Dennis Tuuri

# Sermon Transcript – Reformation Covenant Church
## Acts 5:12-42

Five, and we’re going to deal with the same topic we did last week, but we’re going to focus upon the last two points in the outline from last week. The suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ, his cross that he tells us we’re to take up daily will be the primary focus of our message today.

So, Acts chapter 5, beginning in verse 12 and reading on through verse 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 no man joining himself to them but the people magnified them and believers were the more added to the Lord multitudes both of men and women as much 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 everyone. Then the high priest rose up and all they that were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and were filled with indignation. They 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.

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 keeper standing without before the doors.

But when he we had opened, we found no man within.” Now when the high priest and the captain of the temple and the chief priest heard these things, they doubted of them, where unto this would grow. Then came one, and told them, saying, Behold, the men whom ye 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 strictly 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.

Said unto them, “Ye men of Israel, take heed to yourselves, if you intend to do as touching these men. For before these days rose up Theudas, boasting himself to be of 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, you cannot overthrow it, lest happily you be found even to fight against God.” And to him they agreed. And when they had called the apostles and beaten them, they commanded 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 cease not to teach and preach Jesus Christ. Thus ends the reading of God’s word. We thank him for it and pray he would give us understanding of it today.

So last week and then started to draw some conclusions. I want to continue today. But first, let’s just review a little bit of what we said about this text from the outlines we provided last week as well as this week as well.

The same outline we saw first in the first few verses of this text we read verses 12-16 an increased power, unity, distinction that is from those outside of the church numbers and influence of the true church. We’ve said before that what we have here in the opening chapters of the book of Acts is a cycle of God’s blessing upon the people of his choosing, the power of his word coming upon their lives, them coming together and demonstrating power and unity.

As a result of that, we see increased persecution. So, there’s this spiraling up of these accounts in the first six or seven chapters of the book of Acts. We’ll see the end result of that in terms of the persecution side with the stoning of Stephen and then a great persecution that comes upon the church which causes the church to disperse out of Jerusalem except for the apostles. And of course, this is all into the providence and hand of God who through this mechanism grows his church and causes them to go out to the uttermost parts of the earth preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ discipling men of nations.

So in this text as well we see an increase in power we see an increase in unity an increase in fear accompanied by of course the disciplinary acts against Ananias and Sapphira. You know, it’s interesting if you think about it that the Jews of course at the time of this particular historical event we’re reading did not have the ability to execute people apart from the Roman oversight. That’s why our savior is put to death with the help of Rome because they didn’t have self-government enough—they couldn’t execute anybody.

Well, that doesn’t get in God’s way, does it? When his church exercises discipline, God accompanies that discipline with the sure sign that these people have been cut off by him and actually brings physical death to them as well. So it’s interesting that the supremacy of God over both church and state is demonstrated through all this and particularly over the false church of the Jews at this time which is where most of the opposition comes from.

The unity of the early church is growing here based upon the presence of the instruction of the apostles but also based upon the presence of fear. We saw that last week. I’ll quote from Matthew Henry relative to the relationship of this text again to Ananias and Sapphira. He says this text tells us they were of one accord unanimous in their doctrine, worship and discipline and there was no discontent nor murmuring about the death of Ananias and Sapphira as there was against Moses and Aaron about the death of Korah and his company.

Remember then the people said you have killed the people of the Lord to Moses. The separation of hypocrites by distinguishing judgments should make the sincere cleave so much the closer to each other and to the gospel ministry. And so Matthew Henry as well as most commentators see a relationship here in this text of the growth of unity to the immediate incident preceding this text.

Let me just say that these three cycles of expansion of unity and power and influence and the presence of Jesus Christ amongst the people of God and then the resulting three increases in persecution going from simply jailing to now jailing, beating and planning to kill them and later we’ll see in the death of Stephen actual physical death. These three cycles have clear marks related to them. The first is the healing of the lame man that precedes the persecution. This is the second. The death by God of Ananias and Sapphira the execution of them by God the cleansing of the church judgment begins at the house of God the growth in discipline and then the third phase we’ll see is preceded by Acts 6 with the selection of those ministers to help feed the community of God so they have these specific devices God has given to us these specific incidences and then specific messages given that help us interpret this increasing cycle in any event the unity is growing here.

Their power is also growing. Remember we said the lame man was healed before. Now we’ve got a whole bunch of people being healed. The lame man was directly attended to by the apostles and his healing at the temple. And here just the shadow of the apostles going by is enough to bring healing.

Here again I’d like to quote from Matthew Henry just briefly on this matter of the shade that’s offered by Peter. The healing of the shadow of the apostles. He said God expresses his care of the people by being their shade on their right hand. Quoting from the Old Testament and the benign influences of Christ as king are compared to the shadow of a great rock again from the Psalms. Peter comes between them that is those that needed healing and the sun and so heals them cuts them off from dependence upon a creature sufficiency as insufficient that they may expect help only from that spirit of grace with whom he was filled.

So Matthew Henry also is able to look at something like the shadow of the apostles. Try to look at it biblically with what the Bible teaches about shadows and shade and also look at it as a sign of the grace of God being greater than the sufficiency of the natural order, the healing powers of the sun. So, this happens and so we have an increase in power as well as an increase in unity and of course an increase of fear is going on as well by those who observe what is happening.

There’s an increase of distinction as well. Of course, no man durst join themselves to the church when they see that they mean business or God certainly means business in the context of the church. And yet there’s also a growth in appreciation or admiration for the church by the people round about them, even those members outside of the church. There is a general favor with men that our savior experienced in his growth to a certain extent.

He grew in favor with man and God. And that is true of the church as well. At the same time, persecution increases. And as they plotted against Jesus, being concerned about what he would do, where will this come to?, we will lose our position is what they said in the gospel accounts. to lose the stability we have with the Roman government if this man continues to rile up the mob. So here it is as well that the Pharisees and Sadducees plot together the death of the apostles and will eventually start to try to exact that death and indeed will kill many of them many of them becoming martyrs in the fullest sense of the word.

The word martyr means witness the ultimate witness I guess is the martyrdom that results in physical death and we’ll see that in the case of Stephen. So there’s these cycles this ratcheting up so to speak. Maturation is going on. God is training the hands of his church to make war upon the world through discipline, but also as we’ll see in Acts 6, through service. And so, there also we see in this text an expansion of the geographic area.

Now, there are people from the cities round about Jerusalem who are coming to salvation in Christ and also to healing. And so, we see this going on in the text. We also noted that in so we see this maturation this increase in various things going on. But then we see the increased indignation and opposition from the false church. They jail the apostles and then upon the jailing of the apostles, there is release by the angels.

And we said that those by the angel of the Lord, those two verses where they’re thrown into jail and then released and released for the purpose of commissioning to go and speak the word of God to people. That’s really you could see that as a synopsis account of the entire account. They’ll be brought back into the control of the false church. They’ll be released by secondary means the advice really poor advice from Gamaliel.

But ultimately God wants us to see that all release is ultimately from his hand the angel of the Lord and for his purposes. Again to quote Matthew Henry in our review of this text he said that recoveries from sickness releases out of trouble are granted us and are to be looked upon by us as granted not that we may enjoy the comforts of our life but rather that God may be honored with the services of our life.

And then he quotes from the Psalms in two different occurrences where the psalmist writes, “Let my soul live and it shall praise thee.” It doesn’t live for itself. It lives to praise God. And also from the Psalms, bring my soul out of prison as the apostles here are literally accomp have accomplished that I may praise thy name. So all healing, all recovery, all release by God is to the end that we might serve him with our bodies in the context of what he has given us to do.

And that’s what happens with these apostles. They are given the specific commandment to go imperative word and teach the people all things of this life. Not just a partial message of salvation rather the what we would call today the full-orbed gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ including the part of this life that says that suffering will occur. These men had just suffered for the cause of the kingdom and they’ll suffer more.

So then they’re rearrested of course they’re brought back into the council. And here we see an increase also the persecution. There’s more. The Senate is also gathered, not just the council, not just the 70. The Senate as well is gathered to bring persecution against them. Of course, they’re belittled and laughed at by God because they try to bring the apostles out. And they’re not there in prison, but they recapture them and bring them back.

And then we have these three messages given. One by the high priest, the response by Peter, and then Gamaliel’s supposedly wise advice, really sort of obvious sort of is and I mean everybody who believes in any kind of God knows that if it’s not of that god then it’ll fail and if it is of that god it will it will prosper but really it didn’t make any sense for him to say that he was just a man of indecision who didn’t want to make the right choice he’d made the right choice of course by allowing the persecution of the church to go on he was indeed living in the land of course when the savior was crucified they already made their decision didn’t need more evidence from god as to what was going on he needed to move on the basis of the evidence that God had given to him.

It’s interesting here and I wanted to point out that again we see and this will be a repeated theme. You should get it firmly fixed in your minds that the Sadducees and the Pharisees are the two enemies of the real church, the church of God in the context of the book of Acts and really throughout the epistles as well. And these relate, of course, as I’ve said before, to conservatism, isolationism, legalism on the part of the Pharisees, collaboration, compromise, and wanting the life of personal peace and affluence of the Sadducees and those relate to our day and age as well and that’s why we have to be very explicitly Christian in what we do.

I noticed that Richard in for this Lord’s day reading from the Heidelberg Catechism has the question relative to the third commandment and you remember the Reverend Jordan taught us about the third commandment at family camp those of you who were there and he said the basic sin of the third commandment taking the Lord’s name in vain doesn’t refer ultimately to swearing or cussing. It certainly is related to that as these questions and answers from the Heidelberg Catechism point out and it’s wrong to use the Lord’s name in vain through cursing or in our speech but ultimately of course to take the Lord’s name upon us in baptism in vanity or in emptiness refers to our failure to be servants of the Lord Jesus Christ either through compromise as Reverend Jordan pointed out or through retreat.

And so if we compromise the world about us and hide the fact of our Christianity as Esther did in the book of Esther, that’s wrong. Or if we retreat as well and don’t engage in the ministry to the world that God has called us to, that is also wrong and a violation of the third commandment. And that is essentially the two sins of the Sadducees and the Pharisees. Again, intermarriage or failure to marry so to speak, failure to exercise the calling that God gives us to do in correlation in of course in distinction from the indecision, the violation of the third commandment, the failure through compromise, the retreat that the Pharisees and Sadducees give us the picture of the beating of God’s servants, the killing of Jesus Christ, now the killing of his servants as well, which we’ll see shortly, plotted for in this account for us.

We see in distinction from that, in sharp contrast to that, the apostles headed again by Peter, but the whole group is talked about here. These were men not of fear and timidity as Gamaliel was. These were men of courage. They’re men of courage because they weren’t pragmatists. Gamaliel’s advice ultimately is pragmatic at its core. Whatever works out here, we got to be careful. We don’t want to, you know, go against what might be best, might be safe for us to do.

The apostles were not men of pragmatism. They’re men of principle. And if there’s one thing that would change the church of Jesus Christ in America today, it’s if the congregations, the ministers, and the people that fill the pews forsook pragmatism, what works for the sake of principle, what God commands us to do. That’s probably one of the key battles of our age. We live in an age marked by the idolatry of pragmatism.

Well, these apostles were not pragmatists. They were men of great courage because they were men of principle. They were fear certainly in their hearts, but they did the right thing because they were men of principle who knew God’s word and acted on the basis of it. They had a clear concept of their duty and of the function that God had called them to do. And so, they did what was right.

And then finally, the text closes by the release of course of the apostles ultimately by the hand of God, but they’re released and they go forth and they don’t go forth talking about what terrible guys these Pharisees were, these Sadducees were ultimately. They might have said some of that to each other. They might have prayed imprecatorily. I don’t know. But what the text wants us to identify with their imprisonment and beating and the plot against their life, what the text wants us to identify is the joy they felt that it was an honor to them to be dishonored for the name of Jesus Christ.

Let me read a couple of commentaries on this particular text. The first commentator says it was an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to Christ. How can we understand their joy in suffering for Jesus Christ? This commentator says that in Russia in the early days of communism, the man who could show the marks of the leather on his hands and the mark of the lash on his back was the man of honor because he had suffered for the cause. It was Mr. Valiant for Truth’s proud boast. My marks and scars I carry with me. And so the apostles, it was a boast to them. It was their honor that they carried marks and scars, as it would be for Paul later, upon their body for the cause of Jesus Christ.

Here was a real opportunity to share in the experience of Christ. Those who shared in the crossbearing would share in the crosswearing. And of course, that’s a very important point to keep in mind. I’ll mention that again a little bit later.

Quoting from Lenski. Now he says, “Note the sharp oxymoron in this phrase that well he goes on to paraphrase the phrase he says that in which they said they were deemed worthy to be dishonored. Matthew Henry says they were honored to be dishonored. This is an oxymoron to most of it doesn’t make sense. It’s two contradictory things. How could they think they were worthy by being held unworthy or being ridiculed and yet they were honored?

Lenski says these disgraceful stripes the apostles consider badges of honor. If the great and blessed fight for God. They had, excuse me, in the great and blessed fight for God, they had not been undecided and inactive like Gamaliel, but had done their part valiantly. And as true soldiers of the cross, bore honorable wounds to attest their noble loyalty. Here is the first instance of what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 4:9, quoting now from that text.

I think God hath set forth us, the apostles, last of all, as men doomed to death. For we are made a spectacle unto the world and to the angels and to men. On behalf of the name and the text before us makes that word on behalf of the name emphatic. For from the beginning everything has turned on his name. The term is used here then for this name they received the honor of God with the dishonor of men.

Here it’s used in a very imminent sense by the name of Jesus Christ for which they suffered. It doesn’t just mean his name in the sense of his personal name but rather it means all that Jesus Christ stands for, all that the name entails, the doctrine of the Lord Jesus Christ, identification with him, his messiahship, his divine service, everything that is involved in the Lord Jesus Christ person is involved in his name, Jesus Christ, Savior, anointed one, Messiah, King, Lord, and all that name entails.

This is what they had suffered for. And they found that to be an honor.

Again, quoting from Lenski, here was the opposite of indecision. Here was decision. Here was the divinely wrought certainty that had made final decision long ago. Here was the joy that came from that certainty. The apostles never for a moment complained of the injustice they had suffered at the hands of the authorities. They did not boast of their own courage and fortitude or concern themselves about defending their personal honor against the shame inflicted on them.

If they thought of themselves at all, it was only that they might prove faithful to the Lord in working for the honor of his great and blessed name. All else they committed into his hands.

The apostles in a very real and physical sense here had entered into the fellowship of his sufferings. Remember we said that the marks of the growth of the church is that they would attend to the apostles’ instruction and that they would have fellowship, breaking of the bread and prayer. Well, the fellowship here is explained for us. One aspect of the fellowship with the saints, a very vital one is going into the fellowship of his sufferings. So let’s talk a little bit about that.

Now one of the important parts of this text for us to consider the fellowship of Jesus Christ’s sufferings. I want to read a quote here from John Calvin and if I get to it, we’re going to read several quotes by Calvin from his Institutes of Christian Religion in which he deals with a whole section on the Christian bearing the cross that God has told us we must bear for him, the purpose of it etc.

And in the context of this he talks about suffering for righteousness sake is one element of our suffering. Our world is filled with suffering. We have suffering all the time. We’ll talk about that in a little bit too. But here we’re talking specifically in this text of suffering for righteousness sake.

And now to quote from Calvin and this is an extended quote. Now to suffer persecution for righteousness sake is a singular comfort. For it ought to occur to us how much honor God showers upon us in thus furnishing us with the special badge of his soldiery. I say that not only they who labor for the defense of the gospel. But they who in any way maintain the cause of righteousness suffer persecution for righteousness. It isn’t just the gospel. It’s all the name entails, including the exaltation of righteousness and justice in the land.

Calvin goes on to say, “Therefore, whether in declaring God’s truth against Satan’s falsehoods, or in taking up the protection of the good and the innocent against the wrongs of the wicked, we must undergo the offenses and hatred of the world, which may imperil either our life, our possessions or our honor. Let us not grieve or be troubled in thus far devoting our efforts to God or count ourselves in miserable rather in those manners in which he has with his own lips declared us blessed.

Matthew 5:10 blessed for suffering for God. In other words, he’s saying don’t with your own lips deny what God has told you that it’s blessed to be suffered in this way to suffer for the cause of Christ. Do not think of it miserably. Every poverty if it be judged in itself is misery. Likewise, exile, contempt, prison, disgrace. Finally, death itself is the ultimate of all calamities. But when the favor of our Lord breathes upon us, every one of these things turns into happiness for us.

We ought accordingly to be content with the testimony of Christ rather than with the false estimation of the flesh. So it will come about that we shall rejoice after the apostles example whenever we he will count us worthy to suffer dishonor for his name. Quoting directly from our text in Acts 5. What then? If being innocent and of good conscience, we are stripped of our possessions by the wickedness of impiety, we are indeed reduced to penury among men, but in God’s presence in heaven, our true riches are thus increased.

If we are cast out of our house, then we wield the more intimately be received into God’s family. If we are vexed and despised, we but take all the firmer root in Jesus Christ. If we are branded with disgrace and ignominy, we have we but have a fuller place in the kingdom of God. If we are slain, entrance into the blessed life will thus be open to us. Let us be ashamed to esteem less than the shadowing and fleeting allure of the present life those things in which the Lord has set so great a value.

Now, Calvin touches on several very important things there. First, it’s a reliance upon what God’s word instructs us to make of our persecutions and of our sufferings, whether they’re for righteousness sake or not. God says that our sufferings come upon us for good purposes. We don’t put up with them as a necessity that we need to do this. We put up with them hopefully. We rejoice in them because we understand God’s providence behind them.

That involves one central thing, and it is central to the gospel of Jesus Christ. A distrust of our evaluations and a trust of God’s evaluations. As Calvin points out, in our evaluations, it’s terrible to get whipped or beat, or thrown into prison or shamed even more or suffer death. But in God’s evaluations, if we do this for the cause of righteousness sake or if we do it for whatever means God has brought into our lives to accomplish his will in our lives, then we should rejoice in those things and accept them from his hand and not call them miserable.

But to do that is to trust God and not to trust ourselves. And then secondly, a very important aspect of what Calvin points out is it teaches us and trains us to think of eternal varieties, eternal truths, eternal character qualities that God builds into us the eternal home in heaven that we have instead of a reliance upon this life. And reliance upon this life is what we’re full of in our lives today.

Let me read several scriptures here. In Philippians 3:10, Paul wrote that his desire was that he might know him and the power of his resurrection and that’s what fills Peter’s sermons and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. And this is the two-prong why it’s important for both messages. Victory and suffering from this text and from these cycles of persecution and power.

These both twin aspects are what Paul says here that is at the core of his desires to know the Lord Jesus Christ. And that involves two things. The power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings is being made conformable unto his death. It’s at the core of who we are as Christians. Those two aspects. And the apostles here enter into the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death.

Let me just read some various scripture quotes and think about these things. 1 Peter 4:12, “Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you.” Now, remember that there is a historical event coming in AD 70, but to take these words and only make them applicable to that particular historical event is to misread them. This is the word of God that has eternal truth for us relative to sufferings and we should take it to ourselves as well.

You know, it’s interesting in the Providence of God. Many years ago, the first time I read A.W. Pink’s book, The Sovereignty of God, and came to a full-fledged understanding of God’s sovereignty in my life, I remember the evenings well sitting in my living room reading that book. And my daughter Lana was then 3, 4, something like that. And she couldn’t hardly breathe. And I’d have to sit by her bed at night too because if she stopped, I’d have to race to the hospital with her.

It was that bad. And I was reading this book by Pink, declaring God’s sovereignty over all things, including my child and bringing my child into that kind of very poor health. And it’s interesting because here as I prepared this week for focusing on the suffering that the apostles suffer here and yet the joy they took in that suffering that again my daughter Lana again is sick in bed with asthma again. We had a night last night where we don’t know if we have to take her to the emergency room or not.

We’re giving her lots of medication. Hopefully she’ll be okay. But God does that. He takes us through these things, these annealing fires to burn out the dross we have the bad our own bad relationships to suffering that he might fill us in with the beauty of the gold and the demonstration of the graces that he gives us in the context of suffering.

Well, let’s go on. So, it’s the same for us. Beloved, think it not strange concerning the fiery trials which is to try you as though some strange thing happened unto you. But rejoice in as much as you are partakers of Christ’s sufferings. You see that continual theme that when his glory shall be revealed, you also may be glad with exceeding joy. Again, connecting the suffering Jesus Christ is death to his resurrection and joy and victory.

If you be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are you. For the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you. On their part he is evil spoken of, but on your part he is glorified. But let none of you suffer as a murderer, as a thief, or as an evildoer, or as a busybody in other men’s matters. Yet if any man suffer as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf.

Matthew men. Our Savior tells us, “Beware of men, for they will deliver you up to the councils, and they will scourge you in the synagogues, and ye shall be brought before governors and kings for my sake, for a testimony against them in the Gentiles. But when they deliver you up, take no thought how or what you shall speak, for it shall be given you in that same hour what you shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the spirit of our father which speaketh in you.

And the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child, and the children all will rise up against their parents and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake. But he that endureth to the end shall be saved. But when they persecute you in this city, flee ye into another. For verily I say unto you, he shall not have gone over the cities of Israel to the son of man come.

The disciple is not. Now much of this has to do, of course, with the historic situation coming to Jerusalem. But there are truths here for us as well. And this is very important. The disciple is not above his master. We are his disciples. Nor the servant above the Lord we are the servants of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master and the servant as his lord to usher into his sufferings as well.

If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household. Fear them not therefore for there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed and hid that shall not be known. What I tell you in the darkness that speak ye in light and what you hear in the ear that preach ye upon the housetops. And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul, but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and yet one of them shall not fall to the ground without your father? The very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows. God tells us here that suffering will come for the cause of Jesus Christ, but we also have other sufferings. And we’re to remember that our very hairs in our head are numbered. God’s providence is behind all these things.

John 15. But all these things will they do unto you for my name’s sake, because they know not him that sent me. If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not sinned. But now they have no cloak for their sin. He that hateth me hateth my father also. If I had not done among them the works which none other man did, the works rather, which none other man did, they had not sinned.

But now they have both seen and heard both me and my father. But this cometh to pass that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law. They hated me without a cause.

But our savior is telling us here they’ll hate you without a cause as you preach forth and affirm with the profession of your faith both in word and in deed your Christian life. You will also be hated without a cause. But when the comforter has come, who I will send unto you from the father, even the spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify of me, and ye also shall bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning.

These things have I spoken unto you, that ye should not be offended. They shall put you out of the synagogue, yea, in the time cometh that whoever killeth you will think that he doeth God’s service. And these things will they do unto you, because they have not known the Father, nor me.

Matthew 5:10, Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are ye when men shall revile you and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. Rejoice and be exceeding glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

Luke 6:22, “Blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil for the Son of Man’s sake.

Philippians 1:29 Paul writes, “For unto you is given not only to believe in the belief of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake.” Hebrews 12 tells us to look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Now, these texts tell of the importance of suffering, persecution, trials, and tribulations in our life because of our profession of faith of the Lord Jesus Christ in word and deed. And one specific application of us is to be steeled and challenged by these texts as we go forth into this world to speak the word of Jesus Christ, to call men to repentance for their sins, to call the elect to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and come to a saving faith in him, to preach forth the good news of the ascension of the Savior King that his judgments fill the earth.

If we’re not doing this, then we’re probably not suffering for the cause of Christ either. And you should ask yourself, when was the last time you suffered shame, dishonor, separation from people for your witness to the Lord Jesus Christ in your life and with your words. Don’t think it’s just your deeds. Don’t think that the Lord Jesus Christ did deeds, but he spoke many words. It’s the word of Jesus Christ, that word that’s preached forth from his people that God uses to bring men to conversion.

You hear lots of people, well, I just witnessed through my life. Well, that’s true if that life is in real conformity to God’s law and it’s not just some kind of moralism or conservatism. But beyond that, it’s the word of Christ, his scriptures that should fill our mouths as we go forth in the world witnessing for him.

As much as we want to see in these books of Acts the assurance the book of Acts assurances of victory and these cycles and the big picture here, we should never miss the plain teaching of the book of Acts that the way the kingdom is expanded and grown. It’s for the preaching of the gospel and the conversion of individual men as well as nations. It doesn’t happen mystically. It doesn’t happen if we do the right liturgy here, then things change out there. No, this liturgy prepares you so that you can take Christ’s word in your mouth and talk to your neighbor and talk to the people you work with and talk to people in your school if you’re in a school or going to college or whatever and talk to your associates and talk to those you recreate with about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Why? You know, you’re never going to get to the place of suffering persecution by the civil state if we don’t open our mouths for the sake of the gospel to our friends and to our neighbors. And so, this text gives us a clear message that unless we’re suffering for righteousness sake to some degree, then we should assume maybe it’s our mouths that are not being active enough for the Lord Jesus Christ.

And I don’t mean to go out there and try to offend men. If you’ll notice the apostles speech or even to Pharisees and Sadducees. They began with a message that was not filled with vindictiveness against them, but rather spoke the plain truth of what they had done and who the Lord Jesus Christ was. Now, their message of repentance to the Sadducees increases with this sermon from what it was the last sermon that Peter gave to them because the people had stiffened their neck against the word of Christ.

And so it is the method is another matter, but the point is we should be witnessing to the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now beyond this I want to take this opportunity as well to talk about suffering in general. We are—I’ve mentioned these cycles and the cycle this cycle of persecution finds its culmination in the death of Stephen, the martyrdom of Stephen and then the great persecution that comes upon the church. We’re not going to get to that for a while because I want to take three or four weeks in the first few verses of Acts 6 to talk about church government and the implications of Acts. It seems good for the sake of Reformation Covenant Church where we’re at to consider church government, so I want to now take the opportunity to address suffering in general based upon these this threefold cycle of suffering we see in the text before us and speak of suffering in general.

And these things also relate to the suffering for righteousness that we’ve spoken of. And I want to use some quotes here from Calvin again from his Institutes of Christian Religion book 3 chapter 8 speaking on the bearing of the cross as a part of self-denial. And Calvin gives us many good things to think of in this.

First, he talks as we have talked about the inevitability of suffering. Calvin in this text or this text from the Institutes of Christian Religion says that whomever the Lord has adopted indeed worthy of his fellowship ought to prepare themselves for a hard, toilsome, and unquiet life with very many and various kinds of evil.

I should have mentioned this earlier, but when he talked about being persecuted for righteousness sake, he talked about being thrown out of your homes only to be received more fully into Christ’s home in heaven more intimately, that section of the Institutes was not placed in until he had been kicked out of Geneva the first time. And so, this was not a man speaking from some ivory tower. This was a man who spoke from his experience as it was understood and related to the word of God.

And this is what we should prepare ourselves for. Our suffering may not come as much as it did for the apostles and our savior for men who want to persecute us for the sake of the faith. There’s not enough Christianity in this country right now to cause much of a persecution to go on in that way. Now, it may happen. God may grant reformation and revival to our land again and then we may see that. But still, you’re going to have sufferings and tribulations in your lives if not for righteousness sake the ordinary things of life.

We’re going to have an anointing with oil here in this service for Matthew H. and that was a time of trial. It still is for the H. family. I mentioned my daughter. I could mention other things in my own life. The physical trials that God puts me through, the mental trials he puts through those who are close to me through. All of us have things in our own lives that we know the trials and tribulations.

And don’t think somehow you’ve missed the mark because you have these things happen to you. You’ve hit the mark if you’re suffering in that way. That’s what Calvin says. These hard, toilsome, and unquiet lives that we have crammed with every sort of various kinds of evil is a ministration we enter into fellowship with Christ. They have to understand that correctly of course but it is that in the in the case trials and tribulations Jesus says are inevitable to us.

Goes on to say that Jesus of course is the model for this. He said not only was he tried by a perpetual cross but his whole life was nothing but a sort of perpetual cross. Why should we Calvin says exempt ourselves therefore from the condition to which Christ our head had to submit, especially since he submitted to it for our sake to show us an example of patience in himself. Therefore, the apostle teaches that God has destined all his children to the end that they be conformed to Christ.

Hence also in harsh and difficult conditions regarded as adverse and evil, a great comfort comes to us. We share Christ’s sufferings in order that he has passed, as he has passed from a labyrinth of all evils into heavenly glory, we may in like manner be led through various tribulations to the same glory. So Paul himself elsewhere states, “When we come to know the sharing of his sufferings, we at the same time grasp the power of his resurrection.” That’s the text we just read.

And when we become like him in his death, we are thus made ready to share his glorious resurrection. How much can it do to soften all the bitterness of the cross? That the more we are afflicted with adversities, the more surely our fellowship with Christ is confirmed by communion with him. The very sufferings themselves not only become blessed to us but also help much in promoting our salvation.

Suffering is inevitable. Through that suffering, we enter into the fellowship of Jesus Christ. And that suffering is to the end of glory or victory and it is for the end of our salvation. How does this happen? Why do we enter into sufferings and persecution and trials and tribulations? Where is that life of Deuteronomy 8 and the blessings of covenant keeping? We can ask ourselves, why do these things come upon us? And Calvin and his Institutes sketches out for us five reasons and I want to go through them briefly for you.

Now the first is that we might learn humility and trust God and not ourselves. The first one is humility. Calvin says first we are by nature too inclined to attribute everything to our flesh unless our feebleness be shown as it were to our eyes. We readily esteem our virtue above its due measure. Our strength did this. Our abilities did this. Our education did this. Our intelligence does these things for us.

God can best restrain this arrogance when he proves to us by experience not only the great incapacity, but also the frailty under which we labor. Therefore, he afflicts us either with disgrace or poverty or bereavement or disease or other calamities. Utterly unequal to bearing these and so far as they touch us, we soon succumb to them. Thus humbled we learn to call upon his power which alone makes us stand fast under the weight of affliction.

Now it says that trials come upon us the tribulation produce patience and patience proven character and this is through the mechanism of humility is what Calvin is saying. Calvin says that we see how many good things interwoven spring from the cross for overturning that good opinion which we falsely entertain concerning our own strength and unmasking our hypocrisy which affords us delight. The cross strikes at our perilous confidence in the flesh.

It teaches us thus humble to rest upon God alone with the result that we do not faint or yield. Hope moreover follows victory in so far as the Lord by performing what he has promised establishes his truth for the time to come. In other words, as he sustains us through these things, then we learn more and more to trust him. Even if these were the only reasons, it plainly appears how much we need the practice of bearing the cross, suffering.

And it is of no slight importance for you to be cleansed of your blind love of self that you may be made clearly aware of your incapacity to feel your own capacity that you may learn to distrust yourself and then to distrust yourself that you may transfer your trust to God to rest with a trustful heart in God that relying upon his help you may persevere unconquered to the end to take your stand in his grace that you may comprehend the truth of his promises to have unquestioned certainty of his promises that your hope may thereby be strengthened a recent tape Jim Mackey said this is the essence of the gospel in his mind.

Now I don’t know if you—I would say that necessarily but it is certainly true that the core of the gospel is an understanding of our own complete inability to do anything to merit God’s favor and the complete trustworthiness of God, his word and his world around us as well. And so at the heart of the gospel is one of the reasons why God brings suffering to us to abase our pride which is so easily exalted and to train us not to trust ourselves but rather to put all of our trust on God and his providence and that’s one reason for sufferings that suffering produces that in us a patience and then a proven character.