Learn to Love the Battle.
Acts 5:33-42
We are all living in a
battle. Some of us are fatigued, weary. Some are weary and some are full of
energy in the battle, it just depends on what your battle is and how you are
facing it. Fatigue and weariness often becomes as much a test in the battle as
the battle itself and we have to learn to love the battle. In saying that, the
first part is learning to love the battle. We don’t just love the battle.
It is not just about loving the battle for the battle’s
sake. We are learning to love the battle because of what the end game is and
what comes with victory. But we are in a battle and Ephesians 6:12, 13 talks
about this: NASB “For our struggle is not against
flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world
forces of this darkness, against the spiritual {forces} of wickedness in the
heavenly {places.} Therefore, take up the full armor
of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done
everything, to stand firm.”
The battle is sometimes in overt,
sometimes covert. Some times we are attacked specifically because we are
standing up to the Christians faith, standing up for the truth; and sometimes
the battle is more covert and it is just because we are living in a fallen world
and Satan’s fallen system and therefore we are going to come under opposition, adversity,
testing just because we are in the devil’s world.
Jesus addresses the overt aspect in John
15:18-21 NASB “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before {it hated} you….”
That indicates not just the cosmic system but the people in the cosmic
system, and because you are a Christian—and sometimes whether a person realizes
we are a Christian or not—there is just something about what we stand for that
makes us a target. “If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but
because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of
this the world hates you.” The is the universal principle: because we are out of the
world the world system will hate us—even if we are a carnal believer. If
we are a believer the world is going to hate us at some point, we cannot escape
the battle. We are in a spiritual battle and we are facing spiritual enemies
that are not the overt enemies that we think in terms of people in specific circumstances.
“Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than
his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will also persecute you…” In other words, if they are committed to the world’s
system and you are following Me there is going to be
persecution—maybe passive, or it may be more overt and active. “…if they kept My word, they will keep yours also. But
all these things they will do to you for My name’s
sake, because they do not know the One who sent Me.” That is a critical
statement: “for My name’s sake.” We must understand
that the issue in the battle is the glory of God and that the mission that
Jesus Christ has given us is fulfilled.
Then in John 16:33 NASB “These
things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you
have tribulation [adversity], but take courage; I have overcome the world.” Not
long after Jesus had spoken these words (this was the night that He was
arrested; He was on His way to Gethsemane,
and He was telling His disciples that they were going to come under opposition
and overt persecution from the world) Jesus was going to be arrested and the
disciples just ran and hid. They are just scared to death with the fear of
persecution. They just become the poster children for spiritual cowardice. Yet
three days later when Jesus is raised from the dead they become the poster
children for courage. That is a great evidence that something more than just a
psychological shot in the arm happened on resurrection Sunday: that what they
saw was something more than just an apparition, more than the result of a spiritual
pep talk, but that they saw something that was so profound, so real, so
life-changing because of what it truly was, i.e. someone who had died and was
brought from the grave and was now before them in His resurrection body, that
all of them were radically changed in terms of their mental attitude and their courage. They
understood now why the battle was being fought. They had a clear picture of the
end game; they understood where things were headed; there was an experiential reality
now to what they had been taught that completely changed and refocussed their entire
mental attitude. We see and example of that here in Acts chapter five in this
second trial.
Acts 5:33 NASB “But when they heard this, they were
cut to the quick and intended to kill them.” We heard this same
kind of language earlier as they reacted to Jesus’ teaching. We saw the
Pharisees, the scribes and the chief priests begin to plot among themselves as
to how they could kill Jesus. Now we are getting a repetition of that pattern. The
words “they were cut to the quick” is a translation of the Greek diaprio [diapriw] which Has as a literal
meaning, to saw something in two. It is used in 1 Chronicles 20:3 to describe
the sawing in half of a prophet. In the New Testament it is used with a
metaphorical sense and is applied as becoming angry, to cut to the quick, and
the reaction to that. The idea is that they become enraged, they respond in a
purely emotional way. They have been convicted emotionally; they know they are
wrong, and yet they refuse in arrogance to admit that they are wrong. We see
something happen in this verse 33 that is a really interesting shift taking
place and it foreshadows a division among the Sanhedrin that will be exploited
more and more by the apostle Paul as we go through the rest of Acts.
Acts 5:34 NASB “But a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the Law, respected
by all the people, stood up in the Council and gave orders to put the men
outside for a short time.” In the Council there were basically two
groups. It was dominated by the Sadducees but there were also members of the
Pharisee party. Among the Pharisees and the Pharisees there was a great
disagreement theologically. The Sadducees were aristocrats and had a more liberal
view of theology. They did not believe in resurrection, in angels; they believed
that only the first five books of the Old Testament were authoritative. They
undercut the authority of Scripture and were not very different from liberals
today who question the accuracy of the text, who are sceptical that the Bible
is what it claims to be: which is the Word of God. The reason people reject the
validation and verification of Scripture is because they have already made a
decision in their own souls that they don’t want to have anything to do with
God. This is what Paul describes in Romans chapter one that even with the
evidence that God has provided there are those who are suppressing the truth of
God in unrighteousness.
But the Pharisees were not a whole lot
better. When we look at the New Testament we see the Pharisees as a somewhat
powerful movement. But when we look at the culture that existed in Judea and Galilee in the first
century they weren’t that powerful. There were approximately three million Jews
living in Judea
and in Galilee
during this time but there were also Greco-Roman cities that existed in that
area and they were secular. The Jewish culture began to be Hellenized. The
judgment of AD
70 wasn’t just because of the rejection of Jesus as Messiah. They had basically
rejected God.
Today we have people who have sold out to
the culture. They have a veneer of going to church and being a Christian that
is enough to satisfy them and they deceive themselves in to thinking that is
okay, they are Christians, they are going to X-Y-Z church. It is nothing more
than a secular psychology wrapped up in Christian garb and being promoted from the
pulpit. It is not biblical Christianity. But this is nothing new; it has
happened down through the centuries and is a part of the battle. It is part of
the battle that occurs in people’s souls. They have to decide what they are
committed to. Do they really want to know the truth? Are they willing to
discover the truth and to find the truth? Or do they just want to find
something that seems to make things work for them right now?
This was something the Pharisees reacted
to initially and they tried to take a stand and call the people back to a Torah
standard. The problem was that as time went by they began to codify that Torah
standard in an additional 10,000+ commandments and became locked
down in to an overt form of legalism that had a righteousness that was the
result of obedience to their traditions.
Gamaliel
was considered to be one of the foremost rabbis in this period of history. He
was the president of the Council of the Sanhedrin and was the apostle Paul’s teacher and mentor. He died eighteen years
before the destruction of Jerusalem.
When he stands in the Sanhedrin we see that he is highly respected and people
listen to him. Acts 5:35 NASB “And he said to
them, ‘Men of Israel, take care what you propose to do with these men.’”
He offers wise council. The question comes up: How would Luke know about this? Probably
because Paul was there—Saul of Tarsus—and Luke learned this from him.
Then he reminds them that there had been
other false Messiahs who had come up. Acts 5:36 “For some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a group of
about four hundred men joined up with him. But he was killed, and all who
followed him were dispersed and came to nothing.” According to
Josephus in his Antiquities that there was a Theudas
who rose up in the forties, in the fifth or sixth year of Claudius: “… a
certain magician whose name was Theudas persuaded a great
part of the people to take their effects with them and follow him to the river
Jordan where he told them he was a prophet and by his own command would divide
the river and afford them an easy passage over it, and many were deluded by his
words. However, Fadus would not permit them to make
any advantage of his wild attempt and sent a troop of horsemen out against them;
who falling upon them unexpectedly, slew many of them, and took many of them
alive. They also took Theudas alive, and cut off his
head, and carried it to Jerusalem.
That was what befell the Jews in the time of Cuspias Fadus’s government.” This sounds similar to Gamaliel’s description of Theudas.
But Gamaliel locates this (v. 37) as being before Judas
of Galilee rising up in the days of the census. That puts it back to about 4 AD.
So if that is referring to the Theudas before Judas
of Galilee then that is forty years earlier than the Theudas
that Josephus mentions. So liberal scholars say Josephus was right and Luke was
wrong. But maybe neither one of them are wrong. Let’s
assume that these writers of the ancient world know something about the truth
and historical sources. The assumption that underlies a lot of liberal
scholarship today is that they have scholars who think that we living 2000 years
later know a lot more about what actually happened than those people did, and that
is just the height of arrogance. It is very likely, because there was a large number of these pseudo-messiahs, revolutionaries
that came along in the early part of the first century, that this Theudas that Gamaliel describes
is much earlier and a different Theudas than the one
who shows up in 40, and there is not just one person by this particular name.
Acts 5:37 NASB “After this man,
Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away {some} people
after him; he too perished, and all those who followed him were scattered.”
So what Gamaliel is saying is: We have had these
kinds of people come along before and it doesn’t amount to anything. [38] “So
in the present case, I say to you, stay away from these men and let them alone,
for if this plan or action is of men, it will be overthrown; [39]
but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them; or else you may
even be found fighting against God.” But Gamaliel
doesn’t test the evidence of the resurrection, he doesn’t consider the
truthfulness of the claims of Peter and the apostles that Christ was raised
from the dead, how doesn’t look at the validity of the signs and wonders
performed by the apostles; he just wants to calm things down a little bit and
not cause more of a disruption.
Acts 5:40 NASB “They took his
advice; and after calling the apostles in, they flogged them and ordered them
not to speak in the name of Jesus, and {then} released them.” This
is simply an overt persecution on Christians to discourage them from pursuing
victory in their Christian life and fulfilling everything that Christ had told
them to do. So we see their reaction to this in vv. 41, 42 “So they went on
their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been
considered worthy to suffer shame for {His} name. And every day,
in the temple and from house to house, they kept right on teaching and
preaching Jesus {as} the Christ.” They were rejoicing. So instead of
discouraging them this just motivates them. This is how suffering or adversity
is to impact the Christian. We have to learn to love the battle. When we engage
in the battle it is not to discourage and to come back beaten and defeated and
saying how can we win? When we engage in the battle it is supposed to cause us
to say: Wow, this is great because it gives me an opportunity to glorify God in
the Battle.
So they ate motivated, stimulated, and it pushes them forward. And that is how
we should respond. This is an opportunity to suffer in the cause of the gospel,
whether it is overt or covert in terms of the battle with the world system, and
it just gives me a further opportunity to glorify God in the battle whatever
the opposition is and not let it discourage me and drag me down.
This had a consequence because the people
were so changed by their response to adversity this became evident in terms of
their witness: “every day, in the temple and from house to house, they kept
right on teaching and preaching Jesus {as} the Christ.” What happened is that
we see in the first verse of the sixth chapter. “Now at this time while the
disciples were increasing {in number…” So the church continues to increase in
its growth. They begin to face another problem and that is organizational and
administrative problems within the congregation.