Nearer, nearer, blest is Lord,
to the cross where Thou hast died. Draw me nearer, nearer,
nearer, blest is Lord, to Thy precious three times. All right, now open your Bibles
with me to Acts chapter four. We continue our studies from
the Book of Acts. The Book of Acts, as you know,
is a history book of the Acts of the Apostles, preaching journeys
the lives of the apostles and a recorded history of the early
church. And while I want to look at the
overall picture and see the Lord's hand and his providence in the
life of the early church, I don't want to miss the particular blessings
of the individual verses here, such as Sunday morning's message
from verse twelve. There's no salvation in any other.
That is one verse that certainly needed to be stopped at and dwelt
upon, wasn't it? And on and on the verses go. And here in chapter four, verse
thirteen, this is another one that I just could not get by. I couldn't get past it. I thought
we ought to camp here. tonight for a little while. Let
me give you a little bit of background to our text here. Acts chapter
4. Let's read it first of all. Verse
13. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled,
and they took knowledge of them. that they had been with Jesus. Now, it had come to pass, just
as the Lord had promised, that the Holy Spirit was given to
his disciples to preach and to witness Christ's person and his
work wherever they went and before whomever they stood, as we read
there in Matthew and to do it in a powerful way. Men who before
this time were not in any way able or gifted to speak publicly
or to do anything but fish and common work. But the Lord promised
to give them the Holy Spirit to enable them to do these things
and great results from these works. And the apostles began
to preach, as Isaiah said in chapter 6, as men whose lips
were anointed with the live coal from the altar of God. And a
great outpouring of God's Holy Spirit was manifested in the
hearing, the believing, and the salvation of many thousands of
people at Pentecostal 3000. In chapter 3, we saw that 5,000
people believed. Chapter 4, verse 4, 5,000. Many
thousands of people were converted under the preaching, public preaching,
of these poor, illiterate fishermen. Proof of God's power, his word,
the power of his word and his Holy Spirit. In chapter 2, the apostles preached
on the day of Pentecost. And their message was very clear. Their message was of the absolute
Lordship, power, the dominion of Jesus Christ. And they preached
before the very ones who had crucified Christ. And God saved many of those people
who heard that message of Christ the Lord and him crucified. In chapter 3, you remember Peter
and John on their way one day to worship in the temple. As
they were walking into the temple one day, a lame man, as you remember,
was sitting on the steps, and Peter said, silver and gold.
He was asking for alms, and Peter said, silver and gold, we don't
have much of that, but what we have we'll give to you. And the
lame man was healed. was healed, and that caused a
great stir and a commotion. The people who were all around
the temple, as they were prone to do in that day, came rushing
and surrounded the apostles in so much that they couldn't even
get in the temple that day. They didn't make it to the door,
and the people surrounded them, and they were standing on the
porch outside the temple. And, as they did wherever they
went, they began to preach as the people surrounded them. And
again, they preached the same message. They preached Christ
and him crucified. They preached his sovereignty,
his kingship, him being the first and last word or authority of
God the one to whom all the prophets give witness, or as Moses said,
he is that prophet, whom we must hear, whom we must believe, whom
we must receive his word, or else be destroyed by God. Do
you remember that verse in verse 23 of chapter 3? Every soul which
will not hear that prophet, or Jesus Christ, shall be destroyed
from among the people. And they preached, and 5,000
people were converted after hearing this message, 5,000 people. Well,
the religious leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the scribes, and
so forth, the priests of the temple and all of their cohorts,
they were very jealous of the apparent success that these pitiful
men were having in their preaching. They were very jealous of what
was going on here, so they came to where they were on the porch
of the temple that day and seized them. They seized Peter and John. Peter and John were the ones
that day who were doing the preaching, and it doesn't say what John
said, but nevertheless John said some things here too. And these
leaders of the temple seized Peter and John and grabbed them
and took them away and tried to silence them, tried to keep
them from preaching any further. And then finally, the next day,
they gave Peter and John an opportunity. They were trying them, is what
they were doing, in a kangaroo court, a court of their own making. And they gave them an opportunity
to stand before this religious, high-muckety-muck religious tribunal
and speak for themselves. After they had condemned them
and so forth and pronounced judgment upon them and commanded them
not to preach and so forth, they gave them opportunity. to speak
for themselves. It's only right, it's only fair
that they have a say or a word before they pronounce sentence.
And they preached again. They preached again. And they
boldly, oh boldly, before these men who had the power to have
them killed or hauled away to jail or whatever, but they didn't
fear remembering what the Lord had said to them in Matthew 10.
Don't fear them which kill the body, and after that can have
no more that they can do to you. But you boldly and dogmatically
preach the truth as you hear it very loudly. So they did.
They boldly, emphatically, dogmatically asserted again the deity, the
Godhood, the authority, the power of the Lord Jesus Christ. And
they even went further. They fearlessly accused, pointed
their fingers in the faces of these religious leaders, and
accused them of rejecting and killing the Christ, that they
were responsible. And that the one that they had
rejected and killed, the one who was in their hands at one
time, now, that they were in his hands now. And unless they
repented and bowed and worshipped this same Jesus, they would not
be saved, but they would be destroyed, because there's no other salvation.
Neither is there salvation in any other. And there's none other
name, even that despised name, Jesus of Nazareth, whereby you
must be saved. And they pointed their old calloused
fingers in their faces and said, You better repent, and you better
heed the prophet from Galilee, or you're going to be destroyed,
because that's God Almighty. Now, verse 13. That's the background
here to verse 13. when they saw the boldness of
Peter and John. When they saw the boldness of
Peter and John, the fearlessness of Peter and John. Now picture
this scene. These arrogant, as most religious
people are, these proud, pompous, arrogant rulers who normally
sparked fear. in people, people who would stand
before this religious court normally would be very fearful and would
have them in reverence, the common people. Those who normally spark
fear and reverence in the common people, they couldn't face down
these fellows. They couldn't spark fear in them,
these simple fishermen. After hearing them talk, they
were taken back by these simple fishermen. Let me read to you
the words of Matthew Henry. This is excellent. He said, These
religious leaders saw something extraordinary and surprising
in their looks, not only undaunted were they by the rulers, but
they were daring and daunting to them. They had something majestic
in their foreheads. They had a sparkle in their eyes.
They had something commanding, if not terrifying, in their voices. He said the courage of these
apostles was the confusion of their accusers. So these This
Sanhedrin was taken back. They just couldn't believe that
these men were not fearful and trembling in their presence.
Now let's turn over to John chapter 7 with me. John chapter 7. This reminds me, what took place
here in Acts chapter 4, before this group of Pharisees, reminds
me of another who one day displayed amazing power and authority and
courage in front of his accusers, and his accusers were confounded. Look at John chapter 7 with me,
and we'll see a little later on where these apostles got their
boldness. John chapter 7, beginning with
verse 14. Now, about the midst of the feast,
Jesus went up into the temple and taught, and the Jews marveled,
saying, How knoweth this man letters, having never learned? Where did he get such knowledge?
Well, little did they know in him are hid all the treasures
of wisdom and knowledge. Look at verses 25 and 26. And
after he spoke to the people, then said some of them of Jerusalem,
Is not this he whom they seek to kill? For lo, he speaketh
boldly. And they say nothing to him.
Isn't he afraid? Are they afraid? Look at verse
30. He went on to speak in the temple.
Verse 30, Then they sought to take him, but no man laid hands
on him, because his hour was not yet come. And many of the
people believed on him and said, When Christ cometh, will he do
more miracles than these which this man hath done? The Pharisees
heard that, heard that the people murmured such things concerning
him, and the Pharisees and the chief priests sent officers to
take him. Go get this rabbi, this teacher. They heard that he was attracting
a crowd, and people were believing on him, so they sent some chief
priests and some officers to take him. Now look down at verse
45. verses 45 and 46, and Christ
began to speak some more, and these same officers stood there. These officers came to get him,
and as he was speaking, they stopped and said, Well, we'll
just wait until he gets finished, and then we'll take him. And
after he got finished, they were in awe of and amazement, and
they went back, dumbfounded, and they went back forgetting
what they'd come for. Then came the officers to the
chief priests and Pharisees, and they said unto them, Where
is he? Why haven't you brought him?
The officers said, And every man spake like this man. We just
couldn't. He spoke as one who had authority.
Every man spake like this man, no, and no man ever will either. For he was no mere man, was he? Nor was his voice the mere voice
of a man. But this is the God-man speaking. Now, back to the text in Acts
chapter 4. Now, some time later, the same
people, the same Pharisees, the same religious leaders, have
a couple of fishermen standing before them. And they hear them
speak with boldness and with authority and fearlessly, and
the rulers say much the same thing. They say in verse 13,
when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and they saw
their boldness, they saw their faces like flint, unimpressed,
unmoved, unfearing. Their courage, their authority,
they spoke as if they had the very oracles of God. the very
authority of God behind their words. And it says there in verse
13 that they perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men. They perceived that they were
unlearned. Or in other words, these men, they recognized or
they remembered that these men hadn't spent their time in school,
that they put all their time in in boats, that they hadn't
spent their time in books or with books, but with nets. These
men had never learned Latin or Greek or Arabic. They had not
studied the ancient philosophers and writers, but they weren't
conversant in math and science and politics and the philosophies
of the day. These men had never sat at the
feet of the learned doctors and lawyers of that day, but They'd
sat at the feet of the great physician. They didn't need to
sit at the feet of Gamaliel. They'd sat at the feet of the
lawgiver himself, hadn't they? The lawgiver himself. And it
says they perceived that they were unlearned, that they hadn't
had any formal religious training. And it says here that they were
ignorant. You know, the original word there is idiots. Or as Brother
Don Bell would pronounce it, idiots. They're idiots. They're nothing but idiots, or
that is, they're men of no rank. They're nobodies. Why, these
are nobodies. There's no class to them, no
culture, no pedigree, no station, just mere fishermen, working-class
men. Nobodies. The things that were said that
were true of these disciples are still true of his disciples
today, and I'm very thankful for that. The same things are
true of his disciples today, because the Lord says in 1 Corinthians
1, that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not
many noble are called, but God hath chosen the foolish things
of the world to confound the wise. And God hath chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the mighty, and the base things
of the world, and the things which are despised, despicable,
hath God chosen, yea, things which are nothing, nobodies,
to bring to naught the somebodies, that no flesh should glory in
his presence." And I'm so glad that's the way God does things,
aren't you? I'm so glad God chooses nobodies,
because that's me. I'm so glad God chooses sinners. because that's me. I'm so glad
the Holy Spirit helps the helpless, because that's me, aren't you?"
It says in verse 13, "...they perceived that they were unlearned
and ignorant men, and they marveled." They were confused, they were
amazed, they were bewildered. And they finally concluded with
this, after they saw that these men had no formal religious training,
that they were nobodies from nowhere, and that they didn't
They didn't have any influence or class or no training of any
sort. They concluded this. They said,
and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. They said to themselves, we've
heard this message before. We've heard this somewhere before.
We've heard someone else speak like these men. if we recall
correctly, and they took knowledge that they had been with the Nazarene,
Jesus, the Nazarene. And they might have said this,
well, you're disciples of that Nazarene, aren't you? That's
who you are. You're believers in that teacher
from Galilee, aren't you? Huh? That's who you've been listening
to, haven't you? You've been listening to that
Jesus who claimed to be the Christ, haven't you? That's where you
get all this, don't you? Yeah, I know it is. I know you
are. You talk like him. You walk like him, you teach
like him, your doctrine is his, your language is his. Well, your
problem is you've been with that Jesus just too long, and you've
become just like him. Would to God somebody say that
about me? That men and women would take
note that I've been with Jesus, that my speech would betray me.
What about you? Now, there are so many today,
so many so-called Christians today who claim to believe in
Jesus, don't they? And there are so many Jesuses
being taught today, being spoken of today, that most people don't
know the true one from the false one. I'm in the process right
now of writing an article for the paper. on true believers,
those who truly believe God or God's word, that there are so
many faults Jesus is being spoken of today that most people don't
know the difference between the true and the false. But if people
would only carefully study God's word, if they would carefully
consider what the Bible says about God, about his character,
about his power, If people would carefully study what the Bible
says about man, how man stands before this holy God guilted,
about man's character, none good, no not one, none righteous, no
not one, about man's helplessness or powerlessness, how that man
is dead in trespasses and sin, that means he's unable to do
anything spiritual, right? If people would only carefully
study what God's word says about man, or what God's word says
about Christ, about who he is, about his doctrine, about his
glory, about his power, about his person, about his work, if
men and women would only carefully study God's word, what the scriptures
truly teach about Christ, then they would take knowledge and
clearly see that our preaching and our doctrine is not ours
after all. It's the very doctrine and teachings
of the Lord Jesus Christ himself, right? That is not, as Paul said
in Galatians 1, not a man-made gospel, which is not the gospel
but another, a perversion. But God's gospel, as Brother
Walter preached upon, God's gospel, he thought it, he bought it,
he brought God's word that we're not espousing our views, our
thoughts, but God's word. It is God's truth, not what we
think about it, but what God says. It is God's gospel and
it is God's Christ that we're declaring. They would clearly
see, they would clearly see that we've just been listening to
Jesus Christ, that we've been with Jesus, that the true Holy
Spirit is with us, and the followers of Christ would clearly be distinguished.
Now, I believe the people of God, you people, I believe that
we can readily discern, and most of the time can readily discern,
other people of God. Their speech, as I said, betrays
them. I believe God's people can very quickly discern who
is a true believer and who's not. Not infallibly, but most
of the time. Because when you hear somebody,
when you meet somebody, you'll hear them talk of God's glory. If they talk about God, it's
in a reverent way, it's in a fearful way, it's in a respectful way.
They all talk of God's glory, God's honor, God's power, God's
sovereignty, God's salvation. God did that, God did this, God
does it all. That's their language. They'll
have all their talk will be of man. If they talk about man at
all, it'll be about his worthlessness, about his inability, about his
indebtedness to God, about his guilt before God, about his deadness
and sin, and how he's utterly helpless, powerless to do anything. Right? If they talk about man
at all. And if they talk about Christ,
and they'll talk about Christ. This is the one, the real telltale
mark They'll be all talk of Christ's person and work in salvation,
all talk of Christ, that Christ is all, Christ is all in salvation. Look at verse 13 again. Verse
13 says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, perceived
that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled,
they marveled, and they took knowledge of them that they had
been with Jesus. The boldness, it says, the boldness of Peter
and John, they took knowledge that they had been with Jesus.
Now, let me say this in closing. You're not going to believe how
short I made this message. If we want boldness, if we want
boldness or liberty to speak of Christ, and what disciple
it is, does it? Do you want boldness in the face
of all the gainsayers in the world? They have boldness, don't
they? These so-called Jehovah Witnesses,
the Russellites, go door to door, compass sea and land, to establish
one proselyte, don't they? To espouse their heresy. They
go to great lengths to denounce the deity of Jesus Christ, don't
they? Wouldn't you like to have a certain amount of boldness
to pronounce the deity of Christ? To be zealous for his deity,
for his glory, for his honor, for his name sake? Huh? I would. A certain amount of liberty? Wouldn't you like to have a little
bit of liberty, a freedom of thought, a little scriptural
recall when you talk to people? And you'd like to have a little
bit of that? I sure would. I find myself being
quite ashamed most of the time of my cowardice and so forth. Well, here's the answer. The same answer for us was the
answer for the Apostles. It says, when they saw the boldness
of Peter and John, they took knowledge of them that What? They had been with Jesus. We want to spend some time with
Christ. You see, if you know him, to
know him is to grow in grace and the knowledge of him. If
we grow in grace and the knowledge of him, if we truly know him,
if, Charles, if we fall in love with Christ, we want to talk
about him. This stands to reason that You
love your husband, you'll talk about it. You love your wife,
you'll talk about her. You love your children, you'll
talk about them. You love the Lord Jesus Christ. First and
foremost, you talk about him more than you will anybody else.
Right? And in order to truly love him,
you have to spend some time with him. fall in love with him and
you talk about him and you you talk boldly dogmatically and
unashamedly that you really come to know him Rick you'll say and
then you hear somebody. Say something is contrary to
his character his power his gospel. You said that's not the Christ
the Bible won't you readily speak up. In defense of him not that
he needs to be. But we need to speak out if we
want this boldness and this liberty, we want to spend some time with
Christ. Right? Same answer for us as it was
for the apostles. If we want holiness, a Christ-likeness,
and there's no believer who doesn't, isn't that the foremost desire,
chief desire of every believer? Doesn't every believer say with
David, able to say with David, I'm not going to be satisfied
until I become just like Christ. Isn't that what predestination
is all about, John? Isn't that why God saved you? To make you
just like Christ? Do you want to be like him now,
or are you just going to live like the devil now and be like
him later on, wake up all of a sudden and be like him? You
want to be like him now, don't you? If you love him, you do. Just like
a little child. says imitation is the sincerest
form of flattery. A little child who really loves
and esteems and highly regards its parents, longs to be like
them and does things to imitate them. And so does a true disciple. This is within every true child
of God. This is a true mark. If we want to be like Christ
in holiness, we want to be like Christ, then what? What's the
answer? Let's be around him a little bit, aren't we? Let's rub shoulders
with him. Maybe he'll rub off on us. I
know I'm speaking very, very familiarly on our level, but
we can understand this, can't we? Spend a little time with
Christ in communion. How do you commune with Christ?
How do you commune with Christ? Replace your private communion
with this. No, nobody worships him in public
who doesn't worship him also in private. Private communion
with him, walk and talk with him. It's a daily thing. Salvation
is not a one-time thing. Salvation is not a one-day or
two-day-a-week thing. Salvation is an intimate union
with the living Lord. It's a walk with him. He said,
If you don't abide in me and my words abide in you, you're
not mine. He will rub off on us, in us. In communion, we need to walk
and talk with him and fellowship with him until finally. We won't
notice it so much. As a matter of fact, the more
we're around him who is light, the more darkness we encounter
in ourselves. The more we are in his word,
the more iniquity and sin and wickedness and depravity we see
in our own selves. The more we see of him, the more
we see how far short we are of being like him. It won't appear
to us that we're anything like Jesus Christ, far from it. As
a matter of fact, the more we walk with him, the less we'll
feel like we're like him. But it will be apparent to other
people. If some of my old cronies could see me now, they would
say, that's not the Paul Mahan we used to know. Right? I think,
inside of myself, I think, oh yeah, I'm not much different. I think God's sin is not a ruling
principle, that is, it doesn't have It's not Lord over me and
control my every move and thought and so forth. Sometimes I think
it does, but it doesn't. It doesn't. But I am different. I'm not what
I used to be, and I'm not what I'm going to be. Not what I'm
going to be. But it will be apparent to some
people, to most people, that you've been with Jesus, that
a change is taking place. And especially to believers,
as I say, especially to believers, your speech will betray you. Isn't that what you want? Like
I said, don't you want, isn't it our reasonable service to
speak up on behalf of our Lord? a reasonable servant. Isn't it
the joy and rejoicing of your heart to bear witness to him? It should be. Even though preaching
is the hardest thing I've ever had to do, it's the most enjoyable
time of rejoicing I ever had. And when the Lord gives you something
to say to somebody and gives you scriptural recall and blesses
you with himself, there's nothing more enjoyable. Nothing. Him
bearing witness with you. And so I wish someday we could
experience something of the joy and the consolation that's to
be had in this thing of persecution. The Scripture speaks about it,
and some of you may have. The Scripture talks about a consolation
and a joy unspeakable, full of rejoicing, that people have,
that the apostles had, the disciples had, from merely experiencing
persecution before other people. And I'm not sure how many of
us have experienced that. Maybe a little bit. where the
Lord comes to you after the whole world rejects you or somebody
comes down hard on you, and he bears witness with you like he's
never done it before. Hey, I'm with you. Though my mother and my father
forsake me, the Lord will take me up, David said. David sure
had that consolation, didn't he? David sure had that confidence. David walked with the Lord And
the Lord bore witness with his spirit that he said to him, I'm
your salvation, and though the whole world forsake you and come
down on you, you're mine, you're mine. Well, may the Lord give
us his presence and the boldness to speak out on his behalf. All
right, stand with me and I'll dismiss this. Dear Lord, we thank you for these
glorious accounts of your early Church, how that you took unlearned
and ignorant men and women and greatly blessed them with your
presence, with your power, with your Holy Spirit. and infilled
them, filled them with your Holy Spirit and with your word, enabling
them to go out and proclaim a message which they did not figure out
for themselves, that they did not understand from their own
intellect, but a message which you merely impressed upon their
hearts. that you revealed their hearts of power, convincing them,
persuading them beyond a shadow of a doubt, and enabled them
to go out and tell others of it. Lord, it is to our shame
that we say that we ask forgiveness, that we beg you to forgive us
for being ashamed of thee, for our
cowardice. Lord, truly, how can we call
ourselves your disciples, how can we stand alongside of those
who actually gave their lives, those you listed in Hebrews 11,
of whom the world was not worthy? Lord, we're not worthy of this
gospel. Lord, we'd ask that you would do that which would enable
us to have this holy zeal, this fervency for your name's sake,
for your truth. And that is, be with us. Abide
with us. Abide with us, dear Lord. Speak
to us. Commune with us. Reveal yourself
in a powerful way, in a very personal way, each one of your
people, in a very real way. Make yourself real to us, Lord,
so that we love you and come to know you better than we know
and love anyone else. This is eternal life, that we
might know Thee, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom Thou
hast sent. So, Lord, reveal Thyself to us
more fully every day. May we speak out on Your behalf.
In Christ's blessed name we pray. Amen.