AI-GENERATED SUMMARY

This sermon, delivered on the Fourth of July, expounds on Acts 4:1-31, presenting the first persecution of the Apostles as a conflict where the “old church” (the Jewish religious leaders) and the “state” (represented by the rulers and Rome) align against the “new church” of Jesus Christ. Pastor Tuuri argues that this opposition was provoked by a “good deed”—the healing of the lame man—and the preaching of the resurrection, which challenged the authority of the existing powers1. He emphasizes that the church’s response was not fear, but a prayerful application of Psalm 2, recognizing that while the nations and rulers rage against Christ, God laughs at their vain attempts to break His bonds12. The sermon asserts that history is defined by the victory of Jesus Christ over all opposing institutions, calling believers to boldness in preaching the full gospel of the Savior-King’s ascension and rule2.

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Please stand for the reading of God’s word. And as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captains of the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved that they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in hold until the next day, for it was now eventide. Howbeit, many of them who heard the word believed.

And the number of the men was about five thousand. And it came to pass on the morrow that their rulers and elders and scribes and Annas the high priest and Caiaphas and John and Alexander and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in their midst, they asked, “By what power or by what name have ye done this?” Then Peter filled with the Holy Ghost said unto them, “Ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to this impotent man by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all and all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him did this man stand before you here whole.

This is the stone which was set at naught by you builders, which has become the head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other. For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.

And beholding the man which was healed standing with them, they could say nothing against him. But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred amongst themselves, saying, “What shall we do to these men? For that indeed a notable miracle hath been done by them, is manifest to all them that dwell in Jerusalem. We cannot deny it, but that it spread no further among the people.

Let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name. And they called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye, but we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard. So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish them, because of the people.

For all men glorified God for that which was done. For the man was above forty years old on whom this miracle of healing was showed. And being let go, they went to their own company and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said unto them. And when they heard that, they lifted up their voice to God with one accord, and said, Lord, thou art God, which hast made heaven and earth and sea, and all that is in them.

Who by the mouth of thy servant David hath said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things? The kings of the earth stood up and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel, they were gathered together, for to do whatsoever thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings, and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness we may speak thy word, by stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together. They were all filled with the Holy Ghost. And they spake the word of God with boldness.

We thank God for his word and pray that he would illuminate it to our understandings. Awake, we’re going to return to chapter 3 next week, Lord willing. I wanted to go ahead to chapter 4 because this is the fourth of July and this is the day of the year that we celebrate our independence, birth of the nation so to speak. And I wanted to just start with a few thoughts I’ve had on the Fourth of July. I wrote a draft of a donor’s letter that I’ve given to Richard and Brad to look over and see how they like it.

And I talked about some things going on in the Oregon legislature and then try to relate them a little bit to Independence Day. And I thought I’d just start by sort of maybe bringing you a bit of this donor’s letter and talk a little bit about it. I asked those of you who were here last Sunday at the meal, the agape and Eucharist together last week to pray that I was going down to Salem to talk to some legislators on an abstinence bill.

We got involved in that at the request of legislators. We have no interest really in cleaning up the public schools and yet we do want to help legislators. They ask for our assistance. We also recognize that while we think it’s wrong for Christians to have their children in public school, many of them still do. And we also have a sense—I do at least—of concern for primarily the young girls in junior high and high school who are regularly preyed upon by boys.

We all know what that was like when we went to school. And I’m sure the pressures now to perform, so to speak, or even worse in the public schools. Additionally, we knew that this abstinence bill would provide a great deal of lessons for those who have ears to hear and eyes to see. And indeed it already has and I’ll talk more about that in the future and I’ll write about that for the parents education association.

But in any event, I thought I’d give you an update on that bill. We went in the bill was heard a week ago now, a week and a half ago on a Thursday. We went in on Monday, talked to the aid to the senator whose committee it was in, Senator Weber’s aid, and she said, “Well, she didn’t know if they were going to give it a work session or not, and didn’t sound too hopeful.” And then we had to stop by another legislator’s office, Senator Phillips’s office, and talk to his aid, who was a Christian and a good supporter of what we do.

And she said, “It’s too bad about your bill.” We said, “What do you mean?” She said, “Well, the committee was closed down the Friday after the hearing. It’s getting toward the end of the session starting to close committees down.” And committee was closed down. And even if the chairperson of the committee, Senator Weber, wanted to open it, she couldn’t unless Senator Bradbury, the head of the Senate Democrats, would let her do it.

So, the bill is dead. Now it could be resurrected. Strange things happen the last few weeks of the session. And I don’t know if this aid knew that it was dead or not, but it’s just interesting, you know, if you look at the legislature and look at, for instance, the progression of the gay civil rights bill—special rights for sodomites—and look at the overwhelming support it got from all the Democrats in the Senate.

And then you got an abstinence bill that just simply asks for a level playing field in terms of teaching kids in public school abstinence in correlation to other sexual education stuff they put in there and that bill gets killed rather deliberately by the Democrats in the Senate and it’s just a good picture. You know, there’s lots of lessons there. I’ll talk more about that in the future.

Another bill though that I was interested in particularly as it relates to Independence Day this last week was the bicycle helmet law, SB 1088, which passed the House probably nearly unanimously. I don’t know what the vote was this last week. There were some amendments to it. And you would think you’d expect a bicycle helmet law from the Democratic side. You know, they want to control people’s lives as mama state, so to speak. But you’d think that the Republicans who have more of an understanding of the limitations of civil government would have amended it and made it not as onerous or would have killed it altogether.

But no, no, no, no. They actually amended it making it more intrusive. They amended it so that now it’s not just if you ride on public streets a child without a helmet you can get a ticket. Now it’s any non-private area. So if you’ve got a parking lot where the public usually goes is allowed to go. Then if you’re riding your bike there too without a helmet, you can get a ticket from now on. Now the bill hasn’t been passed by the Senate, but I’m sure they’ll concur in these amendments.

The House also amended it so that bicycles with tire sizes less than 14 inches would also be covered, which it hadn’t been in the Senate. So they even made it more expansive in terms of the number of kids who can get tickets for not riding with helmets on. At least they didn’t include tricycles. I was told by the committee person, “Well, we decided not to include tricycles.” Oh, that’s good.

Now, you know, if you like helmets, that’s fine. You know, if your kids wear helmets, that’s a good thing. You should be able to do that. But is this really an issue that we want to put the full force of the civil government behind, parents making a decision relative to whether or not their kids are going to ride helmets, particularly when some of the research I have heard about says that unless the kid lands right on top of his head, the helmet really does very little good when you’re falling on the side.

I don’t know if that’s true or not, but you know, this is another issue where the state exercises authority as mother and father over the children of Oregon. And you know, I’ve told my kids, be sympathetic with the state because it’s real tough being God. It’s real tough trying to govern and control all the circumstances in life that might harm one of Oregon’s children. Yet they’re giving you a good faith effort down there in Salem and so you should feel a little sympathetic for them and what they try to do.

I’ve also put in this donor’s letter that with my children, we’re going to have to get laws. You got to obey the laws of the state. But I’m going to use the helmets every time they buckle them on as a teaching device to them to remind them that the fact that there is a law that says you have to do this and that they can fine you if you don’t—if you don’t pay the fine, I suppose throw you in jail for not paying the fine, whatever they can do—the fact that we have such a law is a testimony to this community in Oregon of how much we have turned away from the Lord Jesus Christ, the kingship of Christ, and turn instead to the sovereignty of the state and as a result of that lost the source of true freedom that we supposedly celebrate on the Fourth of July.

I remind it reminded me too of a story I heard in the Oregonian or on the news on the radio rather a month or two ago about people being able to get tickets if you have a for sale sign on your car that are parked at a public street in Portland. You they don’t want you to have use public streets to sell your car so you can get a ticket now. And I was listening to this talk show one day about an hour’s worth of conversation. People calling in saying, “Well, I fought it in court and I tried to fight—I got off didn’t have to pay the ticket. The guys did have to pay the ticket.” And it seemed to me it’s so funny that people thought they were accomplishing something by going to court and fighting it around some technicality or something or talking to a radio talk show host about how they didn’t like it.

It’s almost like the slaves just rattling the chains and thinking somehow because they rattled them a little bit that the chains are no longer there.

Okay. Well, you know, I thought about all this in terms of the Fourth of July and I thought about the founders whose motto was give me liberty or give me death. And I thought, what would they think about the bicycle helmet law or the ticket sign, you know, the ticket law in Portland?

And these things are not big burdensome things. They’re really minor nuisances to us, but they are demonstrations to us of the loss of personal freedom. And it tells us a lesson and that’s the lesson we’re going to hopefully talk about a little bit as we look through this text. Why this has all happened. And I thought about the founders of the country, many of them Christian men who, as I said, their motto was give me liberty or give me death and what they would think about these laws.

Well, the men that we read about in Acts 4 today, it’s sort of the same sort of thing. What kind of men were these? And I want to look at this a little bit and see what this passage tells us and then the correlation of this passage and particularly at its center, the recitation of Psalm 2 and its declaration of God’s victory over apostate states and apostate churches. Those are the things the apostles understood and the disciples understood and that’s what made them the kind of men they were and that’s the kind of things the founding fathers of this nation understood and that’s what made them the kind of men they were and those are the things that the church is beginning slowly to recover in this country and around the world and so there’s hope for the future that we will indeed become those sorts of men.

So let’s look now at Acts chapter 4 and look at this briefly and see some correlations to our day and age. First we have to understand what’s going on here. I read a lot of verses for you what’s going on and I broken it up in the outline into five distinct categories. Lots of ways to outline it. This way probably is not that good, but let’s just use this as what I’ve provided today.

And first of all, it’s important to recognize why the persecution, and you might want to use the word opposition. It’s not really full-fledged persecution yet. Nobody’s getting killed yet. They will shortly. This is when it all starts. Remember, we said that Acts at the beginning of Acts, Acts is important. It’s the beginning of the church reorganized under Jesus Christ, the exalted and glorified at the right hand of the Father.

So it’s important. It’s the beginnings and the beginning of Acts is very important because it gives us the nuggets that’ll spin out into church history and into the rest of the book of Acts. And so this is another first. We had in Acts chapter 2, the first reorganization of the church, the first sermon by Peter. And then we have in Acts chapter 3, and unfortunately I skipped it before doing this. We’ll return to it. We have a healing, a first healing done by the apostles. And then Peter’s second sermon.

So we have the healing. And I think that Peter directly relates that in his sermon, which we’ll see in a week or two, to the restoration of all things. The lame man being healed is a picture of what’s going to happen to all the world. Just as the salvation of the world gathered together from all nations, hearing a common confession from the apostles spoken in different foreign languages. That’s a picture of the salvation of the world. And Acts chapter 3 is a picture of the healing of the world. Restoration back to wholeness. No longer lame, but now healed.

And if we’re a country that’s become lame, it’s very important we understand that God intends for us to be restored as we apply ourselves to the word of God. These are firsts and they’re important. And this is the first persecution or opposition to the gospel and it happens in relationship to this restoration of this slain man and the message that all the world be restored under Jesus Christ reigning from heaven at the right hand of the Father.

So first of all the first opposition to the new church happens in response to an act of restoration in chapter 3 a lame man being healed. Verse 22 tells us he was about little over 40 years old. 40 is an important number in terms of biblical literature. 40 is seen as a waiting period for the advent of a saving act by God.

And so in the wilderness, 40 years, okay, 40 days in the ark. Jesus 40 days in the wilderness. 40 is important in terms of the scriptures. It’s a key to tell us things are going to change radically now. And they changed radically in this man’s life. And that’s a picture of what’s going to happen to all the world now as the message of the ascended Jesus Christ is preached.

So this opposition happens in response to the restoration of a man and the message of the restoration of all things in Jesus Christ.

Now, it’s also important to notice here that this is a good deed. Peter, if you were listening to what I read or if you’ve read the text prior to Sunday, which is always a good thing to do, you know what the text is going to be. It’s a real good idea to read it in preparation for the sermon. You know, it may be helpful to you to go back and listen to the tapes on biblical worship. One of the first things I talked about was the day of preparation.

Then I also talked on sermons, how you’re supposed to hear a sermon. And part of your preparation for hearing the word of God should be to read it, think about a little bit, and get ready for the preaching of it. Well, in any event, in verse 9, you know, Peter and John, Peter and John are wrapped together in this. Interestingly enough, the two go as two witnesses to what’s happening.

Peter’s called before them in terms of this opposition, and he says, “Well, if you have really arraigned us because of this good thing we did to this impotent man, then you should know that it’s in the name of Jesus Christ, the one you crucified and God raised up.” Peter identifies as a good deed is the reason for their being opposed by the old church, by the apostate church.

He identifies it as a good deed. And you know, I’m stressing this. You’re thinking, why? What’s the big deal? The big deal is this: that’s what Jesus did. Remember Jesus in John 10, Jesus answers them, “Many good works have I showed you from my Father. For which of those works do you now stone me?” They wanted to stone him and he said, “You’re trying to stone me for a good work.” It’s a good thing that he did.

So, it’s important to recognize this restoration is good. But more importantly than that, I bring this out now to show you that the opposition is the same as the opposition to the Savior. This is the first of many points of identification between the church and its representatives and the Lord Jesus Christ. And throughout the scriptures, what you see is opposition to the church is identified as opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ.

And it’s as the church identifies with Jesus Christ as they are with him in what they do, what they say, what they think. That’s when they get opposed. And so this opposition comes to the restoration of a lame man, the message of the restoration of the world. And to those who are identified with the Lord Jesus Christ, they get persecuted and opposed the same way that he did.

Secondly, this opposition comes, is undertaken, is performed by the old church. This is very important. There’s two different verses here with two different listings of who these guys were that came against them. They were in the temple as this as they healed the lame man and began to preach. It’s in the temple in one of the portions Solomon’s porch of the temple. We’ll talk about that when we get to chapter 3. But the point is this: the temple guard was like the high priest police force and the head of that guard came out.

They didn’t like commotions in the temple or in the courts of the temple. They didn’t like it because there’s lots of reasons they didn’t like it. One reason they didn’t like it is because the Romans didn’t like it. And they were very interested in keeping themselves away from interference by the Roman government. They were a captive state, you realize, just like we are today in many ways. So the existing church wanted to keep disturbances to a minimum.

And so, when this healing occurs, we’re told specifically that the priests, captains of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them. And then later we’re told in verse 5, when the trial actually comes, so to speak, their arraignment, we have the rulers, the elders and the scribes. So we have the priests, those who minister in the context of the temple. We have the high priests specifically in office at the Sanhedrin meeting with them.

The temple guards are the ones who act as the enforcers, so to speak, for the temple worship. This is the old church that’s being represented by all of its officers. The liturgical officers and then the scribes, those who would write and understood and copied the text of the scriptures for the church community. The elders of the people, they were all gathered together.

So what we have represented here is primarily, it has some civil implications, but primarily the civil authorities now are the Romans. And so what we have here primarily is opposition coming from the existing church. And remember that the new church didn’t see themselves as some new church. They’re part of the same church. They had continuity of the old covenant community. So this is the church now essentially that is producing the opposition to the preaching of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So, and now this is interesting too in verses 3 and 4 in this section it says they laid hands on them. That is the priest, the captains of the temple and the Sadducees. The Sadducees, we’ll talk about that in a little bit. Very important to recognize who they were. They laid hands on them and put them in hold until the next day, for it was now eventide. Howbeit, many of them that heard the word believe, and the number of the men was about five thousand.

We have the covenant representation of the church here by listing of the men. Five thousand. And there are a lot more than that who are converted after this preaching had occurred after the initial descent of the Holy Spirit. That preaching 3,000 people are saved. Now more people are saved and the number comes up to 5,000 men. Now that’s an interesting number. We could talk about that as well. You’ve got five groups of a thousand.

As James B. Jordan has pointed out, five is the formation for military strength. Platoons were sent out in fives in the scriptures. And so you’ve got a military arrangement here. 5,000 men and families represented. So you have an army that essentially is assembled here.

Well, in any event, verses I printed out verses 3 and 4, remember we said before that you have two responses to the preaching of God’s word. You remember that on the day of Pentecost, there were those who said, “What is this? We hear the message of God being proclaimed in our tongue. We want to hear more.” And then there were those who said, “Ah, they’re just drunk. They’re babbling. They don’t know what they’re doing.” Those are the two responses you get to the word when it’s preached. And here we have the two responses.

Men either are converted and brought to the truth or they enter into opposition to the truth and they want to suppress it. We always think in terms of neutrality in our culture. We’ve been trained to think that way. It’s not true. The scriptures over and over says there’s not three paths: the right, the left, and the center, the safe one. No, no, no. Psalm 1, beginning of the psalter says that all the psalter, all the scriptures teach two paths. Are you going to be godly or are you going to be ungodly? You going to be Israel or are you going to be Egypt?

And so, we’ve got those two things pointed out for us clearly in verses 3 and 4. And I think that’s why the literary structure is used that now we’re hearing about how many people were saved prior to the arrest. It’s put here so we can distinguish these two paths that lie in front of people. And that’s a warning to us, isn’t it? You can’t be middle ground about the faith. You’ve got to be converted.

You have to be applying that conversion in your life, reforming your life, or you switch over to being Egypt. And that’s what’s going on here. You’ve got a new church growing, not a new church, a reorganized church, but they’re being opposed by the existing power structure. And that existing power structure essentially identifies itself with Rome instead of with Jesus Christ. That’s the warning to us.

Okay. They ask Peter and John by what power and by what name do you do this? Now the word power here does not mean authority. It’s not the typical word for “what’s your jurisdiction? Who says you can do this?” No, the word power is force here more than it is authority. And it as if they’re saying by what force do you accomplish this healing and in whose name is this being done?

And I point out this again because we have another identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. Remember when he did his good works some people say ah it’s by demons he’s casting out these demons by the Lord Beelzebub. They accused Jesus of occult forces and now they accused the church. The church immediately again—second notice here—identified with the Lord Jesus Christ and what it does. Okay, so the existing power force opposes the preaching of the gospel.

It is the old church, so to speak. And they persecute Peter and John, representatives of the new church community. They’re the leaders here. And they, as opposes are in power always do, they pick off leaders and try to intimidate the leaders enough so that they go away and then the people are leaderless. The shepherds are struck down and the people they hope will scatter. So that’s what they try to do here.

They pick out Peter and John.

Now, of course, when Peter and John are—when they ask him by what authority, by what power rather a force and by whose name do you do these things? Well, you know, to a person filled with the spirit, filled with the knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s like the bell going off at the beginning of the race to them. They are off and running then. And Peter doesn’t bat an eye.

Peter filled with the Holy Ghost, he says unto them, “Ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel.” He acknowledges their authority. “If we this day be arraigned, that word means arraign. It’s a stronger word than examined. Brought into court, part of the good deed done to this impotent man by what means he is made whole. Then be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel.

They spoke to the representatives knew representatives of the nation. They were addressing all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified whom God raised from the dead even by him doth this man stand before you whole. Stand before you whole. He’s no longer sitting. He was lame. He couldn’t walk before. He’s now standing. That’s mentioned a couple of times in this passage. He’s standing there before them and they tell very clearly if you want to know what’s going on here it is Jesus Christ of Nazareth whom ye crucified and God raised from the dead.

Jesus—his identification as savior. Christ—his identification as Messiah, lord king anointed one high priest and the king of kings of Nazareth—to you a term of contempt but to us the scriptures tell us that he would come from that portion of our nation. Whom ye crucified. But God raised from the dead.

And you know, we think of the dead as abstract, but that’s not what the term being used here means. From the society of the dead, from fellowship of the dead, so to speak. And they are calling people away from the society of death and destruction and rebel against God into the society of life and resurrection, the lame people to the whole people. Again, they have a tremendous sense of Christology here as salvific being the savior, his being the king, the anointed one, him being the fulfillment of prophecy to the Old Testament and is being exalted by God and resurrected with his power and what the implications of that are.

And they remind these people that you crucified him. They were standing in the same place that Jesus had stood. This was the court that sentenced Jesus to death and they said, “You crucified him.” They drove home the point. When we witness to people, we must have conviction of sin at the center of our witnessing.

We’ve talked before in this church. You rip the law out of sanctification. That’s what this church has done 100 years ago. Now, it rips the law and the conviction of sin out of witnessing as well. And we talk to people and want to be friends with them and just kind of woo them to Jesus. Doesn’t work that way. Men are ethical rebels. They must be confronted with their sin. Yes, we must make a reasonable presentation.

And yes, we can use relationships with people to build that presentation, but that presentation must call people to repent. And you know, people are brought into the kingdom never having really repented. And then they think they live their Christian life never repenting either. “Well, I’m sorry I did that and here’s why I did it,” which is okay. But you never get around to repenting of sin. “I don’t care why I did it. I know it was wrong.”

These guys had reasons why they crucified Christ, too. They were thinking of their nation. They were thinking of lots of things. But at the core of those reasons is a hatred of God. And every time we sin, at the core of that sin is a hatred of God. Not some sort of slip by us or mistake. No, it’s rebellion. And God says that can be healed. You’re going to make lots of mistakes in life. You can never be healed making mistakes, but you can be healed from rebelling against God.

You can be healed from sin. You can be forgiven of sin and brought to wholeness. So they drove that home.

“This is the stone which was set at naught of you builders. This was the church they were talking to, the existing church. This was the church that was supposed to build the temple of God upon the chief stone, Jesus Christ. And they’re saying that you as church builders have messed up big time because you rejected you tossed it aside as nothing important to you. You had irrelevance for Jesus Christ and he is the cornerstone, the chief stone which the whole building was properly built and fitted.

Now notice here these apostles do not have fear. Well they probably have some fear but they have courage. They have courage. You know somebody said let’s see here I’ve got a quote here. Yes, this is one commentator talked about you got recognized this is one of the world’s greatest demonstrations of courage.

It was spoken to an audience of the wealthiest, the most intellectual, the most powerful people in the land. And yet Peter, the Galilean fisherman, stands before them rather as their judge than as their victim. But further, this was the very court which had condemned Jesus to death. Peter knew it and he knew that at that moment he was taking his life in his hands. There are two kinds of courage. There is the reckless courage which goes on scarcely aware of the dangers it is facing.

There is a higher, cool calculated courage which knows the peril in which it stands and which will not be daunted. It was that second courage that Peter demonstrated to men. When Achilles, the great warrior of the Greeks, was told that if he went out to battle, he would surely die, he answered in the immortal sentence, “Nevertheless, I am for going on.” And so Peter was for going on.

Peter probably had fear. Courage and bravery is not the absence of fear. And if you wait till the absence of fear to demonstrate courage, you don’t understand it. All men have fear. Courage is knowing that God called you to do something in spite of your fear. And that’s what Peter does and that’s what we’re called to do as we witness to people and certainly before kings, but to our neighbors as well. We want to have more fear of God than we do of men.

We said of John Knox and he feared God so much that he never feared men. And that’s the key. We’ll see that these rulers of the people, they’re more afraid of the people. That’s why they let Peter and John go. They have fear of men, but they’re brave to God. Well, Peter and John were courageous and it’s very important to understand that demonstration of courage on the part of Peter and John here.

Now also it’s very important before we move on from this to recognize the source of their lack of fear. What was the source for lack of fear? Well, we can read it in their testimony. He says, “This is the rock, the chief cornerstone, which you builders said at naught.” Now, he’s referring there probably to Psalm 118. Now, we sing that psalm frequently in our processional, but it’s important that you recognize some of the things that Psalm 118 tells the people of God about what our message is.

So, turn to Psalm 118 if you will in your Bibles, and we’ll see some correlations here and why Peter and John were emboldened through a recognition that Jesus Christ was the rock and what that implied.

Psalm 118 verse 5: “I called upon the Lord in distress. The Lord answered me and set me in a large place. Our confidence comes from knowing that God gives us salvation. Salvation in the Old Testament is real visual. Says I’m in a large place. Hell is being real tight. I’ve got claustrophobia occasionally. And you know the Bible says that’s what hell is—ultimate claustrophobia. Ultimate being hedged in and salvation is being put in a large place. So, not too big a place. You don’t want to fly off and be in isolation from everybody. You want fellowship, but in the context of a large place. And so, Peter knows that as he calls upon God, God will answer and give him salvation.

Psalm 118:7, “The Lord taketh my part with them that help me. Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in men. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes. Put no confidence in princes, nor on men depend.” And Peter understood that you don’t want to put confidence in these guys so you don’t put fear in relationship to them either you move ahead.

“All nations compassed me about but in the name of the Lord will I destroy them. Here’s Peter and John and they recognized knowing Psalm 118 they are compassed about. Some say the Sanhedrin meant a circle and that the apostles were in the midst of them here and the nations were compassing them about the tribes of Israel represented by the 71 had become now the nations of the world. They’re no longer God’s people. They think they are, but they’re not. They’ve identified with Egypt instead of with Jerusalem.

And so the nations encompass Peter and John about. But they know from Psalm 118, we’re encompassed about that the Lord is going to destroy these guys. These are dead men as we talk to them, lest they repent. And that’s why they tell them, “This is the only name under heaven by which you must be saved. It’s not an option for you. You must be saved. And if you’re not, if you’re not going to become saved, you’re destroyed by God. That’s your only two options.”

They knew it. Psalm 118 gave them courage to the spirit as he applied it to their hearts.

Goes on in Psalm 118 verse 16: “The right hand of the Lord is exalted. The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.” They had just reached out, pulled up a guy, and God’s hand had healed somebody in the context of their lives. They’d seen the demonstration of God’s hand of healing, and they knew that was also God’s hand of power. Power.

Verse 21: “I will praise thee for thou hast heard me and I become my salvation.” And then the verse that they quoted here referred to. Verse 22: “The stone which the builders refused is become the headstone of the corner. This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. This is the day which the Lord hath made. We will rejoice and be glad in it. Save now, I beseech thee, oh Lord. Oh Lord, I beseech thee. Send now prosperity.”

The whole context of Psalm 118 is that the builders who reject Christ will be destroyed by God and those who are in Christ will be exalted by God over time and in history. And so the fact that they had courage wasn’t because somehow they had courage apart from God’s word. Understanding Psalm 118 gave them the courage because they knew what the flow of history was and they knew what was happening to them.

They related it to the scriptures and the scriptures then give them the answer for that situation and they speak that answer out with courage and confidence. Today’s church doesn’t understand this by and large. We sing this chorus, you know, “This is the day. This is the day that the Lord hath made.” It’s a nice chorus, but you know, usually we sing it with our kids. You know, it’s we’re talking about today and we’re going to go here. We’re at camp or whatever we’re doing. And it’s important to recognize the correlation of this, but recognize that the day that the Lord hath made here in Psalm 118 is the day of deliverance and salvation for those who are opposed by the nations of the earth, and the destruction of God’s enemies.

Now, if you think that chorus at the beginning of your day with your kids and teach them the context for that there is a house being built and everyone that rejects the chief cornerstone is discarded by God. And if you have enemies today, don’t get upset about it. Talk to them about the Lord Jesus Christ. Call them to salvation. And the day that the Lord has made means that they will either come to salvation or they will be destroyed. You have no need to be fearful.

Now, if you teach your kids that chorus with that meaning coming from Psalm 118, that’s a good thing. Thing and then they’re going to grow up like Peter and John and when they’re called before princes if they’re called to so do—for the legislature, for the whoever it is—persecuted for the faith, opposed by it—then they’ll know I don’t have to fear this man. I don’t have to put any confidence or fear in princes. My confidence is in God. This is the day that he’s made. His day is filled with the destruction of his enemies and the exaltation of those who are in the Lord Jesus Christ. So that’s what they had. They had a sense of courage based upon a knowledge of the word of God and they preached the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Deuteronomy 18. And I mean, this is what the Sanhedrin is all about is knowing that scripture and applying that scripture and finding men innocent or guilty according to the law of God. And don’t think for a moment that these rulers are not familiar with Deuteronomy 18 where it says, “If a prophet comes to you and speaks in any other name but the name of God, you are to—he is a blasphemous idolator. You should kill him.” Well, that’s what these guys do.

They come in the name of Jesus Christ. They say it repeatedly in these occurrences. And they say it as a demonstration that Jesus Christ is God. Jesus Christ. And so, you know, it’s very important to recognize here a look at it as a proof text for the Trinity. But more importantly than that, we see a strong demonstration here that Jesus Christ is God. And we can in his name, they don’t back off of it a bit, that it’s in the name of by the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ. He is God. And because of him, we are saying these things to you.

These were teachers in this—it’s again like Jesus. Remember Jesus, you’re a teacher at Israel, Nicodemus. You don’t know these things. They’re saying, “You guys are builders of the church and you’ve thrown away the cornerstone. You better do some thinking. You need to come to salvation. This is the only name under heaven by which you must be saved.”

So they tell them that.

Now the leaders, this astonishes them. They think, “What is going on here? This is that Peter guy. Remember him? He was the one that silly maid who asked him when the cock was crowing, ‘Do you know this Galilean guy here?’ ‘No, no, not me.’ He says, ‘I don’t know this Jesus.’ ‘No, no, this is a man who denied our savior thrice over fear of a maid.’ I mean, nothing against women, but you know, it’s different.

Now, he’s in the middle of the Sanhedrin. These are the big mucky mucks, power, money, authority. They couldn’t execute anybody, but they could church them over to the Romans, and they’d do it for them usually. Well, they see this boldness of Peter and John, and they perceive that they were unlearned and ignorant men. And now these are very interesting terms.

We probably—I probably won’t—I think I’ll we’ll just go ahead here. I probably won’t get through all this. But these are very interesting terms in verse 13. They see that they’re unlearned and ignorant men. Unlearned means that they hadn’t had the rabbinical training that all these guys on the Sanhedrin had. They hadn’t been to seminary. And when it says that they were ignorant men, that word idiotes in the Greek, it’s the root of our word idiot, it doesn’t mean they were calling them idiots.

In the Greek that simply meant a common person as opposed to a positioned person, a commoner as opposed to a king, for instance. In its technical sense, in the Greek, we’ve talked about this before, an idiot was one who didn’t go out into the public place, the marketplace. He kept to himself. He was privatized. You want to look at that way and he was privatized as he was calm and had no real calling to speak in public. And so we talked before about how the church has become like idiots in the technical Greek sense of the term. They’ve become privatized in our country. No longer speaking the word into the marketplace and engaging as Christians in the marketplace.

But in any event this word here means they were just common people. They were lay people. They were not clergy. And you know there’s lots of lessons here we’ll get to this I’ll drive this home more probably next speak, but in terms of opposition of an existing church to movements inside the church that call for reform based upon an application of the knowledge of Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, his law, his eschatology. The response frequently of people that hold power is this kind of stuff: “You don’t have the right credentials. You don’t have a seminary degree and you don’t have ordination credentials that we like.”

And that’s what they’re saying. “Well, what are these guys doing? They haven’t been to school. Nobody’s called them to do what these guys are doing. And now they’re being so bold.” They marveled. They took knowledge of them, however, that they had been with Jesus.

Oh, yeah. We get it. Yeah. Well, yeah. They didn’t have been to school and didn’t have any real calling. But on the other hand, they’d been with Jesus. So, here in the context of this verse, what that means is that these guys had been with Jesus is the way the this council understands this in relationship to solving the mystery. How can these guys speak this way? Why are they so bold? Oh, yeah. We understand now.

They were that Jesus, that fanatic guy, that zealot guy, the guy we killed. And so they wipe it, they put it out that way. That’s a very critical verse. That’d be a good verse worth memorizing because that’s the key to becoming fearless, so to speak, courageous in the in the sight of your own fear and of proclaiming things forth even if you haven’t been to seminary and don’t have credentials. The key is being with Jesus.

I’ll talk about that in a little bit.

Okay. So, the opposition comes to when the church preaches restoration and begin to form perform deeds of restoration. The opposition comes from the old church, the established power center within the church like another way to put it. The opposition comes against leaders of the church community, Peter and John. And then fourth, persecution yields affliction for the moment.

They were in jail overnight. They were put in hold. And then the opposition takes the form of them telling him not to preach anymore. Verse 15, they see all this. They don’t know what to do. The guy is standing there. This guy who had been lame for 40 years. Part of I think is the message 40. Part of it too is that this guy had been lame 40 years. He was probably known in the temple gate. Everybody knew this guy had been lame from birth.

They couldn’t dispute the facts that he had been restored to health. So what are they going to do? Well, they do what any good king who wants to form a plot against Christ who’s anointed does they go and confer in private. They conferred amongst themselves. Psalm 2: “Why do they take counsel against the Lord against his anointed?”

Well, it’s irrational but that’s what they do anyway because man isn’t rational. He’s volitionally twisted and bent and his thoughts aren’t rational either but that’s what they go off and think about. They say well what are we going to do about this? We don’t want this thing. We cannot deny this has been a miracle but that it spread no further amongst the people let us straightly threaten them that they speak henceforth no man to no man in this name of Jesus.

So this is really stupid. This is really irrational. They’ve not feared to speak the name of Jesus Christ to the ruling council. They already demonstrated they had no fear of these guys, but they threaten them again. And it’s very important here. We see it in verse 17. The purpose of their actions, the opposition, is that it spread no further amongst the people, amongst the church, the congregation, the Israelites.

The word spread here has the connotation of like a disease, you know, this contagious disease. We don’t want this spreading amongst the people. We don’t want this to get too far. These guys want to believe this. That’s fine, but we don’t want it getting out into the rest of the church. We don’t want the church being reformed is one way to look at this on the behalf of what these guys are saying.

So, it does lead some affliction for the moment, but it yields victory for the future.

Yeah. Peter says, “Hey, you know, if it seems right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge you yourselves. It’s a very interesting answer. Well, you know, they’re told by these guys, you got to stop preaching in the name of Jesus. And Peter says, Peter and John it says, they answer together. “Whether it’s right to obey you or obey God, obey God and the stuff you figure out yourselves.

But as for us, we cannot stop speaking what we know to be true.” Their answer was, “Forget it. We’re going to preach in the name of Jesus Christ. You make your decisions and you suffer the consequences for those decisions.”

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COMMUNION HOMILY

No communion homily recorded.

Q&A SESSION

Q1: Were Peter and John trained from birth in Old Testament theology and Jewish tradition?

Questioner: These men were trained from birth, right? In Old Testament theology, Jewish tradition.

Pastor Tuuri: Well, trained is probably too strong a word. I mean, we really don’t know much about their upbringing, but it’s probable that they did have a great grasp of the scriptures and their application. So if their parents were doing their job, they should have been instructed in that Old Testament a lot.

Questioner: Yeah. Okay. That’s what I was trying to make a connection with what you had said concerning ignorance and being unlearned. Because so often it’s presented in an evangelical framework that these were just a couple of guys that the Lord picked up off the street here. You know, and they were in the Jewish community, raised, born into it. That type of thing. And for me, it’s real important to keep that distinction there.

Pastor Tuuri: Yeah. There are some translations, for instance, that instead of saying ignorant, say illiterate. That really is not the sense of the term. They weren’t saying these guys weren’t smart or hadn’t received parental instruction. They were using some fairly specific terms that meant they did not have rabbinical training and they were not licensed, credentialed, whatever you want to call it, as a second word they apply to them.

Questioner: That’s very helpful because so often Peter is presented as just a loudmouthed ignorant fisherman. You know, and I think that was far from his position in life.

Pastor Tuuri: Yeah, that’s a very good point. Thank you for that. What a warning to us too, huh?

Q2: Can you give examples of what has been taken out of churches regarding God’s law?

Questioner: You were saying that a lot of churches around us have taken and they’ve just ripped out the law and tried to woo friends in there to think they’re going to accept the Lord. And maybe you could give an example of what’s been taken out?

Pastor Tuuri: Sure. You know what I see is a historical progression where the law was first removed from the churches in terms of its standard for the lives we live in our sanctification. That’s basically what dispensationalism has accomplished. Although really, even in the churches that have more of an appreciation for the law, they also have kind of backed off from a lot of the application of it—particularly in terms of civil government.

It’s real interesting, you know, that Psalm 2 doesn’t state this directly, but obviously these nations, these kings being judged by some standard. Now, what standard does the Son of God judge these nations? Well, it’s got to be His law. How well do they adhere to His law? I think Greg made that point several times. You know, on what basis are these people cursed? If it’s not the law, what’s the standard?

In any event, so first of all, the law was removed in terms of—actually, the progression first: it’s removed even by Reformed denominations as a standard for civil government. Then it’s been removed through dispensationalism as a standard for the way the believer lives his life. And now the law is even looked down upon as a means of bringing people to salvation through repentance.

So in other words, talking to a person about their adultery, their homosexuality as a sin—an offense against God, their violation of God’s law—now the idea becomes friendship evangelism, where we essentially become friends with people. “You’ve made some mistakes in your life.” There’s no longer this strong conviction of sin. Now, this is not as if—I mean, still I’m sure that a lot of people and a lot of churches do, maybe not refer to it as the law, but use God’s standards for moral righteousness in the New Testament as the basis for their preaching and calling people to repentance.

But the whole idea of repentance seems to be getting kind of a backseat in terms of evangelism. Hell as well, you know, the preaching that there is a hell to come. My wife was talking this week about restitution again in terms of civil penalties. And I don’t remember who it was, but maybe somebody here at this church mentioned how—well, that will never happen until hell gets back in the Christian message.

Hell is the great thing that tells us that God is not a humanist. He sends some people to eternal damnation. And so that whole thing, the methods of evangelism seem to be less and less aimed at bringing people to conviction for their sins using the sword of sin. Instead, just kind of try to add on a perspective of Jesus.

I mean, you’ve seen witnessing programs, I’m sure, where you tell people—like the “I Found It” campaign, for instance. The “I Found It” campaign says, “I found it,” you know, “I found a better life for my marriage, for instance. If you want a better marriage, try Jesus.” So it’s kind of the end result of that is, in terms of using Schaeffer’s terms—which is really just Van Til’s terms—the person’s life, who he is. If all you do is get him to add Jesus on top of his house, another story on his house, you’ve not done what the gospel is supposed to, which is to demolish his house and say, “There’s no ability to trust in yourself. You’ve been an ethical rebel since birth against God. Everything you’ve built is warped and twisted. Now you’ve got to repent of all of that and come to faith in Jesus and let Him build your house for you.”

Now, if that’s—if that happens to a person, it probably happened to many of us when we were converted. That’s the kind of conversion we went through. Then your life becomes real difficult because now you’ve got all this timber, so to speak, all these rooms you’ve built that have never really had the light of the gospel burning through them. And then when we sin in our Christian growth, then that’s also not seen as something you’ve got to just pull out of the building. It’s seen as a mistake or whatever.

It’s so difficult in counseling. I have a personal experience to get people to say, “This is a sin. I had reasons, but it was wrong nonetheless. My basic reason was rebellion against God. I’ve got to repent of that sin.” So that’s kind of how the progression I see. And the witnessing thing, it’s the whole idea of trying to get people to become Christians so they’d have a better life. I mean, that’s true—you do have a better marriage if it’s a Christian marriage. But it’s not truly a Christian marriage unless you realize that you’ve sinned against God in all that you’ve done and come to repentance for your whole life.

Does that make sense?

Q3: How do Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 correlate together?

Questioner: You referenced Psalm 2. It’s very interesting. The Septuagint Greek translation, about 200 years before Christ, considers Psalm 1 and Psalm 2 as one psalm. And scholars have debated why they did that. And because there’s a correlation between the word “meditate” in verse two of Psalm 1 and the word “imagine”—the same word in the Hebrew of chapter 2, verse 1 of Psalm 2. And it’s a gripping word. It means to talk to yourself with great determination to do something.

And so you have a correlation between the godly man whose entire life is consumed with the law of God and pursuance of that. And on the other hand, in Psalm 2, which is sort of the corollary of the ungodly, they’re pursuing, muttering to themselves, talking to themselves: “How can we break loose of this? How can we throw off this burden, this yoke that’s upon us?” Yeah, and break these bands asunder.

So in the gospel today, hasn’t recognized that you’ve got men who are pursuing the death of God. As the Puritans used to say, sin is God murder. It’s an attempt to murder God. And until men recognize that fact, you’re not going to help them at all. And Psalm 2 is very—I mean, you have the laughter of God. That’s very offensive to people. God laughs at you when you strive to break His law. He’ll laugh at you and then He’ll destroy you. And it’s not in the vocabulary of Christianity today that God says, “Civil magistrates, take heed or you’ll be destroyed.”

Pastor Tuuri: Yeah, and it is important, like you’re saying, in our witnessing, to remind people of that fact that they did with that with the Sanhedrin. “You crucified Him. You did this thing.” Because people—you know, people, I’m not saying that people are aware of their act of rebellion against God—but that’s our job. The job of God’s word is to make them aware that this is the source of what they do.

Questioner: It’s interesting too. You talk about they break, they conspire to break apart the bands that God holds them with. And if you look at that conspiracy relative to the text today—to the church and the preaching—again, it’s an acknowledgement from scripture that the church, through the preached word, does have authority over the nations and over the culture. The culture seeks to get rid of the church and its message because now that are the secondary means that God uses in terms of holding these people under jurisdiction and authority.

Pastor Tuuri: Yeah, I knew that about Psalm 1 and 2. I think one reason they talk about Psalm 2 is untitled. So they figure it’s just a continuation of Psalm 1. We’re going to sing Psalm 1 in the meal service over there for that reason too. They really correlate well together. I hadn’t realized that about those two first verses. Though there seems to be a correlation between the fact that what is the rejection, or the council of the ungodly? What is it? Psalm 2 tells us, yeah, that we don’t want God’s law.

Questioner: Oh, that’s good. Yeah, and so these two are hand in hand. To understand one you have to understand the other.

Pastor Tuuri: Excellent. Appreciate that.