that refers to capital punishment and it’s saying that you counted Messiah worthy of capital punishment. And this verse is the origin of the Jewish title of Jesus. One of the titles in the Jewish Talmud, they never refer to Jesus by His name, that’s the first thing you always know, but there’s one title they call Him by, “the hanged One.” And this is where it started, the hanged One, the executed One. [31] Him hath God exalted at His right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.” The word “Prince” denotes Jesus in a role that is analogous to Moses and Joshua, that’s how that word is used. You can imagine how that went over. Jesus, God has made into a second Moses, implication being there’s going to be a second body being formed here shortly. “…and a Savior,” now what does a savior do? Save, but from what? From sin? Indirectly. Let’s think about it for a minute, does Jesus save us from our sins, as such? Not ultimately; what does Jesus save us from? The wrath of God against the sin, that’s what Jesus saves us from. It’s not just saving from sin, it’s saving from God’s judgment against it. And so the implication by using the word “Savior” in verse 31 is the final judgment is coming upon you Israel, and He’s going to give you two things, not one, two things, not just forgiveness of sins but repentance. Notice two very interesting theological points in verse 31, that Jesus gives the repentance as well as the forgiveness of sins.

Acts 5:32, “And we are his witnesses of these things; and so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey Him.” That is the inner testimony of the Holy Spirit, that is the answer to some of you who Wednesday night asked the question, what about this business of doubting my salvation; you know it says that many, “many shall say to me in that day, Lord, didn’t we cast out demons in Thy name, didn’t we teach in the name of Jesus Christ, and yet I’m going to profess I never once knew you.” Well, how can you tell whether you’re a Christian or not? Because there’ll be the inter testimony of the Holy Spirit, Romans 8:16, the Holy Spirit gives you that confidence. These people are going to be deceived, but they never had indwelling Holy Spirit to give them that quiet confidence. If you don’t have that quiet confidence maybe you’d better examine the Scriptures again and see for sure.

In verse 33 we have the result of this entire episode. “When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.” That was not a capital offense that they’re being convicted of; that what you see in verse 33 is subjectivism in the court room. I hope that all of you will not shy away from your citizenship obligations; when you get jury duty to go sit on the jury. If you have Bible doctrine you will be one of the few people who sit on the jury who can make a decision. When jury duty comes a lot of Christians like to flake out. Well here the jury, if you can call it that, became very emotional and they wanted to murder, and you see obviously the hatred developing against the early Christians.

In Acts 34-39 we have in this extended passage one of the very famous men by the name of Gamaliel; Gamaliel was know in history outside of the Bible and here’s one of those points where Acts touches on verifiable history. Gamaliel, accent on the “ma”, Gamaliel was the professor, the leading theological professor of the day and guess who he taught, and guess who one of Gamaliel’s student, his top honor student was? The apostle Paul and here is probably how Luke knew what went on inside the Sanhedrin. The apostles are going to get thrown out of the room and you wonder, well how did Luke know all this was going on? He probably got it from Paul, probably Paul heard many times his professor telling him about what went on in those days. So

[34, “Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee, named] Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, had in reputation among all the people,” he obviously did, “and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space; [35] And said unto them, Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what ye intend to do as touching these men.” Now here’s a good liberal who’s honest. He disagrees with the Christians but he’s willing to give the Christians a fair shake. And he recognizes subjectivism when he sees it. He says you watch it, you people are going to murder these people and if you do you’re going to be in some bad shape, because verse 36 shows you why Gamaliel was an objective thinker and not a subjective idiot. In verse 36 he cites history. What does he say?

[36] “For before these days rose up Theudas,” this happened in about 7 BC, “boasting himself to be somebody; to whom a number of men, about four hundred, joined themselves: who was slain; [and all, as many as obeyed him, were scattered, and brought to nought.] The movement fell. In verse 37 he cites the movement of Judas, that date is 5 BC, and he describes how he perished and his movement was dispersed. [“After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing, and drew away much people after him: he also perished; and all, even as many as obeyed him, were dispersed.] “And now I say unto you,” verse 38, “Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nothing: [39] But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.” Now Gamaliel was an objective thinker because when he thought in terms of present situations what did he do? He thought in terms of history; he referred back to what happened in the past and this became a criterion of judgment.

And verse 38-39 as Gamaliel ends his plea he comes out with an argument that the apostle Luke repeats. I’d like to think, but I can’t prove it, I’d like to think that Luke picked this up from Paul. Paul in turn had picked this argumentation up from Gamaliel and one day Luke and Paul were probably discussing this book and Luke said say Paul, what do you think ought to be the structure of my book? What do you think ought t be the major plot of the thing. And Paul said well Luke, since we’ve got to appeal to a hostile culture of our time, why don’t you do what Gamaliel did? Why don’t make the backbone of your book, your most potent argument, the fact that the Christian movement was unstopped at every point; it was unable to be stopped. Luke apparently took Paul’s advice if that’s the way it went. Turn to the last book of Acts and watch how he ended the book. Paul, in the middle of Caesar’s household, Acts 28:31, “Preaching the kingdom of God, and teaching those things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ, with all confidence, no man forbidding him.” “No man” forbidding you Paul? No man forbidding! But Paul, you’re in Caesar’s household, all the power of almighty Rome. “No man forbade him.” Why? It was of God and it couldn’t be stopped. That’s the argument that Luke uses again and again.

Let’s finish, the apostles are beaten, thirty-nine stripes each one, [40 “And to him they agreed: and when they had called the apostles, and beaten them,] they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus, [and let them go.]” So therefore they again defy the state. [41] And they departed from the presence of the council,” and notice what they do, “rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the sake of the name of Christ,” and just that we not stop without getting the final point that Luke wants to make with us, notice how he writes verse 42. Compare verse 42 with verse 40, look at the end of verse 40. What had the state authorities said? Do not speak in the name of Jesus. What happens in verse 42? “And daily in the temple, and in every house, they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.” Get the idea of civil disobedience? You bet. You see, the whole birth of the Church was born amidst a struggle with power and the principalities and the powers of this world loved the fourth divine institution, they can manipulate it, and we can always apply this in our own thoughts; watch out for that fourth divine institution.

Let’s summarize by making one application to us personally as believers. We live in a relatively peaceful era. Once you have studied the book of Acts and you have read along with us and listened and maybe taken in some of what happened in the past history I hope now you’ll say to yourself something like this: well, I’m an American Christian and I live in a time of freedom but if the book of Acts is really correct and this is kind of the norm and standard of how church history is going to be, we live in an unusual period of history; what we see and experience as Christians is unusual and it may come rapidly to a close. Most of your brothers and sisters over the centuries have not enjoyed your privilege; most of them have had to pay a bigger price than any of us have ever had to pay for the sake of our faith in Christ; much more of a price. This may not continue, this abnormal period of friendliness and therefore we ought to say to ourselves, how would I live if I had to live in this kind of an environment, where I could never tell whether the next night the police would come knocking on my door, I hear you’re a follower of Jesus, come here, we take your property, we take your loved ones, it’s all gone… all gone in an instant, everything you worked for, the years and years of money that you set aside in investment, the years and years of struggle that you did to get your property operational, to get your property up to a standard, all the resources that you had goes down the drain in one night, all because of one thing; you can get it all back if you just renounce Christ, that’s all, very simple. You could even be a nominal Christian and get all your property back. Do you have the faith so that you could face that kind of a situation and if you do, then we ought to have a certain priority. It doesn’t mean give our property away, we’re not talking about giving, we’re talking about an attitude to what we do have. Play it cool, play it semi-detached, tomorrow you can lose it all. That’s what these Christians did; this is the norm of church history. Let our joy be in Christ and in Christ alone and not just in our holdings and our property.