Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Acts 5:12-42

And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people, and they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch. And of the rest, dared no man join himself to them. But the people magnified them, and believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women. Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them. There came also a multitude out of the cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed.

Then the high priest rose up and all that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison. But the angel of the Lord by night opened the prison doors, and brought them forth, and said, “Go, stand, and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.” And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning, and taught.

But the high priest came, and they that were with him and called the council together and all the senate of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and found them not in the prison, they returned and told, saying, “The prison truly found we shut with all safety. And the keepers standing without before the doors. But when we had opened, we found no man within.” And when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them where unto this would grow.

Then came one and told them, saying, “Behold, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.” Then went the captain with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council, and the high priest asked them, saying, “Did not we straightly command you that you should not teach in this name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.”

Then Peter and the other apostles answered and said, “We ought to obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew, and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins. And we are his witnesses of these things. And so is also the Holy Ghost, whom God hath given to them that obey him.”

When they heard that, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them. Then stood there up one in the council, a Pharisee named Gamaliel, a doctor of the law, held in reputation among all the people, and commanded to put the apostles forth a little space, and said unto them, “Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves which ye intend to do as touching these men.

For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be somebody, to whom a number of men about 400 joined themselves who was slain. And all as many as obeyed him were scattered and brought to not. After this man rose up Judas of Galilee in the days of the taxing and drew away much people after him, he also perished. And all even as many as obeyed him were dispersed. And now I say unto you, refrain from these men and let them alone.

For if this council or this work be of men, it will come to not. But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it. Lest happily ye be found even to fight against God. And to him they agreed. And when they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. And they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.

And daily in the temple and in every house they ceased not to teach and preach Jesus Christ.

We thank God for his word and pray that he would illuminate our understandings. Please be seated.

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Okay, continue on in the book of Acts today. Basically what I’m going to say will be set in the context of our overview of the text, and then we’ll have four short observations at the end, providing there is enough time.

So let’s move right into the text. I want to get through this quickly. There’s a lot of material here, and a lot of tremendous stuff that God can really use in our hearts if we open them to him and his Holy Spirit takes and writes it upon our hearts. Lots of information here that we can apply that should cause us to rejoice in the salvation we have in Christ, but should also provide a wariness of us of an undue reliance upon victory in our lifetimes and in our particular settings in which we live. There’s balance given here in this text.

Well, let’s move right through the text. And as you can tell from the outline, I’ve divided according to three basic points. First, we have a summary description such as we’ve seen before in the book of Acts of the church. And there’s some continuing things that are happening here. It’s not a static church that’s being developed. In response to the signs and wonders and power of the church, we see an increased persecution on the part of those who would move in opposition to the church.

And again, that always comes, or primarily comes in the scriptures from the false church, not from the civil state. Primarily comes from the false church. And then third, at the end of that, we see the victory of God’s people. Again, in the middle of that we have almost a proleptic—or a portion of scripture that’s going to describe this release—when they’re originally released from that captivity and prison.

And in a way that central verse there, when they’re thrown into jail, and then an angel of the Lord appears, opens the doors, lets them go free and gives them instructions to go into the temple right away and to preach to the people, teach them all the things of this life. That can be seen almost as a summary of this text. That’s really what’s going on throughout the whole thing: as there’s persecution, victory, victory to the end, that God’s word might go forth and be effectual for the conversion of the world around it.

But let’s go through the component elements of it. And the first thing we have is this picture of the church in verses 12-16. And the outline you’ll see it says: increased power, increased unity, increased distinction, numbers, and influence of the true church. And let’s just read through these verses starting at verse 12. “And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought amongst the people.”

Signs and wonders are really the same thing. They’re describing one set of events, and we’re going to see here those sets of events being the healing of people and the casting out of unclean spirits, healed in body and in spirit and in mind as well. So these events are described as both signs and wonders. They’re wonders in and of themselves—they’re marvelous things that people wonder at, so to speak—but they’re also signs. They have meaning to those who have ears to hear, eyes to see. They are signs of something.

In this case, they’re authenticating signs to the apostleship of the apostles. But they’re also more than that. They’re signs of the victory that Jesus Christ is giving forth. Remember, the healing of the lame man was a sign and a wonder. It’s a wonder that a man who has been lame since birth can walk. And it’s a sign that God is now—we are now involved in the time of the restoration of all things. And God brings times of refreshing as he brought to this lame man to all those who believe in Jesus Christ and who recognize their lameness, their sinfulness, their disease. Those people who recognize that are refreshed.

And so these signs and wonders the apostles do by their hand are both those things at once. They want these signs and wonders amongst the people. “And they were all with one accord in Solomon’s porch.”

The unity of the church is described here. Solomon’s porch was one of the two outer temples, or outer courts of the temple. It was a large place, and so they could meet there. And the implication is they were there most of the time. Whenever they had free time they would meet in Solomon’s porch. I don’t think it’s talking about formal worship services here, but it is talking about congregating and convocating together.

“And of the rest dared no man join himself to them. But the people magnified them.”

This is a confusing verse. Lots of different interpretations over the years of what this verse means. I don’t know exactly what it means, but it clearly tells us that there are three sets of people being described here.

First of all, there’s the church—the believers who are gathering themselves in Solomon’s porch on a regular basis. That’s one group of people. Secondly, there’s a group of people who fear them and as a result of fearing them will not join themselves to them. “Join” here is a strong word meaning to stick to or to cleave. It speaks of covenantal association. It’s the same word that’s used in terms of marriage—of a man leaves his father, mother, and cleaves to his wife—talking about covenantal association.

So there’s a group—there’s the church, there’s those who will not cleave because of the fear. And then there’s a third group: there are those that the people magnified them in the sight of those who are outside of the church. Yet within the context of seeing what’s going on, there are those who are fearful and as a result won’t join the church. But there are also people who praise them. They grow as Jesus grew in favor with God and men. So the church is growing in favor and reputation in Jerusalem even with those outside of the church.

So there’s three groups being presented here for us, and very important to see that.

“And believers were the more added to the Lord, multitudes both of men and women.”

Not everybody was too fearful to covenant into the church or to form association and link with the body of Christ. Indeed the church was growing rapidly at this particular point in time. Multitudes of people, both of men and women. First instance really—apart from the first verses when the women are including the praying group—where women are described as joining the church. Doesn’t mean they didn’t join till now, but it does mean that under the true religion, under the true church, men and women both are given distinction. Under the false church, only men are given distinction.

But in any event, both men and women, multitudes come to the Lord. “Insomuch that they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches, that at the least the shadow of Peter passing by might overshadow some of them.”

Now, this is not—some people think there’s a parenthesis here in the middle of this where it talks about the unity and growth, and that this growth occurs as a result of the miracles. But no, I think that these verses lie chronologically just in the way God intends them here. In other words, believers—multitudes of believers were added to the church, and then they were also sought healing. So it’s not that the healing brought people into the church. They were attesting miracles to the truth of the power of Christ through his church. But nonetheless, it is the word of God that converts people.

And the converted people then bring forth their sick into the streets, laid them on beds and couches that at least the shadow of Peter passing. These were not superstitious folks. These were believing folks. They believed that the power of the apostles was so great that even the shadow of one of them passing over them might heal them. And indeed they did—were healed. They were healed by that shadow of Peter passing over. That’s the clear implication of the text.

“There came also a multitude out of the cities round about Jerusalem.”

Now we’re the expansion here. This is the whole model that’s being portrayed for us in these first four or five verses. They’ve got greater unity because of their maturation. Why? Because of what we’ve just read about. What did we just read about before this text? Ananias and Sapphira—discipline, church court, so to speak. The act of God then working through the secondary agency of men to pronounce God’s curses upon those who were hypocrites, false professors of the faith.

Because of that maturation, they have increased unity in Solomon’s porch. They have increased power. Remember, we’ve moved from the lame man being healed to now multitudes are being healed. Their influence is increasing amongst the people. People magnify them, but the fear of the church is also increasing as a result of the maturation of the church and the actual physical proximity, so to speak, of their preaching is expanding out as well.

Now it’s the cities round about Jerusalem that are bringing people—that are being converted and bringing people in. And we also see here—now it’s not just one lame man; it’s many multitudes being healed of sickness. It’s not by the touch of the apostles or by them paying attention to the lame man. Now it’s the mere passing of the shadow of the messengers of Jesus Christ in his church that heal. And then there’s also an increase of power and authority to heal.

We see in this verse it says they came out of around Jerusalem bringing sick folks and also “them which were vexed with unclean spirits and they were healed everyone.”

Now we have unclean spirits being added to the groups being healed. So this is a tremendous passage of maturation of the church—primarily focused upon what just happened: church discipline, and then resulting power. Increased power, increased unity, increased respect from the people round about the church. Also increased fear of the church on the part of the leaders. Increased effect of the apostles and their reach. Everything is growing and magnifying here, and as a result of that, some persecution is going to come.

It’s important to see that this cycle, so to speak, is not a static cycle. History does not move statically. The church doesn’t move statically. It grows and matures. And as it grows and matures, things around it happen. People are restored, persecution increases, unity increases, etc. All these things we’re reading about here.

So this first portion of scripture talks about that. And I want to spend just a little bit of time now relating this to the incident. I’ve made this point. Probably some of you have just said, “Well, maybe he’s right, maybe he isn’t.” But I just want to show you why I’m saying that this is linked to the passage that just preceded it in terms of Ananias and Sapphira. I think this is important.

As these cycles of power of the church, increased power and increased persecution are laid out for us, the church is maturing. First, it was the preaching of the gospel and the conversion of men. Then we saw the maturation of the church in terms of discipline. And in Acts 6, we’re going to see the maturation of the church relative to service. And then we’re going to see even greater persecution come upon them as a result of the maturation and service that is portrayed for us.

I would argue that in terms of just literature, this story synopsizes what has just gone on. And so what just has happened—Ananias and Sapphira—must be included in an evaluation of what these words say. So that’s first of all just the very flow of the scriptures themselves with this summary statement, such as we’ve already seen two or three times now in this text, wrapping up an incident that has occurred. It’s tied in that way.

But there’s an even stronger link in Acts 2:43. We read that “fear came upon every soul and great signs and wonders were done by the apostles.” Okay, now we went over that fairly quickly, but in verse 43 of chapter 2, there is a specific link between fear coming upon people and the great signs and wonders that were done by the apostles.

J.A. Alexander says that the connections of these clauses may be made clear by supplying between them “in order to maintain this fear.” So Alexander says, if you want to read this verse correctly: “Fear came upon every soul and in order to maintain this fear, continued great wonders and signs were done by the apostles.” That’s the literary device used in chapter 2. And that tells us explicitly then that it is proper for us to insert this understanding of the increase of fear of people that we just read in the verse previous—that people feared them who heard of these things—to the great signs and wonders being done by the apostles.

Again, to quote from Alexander from his comment now specifically on verse 12, which we’re dealing with: “And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought.” Alexander says, “As the impression made by the events of Pentecost was strengthened and maintained by a succession of miraculous performances, so now the effect of the tremendous judgment upon Ananias and Sapphira was continued or increased in the same manner. The terms used in the two places are almost identical.”

Okay, so it is linked definitely in the text and just the flow of the text. It’s linked by looking at verse 43 of chapter 2 back to this fear, this idea of Ananias and Sapphira. Alexander says this also, commenting on this text—and this is essentially a paraphrase by J.A. Alexander: “The punishment of Ananias and Sapphira filled the public mind with awe, and this was afterwards manifested by a continued series of miracles in consequence of which the disciples were allowed to constitute a body by themselves without molestation or intrusion from without.

And as they had now gradually formed the habit of assembling daily in the porch of Solomon, so others, rather, ventured not to mix with them there, but the people were contented to look on as mere spectators from the courts, admiring and continually magnifying, in other words, admiring and praising them as a company among whom God was present in a new and most extraordinary manner.”

So this growth is not tied to the winsomeness of the church as much as it is tied to the external judgments that God brings upon those who covenant into the church in falsehood and in hypocrisy or who fall into sin in the context of the church.

One of the commentators dealing with this advance of the people of God, the growing numbers and influence they had, said that men will always flock to a church where men’s lives are changed. Well, I don’t think that’s true—not in the sense that this particular commentator means it. Men do not flock to a church where lives are changed the way they were changed with Ananias and Sapphira.

If you know that there is discipline being exacted in the context of God’s covenant host, that isn’t some great attraction for most people. Most people are going to be very fearful then of covenanting into that kind of community where the word of God is preached, and not only is it preached, judgments are declared from it relative to their own members if necessary, and then God’s judgments also accompany that, making clear his presence in the context of the church.

Now this is an important point, folks. Otherwise we miss what’s going on here. These cycles of increased power and increased unity are based upon increased maturation. At least that’s the way the text is portrayed for us. And as I said, next in Acts 6, we’ll see maturation relative to service.

But now we’re seeing maturation of the church relative to dealing with sin within the covenant community. Just as in the book of Joshua, we saw Achan, who grabbed after God’s wealth and who took a robe—a mighty powerful robe. Robes were signs of power and authority. Achan grabbed at the authority of God in stealing the things that he did from Jericho. And God says to the church, maturation means we’re going to train your hands to war. That’s what’s going to happen with the unbelievers, the culture in which you’re in the context of. But he trains our hands for war sometimes through the exercise of war within the body of Christ.

Judgment begins at the house of God. And maturation of the church must happen there in order for it to then be effectual in the cultural warfare that God calls us to do.

George Grant, speaking at the confessional conference that I went to in Chicago in July, was talking to people all of whom have had problems in their denominations. For the most part, most of them coming out of the CRC or problems within the PCA—whatever denominations are the context of—and Grant was stressing the need for Christian character to win the cultural war in which we find ourselves.

And he said that it’s probably those who have gone through the church wars, the wars within the context of the church, who are most prepared then to wage the cultural war. I think he’s right. I think the church wars produce a strength of character. When responded to correctly, they bring a degree of holy fear, reverence and awe of God, certainly that God is present in the context of his people, but also a real apprehension over personal sin.

And so when people go through church wars in the context of denominations or individual churches, they come away from that strengthened in their character, strengthened in their humility, hopefully strengthened in their own abhorrence of their own sin and a fearfulness of that sin manifesting itself so that God will finally deal with them. And those people with that kind of character and maturity are the ones who then can wage the cultural war in the context of a false church.

And that’s what happens here in the book of Acts in chapter 5. Does this meet up with your apprehension, your comprehension of what a church is? Well, probably for a lot of us it meets up pretty well. But if you look at the context of what we’ve come out of, for the most part, churches are primarily seen as places where people are comforted, spiritual hospitals. Now, the church is a place of the proclamation of the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and that should bring great comfort and joy to our hearts. But it’s also a message of repentance.

We’ll see that as we go on here. Central to the idea of proclamation of the gospel that comforts is a calling for repentance to people. And the church is to move as an army of God—in other words, what I’m saying is this concept of the church maturing in discipline and as a result power, authority, unity, persecution as well. This is not one which we see prevalent, this concept of the church in our day and age today. No, we see just the reverse.

Should it be difficult? Should people fear—in not a phobia sense, but in a sense of a careful apprehension of what they’re doing before they covenant into membership at a local church? Yes, they should. That’s what this text says. They should be fearful. They should be in awe of God’s presence in the congregation, but also of the importance of them knowing that church court, church discipline happens. And as a result of that, there should be a fearfulness to those things.

So this text tells us that.

So these people then move on in maturity, and what we see in these beginning cycles then is that there are great works being done—not simply added numbers. As I said, we have this growth also in the authority of the apostles. We don’t just see them now directly working with the lame man. Their very shadow coming by can bring healing.

You know Jesus said, “Greater works than these will you do.” Remember this—this should bring to mind when women would touch the hem of his garment and receive healing. He said, “I felt power flow out of me.” Here, there’s not even a physical touching of the apostles. There’s simply the passing of the shadow of the apostles by people and they are healed. These are not superstitious people. These are people of faith like the centurion who knew that God didn’t have to work directly with them even to manifest a miraculous healing of them.

They had such faith. They knew that the apostles and their very presence was the presence not of them but ultimately of the Lord Jesus Christ. And that presence brings healing to our lives. And so there’s this growth in power and authority.

But secondly then, in response to this growth and power and authority, is increased persecution. Clearly that tells us that here in verse 17 and 18. In other words, in response to what’s happening here—this increase of maturation, unity, power, distinction from the rest of the world, but also favor from the context in which the church finds itself—in response to this, then “the high priest rose up and all that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the apostles and put them in the common prison.”

Different kind of hands now. By the hands of the apostles, great miracles were being done of healing and restoration. And by the hands of the council, they laid their hands on the apostles to imprison them. Different kind of hands being portrayed here. Different group. There’s a growing strength of persecution. There’s a growing unity in those who had opposed the church as well as a growing maturation of the church.

This is the second persecution, formal persecution in the book of Acts, and it is strengthened from the previous persecution. We will see that as we go along here.

But for now, let me just say—bring one more person into the picture whose hands are really manifested in this—and that is the hand of God the Father. Later we see Peter preaching that by the hand of God he’s exalted Jesus Christ to his right hand. We have the hand of the apostles doing miracles and we have the hands of the false church laying hands upon the apostles to imprison them and persecute them.

But ultimately the apostles will end up rejoicing because of this, because they know that when suffering comes upon them, when the hands of evil men grasp out for them for the cause of Jesus Christ, ultimately it is God—the great conspirator, so to speak—whose invisible hand is moving upon them to bring them into the fellowship of Christ’s sufferings. And as a result, they rejoice in their imprisonment. They rejoice in being found worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus Christ.

So behind all these hands is the hand of God moving to curse people who would disobey him but moving to bless those—in strange ways through persecutions, trials and tribulations—those members of the church who are obedient to him. And they understood that, and that’s why they moved in the context of joy relative to their sufferings.

Now, these Sadducees—remember who these groups are. The two groups that oppose the church, the two members of the false church: Pharisees and Sadducees. You got to remember who the Sadducees were. They were the compromisers. They were the collaborationists. They wanted peace at any cost with the civil state, with the Romans. They had given up essential doctrines of the faith. For instance, the resurrection, for the sake of this peace. They are our liberals of the day. They’re the ecumenical ministries of our day today. That’s who they are.

And these guys were upset because they thought, boy, if we let this go on—one reason they were upset, the big reason I think, is personal peace and affluence. That’s what they were into. And they saw if this continue to happen, there’s going to be trouble with Rome, and we don’t want that to happen. They are our worst nightmares come true for them. They saw their own stability and positions of power being threatened by this growing movement.

And the scripture says that they were filled with indignation. J.A. Alexander, speaking of this word, says that the case before us, the word necessarily suggests the ideas of “zeal or zeal without knowledge, party spirit and malignant jealousy and envy.” Envy wants to destroy that which a person cannot attain to. These people cannot attain to either the power, the distinction or the favor of the church. Why? Because they will not humble themselves.

And so they hate the church and they’re filled with envy against the church. Indignation—stronger word than envy. They want to destroy the church. And so they reach out to the apostles and throw them in prison.

So what happens? We have a summary account here in verses 19-21. “The angel of the Lord by night opens the prison doors, brings them forth and says, ‘Go stand and speak in the temple to the people all the words of this life.’ And when they heard that, they entered into the temple early in the morning and taught.”

We have a miraculous deliverance here. Now these guys are going to be recaptured in couple of verses and then brought before a hearing of the great council of the rulers of Israel. But God makes it very clear through the insertion here of the miraculous deliverance by angels that when they are released by the council in the verses to come, it is nothing but the hand of God at work.

Again, God makes it clear to them, he makes it clear to us, that he has authority to loose and to bind. And if his people—he doesn’t want his people in prison—they’re not going to be there. When we find his people in prison, it’s because God ordains that they be there. Doesn’t remove the accountability from those who had put them there. But it means God’s trials and tribulations are always under his miraculous and loving providence to us.

We have in this a picture really of the entire set of verses we have here. God releases—an angel of the Lord releases men miraculously from the darkness and from the bars of their jails and sends them forth, forgiven, released by him from captivity to preach his message. This is the same message we have every Lord’s day.

We come forward acknowledging that we’re in prison, that our sins oppress us and oppress other men. We come forward and confess our sins before God. And he announces to us through a messenger—an angel. That’s what the word angel means: a messenger of God. He announces to us from the scriptures, as we’re repentant, he releases us from that prison and he tells us to go. That’s a strong word here, an imperative word. Go. The angel tells them and “speak all things, all the words of this life.”

Not a truncated gospel, but the angel says to speak all the words of this life. Not just some of them. Not the words that people find easy to believe. Not the words that comfort people’s souls, but all the words of this life. And by this time, part of the words of this life is persecution for the faith. And that’s part of the life and of the words that they’re supposed to speak to the people in the temple.

The kingdom will grow. But the kingdom grows through persecution. The kingdom grows frequently through trials and tribulations, because that’s God’s means of perfecting the character of his people, to cause him to rejoice in their trials and tribulations. These are men that will conquer the world, and they will. The early church will conquer the known world.

Well, so we have this miraculous release. It’s also a picture of our salvation, etc. And this has great relationship to the rest of the text as we’ve said. And it’s important here to recognize that this tells us the purpose of their release. In other words, they’re not just released, and the angel says, “Go now. Go have a good party because you’ve been delivered and do whatever you want to do and have a good time.” No, he releases them for the purpose of service. And so we’re forgiven by God and brought into relationship with him for the purpose of serving him, not for our own pleasures.

Okay. So they go out and they do that, and now we see—we go back to—we leave them for a minute. We go back to the story of the would-be persecutors of the early church.

“The high priest came and they that were with him and called the council together and all the senate of the children of Israel and sent to the prison to have them brought. But when the officers came and found them not in the prison, they returned and said, ‘The prison truly found we shut with all safety and the keepers standing without before the doors. But when we had opened, we had found no man within.’

“And when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these things, they doubted of them where unto this would grow. Then came one and told them, saying, ‘Behold, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people.’ Then went the captain with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should have been stoned.”

Well, this is a funny account if you get it right. There’s some humor here. Remember, we said that in the book of Joshua when the two spies were sent to Jericho to spy out the land, and Rahab hides them, then sends them away. And the king of Jericho, the ruler of Jericho, and his police force come to her and they say, “Where are they?” And she says, “Well, they’re over here.” And they go running the wrong way. And we said, “It’s kind of like a Keystone Cops illustration.”

Now, for those of you that only makes sense to those who are older. The Keystone Cops were a long time ago in the movies. There were these silly police who would run around. They could never catch the criminals. They didn’t know what they were doing. They’d start beating each other on the head. They had these billy clubs and stuff. It was pretty funny stuff.

Well, that’s what it’s supposed to be here for us. God has these people in derision. Psalm 2 says: “They have assembled together against the Lord and against his anointed, his anointed church.” Now God laughs and has them in derision. They—the picture here is we’ve got increasing persecution. Before when they called Peter before them, they didn’t have assembled this particular group. They had the council, but they didn’t have the Senate. Now we’ve got probably a couple hundred people representing in the Sanhedrin here—the council, but also in the Senate of the people—at least 100, 150. They have gotten together all the big shots of the false church.

Okay, in verse 21, the last half of it, and they’re going to hear these guys. And you can imagine the dignity that they met with. We’ve got a serious matter. We’ve got these guys in prison who keep doing what we tell them not to do. They’re a threat to the security of Israel. They’re going to get the Romans all worked up. Remember, the Sadducees wanted personal peace and affluence. They’re going to ruin our jobs.

So we come together in great pomp to try these men, and they say, “Okay, bring them forth from the prison.” And they’re not in the prison. Okay, that’s funny because these guys expected their authority to be firm and strong. At least they could bind them up. But they can’t even bind them up. But not only that, they’re not just away from the prison now. They’ve not even run away in hiding. They’re right back in the temple preaching, which is the very thing these guys don’t want them doing.

So God has these false church rulers in derision. He laughs at them. He laughs at the vain imaginations of these men who would conspire against him. Now, they don’t like this much. They recognize the perplexity of what they’re doing. The verse says here that when they found out that these guys weren’t there, it says that they doubted of them where unto this would grow. Now, that’s not really a very good translation.

The word doubted here—as J.A. Alexander again says—is not strong enough to represent the Greek verb which means that they were utterly perplexed and at a loss. They were wholly at a loss and knew not what to think of the apostles or to expect from them. They are confounded the way that the rulers of Jericho were confounded trying to find the spies. The way that the rulers of Israel were confounded once they killed Jesus, yet he rose from the dead, even after they put a seal on the tomb and put a guard to protect it.

They’re confounded over and over and over again. The forces in opposition to Christ and his people are confounded by the risen Jesus Christ. And that’s what happens here.

We go on then, however, to have a trial. They recapture these folks. They go, as we just read, and they bring them back. They have to do it carefully so the people won’t stone them. Do you see the increasing respect that the church is having even to the extended community round about them? They have to be careful. People would stone them. They took him with violence.

And then in verse 27, the trial begins again. “And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. The high priest asked them, saying,”

So we have three sets of discourses here. The first by the high priest representing the Sadducees. The second, Peter’s response to the high priest and his charges. And then third, the wisdom quote unquote of Gamaliel, which we’ll deal with in a couple of minutes.

So first, the high priest says, “Didn’t we strictly command you that you should not speak in this name? And behold, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood upon us.”

Ironic statement for the high priest to make, because these people—remember that when they wanted Jesus crucified they said, “Let his blood be upon our heads.” Well, they didn’t mind it in a religious sense, but now they’re afraid that the people are going to recognize their culpability in the death of Messiah and as a result bring them out of office.

But it’s ironic, and God puts it in here for the irony of men who are so willfully disobedient to their own sins, who will not hear the words that urged them to repentance. That’s what the unbeliever is—dead in his sins and transgressions.

“Peter and the other apostles answered and said, ‘We ought to obey God rather than men.’”

Remember the first time they said, “Will you judge for yourself if we should obey God? We should obey you.” They went out. And now they’re telling them, “We ought to obey God rather than men.” And it’s an indictment to the rulers as well as being a defense of what they’re doing. There is the higher obedience to God that is always understood and respected in virtually any culture, and they make appeal to that. But they also bring indictment to the leaders because that’s what the leader should be doing—obeying God rather than men.

“The God of our fathers raised up Jesus when he slew and hanged on a tree.”

Remember, the preaching—this is not a fourth sermon. We see it over and over and over again. The preaching always centers on the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that’s what they talk about here: “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom he had slain and hung on a tree. Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be prince and a savior. For to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. We are all witnesses of these things.”

“And so is also the Holy Ghost whom God hath given to them that obey him.”

Now, once again, a stunning indictment of the rulers. They didn’t have the Holy Ghost who was witnessing to this. Why? Because they weren’t obeying God. That’s what the apostles are telling them here. So the apostles really provide a stunning indictment of the leaders. They do not hold back. They don’t play political games. They give a strong message of the truth of the gospel.

And before we move on, let me just point out one other thing about this message. Verse 31: “Him hath God exalted with his right hand to be a prince and a savior for to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

Now, the context of this is people who knew the Psalms and knew that God said to Jesus—as in Psalm 2—”Be at my right hand till I make all the world your footstool.” God had exalted Jesus, and through the exaltation of Jesus, that was the sign that we are now in the period of time when all things move in terms of the kingdom of God, its establishment, and the crushing of every other kingdom.

But more than that, look at how this happens. They are refuting the present Jewish concept of the Messiah. And if we understand it correctly, they’re also refuting the present Christian concept of the Messiah. What do I mean by that?

The false church, the unconverted Jews at this time, they wanted Messiah to come and deliver them from Rome. They wanted political deliverance through warfare, physical warfare. And God says, “No, that’s not what Messiah is. God—Messiah, who is now exalted by the right hand of the Father, at his right hand he rules. How does he rule? He is a Prince, that means author, and a Savior. He is the author of our salvation to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.”

“The kingdom grows through the proclamation of the Son seated at the right hand of the Father through his church to bring men to repentance and as a result of repentance, forgiveness of sins. That’s how it grows. Not politically, not through money.”

And likewise, the present conception—Messiah, the victorious Jesus Christ—will he’ll come back to a wicked world with physical force and whip it into shape. God says no. The apostles say no. They say no. The message is: The right hand of power of God is directly connected here to the preaching, bringing people to repentance and forgiveness of sins. That’s how the kingdom is extended.

So important to what we do. Yes, we’ve got to be involved politically certainly. But listen—the extension of Christ’s kingdom politically as well is an outgrowth of bringing men to repentance and forgiveness of sins. That’s what they were doing here. They were giving the people that failed to repent a further call to repent of their sins and to obey God. These were murderers. These were men who had killed Messiah, and who because of their pride could not see the very obvious facts of what had happened here.

What is their response to this? They say, “Yeah, we should think about this.” No. “When they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and took counsel to slay them.”

“Cut to the heart.” Lensky, in his more probably appropriate translation of this, says that “they, having heard, were sawn.” The word means to be sawn or to be bitten, gnawed on. They were sawn. It cut them to the quick. God’s sword—his word, the word of his apostles, the word of Christ through them—cut through them.

Is their response repentance? No. Their response is further indignation. They then plan to kill them. They killed the master. Now they’ll kill the servants. The master came back 100-fold, 12-fold—the emissaries of Jesus Christ—causing thousands of people to be converted. But they’re going to cut it in two.

Again, it’s like that Mickey Mouse—you know, in Fantasia. He cuts that broom into—thinking he can get rid of it or smashes it or something—and all the splinters rise up. And think how foolish it would be for Mickey to take one of those brooms and try to kill all those splinters, or all those brooms, recognizing that more splinters will come forward.

Man’s problem is not intellectual. These people had evidence upon evidence upon evidence, and they’d rejected it because they were in ethical rebellion to the word of God. And that’s the people that we need to recognize. That’s what man is in his fallen state. That’s what we expect when we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Again, to quote Lensky, he says, “From the treatment accorded Jesus as well as what that recorded of the apostles, we see the type of men that constituted the Supreme Court and the highest leadership of the Jews—men who committed murder and ready to commit murder again. Would it not have been wiser for Peter to have toned down his words? Many have adopted that sort of wisdom and in doing so persuaded themselves that they were better witnesses than Peter, more obedient to God than the apostles.

They have never seen a sinner sawed in two by the law. They convert painlessly. Alas, their conversions are only counterfeit.”

Boy, that isn’t a message of most of the evangelization that goes on in our country by the church. “God loves you and has a wonderful plan for your life.” Well, you know, there’s some truth to that, but there’s a lot of fiction to that as well.

We don’t know if God’s wonderful plan is wonderful for these people, for the Sadducees and Pharisees—to be cut in two, to be cast into hell, which is their thing. I don’t care. You know, unless we’re going to be completely deceitful about words, that’s not a wonderful plan. God has a plan for them. Yes, that plan involved torment. And if we don’t tell people that—that you either repent or perish, that God’s law says that we also are of all men sinners, we’re terrible sinners—we know that we’ve been saved by grace, but you’re a sinner too, and you must come to repentance.

If we don’t saw people in two with the word of God, then we don’t see true restoration and healing. We see false conversions. And the church today is full of false conversions who reject the reign of Jesus Christ the same way that these Pharisees and Sadducees rejected it.

Well, they take counsel together, and