Fighting Against God
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
The fourth chapter of Acts continues the account of the third chapter, bringing to a climax the healing of the lame man. The rulers and elders and scribes were not pleased at the course of events since the ascension of Christ. The more the power of the Risen Christ was made manifest, and the more that His Name was preached, the more was the villainy of their crucifixion of Christ made manifest.
The rulers and scribes and elders were walking on thin ground. They felt that God was vindicating His holy Name, in that He had raised up Jesus, and had seated Him at His own right hand in the heavens. There was no place for these religious leaders to combat the fact that Christ was risen indeed. The populace was convinced that the Apostles gave a true witness. The leaders themselves knew that these things were so. The resurrection was established by proofs so infallible that thousands were flocking to the standards of the new faith.
How the rulers and scribes and elders must have trembled, as they saw the sweep and sway of Christ's power. They felt that every miracle wrought and that every testimony given, added proof to their own perfidy. They had taken and with wicked hands had crucified and slain the hope of Israel. His blood was upon their heads. They cringed, conscience-stricken, before each new manifestation of God's mighty power. They knew that their doom was hastening on. Therefore they set about, if by any means they could stem the tide. To be sure they were fighting against God, and they knew it; yet, Pharaoh-like, they hardened their heart and pressed on in their maddened way.
One would have thought that they would have acknowledged their sin and confessed the Lord. Not they. Satan had them entwined in a system of religious demagoguery that would not let them go. Their hearts were hardened in pride; their minds were blinded by prejudice. They knew that their honor, their livelihood, their worldly all was at stake. These are the things that men will not readily surrender.
I. THE RULERS WERE GRIEVED AT THE APOSTLES (Acts 4:1-2)
What a strange combination of forces The priests, the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees all of these joined hands against a common foe. They who were enemies became friends to fight the Truth. There is but one conclusion, whether Sadducee or Pharisee, or Herodian, each was wrong; each was against Christ.
Saddest of all, the ones who sat in Moses' seat and were teachers of the Law, denied the essence of what Moses taught, and set at nought the One who came to fulfil the Law. They were blind guides yet they were set to guide the blind; they were darkness, yet they were set to be a light for those who wandered in darkness; they were foolish, yet they were set to teach wisdom to the foolish.
How sad it is, when those to whom God gives the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, shut up the way to Heaven; when those who make long prayers are hinderers of prayer; when those who pose as zealots leading men to Heaven, make the ones they lead, twofold more the children of hell.
It has always been so the greatest foes to Truth are those who profess to defend the Truth. Our own day is not foreign to this very condition. Men who deny the very Lord who bought them have crept in unawares. They are feasting with us, feasting without fear. They have gone in the way of Cain, yet they eat with Abel; they have run greedily after the error of Balaam, yet they sit in the councils of Israel; they have entered into the gainsaying of Core, yet they press fellowship with Moses. Such men are spots in our feasts.
No wonder that the hypocrites were grieved at the word and work of the Apostles. They did not want the resurrection of Christ preached because His resurrection meant their own utter undoing; His resurrection was proof of their own sin; His resurrection certified that their own judgment was hastening on.
To the Sadducees the resurrection of Christ was especially grievous, because the Sadducees taught that there was no resurrection, neither angel, nor spirit. With Christ risen the resurrection of saints was established. The Sadducees were ready to fight anything that spoiled their creed. When Truth drew his sword, they were ready to fight. The Sadducees held their creed as supreme. Before their creed even the Risen Christ of God was condemned to fall.
We tremble lest this same spirit of religious and creedal intolerance should sway many today; particularly those who hold to a form of godliness, denying the power thereof. Men stand by their creed and deny the Christ. Men place churchanity ahead of Christianity. Men enthrone the authority of "our church," or, "our denomination," and repudiate the authority of the Head of the Church.
If there is a conflict between their creed and the Bible; the creed must survive.
Mark you, with the resurrection of Christ established before their very eyes, the Sadducees were grieved they still held tenaciously that there was no resurrection of the dead.
II. THE RULERS PLACED THE APOSTLES IN PRISON (Acts 4:3)
Satan is ready to pursue any method to withstand the spread of the Truth. Any means that he can invent he will use to hinder the march of the verities of God. Whether foul or fair, it matters nothing Truth must succumb.
Had the priests and the captain of the Temple and the Sadducees been grieved that the Apostles taught error it would have been different. However, they were grieved that they preached through Jesus, the resurrection of the dead. Peter had done a good deed, not a bad one, yet he was under arrest; Peter had preached a good doctrine, and a true doctrine, yet he was placed under bonds.
We are filled with amazement! Men love darkness rather than light; men love error rather than Truth. We recently met a brother who had been a bootlegger, selling and drinking liquor, and all of the time he was kept in full fellowship and in regular standing by his church. Then, grace found him and he was saved. He followed the Lord fully. He was filled with love and preached Christ. Then his church proceeded to take his case in hand and excommunicated him because he proclaimed that Christ was Coming Again, and because he believed in the security of the believer, A travesty on righteousness yes, but a fact.
There are denominations today who will permit what the Bible calls "damnable heresies" to be taught and broadcasted under their very eyes; yet they will isolate or cast out one who dares to proclaim the Truth of the Lord's Return.
In some localities holiness is more dreaded than ungodliness. Church members may dance, and play cards, and be movie mad without receiving a "jar" from the "rulers" in church life; but let a member quietly pass outside the camp and bear the reproach of Christ, let him profess godliness, and walk in scriptural sanctification, then he is at once marked as a speckled bird, and placed under the ban of the church.
It seems that men who hold down the Truth in unrighteousness, men who bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord God who bought them, are welcomed to the highest seats in the synagogue, and placed in the seats of authority; while the men who hold forth the Truth in all purity of purpose and in all power of the Spirit, are segregated, isolated and when possible expurgated.
To preach through Jesus the resurrection of the dead grieves the Sadducees.
III. AMONG THE POPULACE MANY BELIEVED (Acts 4:4)
Acts 4:4 is most refreshing. It reads, "Many of them which heard the Word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand."
The Gospel of God is still the power of God unto everyone that believes. While the rulers were pressing every means to put a quietus on the Word, the Word grew and was multiplied. Five thousand men marked no small increase to the forces for Truth. Pentecost had seen its three thousand. Now five thousand men were added.
Satan and Satan-energized men may use every method at their command, but the Truth goes marching on. No other age has ever witnessed a more strenuous attack from the powers of darkness than our age. The true Church, which is the pillar and the ground of the Truth, is the center of this attack. The evil one has sought from every angle to antagonize the message of God. He has, on the one hand, raised up men to defame the Truth"; on the other hand he has sought to engulf the professing church with a flood of worldliness which vitiates the power of the Truth. In spite of his every effort many are being purified and made white, and the Truth is marching on.
In Peter's day those who believed in Christ were compelled to withdraw from the contemporary religious rulers. It is fast becoming so with us. One thing is certain If going all the way with Christ runs counter to any or to every established ecclesiasticism, then Christ must and should hold unquestioned authority with the truly saved. In all things He must be first. Christianity, with its faith in Christ, has always been a divisive power.
Let us remember, however, that the gospel message attacked, and the gospel ministry opposed, does not mean that the Gospel has lost its power. Although the "rulers" placed Peter and John in prison, yet the five thousand men believed. In the ministry of Paul, the more he was persecuted and the more his message was decried, the more exceedingly did the power of his Gospel prevail. Whole cities were moved, and even the enemy conceded that Paul had turned the world upside down.
All of this makes the words of the Spirit more startling: "Being grieved that they taught the people, and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead" (Acts 4:2).
Why should religious leaders be grieved because Jesus was preached? Why should they be grieved that the resurrection through Him was proclaimed? Why should they be grieved that five thousand men professed faith in Christ? Why? It was because it all cut the rulers to the very heart. Why did it cut them to the heart? It was because Jesus was the One whom they had delivered to Pontius Pilate to be" crucified. His resurrection had established His Deity and made certain His claims, certifying that they had crucified the Lord of Glory. However, that did not matter to them. They knew that they were wrong, yet they insisted that they were right. While all of this was going on about five thousand believed.
IV. A TRAVESTY OF JUDGMENT (Acts 4:5-6)
Here is some interesting reading a reminiscence of Apostolic times. It was before this group of dignitaries that the two disciples were brought.
We have no doubt that the disciples had strange sensations as they faced the very group that had so recently delivered their Lord to be crucified. What could they expect before such a tribunal? The hands of Annas and of Caiaphas and of their colleagues still dripped with the blood of a delivered and crucified Christ. If they had hated Him, the Lord and Master, they would surely not befriend His followers.
Annas and Caiaphas and the rulers also had strange sensations as they faced the disciples. They were tortured by the events of recent weeks. They had heard of the resurrection of Christ with dark forebodings. They had walked daily in fear for their very lives. Pentecost had not lessened their terror. The holy boldness of Peter and John now harassed them the more. The conversion of the three thousand, and now of the five thousand brought only added consternation.
Worst of all, these religious enemies were helpless. They began to realize that they were utterly whipped and un-done. They had slain the Lord, and He had returned alive after His passion. They would not have hesitated to slay His followers, but they feared the populace and they feared, lest, from their graves, a thousand new recruits would spring forth.
What a dilemma! Defeat faced them at every turn. They looked into dark despair. The handwriting on the wall had come. Their sins had found them out. Death and hell hounded their tracks.
Let the scene confront you clearly On the one hand was the tribunal Annas, and Caiaphas and the rulers, trembling for their sins and fear-filled before the sentence of a just God, These were the judges. On the other hand, before them stood the prisoners Peter and John, invigorated by a new and living hope; fired by faith in the infinite God; stirred by the verities of the truth that they preached.
Thus did the trial proceed.
V. THE EXAMINATION OF THE FAITHFUL BY THE FALSE (Acts 4:6)
What could Peter and John expect? If Annas and Caiaphas and the rest of the court accepted the statement that Peter and John made, they would only incriminate themselves, because they had crucified the One whom the Apostles confessed. The disciples knew this. Would it not have been wisdom on their part to have side-stepped the truth? Why say the thing that was sure to create trouble?
We thank God that these men knew no compromise; they had no flags of truce to flaunt; no camouflage to offer. They were ready to pray with their windows open toward Jerusalem, even if they knew their already signed death warrant would thus become immediately enforced.
"Ours is not to reason why;
Ours is but to do, or die."
We thank God for men who have convictions, and who also have the courage to proclaim them. Some may look, for their own gain from their own quarter, but not Peter and John. Some may seek for prestige among the men who hold the reigns of power, but not Peter and John. Some may take the path of least resistance, and walk in the way of self-aggrandizement, but not Peter and John.
Who were Annas and Caiaphas, the two outstanding characters who headed this trial of Peter and of John? They were the rulers of the Jews' religion; they were the supposed supporters of the sacred Scriptures. They were, nevertheless, the men who formulated traditions which were wholly counter to the commandments of God. They were the men who ran the works of Judaistic propaganda. They bound burdens upon men, grievous to be borne. They loved the uppermost rooms at the feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues. They loved to be called of men, "Rabbi, Rabbi." They devoured widow's houses and made for a pretense, a long prayer. They builded the tombs of the Prophets and garnished the sepulchers of the righteous, but, they were, withal, blind pharisees, hypocrites, serpents, and a generation of vipers.
Who are the men before whom some of God's choicest and best preachers are today called to stand? They are the men who deny the only Lord God and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. They are the men who have set themselves against the inerrancy of the inspired Scriptures, against the Virgin Birth, against the Deity of Christ, against our Lord's substitutionary Sacrifice. They are the men who seek leadership in our great denominational bodies; they formulate the burdens that the saints are to bear, and they direct the service that they are asked to render.
VI. PETER AND JOHN MADE PLAIN THEIR CONFESSION OF FAITH (Acts 4:7-12)
They said, "Be it known unto you all" (that is to the rulers), "and to all the people of Israel" (that is to those beyond the bounds of religious headship).
Mark you carefully Peter and John did not start an organization to oust the high priest and his associates. Their testimony was constructive. They sought to undo error by proclaiming truth.
As we have become older and have sought to go more deeply into these things, we have, personally, become the more convinced that error cannot be uprooted, neither is it God's method for us to try to uproot it. Our part is to express modernism, and to strongly and fearlessly contend for the faith. We should preach the faith on the housetops, and proclaim it in the secret cloisters. We should sow the world with the Seed, the Word of God.
Peter and John published their creed. They stated their faith. They stated it in a way that made it potent and uncontrovertible. They did not fail to charge their judges with the crucifixion of Christ. They uncovered their sin. They said, "Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified."
VII. PETER AND JOHN INCLUDED IN THEIR CONFESSION OF FAITH, THE VERY THINGS WHICH WERE MOST ANTAGONIZED BY THEIR CAPTORS
The disciples, stressed that the rulers had crucified the Lord Jesus Christ. This was the message of all messages that human sagacity would have advised the captives to leave unsaid. It was the message that above all messages condemned the rulers before whom they stood.
The disciples insisted that the Stone which had been set at naught by the rulers, had become the chief of the corner. That is, the very one whom they had crucified God had raised up and seated at His own right hand. This statement only made the sin of the rulers more terrible.
The disciples did more than this. They taught that the Christ whom the rulers had crucified, and whom God had exalted, still worked and wrought notable miracles. They said, "By the Name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by Him doth this man stand here before you whole." These words only added more fuel to the fire. They only showed up the horror of the rulers' rejection of Christ the more vividly.
The disciples went still farther. They said that there was no other name under heaven, given among men, where-by men must be saved. The Christ the rulers crucified was Israel's only hope, and the sinner's only salvation. Thus, everything spoken by Peter and John was in direct opposition to those who judged them. What did that matter? Are saints to preach only those things which do not oppose? Are they to seek a common ground with the enemies of Christ? No we must preach combated truth.
Should one sidestep the message of the Lord's Return, because some men, who are reputable leaders, acclaim it a divisive doctrine? For very shame! Paul said, "Looking for that Blessed Hope"! then He added, "These things speak, and exhort * * Let no man despise thee" (Titus 2:13; Titus 2:15).
Shall we get the tenure of our message from soulish men, who have not the Spirit? Shall we cease to preach commanded truth because some one cries, "Wolf"?
Not so did Peter and John. They never apologized for their faith. They preached it where it would be the most unwelcomed, of any quarter on earth. They preached it where it carried fangs; where it cut to the heart. They never swerved from their convictions.
May God give us men who have the courage of Peter and of John. Men who are not for sale. Men who are ready to die for their message. May God give us men with iron in their blood; men filled with love and with the Holy Ghost, but men who will not hold back the Truth.