Acts chapter 4. I don't know about you, but I've
just really appreciated going through Acts and seeing the Lord
Jesus manifesting Himself. He sends forth this Holy Spirit.
It is all a picture of our God reigning and ruling and we've
gone through these two remarkable sermons in Acts chapter 2 and
3 and now we come to this particular juncture in
Acts chapter 4 which is just the beginning of persecution.
So as we've seen a foundation for the Gospel laid, a foundation
for the Church laid, we actually see in this particular opposition
and as it grows, we see a foundation for all the opposition to the
Gospel throughout all of time. Let's read. The opening part
of Acts chapter 4. This is the Word of God. And
as they spake unto the people, the priests and the captain of
the temple and the Sadducees came upon them, being grieved
that they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection
from the dead. And they laid hands on them and
put them in hold until the next day. For it was now eventide,
howbeit many of them which heard the word believed, and the number
of men was about five thousand. And it came to pass on the morrow
that their rulers, and elders, and scribes, and Annas the high
priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander, and as many as
were of the kindred of the high priest, were gathered together
at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in
the midst, they asked, By what power or what name have ye done
this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy
Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel,
If we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent
man, by what means he is made whole? Be it known unto you all,
and all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead,
even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. This is
the stone. which was set at nought of you
builders, which is become the head of the corner. Neither is
there salvation in any other, for there is none other name
under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.' Now
when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marvelled,
and they took knowledge of them. that they had been with Jesus,
and behold, the man which was healed standing with them, they
could say nothing against it. But when they had commanded them
to go outside of the council, they conferred among themselves,
saying, What shall we do to these men? For indeed a notable miracle
hath been done by them is manifest to all that dwell in Jerusalem,
and we cannot deny it. But that it spread no further
among the people, let us straightly threaten them that they speak
henceforth to no man in this name. And they called them and
commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of
Jesus. But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it
be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than
unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things
which we have seen and heard. So when they had further threatened
them, they let them go, finding nothing how they might punish
them. Because of the people, for all
men glorified God for that which was done. For the man was above
forty years old on whom this miracle of healing was showed. It is remarkable. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we pray that
you might open your word to our hearts this morning, that you
might reveal the Lord Jesus Christ and his reigning glory and the
wonder of the care and protection of his people, that he goes before
his people and he's with them and he never leaves them nor
forsakes them. These things are ordained and controlled and ruled
by Him for your glory, our Father, and for the good of all your
people. We pray that we might enter into something of this
and we might, Heavenly Father, come away from our time being
emboldened by Peter and John, to speak of the things that we
have witnessed, regardless of what men say. We do pray, Heavenly
Father, for your spirit's work in our lives, that we might see
your word as spirit and life, and find it both remarkable truth
about who you are, and remarkable comfort to your troubled souls
in this world. For we pray in Jesus' name, amen.
One of the things that struck me as very interesting as I was
studying this over the last couple of weeks is that here in the
scriptures from John 19.30 through until Acts chapter 4, in my Bible
we have 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and a half pages and not a word.
Not a word from the Pharisees. Not a word from those people.
We knew what they were doing, don't we? Matthew tells us that
they were plotting in Jerusalem. They'd actually paid those soldiers.
And it was public knowledge that they'd paid those soldiers to
tell stories that the Lord Jesus had been stolen away by his disciples. And it's so evident, isn't it,
what ridiculous nonsense it is that they might have stolen away.
All they had to do was produce anything. of the body of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And all of Christianity and all
of revelation would have been undone and they would have been
victorious. But there was nothing. But this
lies. So they weren't inactive. But
they must have thought for six weeks, for six weeks, they had
in a sense won a victory, hadn't they? They had silenced, so it
seemed, the Lord Jesus. They had managed for six weeks
to hear the stories of resurrection which must have gone around Jerusalem
like wildfire, and yet they remained remarkably hardened against it. I do remind you that the Lord
Jesus only ever appeared in resurrection glory to His people. There was
the most remarkable opportunity for him, as I've told you before.
He could have gone to Herod's palace, couldn't he? He could
have gone to Pilate's judgment seat. He could have stood on
the top of that temple. He could have gone into the Sanhedrin.
He had many opportunities, but in fact he didn't. He went to
his own broken-hearted, broken-hearted sinners like Mary. People who had acted in extraordinary
unbelief toward him, like Peter, and had disowned him before a
servant girl, all of the apostles had run and fled. He appeared
to Thomas. What remarkable resurrection
appearances. He appeared to 500 at one time
and he just gave many, many proofs. You see, he has left. He has
left. in the hands of the Blessed Holy Spirit and left in the hands
of His Church, His witness to Himself in this world. But they were silent. They seemed
to have achieved their end. There are lots of interesting
things about that silence, isn't there? There is hidden Hidden
from men, other than the Spirit revealing it, there is hidden
from men the extraordinary transactions of the cross, the great transactions
of the cross, the great transactions of the suffering of the Lord
Jesus Christ, the transactions that were hidden. His sufferings
in the garden were hidden from men. He was there essentially
on his own. The great transaction of the
cross was hidden from men. Darkness covered the face of
the whole earth. The great transaction of the
cross as we have seen in Acts 2 and 3 is that great transaction
between God the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit.
And if you do not understand that you know nothing about what
the cross is about at all. It is the great Trinitarian transaction. And so there is A necessary reason
for this to be hidden from these people. God has purposed that
it be so. And there is, I think, also in
this silence, a reality of what the future must hold. The resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ is a promise of the resurrection of all of
humanity from the dead. I went out to Isabel's grave. I don't like talking about Isabel
when Egloss Hewitt gets very emotional, but I took Eric out
to Isabel's grave and I said, you come over here and see a
very special part of God's earth. One day, one day soon, Isabel
will come out of that grave. on the promise of God she'll
come out of that grave. Don't try and expect me to explain
it in terms of science. But that's a very, very special
bit of dirt, isn't it? That's a very special bit of
dirt. She'll be taken out of that grave when tens of thousands
will be left in there. She'll be taken and she'll meet
the Lord in the air. She who is now with Him singing
those songs of the redeemed in Heaven will have a resurrected
body. We will have a resurrected body.
We will have a physical reality of our existence in the very
presence of God and we will be able to enjoy His presence. We
will be like Him. We will be able to see Him as
He is and enjoy Him forever. There will. His resurrection
is proof that there will be that great resurrection day. And foolish,
agnostic, atheistic people want to say that on that day when
they get to meet God, they'll be debating, won't they? I heard
Stephen Fry say that when he gets to God, he'll actually be
challenging God about what he's done. There will not be a single
word said, brothers and sisters. There will be absolute silence
on that day. Every mouth will be stopped.
They won't have a word to say. when God reveals the glory of
His Son in the salvation of His people, and all of the redeemed,
the bride of Christ, are there arrayed with the Lord Jesus in
glory, and all of those who by their own wicked unbelief are
cast by the Lord Jesus Christ into hell. They won't be speaking. They won't have anything to say.
They won't. So there is a reason for this
silence. Every mouth will be stopped. There won't be any debate. Also,
the silence I think is a sign of the fact that the great enemy
of the souls of God's people These people that Peter and John
are meeting with are the same ones that the Lord Jesus spoke
of in John chapter 8. He said, you are children of
your father, the devil. But the Satan is always reactive. He always reacts. When God does
something, Satan then responds. He is proactive in so many ways,
but essentially when the Gospel is proclaimed, he is reactive. And so until the Gospel comes
forth with power, the power of the Holy Spirit, there is this
six weeks of extraordinary silence. There was silence from them after
that first sermon where they proclaimed the resurrection of
the Lord Jesus Christ. and their silence until it gets
to the stage where this remarkable outpouring of the Spirit and
this remarkable miracle, which you cannot deny. There was this
man for 40 years, for all the time of the building of the temple.
They'd walked in and out past this man. They probably added
to their own righteousness by throwing a few pennies in his
plate and thinking themselves a little bit better than him
because they probably thought, as many of them did, that he
was in that state because of some sin of his or his parents.
There he was, now. walking and leaping and praising
God. There he is now, clinging on,
holding on to Peter and John. There he is now in the midst
of this opposition standing there beside them. And you cannot deny
it. They cannot deny it. So here
we meet, we meet in the New Testament church age, we meet the first
opposition to the gospel and the first opposition to its preachers. And as they spoke unto the people,
the priests and the captain of the temple and the Sadducees
came upon them. So as they went about their Master's
business, there are some significant elements to this particular persecution. Before I begin looking at all
of this, it's good to note that there are multitudes of people
being persecuted around the world. There are Muslims who think they
are being persecuted, and they are, and there are Hindus and
Buddhists. There are religions of every sort who think they
are being persecuted. There's something particular
about the persecution of the Church. There are multitudes,
aren't there? There's an organisation called,
what is it, something about martyrs? And anyone who names themselves
anything to do with Christian is included in it. And so it
includes Catholics and it includes Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons
and all sorts of others. But there is a particular persecution
which is promised of God and it's the persecution here. I'm
not saying for one second that we want to approve of any of
that persecution. The Church of the Lord Jesus
Christ has throughout history always been the persecuted ones
and not the persecutors. Take that to notice. It's not
our job to persecute. We have one task, and it's the
task that Peter and John were set about here, isn't it? We
have one task. And that is to proclaim the Gospel and then
leave God to do the rest. We don't have to join in any
carnal activity to achieve spiritual purposes. God will do it. He will build His Church and
the shouts to it, won't they, in Zechariah 4 will be grace,
grace unto it. Not by might, not by strength,
but by my Spirit. These are men who are filled
with the Holy Spirit, and there they are, they're going about
their business. The real persecution, the persecution
that the scriptures are talking about, that is the blessing of
God's people, is the persecution that comes from proclaiming the
Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. That's the persecution. It's
just simply declaring, as Peter has done in these two sermons
and as he does before these people, it's simply declaring the Lord
Jesus Christ as God. The Lord Jesus Christ ruling
and reigning as God. The Lord Jesus Christ dying on
Calvary's tree, bearing all of the sins of all of these people
and putting them away forever. The Lord Jesus Christ reigning
in resurrected glory over all things and He has all of humanity
in His power and under His control, even these people in opposition
to Him. We read about it in Psalm 2.
They stand in opposition to Him, but what ridiculous puny things
they are compared to the Lord of Glory. So our job, brothers
and sisters, our job, wherever we can and however we can and
whenever a door of utterance is open before us, is to proclaim
the Gospel. That's what these people were
doing. As I spoke to the people, The Gospel had done its mighty
work in the hearts of these people. As they spoke, as they spoke,
what were they speaking? They were speaking words of eternal
life. They were speaking words of this Prince of Life, this
Prince of Life who under the Abrahamic covenant, which they
claimed Abraham as their father, that in all in Abraham shall
all the kindreds of the earth be blessed. They spoke about,
unto you first God, having raised up his son Jesus, send him to
bless you, interning every one of you from his iniquities. What
a great, great declaration. And yet, and yet there is this
response, being grieved. It means, it's a strong, strong
word, it means being greatly annoyed. They were greatly annoyed. Why are people greatly annoyed?
Why are people greatly annoyed? We meet it all the time, don't
we? It's the most extraordinary thing. I still recall after the
Lord first dealt with me and I understood the wonders of saving,
I thought if I went to my family, if I went to my friends, if I
told them this, oh dear, oh dear, they'd just drink this down like
mother's milk and they'd be so excited like I was. And yet I
couldn't believe the opposition. And then when I went to India
and the Lord taught me the Gospel and brought back the remarkable
news of the Lord Jesus Christ and His righteousness and His
glorious sanctifying work in the hearts of His people, we
kept thinking, it's going to happen. People will believe.
This is so exciting, isn't it, that God loved His people from
eternity and their sins are put away. To be justified by God
is to have no sin in the courts of God whatsoever. and to be
loved eternally and to be loved in an everlasting covenant and
to be loved by that same God, you would think that they would
be thrilled with the fact that when the Lord Jesus struck hands
in that eternal covenant before the foundation of the world,
at that moment, before there was a living soul or a place
for a living soul to walk on, God the Father in that covenant
of grace and that covenant of love and that covenant of peace
entrusted these people into the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ
and the Lord Jesus Christ became surety for them and at that moment
God the Father never ever looks to anything from them. because
the surety covers it all. Everything that God requires
of me, everything that God requires of me, He finds in the Lord Jesus
Christ, and He's pleased. And I'm pleased with the things
that God's pleased with. I hope you're pleased with the
things that God's pleased with. God is very pleased with His Son,
and He's very pleased with His Son's work. And you would think,
you would think that that news, that news which is such liberating
freedom, you would think that it would be embraced. You'd think
people would be jumping up and down, you'd think they'd be dancing
down the streets. And yet what happens? It's extraordinary,
isn't it? Instead of that, instead of that,
God's people go through exactly what Peter and John went through.
Absolute, extraordinary, irrational response. Extraordinary, isn't
it? That's why when we come to deal
with the things of the Gospel, one of the starting points is
what is on earth is the nature of man. When Adam fell in the
garden and you fell with him, and Adam sinned in the garden
and you sinned, we must go to what the scriptures say about
the sin. The sin is a sin that you committed. Now, you might
not like it. You might not like that when
Adam sinned, you sinned in. And in fact, that's exactly how
God describes it in Romans 5.12. It says, Wherefore, as by one
man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, so death passed
on all men, Romans 5.12, for that all have sinned. All have sinned. We made, in our father Adam,
we made a deal with the devil. We accepted his rewards and we
took his rulership over it. And that's exactly what Ephesians
says, doesn't it? Ephesians 2 speaks of them, you
were dead in your trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2.2, whereas
in your time past you walked according to the course of this
world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the
spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. It's
a spirit that's at work. Now, under Jeremiah 17.9, describing
the heart of man, it says, the heart of man is desperately,
desperately wicked and beyond cure. The heart is deceitful
above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it? It's a medical term. Uncurable. You can't cure it. Which is why
when man grew on the earth and grew to great numbers on the
earth in Genesis chapter 5, God looked down, didn't he? And he
saw. What did he see when he looked
at man? Genesis 6 verse 5. And God saw that the wickedness
of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of
the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." The opposition to the Gospel
just comes from the heart of man that is in open rebellion
against God. And until we realise what we
are as sinners, we'll never understand the glory of the Gospel. The
Lord Jesus described natural man, didn't he, in John Chapter
3. He said, this is the condemnation, that light has come into the
world and that men loved darkness rather than light because their
deeds were evil. They actually loved darkness
rather than light. God's truth comes powerfully
and supernaturally. God's truth, God's Spirit is
required for you to see that you're a sinner. God's truth
is required and God's revelation is required. It's a spiritual
regeneration that's required for you to actually see, to see
what you are and to see who you are and to see the Lord Jesus
Christ. So the opposition comes out of
the heart of a natural man. The opposition comes on account
of the fact that in all things, we keep getting reminded in Acts
2, 3, 4 and following, that all of these things are according
to the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God. The persecution
of the Church is for the glory of God and the good of people. and the fulfilment of the promises
of God. In John 15, the Lord Jesus told
his disciples, I can read it to you, John 15, 18. If the world
hate you, you know that it hated me before it hated you. And the
world he's talking about there is the world of Jewish religion,
isn't he? If you were of the world, the
world would love his own. But because you're not of the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the
world hates you. Remember the word that I said
unto you. The servant is not greater than his lord. If they
have persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they have
kept my saying, they will keep yours also. But 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 had sin, but now they have no cloak for
their sin, there is no covering for their sin any longer. He
that hateth me, hateth my Father also. If I had not done among
them the works which none other man did, they had not had sin,
but now have they both seen and hated both me and my Father. But this comes to pass, that
the word might be fulfilled. So it's all fulfillment of God's
promises. The word might be fulfilled,
what is written in their law, they hated me without a cause. But when the Comforter is come,
whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of
Truth, which proceedeth from the Father, he shall testify
of me. And you also shall bear witness, because you have been
with me from the beginning. There is, in all of these things,
a promise of God. These things are fulfilled according
to the determinate counsel and full knowledge of God. I don't
know of any sensible person that seeks persecution. It's just
crazy. We're not masochistic, brothers
and sisters. We long for opportunities when
the Gospel is proclaimed and it meets a soft heart and it
meets an inquiring mind. We long for that. Opposition
is something that we are forced by God to stand for when it comes
upon us, not when we bring it upon ourselves. There are a whole
bunch of so-called Christians out there in the world proclaiming
all sorts of things and getting themselves into trouble and being
mocked all over the place. The real persecution is a persecution
that comes from proclaiming the Gospel. They don't have the Gospel,
brothers and sisters, their persecution is just sad, and it's not something
that we should join in, but nevertheless it's not the persecution that's
being spoken of here. There is a purpose, isn't there? There is a purpose. There's a
purpose in God persecuting, the persecution that comes upon God's
sites. The persecution works in such
a way that it causes the people of God to look to the Lord Jesus
with fresh eyes of faith and be emboldened. Again and again
and again, when the Church has been persecuted, the faithful
have grown emboldened. Tertullian said that the blood
of the Church is its seed. Actually for the first 300 years
the Christian Church suffered persecution in every generation,
extraordinary persecution, and yet the saints of God flourished
under it. We live in times of quietness,
brothers and sisters, generally. That may not be the best of times,
because in the times of peace and prosperity and quietness,
our love can grow cold. God sends persecution to cause
his people to stand to be counted and to see his faithfulness.
I don't have time to go to Fox's Book of Martyrs. If you read
Fox's Book of Martyrs, you will be amazed at the depths of the
wonder of the reality of the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ
with those people when they were persecuted and when they were
suffering death. If you knew of their closeness
to the Lord Jesus at that time, you would be envious of them.
Another thing to be reminded, brothers and sisters, isn't it,
that God gives the grace that we need at the time we need it.
God gives the grace to stand in the face of opposition and
persecution at the time it comes along. So if you think you're
lacking it now, just wait for the time when it's needed and
God will provide. He will provide. There are so
many wonderful examples in scripture, aren't there? Shadrach, Meshach
and Abednego were thrown into that fiery furnace. What happened to them? What happened
to them in the fiery ferns? Who was there with them? Who
was there? There was a fourth man there.
Nebuchadnezzar said, it looks like the son of God. He was right. He was right. All they lost,
all they lost in the fire was the cords that bound them. There are so many promises, isn't
it, in the scriptures. 43, says, When thou passest through
the waters, I will be with thee, and through the rivers they shall
not overflow thee. When thou walkest through the
fire, thou shalt not be burned, neither shall the flame kindle
upon thee. Why? Verse 3, For I am the Lord
thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour. And then he goes
on to describe how he saved them in particular, purposeful, and
he gave nations for them. And then he says, Fear not, I
am with thee. I will bring my seed from the
west and gather thee out of the west. And verse 4 is remarkable,
isn't it? Since thou wast precious in my
sight, thou hast been honourable. I have loved thee, therefore
I will give men for thee. God's people are precious in
his sight. There's that remarkable verse
in Psalm 76.10, isn't it? Surely the wrath of man shall
praise thee, and the remainder of wrath thou shalt restrain. So the wrath that is seen is
under the determinate counsel and full knowledge of God. The
wrath that is restrained is something that we don't see. Just think
for a second brothers and sisters of the remarkable restraining
hand of our God upon a people as we have read of in Genesis
Chapter 6 and in Jeremiah 17 and in countless other places.
God's restraining hand, people say how bad it is. We ought to
be amazed how good it is and we ought to be thankful to God
that He restrains it. We ought to be thankful to God
and pray for the people in authority that we could live in a place
where there is peace and we can proclaim the Gospel in that peace. So there is a reason for the
opposition, isn't it? It's in the fall of man and in
the very nature of man. Their opposition to the Lord
Jesus Christ is completely irrational from every possible point of
view of any common sense whatsoever. Fancy the response to Lazarus
being raised from the tomb. What was their response? Let's
go and kill him again, as if being in the tomb for four days
isn't long enough. Let's go and kill him again.
Dear, oh, dear. These are intelligent people
with doctorates. These are missionary leaders,
church leaders. Irrational. And there is another
reason for the opposition, of course, isn't it, is that Satan's
kingdom. The strong man has come, the
Lord Jesus Christ, and he's come to Satan's house. And he's bound
up the strong man and he's stolen his goods. He's stolen them. He's enraged. The strong man
has come and he has made a mockery of Satan and his kingdom on the
cross, made a mockery of them, a public mockery of them, triumphing
over them in the cross. Satan is enraged. That's what
Revelation 12 says, isn't it? He's enraged. He's enraged when
the Gospel is proclaimed. He's enraged because he knows
his time is short. He knows his time is short. But in these verses in Acts chapter
4, we have a remarkable picture of the two responses to the Gospel,
don't we? In 4.2, they are being grieved,
and they laid hands on them and put them in hold the next day.
They had no problem about taking the Lord Jesus before their court
just six weeks earlier in the middle of the night, breaking
their own rules and regulations. their own self-righteous rules
and regulations, but these ones, they put them aside, they put
them in jail, put them under arrest till the next day. And
then verse 4 is remarkable, isn't it? But many of them which heard
the word believed, and the number of men was about 5,000. So the
Church now has grown in size to 8,000. 8,000 people. Satan is enraged. Those he thought
he had in possession are now being stolen away by someone
greater than him. And they believed. They believed. The others were grieved and some
believed. Isn't that the story, brothers
and sisters, of your journey? Isn't that the story? Some grieved
and others believed, and the Lord added to His Church daily
such as should be saved. Those for whom the Lord Jesus
Christ had borne their sins away forever are perfect recipients
of God the Holy Spirit. God can dwell them. and He can
bring them to Himself. They are grieved. It says, the wicked shall see
it. In Psalm 112 it talks about the
salvation of the Lord and it's been revealed. It says, the wicked
shall see it and be grieved. What a sad situation. But you
have probably seen, and I have witnessed too many times, that
the very things, the very things that thrill the hearts of God's
children, the very things that cause us the greatest comfort
are things that grieve people. It's an extraordinary thing,
isn't it? to be grieved when the glory of God is revealed,
to be grieved when the scriptures which have spoken of this Christ
who was to come, the seed of David, the child of Abraham,
the promised one that they were looking for for thousands of
years, they were looking for him to come. And they knew all
the promises. They knew Isaiah 53, they knew
the promises of Daniel, they knew the promises of Zechariah,
they knew the promises. to be great when the promises
are there fulfilled in your very eyes. And the Lord Jesus was
a walking, talking, living, outworking of all the Old Testament promises.
Everything he said, everything he did was just promised, all
the time, just promised. And there it was laid out before
these people. And they were grieved. It's a
sad, sad thing, isn't it, brothers and sisters? They are grieved. People are grieved at the things
that the people of God love the most. We love the fact that God
is absolutely sovereign. We love the fact that he is ruling
over all things and he's not ruling in some sort of competition
with man's supposed free will. We love the fact that when God
loves, he loves his people with an everlasting love and therefore
with loving kindness he draws them to himself. We love the
fact that he loves in a way that takes his people to heaven. We're
grieved over the fact that people want to think that this love
is so broad that it means ultimately absolutely nothing. We love the
fact that the Lord Jesus Christ died on Calvary's tree for a
specific group of people and he bore all of their sins in
his own body on the tree and they are borne away to such an
extent that God says they don't exist. And he will remember them
no more. We love that, don't we? That's
where our salvation lies, brothers and sisters. That's our comfort.
And yet people are grieved. They are grieved at the one thing
that gives us hope. If the Lord Jesus Christ died
for my sins and I can end up in hell because of something
I don't do, then where is any hope? Where is any assurance? It is. It is just ultimately
again and again just a revelation of the depravity of the hearts
of men and how God to bring belief and to sustain belief takes out
a heart of stone and puts in a heart of flesh. a heart of
flesh that can look upon the one that they have pierced and
be grieving for him. These people weren't grieving
for the Lord Jesus Christ. They were grieving about losing
their power and their privilege and their esteem. They were losing
their position in society. They grieved. They grieved at
the glory of God being revealed in the Scriptures, fulfilled
in their sight. There is a reason for the opposition,
there is to a response, there is a purpose in it. And we need
to look carefully, brothers and sisters, at who opposes the Gospel. Those who most oppose the Gospel
of the Lord Jesus Christ are they who most proclaim themselves
to be God's servants. Always. That's what these people
are, aren't they? But Lord Jesus promised, didn't He, that they
will act towards you in such a way that when they put you
to death, they will be thinking they'll be doing God's service.
They may not put people to death these days, but they'll put their
character, their reputation to death, won't they? These people
can prove that they are God's servants, can't they? They can
prove that they're Abraham's descendants, they can prove that
they're the ones that keep the law, they can prove the ones
that they that are God's servants by their
devotion to the law and their obedience. There's a list of
them here, isn't there, in Acts chapter 4. There's the priests,
the captain of the temple, so it's priests joined together
with the captain of the temple who's probably a Roman guard
in charge of that troop at the temple. The Sadducees, often
the priests were the Sadducees. Then in verse 6 there's some
more of them. Annas the high priest and Caiaphas, And John
and Alexander, Alexander's a wealthy influential man in Jerusalem,
and as many as were of the kindred of the high priest, and they
were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in
the midst, this is the Sanhedrin, brothers and sisters. The Sanhedrin
is made up of 24 rulers and chief priests and 24 priests and 22
scribes. that the 70 of the Sanhedrin
is there gathered. So the picture is remarkable,
isn't it? There they are in this big semicircle, Peter and John
in the middle, and 70 of the ruling elders of Israel, the
same 70 who had six weeks before put the Lord Jesus Christ to
death by deceit and manipulation. Now under the Lord Jesus said
in Psalm 22, he said, the assembly of the wicked has enclosed me. It says in Psalm 118, they compassed
me, they surrounded me like bees. You see they're all, the thing
that's remarkable isn't it about them, they're all religious.
They're all zealous for their religion. And there they are,
if you put the Pharisees and the Sadducees together they'll
bicker and fight and squabble with each other. But all the
religion of the world and all the religion of supposed Christianity
is in opposition to one thing, and they all join hands in opposition
to one thing, don't they? They join hands in opposition
to the Lord Jesus Christ and Him crucified. They join hands
in opposition to free and sovereign grace. Even though they are enemies
amongst themselves, the Sadducees didn't even believe in resurrection.
There they are. I've got these people before
their court because they're preaching the Resurrection. The Sadducees
shouldn't have cared less about someone preaching the Resurrection.
They didn't believe it happened. There were the Pharisees who
did believe in Resurrection, joining hands with the Sadducees.
Why? Because the Resurrection is about
a person. The Resurrection is in the Lord
Jesus Christ. You listen to what they were
saying. And one good thing about this is that they actually understood
what was being said. They might not have liked it,
but they actually understood what was being said. It's a great
lesson for preachers, isn't it? If someone doesn't like what
we say, I want them to know exactly what they don't like. I want
them to go out the door saying, I don't actually like that discussion. I don't like those verses that
tell me about the absolute sovereignty of God. I don't like those verses
that proclaim particular redemption. I don't like those verses that
tell me about justification being in Him and sanctification being
Him. I don't like those verses. I want them to know when they
go out the door what they don't like. We want it to be clear. Peter and John were clear, weren't
they? They had preached the resurrection in almost every verse of their
first two sermons. They agreed. that Peter and John were teaching
the people and preached, I love it here, isn't it? I preached
through Jesus the resurrection from the dead. They preached,
it can also be translated, they preached in Jesus the resurrection
from the dead. Not as the Lord Jesus Christ
raised from the dead, the Lord Jesus Christ as they had proclaimed
in Acts 2.36 and other places. Therefore let all the house of
Israel know assuredly that God has made that same Jesus, the
one that you crucified, the one that is now risen, God has made
that same Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. He is your
God. and He rules over you with absolute
authority. He is the Christ and there is
no other Christ. He has fulfilled everything that
ever was to be the Christ. All the promises of God are yes
and amen in Him. All the promises of God about
His resurrection from the dead They preached through Jesus the
resurrection from the dead, a resurrection that was witnessed by hundreds,
a resurrection which is now witnessed in the most remarkable way as
God pours out His Holy Spirit. This was sent from Jesus. This
is the work of the Lord Jesus Christ to send this. This is
the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in the hearts of these people
to gather 8,000 from two sermons. to gather them to himself. It's
his work. Because he died for them. Because
he loved them. Because he rose for them. And they reign and rule with
him. In Jesus, the Resurrection, the
Church is raised together with Him. After two days He will revive
us. In the third day He will raise
us up. Everything the Lord Jesus does
is an us. He always does things as an us.
That's what the whole Eternal Covenant is about. That's what
His Shuriship is about. Whatever He does, He does for
them. He doesn't do it separately. He does it for us. He'll raise
us up. And what's the result of us being
raised up? Isaiah 6.2, and we shall live
in His sight. We shall live in his sight. Isaiah
says the same thing in chapter 26 verse 19. And he says, Thy
dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they
arise. Awake and sin you that dwell
in the dust, for thy dew is the dew of herbs, and the earth shall
cast out the dead. My dead men shall live together,
with my dead bodies shall they arise. That was preaching, wasn't
it? Preaching the resurrection from
the dead. Preaching the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. In
Romans 6, conversion is likened to being raised from the dead,
isn't it? What shall we say then if we
continue? Shall we continue in seeing that grace should abound?
God forbid. that we that are dead to sin
shall live any longer. Therein, God forbid, we are dead
to sin. Our sins were dealt with by the
Lord Jesus Christ on the cross. Know ye not that as many of us
were baptised into Christ were baptised into His death? Therefore
we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ
was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so
we should also walk in newness of life. For if we have been
planted together in the likeness of His death, we shall be also
in the likeness of His resurrection. Knowing this, that our old man
is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed,
that henceforth we should not serve sin, for that he that is
dead is free from sin. Now if we be dead with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with him. Knowing that Christ
being raised from the dead, death has no more dominion over him.
For he that died, he died unto sin once, but he that liveth,
he liveth unto God. That's how you need to think,
brothers and sisters, because that's what he goes on to say. He says,
likewise, just as all that happened, reckon yourselves All say yourselves
to be dead indeed under sin. How are you dead indeed under
sin? All of God's children are the only people that know that
there is sin mixed with everything they do all the time. You are
sinning right now and so is the one speaking to you. If we have
no sin, it's a noun, it's what we are. We deceive ourselves. We're trying to make God a liar.
Sin is what grieves the hearts of God's people all the time.
But those who know they are sinners are the ones who know they have
a Saviour. And that sin has been put away. You reckon yourselves
to be dead indeed to sin, unto sin. But a lie unto God through
Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in
your mortal body, but you should obey the lusts of it." The resurrection
of the Lord Jesus Christ is a conversion, isn't it? When it comes into
the hearts of those people and the Lord Jesus takes up residence
and that blood that was shed on the Calvary's tree is now
sprinkled on the consciences of those people. that He loved,
that He saved. It's sprinkled on their consciences
and they have, as Peter says in Acts 15, they have purified
their heart by faith. They simply look to Him. There's one more verse regarding
the resurrection. I love Romans 4.25. it says, who was delivered for
our offences. He was delivered by the determinate
counsel and full knowledge of God, his Father. He was delivered
by the Jews and he was delivered by the Romans, but he was delivered.
He was delivered for our offences. There are some people for whom
he was delivered over and delivered over to death and he was raised
again for our justification. He wasn't raised again to make
us justified in His sight. He was raised again because we
are justified. When the Lord Jesus Christ rose
from the dead, all of His people rose with Him. All of them are
completely justified. That's why He will present them
holy, spotless and unblamable and unapprovable in His sight.
They are justified. To be justified means, as I said
earlier, to be weighed in the balances of God and to be found
to have no sin whatsoever. That's what it is to be justified.
He was raised because of that justification. And yet, brothers and sisters,
that message of free salvation by the hands of someone completely
outside of us, done 2000 years ago, is a message that warms
the hearts of sinners, and it does. But for the natural man,
it's foolishness, isn't it? What I do, week in, week out,
and all of God's preachers around the world do something which
the rest of the world consider foolish. God is pleased by the
foolishness of preaching, to say the least, the belief. For
sinners, it's special. How be it? Many of them which
heard the word believed, and the number of men was about 5,000.
8,000 added to the church. So the opponents
of the Gospel, they knew it was being preached, they just found
it offensive. And you can't rationalise it,
brothers and sisters, and we can't do anything about it except
what Peter and John did when they met with this opposition.
They gathered all around them, didn't they? In verse 8, what
happens? When God's people are pushed
down by persecution, what happens? It's just another opportunity
to proclaim the Gospel, isn't it? There will be another door
opened. I'm asked a remarkable question,
isn't it? The wrath of man shall praise
thee. What a great question to ask these men. They've been proclaiming
the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. They've taken that extraordinary
promise out of Joel 2 in Acts 2, Peter had taken that extraordinary
promise, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord.
And the name is not just words. The name is the character of
the Lord Jesus Christ as revealed in the scriptures. And he goes
on for two sermons. And what he's done in all of
those two sermons is just explain, doesn't he, the name of the Lord.
This is the character of our God. He fulfilled all of these
Old Testament promises. He is the Lord Jesus Christ of
Psalm 16. He is the Lord Jesus Christ of
Psalm 110. He is the Lord Jesus Christ that
Moses prophesied about. He is the Lord Jesus Christ who
made the covenant with his father before Abraham. He is that Lord
Jesus Christ. He was put to death by the determinate
counsel and foreknowledge of God, and God raised him from
the dead. God raised him from the dead. So what does Peter
do? What a great opportunity, isn't
it? Can the enemies of God give God's people remarkable opportunities? Then Peter, verse 8, filled with
the Holy Ghost, said unto them, You rules of the people. You
see, the wonderful thing that's revealed here, isn't it, is that
men can put God's people into all sorts of places on this earth,
can't they? They can chain them up and they can do all sorts
of things. But you cannot chain the word of God, brothers and
sisters. It has divine power. It will go out. You kill the
Lord Jesus Christ and the first message, there are 3,000 saved.
You persecute his servants and 5,000 are saved. And the church
grew and grew and grew. This is what he claims, doesn't
he? If we this day be examined of
a good deed done to an infinite man by what means he is made
whole, be it known unto you and to all the people of Israel,
that by the name of the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom
you have crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by
him does this man stand before you whole. Now if Peter had got
up and stood, stood up before these people and said, the God
of our fathers, the great God of Moses has raised this man
from the dead, they would have been as happy as pigs in mud,
wouldn't they? But he is specific now, Peter, isn't he? God is
defined by the Lord Jesus Christ. not by what religion says about
him. God is defined by who the Lord Jesus Christ is. And look
how Peter makes it particularly pointed, doesn't he? By the name
of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, he wants to make sure that they
know particularly who has done this work. Whom you crucified,
whom God raised from the dead, even by him does this man stand
here before you whole. Then he goes on to describe the
Lord Jesus Christ, this is the stone which was set at naught
of you builders and has become the head of the quarter. Neither
is there salvation in any other name, for there is none other
name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved. That's the declaration, isn't
it? That's the declaration of the glory of God. It's also a
fulfilment of a remarkable promise, isn't it? The Lord Jesus said
to His disciples, He said, you're going to get your heads kicked
in, you'll get clobbered. He said, when you are taken,
when you are taken before these people, don't you have to worry
about what you have to say. You will be given words. He says, they will deliver you,
Mark 13, 9. He said, but take heed of yourselves,
for they shall deliver you up to the councils. So the Lord
Jesus had promised, He was a prophet. He promised these men this was
going to happen. They'll deliver you up to the councils and the
synagogues. You shall be beaten. You shall be brought before the
rulers and kings, for my sake, for a testimony against them. And the gospel must first be
published among all nations. But when they shall lead you
and deliver you up, take no thought beforehand of what you shall
speak. You don't have to think about
being wise or clever in the midst of opposition, brothers and sisters.
Take no thought beforehand of what you shall preach, neither
do you premeditate, so don't plan the arguments out. What's
he saying? But whatsoever shall be given
you in that hour, that speak ye. It will be given to you in
the hour of great need, in the hour of persecution. God will
give His servants what they need to say, for it is not you that
speak. This is not Peter speaking to
these people, but the Holy Ghost. He was filled with the Holy Ghost.
These are words from God. You'll be my witnesses. You'll
be my witnesses in the midst of opposition. The word witness
is the Greek word martyr. To be a witness is to be a martyr. There'll come a time There will
come a time when God will cause His people to stand and be counted. They'll have to stand and be
counted in the midst of the most extraordinary opposition, but
they will find that the promises of God are very real and very
true to them. So he goes before them. I keep
quoting that verse out of John 12 that I love so much. But he
talks about his service and it's inverted to our natural way of
thinking, isn't it? If any man serve me, let him
follow me. And where I am, John 12, 26,
and where I am, there shall also my servant be. It's the inverted,
isn't it? We think that if we go somewhere,
the Lord Jesus will follow along behind and there He'll be. When
we get into trouble, He'll be there. But it's the opposite,
isn't it? He actually takes His people into these places. He
takes His people that they'll bear witness to Him. If any man
serve me, him will my father honour. Where I am, there shall
my servant be. The resurrection speaks of so
many things, doesn't it? But it speaks mostly of the fact
that our God reigns. He reigns over all things. He's
coming back. There will be a resurrection
of all people. His resurrection proves that
He's a substitute for sinners and that their sins have been
put away and they now have the perfect righteousness of God.
They are holy people in God's sight. because of his death and
his resurrection. That's why the Lord Jesus described
himself. He says, I am the life and the resurrection. And he's
coming again. He's coming again. And when he
comes again, he'll bring our friends from heaven to meet his
bride here on earth. And we'll be caught up together
with him in the air. and will be with the Lord forever. With the Lord forever in a new
creation. It is remarkable, the promises. The promises are sealed in his
word and sealed by his blood. And they are more real. They
are more real than the reality that we see with our eyes, brothers
and sisters. The only little afflictions that
we have here for the glory that's set before us. Let's pray.