Prayer When Facing
Opposition. Acts 4:25-28
Now
they are going to lay the fouhndation for the petition that they are going to
make in verse 29. This foundation is going to come from Psalm 2. Acts
We need to think about the mechanics of how we
received the Scriptures. There are several different views that we will hear
about how we got the Bible. There is what we would refer to as the liberal
man-centered views of how we got the Bible. There are those who in the most
extreme form created a religious hoax: people who got together on a sort of
religious power trip and decided to write down certain things, and knowingly
made things up as they were attempting to develop a new religion. Then there
are others who believed that the writers were godly men but they were just
writing their own experiences with God and so there are still errors within the
Scriptures. Others will says that it is just basically history and that that
doesn’t mean they are accurate, they have just been editorialized in terms of
religion; but that is not what the Bible claims for itself. The Bible claims
for itself, both the Hebrew Old Testament and the New Testament, that this is
the very words of God that were given in some way to the writers of Scripture
so that what they wrote was without error.
There were over forty different writers of Scripture
over a period of time from 1400 BC all the way up to
the last book of the New Testament in about 95 AD. So over a period of about 1500 years
there were forty different people writing about some of the most controversial
topics and issues in all of human history and they don’t contradict each other.
There are times when people say there seems to be differences between this and
this but when the original languages are consulted and proper work is done it
is usually pretty easily explained why there is an apparent contradiction. But
throughout the Scriptures we have the statement that the origin of this
material is from God. For example, in the Old Testament there are over 840
statements of “Thus said the Lord,” or “So the Lord said,” making the statement
that what is said comes from the Lord. Beyond that there are statements within
the Mosaic Law that are tests for a prophet, and if they failed those tests it was a capital offense and they were
to be executed if they were a false prophet.
Question: How did this happen? We don’t know all of
the different ways in which God worked through the writers of Scripture but we
know that some Scripture was almost dictated by God. For example, much of the
Mosaic Law from the Ten Commandments to all the different ordinances in Exodus
from chapters 20-40, some of the different ordinances that are listed in terms
of the Levitical offerings, are all stated as directly coming from God. God
spoke to Moses and Moses wrote it down. But that doesn’t cover all of
Scripture. There are times when the writers of Scripture clearly used
historical sources; they did research. “These are the generations of” in
Genesis, which should be understood as “these are the records of” or “this is
what happened to.” These indicate that there were from the time of Adam records
kept that were passed on and preserved from generation to generation. Then when
Moses wrote Genesis he used that. The Holy Spirit oversaw the process, working
through him so that it is not dictation, so that what Moses wrote was protected
from error and was exactly what God wanted to have written.
There is a scene in our passage where we have the two
statements: “who by the Holy Spirit,” using the Greek preposition dia [dia], indicating intermediate means (by or
through), and then “from the mouth of our father David”—genitive there, no
repetition of a preposition; that indicates it is the ultimately the Holy
Spirit who is working through or is the source of “the mouth of our father
David.” There is the same kind of statement in Acts 28:25 NASB
“…“The Holy Spirit rightly spoke through Isaiah the prophet to your fathers.”
Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, speaking of the importance of the Word said, NASB
“It is written, ‘MAN SHALL NOT LIVE
ON BREAD ALONE, BUT ON EVERY WORD THAT PROCEEDS OUT OF THE MOUTH OF GOD.’” Bread is a
reference to the manna that God provided for the Israelites when they were in
the wilderness. It is not just that God provides physical sustenance but that
ultimately what is important is the spiritual sustenance which comes from the
mouth of God, that which has been inspired, what God has breathed out in
Scripture.
The two most important passages in the New Testament
on the mechanics of how inspiration took place. In 2 Timothy 3:16, the phrase
“all Scripture.” It doesn’t say “some Scripture.” In context what Paul
primarily has in mind is the Old Testament. When Timothy was growing up there
was no New Testament and he was trained by his mother and his grandmother in
the Old Testament Scriptures. That doesn’t exclude the New Testament. The
concept of “spiration” is the concept of breathing; it is a cognate of the word
“spirit” or “breath.” “Inspiration” has to do with something that is breathed
in. The Greek word used here is theopneustos
[qeopneustoj], which means
God-breathed. God is the one who is performing the action of breathing
something out, and the picture is that God exhales the content of Scripture and
it goes in through the writer of the Scripture, and then he exhales it onto the
paper as he writes under the guidance and direction of the Holy Spirit. 2
Timothy 3:16 also teaches us the sufficiency of Scripture; it is all that is
needed in order to fully equip us for every issue in life.
That verse tells us the fact of inspiration, it
doesn’t tell us the how (mechanics) of inspiration. This is left to 2 Peter
1:20, 21. For the purpose of context, in verse 19 Peter writes NASB
“{So} we have the prophetic word {made} more sure, to which you do well to pay
attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the
morning star arises in your hearts.” Primarily he is talking about the Hebrew
Scriptures, the Old Testament. [20] “But know this first of all, that no
prophecy of Scripture is {a matter} of one’s own interpretation.” When we see
that word “interpretation” we tend to think of what the
pastor/teacher/instructor is doing in explaining the word. But that is not the
focal point here; it is more on what the writer is writing down. [21] “for no
prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy
Spirit spoke from God.” Prophecy doesn’t originate because somebody deems
himself to be a religious leader. There were many people like that in the Old
Testament (false prophets) which is why God gave the two tests for evaluating
what they said. The phrase “moved by the Holy Spirit” is the key for
understanding how the Holy Spirit works.
In verse 20 “But know this first of all, that no
prophecy of Scripture is…” “Is” is an important word; it is called an
existential verb, which means it has to do with something being in existence or
coming into existence. In Greek, as in English, we have the word “is” or
“being,” which implies something that is existing or continues to exist. Then
we have the word “became” which implies something that wasn’t existing that
comes into existence. For example, in John chapter 1 John says, “In the
beginning was the Word,” and uses eimi
[e)imi], the Greek verb
for “is.” But then in the English we have, “There was a man named John.” But
the word “was” isn’t a translation of the same verb; it is ginomai [ginomai]. “there came in to existence a man named
John.” In the first three verses John is talking about the eternal, always
existing Logos, the Son of God, Jesus Christ. Then in contrast to the one who
always is/was there is John the Baptist who comes into existence. So the idea
here is it is not eimi for any
private interpretation, it has the idea of something coming into existence,
something that is created, something that is brought into existence. So we can
translate this, “no prophecy of Scripture comes into existence by one’s own
explanation.” He states this as a gnomic or universal principle. The Greek word
for “interpretation” is epilusis [e)pilusij], meaning explanation or interpretation. The
word “own” is the Greek word idios
[i)dioj] which originally
meant something which was owned, and it eventually took on the tones of
describing narcicism, somebody who was extremely self-absorbed, until
eventually as it moved over into English it picked up the idea of somebody who
is just an idiot. So he is saying that the prophets didn’t generate this out of
their own thinking.
[21] “for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human
will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.” The word “moved” here
is a present passive participle of phero
[ferw], which means to
bring or to carry something from one place to another. We understand the
significance of this word when we look at a passage in Acts when Paul was on a
sailing ship on his way to Rome. The word is used in Acts 27:15, 17 just as we
talk about a sailing vessel being on a certain bearing or course—that similar
idea. The ship ran into a terrible storm and the winds were so strong that the
sailors couldn’t guide the ship and so it was moved along by these powerful
winds completely out of control, and it was going to go wherever the winds blew
it. That is the idea here: the real control over these men who were writing
Scripture was the Holy Spirit who was the driving force behind what they were
writing. So as the Holy Spirit moved them and directed them they wrote what
they ought to have written.
The first thing we see in understanding the prayer in Acts
4:25 is that the verses they are quoting come from the Holy Spirit. Having said
that they go to a passage in Scripture: Psalm 2.
Psalm 2:1 NASB
“Why are the nations in an uproar And the peoples devising a vain thing?” Notice
there is no superscript here. But Acts chapter four says that this was given
through the mouth of David, so we know that this is a Davidic psalm.
Acts 4:26 NASB “THE KINGS OF THE EARTH TOOK THEIR STAND, AND THE
RULERS WERE GATHERED TOGETHER AGAINST THE LORD AND AGAINST HIS CHRIST.” When we turn to
Psalm 2 we ought to understand it in its original context. Remember, there is only one single meaning of Scripture. David
wrote this and he intended only one thing. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit
the dual authors of Scripture intended to communicate one idea. Now there may be
one interpretation but there may be a lot of different application. There are
different ways in which we deal with applications. But we have to be very
careful about how we interpret passages. When Psalm 2 was written it was
written as a messianic prophecy. It is used numerous times in the New
Testament, not only here in Acts 4:25, 26 but also in 13:33; Hebrews 1:5; 5:5;
Revelation 2:27; 12:5; 19:15. This, along with Psalm 110, is one of the most
quoted Old Testament passages in the New Testament.
Psalm 2:2 NASB “The kings of the earth take
their stand And the rulers take counsel together Against the LORD and against His Anointed, saying, [3] ‘Let
us tear their fetters apart And cast away their cords from us!’” These first three
verses are a description of the mentality of the nations, the Gentiles, the
people of the earth. And in this sense when we get into the second clause, the
people imagining a vain thing, the word there for people takes the meaning
beyond the Gentile distinction and includes the Jewish people. They are
pursuing an activity that is unprofitable. The kings of the earth “entrench
themselves” is the idea there—hithpael stem (reflexive) and it means they
caused themselves to be entrenched in this position: no matter what happens we
are not going to accept God; we are set against Him. They conspire together
against Yahweh and against His Mashiach, the word for Messiah. There
are two personages here. We have the issue again of the authority of God and
human rebellion, rejecting who God is.
Revelation
6:15-17 NASB “Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the
commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid
themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to
the mountains and to the rocks, ‘Fall on us and hide us from the presence of
Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day
of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?’” They recognize that the
wrath of the Lamb has come. This is the raging that is prophesied in Psalm 2.
The kings of the earth are referred to again later in
Revelation 16:13, 14 NASB “And I saw {coming} out of the mouth of
the dragon and out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false
prophet, three unclean spirits like frogs; for they are spirits of demons,
performing signs, which go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them
together for the war of the great day of God, the Almighty.”
To understand these Revelation passages we have to go
back to Psalm 2 and understand that this is the unification of the leaders of
the human kingdoms and nations against God.
In the next three verses we see God’s response to the
human rulers who are in rebellion against Him. Psalm 2:4 NASB “He who sits in the heavens laughs, The
Lord scoffs at them.” He scoffs at them in derision; God is not politically
correct, He has no respect for leaders who are wrong, leaders who are out of
line. [5] “Then He will speak to them in His anger And terrify them in His
fury, saying, [6] ‘But as for Me, I have installed My King Upon Zion, My holy mountain.’”
This is when the Messsiah is depicted in Zechariah 10 and 11 when He returns to
the earth at the Mount of Olives and to Jerusalem. David is looking into the
future, looking ahead to the time when the Messiah will come to establish His kingdom
and God says, “I have set Him on my holy hill of Zion [Jerusalem].”
Psalm 2:7 NASB “I will surely tell of the
decree of the LORD: He said to Me,
‘You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” The decree is something that has
been made prior to this time, prior to Genesis chapter one, in eternity past. Who
is the “Me”? He is the Messiah. The LORD refers to God the
Father. The decree was: “You are My Son, Today I have begotten You.” So in
eternity past the Son is decreed as the Son. That is the relationship between
these two members of the Trinity. “I have begotten You” – the sense there in the
Hebrew is the realization of this decree that has been from all of eternity. [8]
“Ask of Me, and I will surely give the nations as Your inheritance, And the
{very} ends of the earth as Your possession.” When does that occur? That is
when in Revelation chapter five the Lamb comes forward to take the scroll from
the one who sits on the throne and that scroll is the title deed for His
kingdom on the planet. The seven years of Tribulation is the judgment that God
brings upon the earth, just as He did upon Egypt in the Exodus period, so that
that the earth will be cleansed of the rebels against God, and then the Messiah
establishes His kingdom. [9] “You shall break them with a rod of iron, You
shall shatter them like earthenware.”
The question is: Why do they quote this in the prayer
in Acts chapter four? Because that is the situation they are facing. They are
facing an authority conflict where the rulers of Judea (the Sanhedrin) have
ordered them to stop preaching in the name of Jesus and they have to decide
what they are going to do. They recognize that this pattern is the same thing
as is spoken of here. This is an application. Just as in the end of days the nations
will rise up in opposition to the Messiah they are seeing a foreshadowing of
this with the Sanhedrin which sets itself up in opposition against the Messiah.
So they quote this psalm to emphasize to God in their
prayer that His revealed will, based on this psalm, is to put down the attack
of the secular powers, the kings and rulers and religious authorities against
the Messiah. It is the revealed will of God; He is going to put down the
rebels. Ultimately God will have the victory. So in reciting this, in going to
this psalm, they are reminding themselves that God will win. There will be
conflict between the kings of the earth and God until it is resolved at the
battle of Armageddon, and this gives them a sense of confidence in God’s
control over the situation.
AS they come to the conclusion here they recognize
that in this time period in history there is going to be this ongoing conflict.
They state the first two verses from Psalm 2 and then they say in Acts 4:27 NASB
“For truly in this city there were gathered together against Your holy servant
Jesus, whom You anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the
Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, [28] to do whatever Your hand and Your
purpose predestined to occur.” Notice in verse 26, which quotes Psalm 2, that
the rulers are “gathered together.” So they are making application using the same
verbiage. They understand, though, that there is ongoing suffering in this
church age until the termination of this conflict.