Acts 5 :12-42

Here we are in Acts chapter 5. You'll remember that we covered the end of chapter 4 and then the first 11 verses of chapter 5 last week, which lands us at verse 12 in chapter 5. Let's go to the Lord just very quickly and just surrender our hearts. Father we come to You and before we dig into the Word this morning, we just humble ourselves before You. And we pray for the ministry and grace of Your Holy Spirit to speak to us at the deepest level. Lord we want to be learners. We want to be receivers. We want to be doers of the Word, and we pray that You'd help us in all of those areas here today. We ask Your guidance through Jesus, our Savior, amen. Amen. All right. We begin here with some… Luke continues giving us some snapshots, I always like these, of what life was like for the early believers. Verse 12, it says,

(ESV) And there are really 2 important things that are told us in that first verse that we're looking at here today. And the first is that there were signs and wonders that marked the daily life of the believers. They were accomplished through the apostles and that gives us some interesting insight, not only to what was happening, but we need to ask ourselves the question, why was it happening? You ever thought about that? Why does God do miracles? We know that when a miracle is accomplished for the purpose of bringing physical, or emotional, or spiritual healing, there's always an expression of God's grace to alleviate human suffering, and that's significant. But there's something more that connects to the why of miracles, and we actually get this in the very last verse of the Gospel of Mark. Let me put this on the screen for you.

From Mark chapter 16. It goes like this, "And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs." And they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by accompanying signs. Isn't that interesting? We see here in the Word that miracles were intended to confirm and to authenticate the message. The message of Jesus Christ, and that's something that we have to be careful not to separate. Don't separate the miracle from the message. The miracle is cool, but the message is really important too. And we can't afford to forget that we're living in a world that is broken and dying, and needs the message of hope that is ours through Jesus. I think there's been times in the past where the body of Christ has begun to seek after miracles for the sake of miracles. We want to see a miracle because we want to see a miracle rather than understanding that the miracle provides that authentication, that validation of the message that you're hearing. The second thing that Luke gives us in this snapshot of life with the early believers is the fact that they were meeting in the temple precincts. He says that they were meeting in this area called, Solomon's Portico, and this is just part of the temple. And I'm sure that some of the reason they were meeting there was because they were growing in numbers and they needed a venue that could handle their burgeoning numbers. But the fact of the matter is, these were Jews, and they felt that it was the most natural thing in the world to continue their faith right there in the temple; Solomon's Temple. And we tend to separate Judaism from Christianity, but the early believers didn't. It was just the continuation of the journey. The journey began with the Law of Moses and it carried on through the prophets and so forth. And then you have Jesus, born within the tribe of Judah and still part of the whole Jewish thing. And to the Jews, there wasn't this separation, there wasn't this difference. They met right there in the temple and talked about Jesus. But, the other thing this tells us is that their meetings were public. They were out in the open, and I like that because we have to remember that our Christian gatherings were never intended to be a secretive club, where it's only just a few people that are on the inside, and do you have the secret handshake to get in the door, whatever. It was never part of Christianity. Our life, our worship, our practice was never meant to be private. It was always meant to be seen by people. Toward that end, I think that live streaming on the internet has actually done more to open up the gospel than perhaps before, because I think some people have been able to tune in to churches like our own here. People who would never darken the door of a church on their own. They just… Maybe they weren't raised in church and just feels uncomfortable or whatever. But they start going through situations in life where they're asking questions and they're thinking about life and death and eternity and stuff. But it's just all kind of uncomfortable to just waltz into a church. And what do you do? I mean, they've never been here before. It's like, what do I wear? I don't even know. Do you have to wear something special? And they don't know, they just don't. How cool is it now that you can kind of tune in on the internet and just watch and see what's going on? It's interesting, over the years, we have gotten dozens of emails from people who have gone through that very scenario. Where they'd never been to a church before, but they started watching online, and they just got hooked on the Word. And then they got hooked on Jesus, and they got saved, and then they write us, and they say, hey, is there a church like that near us? I answered a lady just last night who wrote me from Texas and wanted to know if there was something that… Could I help her find a church near where she lived in Texas. And I did, and I could, and so I wrote her back and yeah. Here it is, go here. How cool is that? Anyway, it's just, what we do is public, our faith is not private. We go on here in verse 13, look with me in your Bible. Kind of a puzzling expression that Luke gives us. He says in verse 13, "None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem." There is some question as to who the rest are and Bible students are somewhat uncertain about it. Who does he mean when he says, "None of the rest dared to join them,…" Is he talking about believers or unbelievers? I'll just tell you that this word in the Greek that is translated, the rest, is often referring to unbelievers, but we don't really know for sure. But regardless of whether It is believers or unbelievers. What this verse seems to tell us is that what we talked about last week; the death of Ananias and Sapphira, it seemed to have a sobering effect on people that some of them didn't even really want to press in to be in that close group with the apostles. And yet, they were held in high esteem, and it didn't stop the growth of the church. Look at verse 14. It says,

How cool is that? Peter's shadow fell on people and they got better. I guess he had an anointed shadow. Where can I get an anointed shadow? We're going to find out later in the Book of Acts that some people even grabbed Paul's sweatband. Yeah, and laid it on the sick, and they got better. Where can I get one of them? Oh, there's some people that will tell you where you can get one of them. They'll send you one in the mail for an offering of, (Pastor Paul motions and describes an unknown amount of) dollars or whatever. Yeah. And that's our tendency, we tend to think of the anointed things rather than what really takes place when people like this get saved. And you know what it is. It's faith. It's faith that makes the difference. It's not an anointed shadow, okay? Or an anointed handkerchief. Or, I remember hearing one preacher, evangelist, whatever, from down south, they all seem to be from down south and talk like that, but he had an anointed hand. I remember him telling about his hand, my hand has the anointing and it was almost like you couldn't control it. I remember the woman, who had that issue of internal bleeding, remember that? And she just wanted to press in to get close to Jesus. Of course, there was a crowd that was in the way, but she just, she said to herself, if I just touch the hem of His garment, I know that I'm going to be healed. So where can I get one of those anointed hems, because I want to sew that on my shirt and walk around so people get healed. No, that's nothing to do with that. It had to do with her faith, her determination, and her belief. I believe that if I just get that close, and of course, the issue again wasn't the hem of His garment. She could have said I believe that if I get within 5 feet of Him. It doesn't matter because it was faith that made the difference and that's the thing we have to remember here. Anyway, it goes on here in verse 16 to say,

This is the snapshot that Luke is giving us, and it's one of excitement, it's one of attention, its activity, and its healings, and restoration. And people talking and it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. But whenever you have this kind of stuff going on, that's exciting and extraordinary, it always attracts attention. And sometimes it even attracts unwanted attention. And that's what's going to happen in this case. Verse 17.

Your Bible may say, common prison. And so here you have all of these wonderful things that are happening. Crowds of people gathering in, coming to the temple. To see the Sadducees? No, they want to see the apostles. They want to see what's going on. They want to be healed. They want to see the power of God in action and so on and so on. And what does it get them? Well, they get arrested and put into prison. But check this out. Verse 19.

All right, I need you to stop there for just a moment. Because not only is this an incredibly cool passage, it's fun to read. Here, these guys get thrown into the slammer and they're cooling their heels, probably wondering how this thing is all going to play out. And suddenly an angel appears there in the prison with them, and he says, come on guys, let's go, we're going to go... And he leads them out, and they get out, and he says, come daybreak, I want you to go back right where you were right there in the temple, and just keep doing what you were doing and keep telling people about the life that is in Christ. All right, sweet But there's more going on here that you got to be careful not to miss. Because you see, it was the Sadducees who came in and this whole thing and they had them arrested and put into the prison, all right. I want you to remember something about the Sadducees, they don't believe in angels. And so what does God do? He sends an angel. I think this is proof God has a sense of humor, right? Yeah. I don't believe in these guys, I don't know, send one anyway, send them down there. And the angel opens the prison doors and brings them out. How incredibly cool is that? And we love to read about it. We're still in verse 21. "Now when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought (out)." Now, I want you to see what's going on here. They're inviting everybody. Anybody who's anybody, they're inviting them to this meeting because they've got the apostles and they've got them right where they want them, or at least they think they do. And so they're inviting all the rest of the Sanhedrin and anybody else who's an elder or has any sort of a position. The rabbis and the scribes and whoever else. We're going to get all these guys together because we've got the apostles. I just want you to know, guys, we've got the apostles. We've got them in custody, and we're going to bring them out, and we're going to talk to them, alright? So you need to be here, this is going to be a very important meeting. Just drop what you're doing and get here. This is vitally important. I love how God just takes the wind out of their sails with this thing. But anyway, it says in verse 22,

Guys, are you picturing this in your mind? They get to the prison and there's all, everything's in order, and the guards are standing there at attention. Doors are locked. All the doors that are supposed to be locked are locked. Guards are there, they're guarding a cell that's empty and they don't know it. And yet they're just there, guarding, right? And the officers show up and they say, we came to get the apostles. All right, no problem. Get the keys, and they get the…, open it up, and the thing is empty. This is just so cool. And it says,

They're right back where they were when you arrested them. And they're doing what they were called to do. It's a cool story. You got to admit, right? I mean, I'd love to make a movie out of this, it's so cool. And we love hearing about deliverance, when the Lord brings deliverance. I love it. We've got other stories of deliverance in the Bible and they're all cool to read, cool to hear, and we love them and it's just exciting. But one of the things we have to remember about deliverance, is that all of these guys that we're talking about right here who were miraculously delivered in this situation, there came a day when they weren't. Except for John, we think John is the only one that died a natural death. But all of the rest of these guys were martyred for their faith. In other words, what I'm saying is, God delivered them, and He delivered them, and He delivered them, and He delivered them, and then He didn't deliver them. He called them home. And we have to remember that as cool as the deliverance is, and we enjoy reading about it and hearing about it, it's all part of God's plan that includes the final time when He didn't deliver them. In other words, that wasn't a problem or that wasn't a mistake on God's part. It wasn't like He delivered them, He delivered them, He delivered them, and then oops!, He didn't, oh, what happened here? No, that was all part of God's plan. It was all part of His sovereignty. It was all part of His wisdom. Do you understand? But we don't like to read about those things. We don't necessarily consider those the good parts. We read about Stephen and he was…, they threw rocks at him until he was dead, and he died. And then we read about James. He's the first of the Apostles to die, he had his head cut off. And we read those in the Bible, and we're oh man. Oh, what a rotten sort of a deal that was. I would much rather read about how they went to jail and then an angel came in and opened it up and let them out. And you see, this is all the way we think. It's the way we think about life in general. We love to hear about what we consider to be the good things, but then we have also these issues that aren't what we consider to be the good things. We consider them to be the rotten things. But I'm suggesting to you today that the good things and the rotten things are all part of God's plan, all part of His sovereign plan. And even though we look at it and we tend to go, that stinks. There's going to come a day when we're going to see it from a new perspective. When Jesus returns, we're going to see things that we couldn't see before. And even though we look today at it and we go, that didn't turn out well at all. There's going to come a day and we're going to say, okay, I get it now, I see, that was God's plan and it was a good plan. I couldn't tell back then because I couldn't see everything there was to see. But now I see and it was a good plan. Back at the time that it happened, it hurt, it was painful, and I didn't know what to think. And I was even tempted to question God's love. But now I see that His love never failed me, not once, and His love was consistent all the way through. I really believe that, you guys. I really believe that. We move on here. It says in verse 26 that,

In other words, they came and peacefully asked them to come with them, and it says the reason they did that is, "…for they were afraid of being stoned by the people," if they had gone in and arrested the apostles that way. Verse 27,

And now in verse 29 it goes on and it says,

And he's going to go on, He's going to talk about Jesus and I like that. And that's good and all that. But do you ever interject, here's what I would have said, do you ever do that? Cause I do and I don't know if I'm the only one. But, I don't know if I was Peter, I think I would have started off by saying, did you guys maybe want to talk about the fact that you arrested us last night, but then you went there and we weren't in the jail? Did you want to maybe bring that up? Maybe chat about that for a minute? They don't even talk about it. They don't even, they don't even say, all right, we arrested you guys, what happened? Nobody even mentions it. I would have mentioned it. Anyway, but Peter keeps it to the main point and the main point is Jesus.

Wow, Peter, you're going to get in trouble for this. Because not only is he telling them, He's the one that you killed. Did you notice he said, "The God of our fathers raised Jesus." Once again, we come back to our understanding of what the Sadducees believed and didn't believe. They didn't believe in a resurrection. They didn't believe in angels, demons, or a resurrection, any life after death at all. And so what's the first thing Peter says? Yeah, this Jesus, God raised Him up. In other words, he's saying you're wrong, you're wrong, you're wrong. And he says,

And it says in verse 33,

And you can see all the reasons there why they wanted to kill him because of all the things that Peter is basically saying here. He's saying, this Jesus has been exalted to the right hand of God, the Father. What does that tell you about Jesus? He's God. He's at the right hand. The right hand… We don't think of it this way but in the in biblical times, the right hand speaks of strength, and power, and preeminence. My first born son would be the son of my right hand in biblical speak. The right hand is powerful strength, glory, and all those things. For Peter to say, He is seated at the right hand of the Majesty of heaven is to say He is exalted above all, above all mankind, above all angels. He is at the right hand of God. He is at the power of God almighty. I mean, the Jews would have considered that a highly blasphemous thing to say. And yet Peter is saying it and they're just seething with anger. Before we move on, I want to bring up one little point. Don't be thrown off about the fact that Peter makes reference here to Jesus having been hanged on a tree, that really messes with some Christians. I had a guy write to me one time, and he goes, tree, cross, tree, what is it, a tree or a cross? He says I read both things. He says he was crucified on a cross and then it says he was hanged on a tree. Which one was it? The answer is yes, it's both. Because crosses were made out of wood and they came from a tree and so it was an interchangeable idea.

--- But more than that, the biblical writers referenced being hanged on a tree because it pointed back to a statement that was made in the Book of Deuteronomy related to someone who was killed that way. Let me put this on the screen for you so you can see it together. "And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death, and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God." "And if a man has committed a crime punishable by death, (in other words, a capital crime) and he is put to death, and you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God." That's the point that the biblical writers wanted you to see when they talked about Jesus dying on a cross. They wanted you to understand that Jesus was cursed, that's what they wanted you to understand. But you see, it's the apostle Paul that actually connects the dots for us in his letter to the churches in Galatia. Let me show you this one from "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us—for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"— Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law (how) by becoming a curse for us —(and then he quotes Deuteronomy) for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree"— So you see, Paul is reminding us of Deuteronomy and telling you and me that Jesus became our curse. He bore our curse. Was Jesus cursed on the cross? Yeah. Yeah. Why? So you would never be. So you wouldn't have to be cursed. He bore your curse. He had no curse Himself. He bore yours and mine and that's what Paul wants you to know. And that's why the biblical writers make the connection with the passage in Deuteronomy. So don't get whacked out about tree, cross. It's all the same in their understanding. Verse 34.

So they took his advice," And so my question to you is, what do you think of his advice? By the way, this is called the Gamaliel principle, the Gamaliel principle. And that principle is this, if it's not of God, it won't last. I don't like that principle. Actually, I don't think that principle is true. One of my favorite authors had this to say, here's a quote from John Stott, "…the Gamaliel principle is not a reliable index to what is from God and what is not." — John R.W. Stott "…the Gamaliel principle is not a reliable index to what is from God and what is not." Basically was interjected in this particular circumstance and it benefited the apostles. And I like the fact that Gamaliel said at the very end, if you oppose this situation, you might just find yourself opposing God. That was good advice That was good advice, but the Gamaliel principle that only things that are of God last isn't necessarily true. Some of you guys came out of Mormonism. You might remember the leader of Mormonism also perished but his followers went on and they continue in error to this day. You see that blows the Gamaliel principle out of the water and there have been others as well. So the test of time is not the perfect test. There are other tests that are much more significant. But anyway, it's important for us to remember that if we go around telling people, well if it lasts it's of God. You might find yourself having to eat crow somewhere along the line, because it's not always true. ---

Verse 40 goes on, and it says, "and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go. 41 Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name." Did you catch that, you guys? They beat them, and by the way, when it says in the Bible they beat them, it doesn't mean that they cracked their knuckles with a ruler. Which may or may not have happened to me when I was a kid in school. They knew how to beat people and pass along a message. In fact, we know that some people didn't survive the beating, it was that severe, potentially. And yet, what do we see these guys doing? It says, "they left the presence of the council rejoicing." They rejoiced. Now Peter was among them. He was there that day, he got beaten. That wasn't going to be the last time for Peter. And he actually went on to write about this sort of thing; suffering and rejoicing. Let me show you this on the screen from "Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you." Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. But (here it is) rejoice insofar as you share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory is revealed. If you are insulted for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. Do you know what Peter is doing in that short passage? He's giving you a biblical worldview related to suffering for the cause of Christ. And the biblical worldview is, rejoice because you're blessed, right? Well, I tell you, we got nothing but winning going on here. Jesus took our curse and we're blessed. It's pretty cool isn't it. Interesting, though, that when you hear about Christians getting persecuted today, we don't bring in the biblical worldview. I was watching a video just yesterday about a teacher, and it was a horrible thing. Teacher down in southern California who was fired from her teaching position because some of her students found some remarks she had made on her private personal Facebook page about gender issues and things like that. And she just taught, she made comments that were from a biblical perspective, her Christian worldview. She talked about it from her personal worldview and those remarks got sent to the school district and the school district eventually fired her. And there was a fairly long interview and I watched most of the thing, and then her counsel was there, her legal counsel was there and was giving some insights and stuff and whatever. But the tenor of the entire interview was, this is what's going on in our world today, which is good. I think we know that, but it was all just, how could they? This is what's going on in your world and in your school systems and it's just all very frustrated and angry and that sort of thing. And there was never once a mention of the blessing that is upon this woman now because she's been persecuted. And they never talked at all about rejoicing. There was not one word about rejoicing in the whole interview or the fact that she was blessed. You see, a biblical worldview changes the way we think. It changes our response to the world in which we live when the world in which we live gets a little frustrated with us and that happens from time to time, doesn't it? I just think that it's important to interject what the Bible has to say about these things when they happen. "And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ (which of course means Messiah) is Jesus." And I like that in the face of persecution, in the face of threats, and even after they've been beaten, it says, "they did not cease." They kept going, which is very admirable. There's a great temptation when you've gotten in trouble to back away and withdraw, but they didn't do that. I'm going to share one final thing with you here before we close if I could and that is this statement that is made at the end of verse 42 that says, "…they did not cease teaching and preaching…" Did you guys know that teaching and preaching are two different things? I think we do because we see it, it's right here in the Bible. It says, teaching and preaching. They kept teaching and preaching. But what's interesting to me is that I find many Christians can't explain the difference between teaching and preaching. But there is a difference. They are translated by completely different Greek words and they have different meanings behind them. Let me show you on the screen. Teaching – Greek: didaskō to instruct. Preaching – Greek: euaggelizō to announce or Greek: kērussō to be herald, to proclaim. First of all, you have Teaching, and the Greek word there is didaskō. It's where we get our English word, didactic, which speaks of systematic instruction, and that's what the Greek word didaskō means. It means to instruct, it's passing along information. All right. But then you have Preaching and preaching actually is translated by different words in the Greek. I've got two of them here. The first one is the Greek euaggelizō. I like that, it sounds very Italian. Sometimes you want to go have a pizza while you're doing that. Euaggelizō!, or something like that. But anyway, euaggelizō means to announce or to proclaim. The same thing, really, with kērussō, which means to be a herald or to proclaim. And when you look up where preaching is used in the New Testament, you will find that it is often connected with the good news. It'll say preaching the good news, which means to announce. We announce the good news. We don't teach the good news. Right? We teach the life of Christ, but we announce to people that there's good news to be heard and so forth. And so when you look at how these words are used in their context, you find that they have a very different sort of a connotation. And that teaching is to enlighten and to instruct, and preaching is to announce and to exhort. Okay. If I exhort you, meaning follow Jesus, I'm saying, you can do it, yeah! That's an exhortation and encouragement, that's preaching. When I sit down and bring instruction and insight and understanding, that's teaching, and that's the difference between the two. And we've largely lost teaching in the body of Christ today, it has largely become an unused gift, where we have a lot of preachers. In fact, we got to the place where we even started calling our guys preachers. Hey, preacher, don't call me preacher. I'm liable to smack you. No, I wouldn't do that, but I would want to.

--- But we need to get back to teaching. I think there needs to be more teaching, don't you? In the body of Christ. We need to, rather than… Exhortational preaching is great, we see it here in the Bible. They did both, did you see that? They didn't stop preaching and teaching the people. We need both in the body of Christ. Amen? Let's stand together and close in prayer. Now you know the difference between preaching and teaching. If somebody asked you, oh, yeah, I know that. Cool. If you need prayer, we'd love to pray with you after the service here, so just come on down front. Father, we thank You so much for who You are. We thank You for Your Word. We thank You for Your love for us. We thank You, Lord, that Your sovereignty and Your faithfulness are things that we can cling to, even when we don't understand, and even when life becomes painful. Lord, we know that You are and continue to be the Lord of our lives and You will never leave us nor forsake us. And Your love for us will never abate and we just praise You for that, Lord and we declare Your goodness. Father, help us to remember every day that our faith was never meant to be a private thing, but we were meant to live it out loud. Not necessarily with words, but definitely by our actions. We pray that You would give us the strength today and the days that follow to live our faith in a way that people would see and be drawn to the Savior. We thank You and praise You for loving us, even when we are quite unlovable. And we worship you as King of kings and Lord of lords and our soon coming Redeemer. In the name of Jesus Christ and all God's people said together, amen. God bless you. Have a good rest of your Sunday. ---