Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 4:1-31

The sermon scripture is Acts 4:1 through 31 as it was last week. Please stand for the reading of God’s word. The psalm we just recited antiphonally is referenced in the portion for our scripture reading today in Acts 4. 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 to 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 which 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 you 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 an impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all and to 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 does this man stand here before you whole. This is the stone which was set at nought of 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 they 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 it. When they had commanded them to go outside of the council, they conferred among 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, and 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, for 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 all that was done. For the man was about 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 has made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that is in them, who by the mouth of thy servant David has said, Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing?

The kings of the earth stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against 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 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 they may speak thy word, by stretching forth thy 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 and 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 now he would illuminate our understanding of this portion of scripture which I started last week and didn’t finish and I want to start just by reviewing what we said last week, just by reviewing the text essentially and what actually happens in this portion of scripture and then I want to spend a little bit of time talking more about Psalm 2 as the interpretation of what history is and then look at some relevant lessons from the text in terms of the persecution of the church which we see beginning here in the book of Acts as it continues through history what lessons from this text can be applicable to us in our modern situation.

So first let’s just do an overview again of the text and I want to kind of place it in context. Remember where we’re at here in Acts chapter 1 we saw the ascension of the savior. We saw that he had taught the disciples for forty days things of the kingdom. At the end of that time before his ascension, they asked when will the kingdom be restored to Israel? And my belief is that text refers to the restoration of the ruling authority to the church under the reorganized church, not to some later event, but some event which is going to take place in the context of this book.

And that helps us to understand immediately what happens. We see then in Acts chapter 1, the beginning of the reorganized church under the ascended savior who now sits at the right hand of the father. And so that reorganization occurs with manifestations of the Holy Spirit gifting in terms of languages and the restoration of the kingdom is demonstrated then in Acts chapter 2 at the day of Pentecost when the salvation of the world is typified or symbolically portrayed for us at Jerusalem as men gathered from the whole world.

It says then men are preached to men are saved from every country so to speak, every kindred and tongue and tribe and people that are represented there and as a result we have a picture of the reversal of Babel people brought back into a common confession even though having different languages unity and diversity of the world. So in the first couple of chapters we have some very important lessons sketched out for us.

Chapter three which I have taken out of step here because of the fourth of July and wanting to speak to the relevance and to remind us all of the defeat of the apostate church and an apostate state by the Lord Jesus Christ. We’ll go back to Acts chapter 3 next week and we’ll see there that what happens is they heal a lame man. So after this typological so to speak salvation of the whole world and the next incident is they heal a lame man at the gate of the temple and that is very significant meaning for us and it’s interpreted by Peter then as he gives his second sermon that’s recorded for us in the book of Acts and at the heart of that sermon he talks about the restoration of all things is what we’re in the process now of doing.

So the lame man is restored to a position of health, a position of ability now to exercise dominion. And that’s a picture of what’s happening. Salvation of the world that’s pictured in Acts chapter 2 is further taught for us what the meaning of that is in Acts chapter 3. And that is restoration, reconciliation to God, which affects reconciliation in every sphere and restores us to the position of dominion that God wants his church to exercise.

The response to that is this: the first opposition to the church. And it’s significant that this first opposition comes from the old church so to speak, the vested powers in Israel, the church powers as well as the state powers. And so the relevance of chapter 4 to that and it gives us indications of what’s going to happen throughout the rest of the book of Acts.

And the central message of this persecution of the opposition to the church is that it happens under the sovereignty of God. You know, they quote from Psalm 2 and they apply it to their situation and they say that these guys are gathered together against your church now to do whatever your hand has appointed them to do. So opposition occurs under the sovereignty of God for the purpose of the growth of the church. It’s seen in that context. But it’s also very much stressed in the passage that opposition should always be understood by the church in terms of its destruction by God. That it is a vain thing for the peoples and the nations for church and state to rise up against Jesus Christ or against his church. God laughs from heaven and has them in derision and God will crush them temporally in time and in history.

So this first opposition reminds us of the victory of Jesus Christ over church and state. So in these first four chapters we have the salvation of the world pictured the restoration of the kingdom to Israel. The restoration then and reconciliation between God and men which affects the ability to exercise dominion and then finally that dominion cannot be stopped by apostate powers in church or state. The Lord Jesus Christ reigns from heaven. So that’s the context for everything we’re going to see here in chapter four as we look again through this and you remember we said that the outline I decided to use is a five-fold outline here that this first opposition to the church occurs in reference to a specific event and that is the healing of the lame man and the preaching of the gospel those things being seen together and so it is the opposition to the new church the reorganized church occurs in the context as a response to an act of restoration okay to an act of restoration of the lame man and the preaching of the gospel and that is extremely important to keep in mind in terms of why these things happen.

Secondly we said that this opposition occurs on behalf of or on the part of the old church. Judgment begins at the house of God and within the church itself. The church forms the direction for history and what happens in the church forms what will happen in the state and in the nation as well. And so the opposition comes from the old church, the vested interest, the vested power structure of the old church.

Third, we said that the opposition occurs against the leaders of the restoration party here who are restoring men to health and preaching the full gospel of Jesus Christ. They bring in Peter and John and not everybody. These are the men who are preaching, but it’s the heads so to speak that the opposition frequently occurs against and it does here. Now the men are brought in to the same council that had found Jesus guilty, condemned him to death, and you would have expected them to be afraid, but they have no fear here. And we talked upon that and it’s important for us as well that as the church goes through opposition to its message of the full gospel of Jesus Christ and its works of restoration, the good deeds it does of restoring men back to a place of health and exercise of dominion, opposition will come. And it’s important for us to notice here that opposition to God’s people is met by them with courage.

It doesn’t mean that they’re not afraid necessarily, but it means they do the right thing even though there may be fear, some degree of fear of what may happen to them. And we said last week that very important in understanding this is that they were more afraid of God, of disobeying him than they were afraid of the people. And if you’re if you’re a people pleaser, if you ultimately don’t do what God requires you to do because you’re concerned about what your neighbors might think, then God says you’re not really exhibiting the power of the Holy Spirit. That’s sin on your part. And the only answer to that is to fear God more than to fear people.

Now, there’s another component of that. Of course, obedience isn’t just motivated by fear of God’s punishment. It’s also motivated by love for the Lord Jesus Christ. He has demonstrated his great love for us, and our motivation must be the love of the Savior. But it also involves a healthy fear of disobedience to God.

H.G. Wells who himself was no fearer of God, yet he wrote as God frequently uses the unconverted to speak truths. He said, “The trouble with so many people in the world is that their neighbors the voice of their neighbors sounds louder in their ears than the voice of God.” And in our day and age today, the voice of your neighbors are not going to be sympathetic with the full preaching of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. And I mean your neighbors in the church as well. It’s pretty obvious to see that. And so we have to hear the voice of God and recognize that it’s more important to us than the voice of our neighbors. As I said last week was said of John Knox that fear God so much that there was no fear of man left in him. So that’s a model for us to understand God’s judgments in the world.

Now in their courage in their response to the persecution or opposition of the ruling church against them, Peter and John quoted from Psalm 118 or at least made reference to it. They told them that they had rejected the rock. You the builders, the ones who were supposed to construct God’s church and to keep it going and to add to it, you have rejected the chief cornerstone, the Lord Jesus Christ and his work. And that plays in the theme from Psalm 118 which we quoted from last week and we did antiphonally just a few minutes ago where Jesus Christ is referred to as the cornerstone that will be rejected by men.

Verse 22 of Psalm 118, 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. And it’s important here to bring this up because I mentioned before one way to think about the use in the New Testament by the apostles of the Old Testament prophecies or Old Testament quotes throughout the New Testament is to realize that they’re referring to the entire context of the quote given. You know, they don’t take it out of context and apply it without reference to the rest of the psalm. So, when they have it you can look at this as like they hum a few bars of a song to remind the leaders of what that song meant to them, Psalm 118, to those men who are familiar with it. I could use contemporary examples. I don’t think I will you can think of some yourself where a bar of a song will remind you a few notes a few words from a song remind you of that entire song and what it means.

Well, here they make reference to a theme from Psalm 118. And of course, we should bring then the content of Psalm 118 into our understanding of what they were telling the opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ and his anointed church. Psalm 118 is filled with lessons. We talked about this last week. There are many correlaries between it. You’ll notice that three times in Psalm 118 when we were doing it responsively, you notice this more than if you just read it. Three times the writer of the psalm says, “Even though the enemies of God compass me about, I will destroy them. I will destroy them. I will destroy them.” Three times it’s repeated for emphasis. And so it’s important to see here that they were issuing a strong challenge. It was an announcement to the ruling authorities that unless they were saved, if unless they repented of their sins and came to a belief and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, as savior and as king of everything that they did. Unless they did that, they would be destroyed by Jesus Christ. He is the ultimate one who brings destruction in terms of Psalm 2 which they then later quote upon the apostate church and state that rise up against him.

So the opposition comes from the established authorities and it comes against the leaders so to speak who are preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we said that part of opposition is in terms of these two calumnies or despising things they thought and undoubtedly circulated about Peter and John.

In verse 13, they said that they discerned that they were unlearned and ignorant men. And we said there that unlearned means they didn’t have rabbinical training. And ignorant men meant they were lay people as opposed to clergy. Wycliffe in his translation refers to them as unlettered and lewd. Unlettered in the sense of being not familiar—it’s not that they were illiterate but they were unlettered in the sense of not having an academic credential and they were lewd.

Now that today in our terminology lewd means bad or base. But it’s important that you understand that term lewd had its origin simply in the idea of being a lay person, a commoner as opposed to a king for instance. And so over time that deep division between ruling authorities and subjects implied negative things a negative moral base about the subjects themselves. So lay people became lewd people so to speak in the use of the language.

Jay Alexander on this verse said that the basic the best sense therefore of the whole descriptive phrase is that of uneducated men and private individuals or laymen with the implication of obscurity and lack of experience as public speakers. So that’s one of the things that they noticed about Peter and John and that’s one of the oppositional aspects to the church that will come about has from time immemorial is the idea that people are uneducated, not lettered and don’t have the proper credentials in terms of being clergy as opposed to lay people.

This persecution yields some amount of affliction for the moment. They were thrown in jail after all. We will see some of them dying but it also then portends victory for the long term. Throughout the scriptures, you have this pattern. For instance, Joseph goes into prison, but prison is seen for Joseph as a prelude to his glorification, so to speak, as ruler of all Egypt. And of course, the great model for that is the Lord Jesus Christ who suffers and then is exalted.

And so, we cast ourselves upon him and we debase ourselves. We are not filled up with pride. We humble ourselves so that God in his due time may raise us up. And that’s the big model. And so it’s real important that the church understand that because it means that in your personal lives, in the lives of the church, when the church begins to suffer opposition, it’s no time for despair. It’s really to be seen as a time of joy.

And we’ll see that as we go through the book of Acts. When guys are thrown into prison, they rejoice in that. And I think that’s for two reasons. One, they recognize the identification with the sufferings of Jesus Christ. But if we’re identified with the sufferings of Christ for preaching his name and applying his word in our lives, then we’re also going to be identified with the exaltation of the Lord Jesus Christ. Okay, so that model is real important and hopefully I’ll have this memorized cuz I can’t see these anymore. Okay. Well, anyway, so that model is important for us to remember as well.

They of course their response to the command on the part of the ruling authorities not to speak any longer in the name of Jesus Christ is to say, you know, you can figure out for yourselves what you’re going to do. But we’re going to tell you that we cannot stop speaking what we know to be true, and that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In chapter 5 of Acts, that’ll become more plainly stated. We must obey God rather than men. But the same thing’s being said here. And we mentioned that this is really similar to what Joshua in Joshua 24 wrote. He said that if it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods of your fathers that your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood or the gods of the Amorites in whose land we dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.

And that’s what their response was, and that’s what our response has to be as well when we suffer opposition for doing what’s right in the sight of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now, the really important thing here to notice is they then go back, they’re released, they go back to the covenant community, they rejoice together. They don’t collapse into a state of despair or fear. They’re happy, not just because their fellows are out of prison because they know what this all portends. They know that the hand of God has determined what’s happening. And they know that if they’re suffering the way Jesus Christ suffered, applying to themselves Psalm 2, then as he said, they’re also going to be glorified in the sense that they’ll have success in preaching the gospel of Christ.

And the conversion of the world that they saw typologically in the historical events of their day would be the move of history and they understood then they interpreted contemporary events that happened to them in the light of scripture. A very important model they applied Psalm 2 of course to the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ but they applied it to the contemporary events in which they lived and went through. And that’s so important and that’s why it’s important to know the scriptures. The scriptures are the key to understanding what’s happening in your life. And if you don’t know the scriptures, if you don’t read them enough to understand them, if you don’t meditate upon them. If you don’t memorize them, put them in your heart, then you’re not going to have them at hand when you need to interpret an event. But if you do, then you’re prepared for whatever God in his providence brings into your path. You understand it because you understand scripture, which is the key to all knowledge.

They applied the acts of the opposition to the Lord Jesus Christ. Those men, they applied that same thing to themselves. And so they saw themselves in an essential identity with the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s interesting here that Psalm 2 talks about and they quote this that they have done these things against the Lord and against his anointed. Now anointed is when Jesus is called Messiah or Christ, it means the anointed one. Anointed is the officer of God, the priest and the king. But in a general sense, I think it can apply to the church as well.

Jay Alexander in his commentary said that anointed here does not merely mean consecration in general but special preparation for his role by the influence of the Holy Spirit of which unction is a symbol in the Old Testament. The anointing or unction pictured in the Old Testament is a picture of the preparation or gifting by the Holy Spirit for the work that one is given to do. And so Jesus Christ receives that unction of the Holy Spirit and he is the anointed one.

But who else has just received that unction? Well, the church has, hasn’t it? That’s what happened on the day of Pentecost. The Holy Ghost come upon them in a very visible way and they have an unction now. They have an anointing of the Holy Spirit of which man’s devices properly administered according to God’s rule is just an outward sign. But the inward reality of that, the equipping of the Holy Spirit, the anointing of the Holy Spirit had come upon the church.

And so they saw themselves identified with the Lord Jesus Christ and his anointing. They then pray. The assembled host prays in verse 29. And they say, “Uh, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants, that with all boldness that they may speak thy word by stretching forth thine hand to heal and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of the holy child Jesus. They ask for boldness from God. They don’t ask for release from the opposition. They know that’s happening according to the hand of God. But they ask for the proper response, the proper antiphonal response based upon God’s word to what’s happening to them. And that response is boldness. And then they acknowledge their weakness of faith and say, “Give us signs and wonders as well to bolster us up that we might believe these things.

Now, it’s interesting because it’s important here they say uh by stretching forth thine hand to heal. That’s what had just happened. That’s what started the opposition. They asked for more restoration signs that the opposition might actually then increase that they might have boldness in preaching the gospel. They go on to say and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child Jesus.

I’ll talk about this more next week, but the healing of people, the lame, for instance, is a sign. That’s what’s clearly identified as here. It does, you know, what is it a sign of? Well, the sign pictures something that is important in terms of the blessing being conveyed by God. Baptism pictures cleansing. It also pictures the identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. The water come down from above. So, it pictures God’s sovereignty and election. So, the baptism, the waters picture things for us. The scriptures give just the way to interpret that sign correctly.

Well, when the lame man is restored to a position of walking, that’s a sign as well. It isn’t just a sign that God has power. It’s power directed toward a specific thing. And we have a beggar now, an alms seeker who is asking for what? Money. And Peter and John will see this more next week, but Peter and John say, “We don’t have money. What we do have, you can have.” And they bring him to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and they restored him to health. So, now, he could have said, “Well, I want money. That’s nice. I’m glad I can walk now. But, you know, how am I going to buy today’s food?” And that sounds ridiculous, but that is precisely what goes on in this city. Well, not precisely, but by way of application, what goes on in this city on a daily basis.

Men want money. They’re given opportunity to work to be restored to a position of vocational calling, and they reject it because they want the money instead. This man understood the relationship of healing to his need for funds. Well, he was restored to an ability to work and exercise vocational calling. He didn’t need to be begging anymore. So, the restoration here of a lame man to walking is important as a sign to us as well.

And that’s why I’m saying here that the opposition occurs in the context of the preaching of the gospel that includes the restoration of men to exercise dominion. More about that next week. Okay.

Now, let’s look a little bit at Psalm 2 very briefly because that is central to this text. That’s what they understood as being the contemporary events were interpreted by Psalm 2. And we looked at Psalm 2 a little last week.

And one way I’ve given you a short form outline here of Psalm 2. And that is first of all, the rebellious church and state on earth rage. And that’s in the first three verses of Psalm 2. Why do the peoples imagine a vain thing? Why do the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed? The rulers in church and state are pictured in Psalm 2 as opposing God, as raging against God.

But secondly, God in heaven laughs at them. The Lord in heaven laughs. He has them in derision. He says, “Well, you know, you can rage all you want, but I have installed my son as the reigning authority on earth.” And you know, there’s a in your outline, I’ve got the rebellious church and state on earth rage. God in heaven laughs. You see, that’s why he’s laughing. He rules from heaven. Heaven is higher than earth. Heaven is the authority place on earth. We come into heavenly worship to see things from God’s perspective because that controls things on earth.

I mean, a picture is if you got a big father and a little tiny two-year-old son who’s trying to thwart the will of the father, shaking his fist at him or whatever. And even that picture doesn’t work good enough because God is in heaven. He’s that exalted, that high, that powerful. And man on earth rages against him. And it’s ridiculous. It is completely irrational. So God in heaven laughs.

And then God instructs us in Psalm 2 that the Son has asked for and received the earth as his inheritance. And we see that in verse 7. I will declare the decree. The Lord has said unto me, “Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee. Ask of me and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” Then he says, “Thou shalt rule them with a rod of iron.”

And I think that the scriptures teach us And particularly in the passage we have just read that this is not referring to some future event. It was in the time of the Psalms in its fullest extent. But now the New Testament church recognizes that Jesus has indeed asked for from the father for the heathen and the nations of the uttermost parts of the earth for an inheritance. God has granted that request. Jesus has gone through his work on the cross. He has been resurrected. He has been glorified. He has ascended to the right hand of the father. He’s been exalted. And that glorification is the key to understanding history because he now has asked from the father what this thing says. If you ask it, I will grant it. And the Lord Jesus Christ has been granted authority over heaven and earth. Then he has been given the heathen and the uttermost parts of the earth for his inheritance.

I want to read a couple of quotes here. This first one and several of these are from David Brown’s work “Christ Coming: Will It Be Postmillennial?” He says that we read in the scriptures that Christ may be seen putting in his claim to the sovereignty of the world and getting that claim recognized by him that siteth upon the throne that is the father and then he quotes from Psalm 2 asks of me says the ancient of days in effect and I will give thee the heathen for thine inheritance and the uttermost most parts of the earth for thy possession.

The prophet sees this done and he adds there was given him dominion and glory in a kingdom that all peoples, nations and languages would serve him. That is what happened here in the context of the scriptures in Revelation 10:1 and 2. Let’s turn to that. Revelation 10:1 and 2 and I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven clothed with a cloud and a rainbow was upon his head and his face was as it were the sun and his feet as pillars of fire and he had in his hand a little book open and he set his right foot upon the sea and his left foot upon the earth and cried with a loud voice.

So in this commentary in this passage the writer reads that he claims and possesses what the father has promised him in Psalm 2, even the heathen for his inheritance in the uttermost parts of the earth for his possession. This is symbolized in the text here with his right foot being upon the sea and his left foot upon the earth. Jesus Christ has received and asked this and this is what the New Testament church reorganized church as it were sees in relationship to the events that have just happened.

And I want to read an extended quote now from “Christ Coming. Will It Be Postmillennial?” Let’s see. Let’s start where let’s see. He states here that God has established his king upon the holy hill Zion where he shall where he has set him. And the certainty with whom all shall not all who will not kiss the son or bow their hearts or bend their policies unto his scepter shall be dashed in pieces. Speaking of what occurs to them in Psalm 2 Pre-millennialists make all this future and that is the vice of their system. It was not in the primary sense to be manifested under this dispensation. This is what dispensationalists say and has not been manifested as they say. But what says the worshiping company found in Acts chapter 4. They apply the psalm beyond all contradiction to the present sovereignty and rule of Jesus in the heavens. And now quoting from the passage from Acts chapter 4 we’re dealing with. The kings of the earth stood up they that is the assembled host quoting the words of the psalm 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 were gathered together, for to do what thy hand and thy counsel determined before to be done.

Now back to the commentary in the estimation then of the band of primitive disciples the vain things which the people imagined and which the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers took counsel to accomplish was just to overthrow the gracious rule of Jesus whose sweetness they were then tasting in the salvation of their own souls and whose power was bracing them to the endurance even of death for his name.

It was the bands of this saving authority of over men which they saw them resolving to break us under. It was their it was the cords by which it sought to bind them in believing subjection which they saw them ungodly determining to cast away from them. And if the view of this second psalm does not prove that the proper kingdom of Christ is now in existence, that it is administered not from a poor throne in Jerusalem, but from the heavens, and that it’s that it consists strictly and formally in the royal dispensation of grace by him as a savior, and the saving rule of the subjects of that grace is difficult to conceive what kind of evidence would be held competent to establish it.

So he says that you know the evidence is clear here based upon Acts chapter 4 quoting from Psalm chapter 2 that Jesus Christ has indeed asked for and received authority from the father in heaven. And so Psalm chapter 2 properly understood gives us the interpretation of history post the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is what happens repeatedly throughout history as men try to shake off the bands of Christ and Christ having received the inheritance from the father utterly dashes in pieces all those foes which oppose him.

This has happened from time of it. It happened in the time of the reformation and let me read just a quote here about Martin Luther. Psalm 2 is one of Martin Luther’s favorite psalms. Quoting now from a recitation of a book with these historical examples. It says that another favorite of Luther was Psalm 2 and his remarks upon it bring out salient features in the character of a man whose very words were half battles so to speak and this is now quoting from Luther.

The second psalm is one of the best psalms. I love that psalm with all my heart. It strikes and flashes valiantly among kings, princes, controllers, judges, etc. If what this psalm says be true, then of the allegations and aims of the papacy stark lies and folly. If I were as our Lord God and had committed the government to my son as he has now to his son and these vile people were as so disobedient as now they be I would knock the world in pieces.

So Luther understood that in his day and age the power of antichrist working through the then Roman Catholic Church and the papist party was indeed to be interpreted by Psalm 2. Jesus Christ has received the throne and the rule from his father from the throne and he now is in the process and was in the process during the time of the reformation of striking against those forces that would seek in a vain thing to conspire against the Lord Jesus Christ and against his church.

And so Luther applied that to contemporary events and so we should as well.

So let’s move now to do that. Let’s consider some of the implications of this text for our lives today. And the first point I want to make here is that the central reason for the lack of persecution or oppression of the church today is that there is little or no restoration and little or no true proclamation of the full gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. If all that Christianity is in our country and it’s been this for many years in this country essentially is kind of a privatized religion that does not have impact for the lives of the public sphere of people and doesn’t restore people back to a position of exercise of dominion in the home, in the school, in the job, and in the voting booth, then there’s no threat to the established order, and there’s no reason for them to oppose the church.

The church right now in America poses essentially no threat to the governing authorities in the apostate church or in the apostate state. The state has nothing to fear from the church because it’s essentially irrelevant to the thought of the of the state and the church that is liberal that has denied the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ also doesn’t see much reason to oppose the true preaching of the gospel because there isn’t there’s not much restoration being done and as a result we sit in freedom in this land now that doesn’t always mean that you have freedom that’s because you’re not doing what’s right there are times in which the gospel has been preached nations have been converted and discipled and then there’s relative freedom as well but the freedom we have today is not because the nation is Christian we all know that’s not the case we know that last week the Oregon legislature took away the right of the people in the counties to try to stop civil rights being extended to sodomites.

So essentially the Oregon legislature controlled or the house now controlled by the Republican party, the conservative party essentially caved in to the sodomite homosexual lobby. We don’t live in good times. We all know that. And so the reason why we’re not oppressed is not because the nation is Christian now. It’s because the nation is apostate, but that the church is not preaching the full gospel of Christ that applies to everything that we do and say, and there’s not much restoration being going on.

And by that I mean there are not many lame people being healed in the sense of being restored to dominical calling., and so the central reason for the lack of persecution is because the church is not essentially doing its job rather to preaching the gospel of Christ that Christ has ascended to the throne. That he has a law by which he rules the affairs of men and nations and we must submit or be destroyed by him. That gospel is not being preached and restoration acts the good deeds of the restoration of men to dominical calling is not being affected and as a result there’s not much opposition.

I mention here too the problems of a divided church or a divided witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. And we’re going to I’ve talked about this before, but if we look again by way of example at the designation of what the church is to do based upon the description in Acts chapter 2 that they met for the instruction of the apostles for community they fellowship together and then they met for the breaking of bread worship. We can see in that by way of application the three-fold division of the church that came out of the reformation lines up roughly with these three aspects. The Presbyterian or reformed community is primarily given to a thorough scholarship relative to scripture. The Baptist or congregational communities have stressed more the idea of fellowship together or community. And the Episcopalian tradition has stressed more liturgical aspects the centrality of the breaking of bread at their worship.

And as a result, the gospel of Jesus Christ has been kind of broken up in a way. Presbyterians are you can talk about the Presbyterian reformed groups in terms of either conservative ones or liberal Presbyterians. The liberal Presbyterians have denied the gospel essentially altogether. They have drifted far left from their own standards and have essentially become now Egypt. They’ve essentially become apostate Israel again.

And so, you know, the major Presbyterian denominations are now ordaining homosexuals or letting that go on in their churches, etc. it’s just essentially gone., their scholarship has taken them so far away from what the scriptures taught that they’ve apostasized from the faith. But even in terms of the conservative Presbyterian movement, the two or three conservative denominations that are fairly large, not large, but the larger ones in the context of the country, there’s really not a lot of application of the gospel in terms of the civil state because they’ve denied the application of God’s law to the state.

And there are historical reasons for this as well, and we can get into that. But I don’t want to waste time doing it. But the point I’m going to try to make here is that while there is tremendous scholarship going on in the context of some of the major reformed denominations that are not yet apostate, yet that scholarship has not found its way into building together communities of churches that then actively participate in applying the gospel in terms of political action.

Now why do I say political action? Because if the spirit of antichrist raged primarily through the Roman Catholic Church in the fourteen hundreds and fifteen hundreds. Today it rages primarily through the mouthpiece of the civil state. That’s where Antichrist is to be found today. The civil state that exalts itself, the voice of the peoples, the voice of God against the Lord Jesus Christ. And so if people do not address the very aspect at which the gospel is at which the rights of King Jesus are primarily being challenged by vain and silly and irrational antichrist. Unless they don’t address that point at which the gospel is being challenged then they’re really not preaching the full gospel of Christ. And so because the Presbyterians have essentially pulled back from political action even in the conservative denominations they don’t have what’s required. The Episcopalians are so uh the conservative elements of them now are so enamored of liturgical worship that they forget the application of that then into the world.

Now liturgical worship is real important but if you get way out there on the fringes of liturgical worship into the Eastern Orthodox movement, for instance, movement. It’s been going on for two thousand years. Eastern Orthodoxy essentially in their extreme formulations, they think the world responds to what they do in liturgical worship. It’s what they do in their liturgy on Sunday that keeps the world essentially in place.

Now, there’s a truth to that. I mean, there’s a truth. We’ve talked about the need for liturgical worship that it gives us the patterns for what we’re to do the rest of the week, but it’s not magical. You know, it’s not an incantation that we do that then produces things the other six days of the week. No, no, no. It performs the model, but you have to study God’s word, the teaching of it, and you got to do to the other standard of God’s word, the witness of the church. You have to apply those things. And so, the Episcopalian church is really removed from political action, even the conservative ones and from equipping men in terms of their homes and businesses as well.

Frankly, out of the three models of polity that came out of the reformation, the Baptist church is more in terms in terms of opposing the apostate civil state than the other two movements, even though we probably would have much less in common with their theology and even though their theology runs counter to what they do. Gary North wrote years ago about the intellectual schizophrenia, the moral majority. I mean, if you believe in premillennialism, if you believe that things are inevitably going to go downhill, then you’re not going to be involved in political action. Yet, a lot of those people are. Why? Because the spirit of God witnesses to them that in spite of their wrong theology, they must respond to the civil state challenges to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

So I guess all I’m trying to say here is and I could get into this in a lot more depth, but the point of this is that until those three societies or cultures that came out of the reformation begin to move back together, until we have the head, the heart and the body itself, intellectual attainment, community, fellowship with the church of Jesus Christ and treating each other right and then liturgical worship. that helps us understand all that and put it into action in the world. Until we have all three of those things, the head, the heart, and the body involved, then the witness is not going to be the fuller gospel that was the witness that produced restoration and then opposition from the church and state during the time of the apostles.

So part of our task is to make a relevant gospel and then to seek to break down some of these walls that have been erected from the time of the reformation that have kept the three component elements of the church which are all essential for the church isolated and broken up.

Now, thank God that’s exactly what’s going on. Even though there’s not much opposition to the preaching of the gospel today, we know that there is some opposition. That’s the second point of the outline. Still, there is some restoration being accomplished today. There is a movement. There’s a movement to break down these three forms of polity. There is there is interaction amongst people. Now, we know churches. I know churches at least that have gone from being congregational to Presbyterian to Episcopalian or be Episcopalian into Presbyterian. The lines are being broken down. And as Auto Scott said, more and more people refer to themselves today as Christians as opposed to Presbyterians or Episcopalians or Baptists or Methodists or whatever it is. That’s a good thing. Now, it’s a dangerous thing, too, because the distinctives are important.

Each of these three groups have really stressed very important aspects of the faith. The importance of the local church that the Baptist or congregationalist mode is taught is extremely important. We said before that it is a witness to how well we understand that scripture and apply it in our lives. How we get along with each other in a local church. The local church is real important. Scholarship and understanding the scriptures and having well-defined systematic theologies like the Presbyterians have done. That’s extremely important too because after all the word of God, the application of it must be based upon an understanding of what that word teaches. Otherwise, our fellowship is no longer based upon an understanding of God’s word as it applies to our lives.