Fools Who Say No To God

Acts 4:5-12

5 And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, 6 as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. 7 And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, “By what power or by what name have you done this?"

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, "Rulers of the people and elders of Israel: 9 If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, 10 let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole. 11 This is the 'stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone.' 12 Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved." NKJV

In our previous study we briefly saw how preaching Jesus Christ can lead to persecution, imprisonment, and sometimes death. But here in the land of the free and the home of the brave we suffer from a different kind of persecution. John MacArthur leads me off with this statement:

In modern times the church (At least in the West) has rarely faced physical persecution. Satan’s attacks have become much more subtle—the type of attack detailed, for example, in C. S. Lewis’s The Screwtape Letters. Instead of threatening the body, Satan’s persecutions today aim at the ego. They threaten our selfish pride, need for acceptance, or status. Satan has largely destroyed the spiritual effectiveness of the church without having to kill the individual believers in it. In fact, letting believers live self-centered, complacent, indolent, worldly lives is more effective in keeping people from being attracted to the Christian faith than killing them. Martyrs are respected for the strength of their character; compromisers are despised.

MacArthur, John: Acts. Chicago : Moody Press, 1994, c1996, S. 125

Because America has been given so much freedom she tends to forget God, much like Israel when tested with prosperity (Dt.6:10-15). Temptation and opportunities to sin comes with one’s abundance of freedom, and with that comes an abundance of trampling another’s liberty. My daughter and I were discussing in her Heritage Studies lesson about the immigrants who had to take an oath to become a United States citizen. The oath required the immigrant to renounce and abjure any allegiance and fidelity to a foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of which they may have been a citizen. This exemplifies a real repentance and entrance into God’s holy kingdom. God will not allow anything that defiles into His holy kingdom (Rev 21:27 But there shall by no means enter it anything that defiles, or causes an abomination or a lie, but only those who are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. NKJV). Therefore the importance of illustrating a proper entrance into the kingdom with the ordinance of the believer’s baptism is necessary to the believer in understanding his or her decision and commitment to the Lord for what He has done for them. This illustrates the need to wash away the filth of sin that has defiled the sinner. Only in Christ can this filth be washed away. Are you a sinner? Have you come to yourself and have seen yourself as a worm that slithers in the mud? (Ps 22:6 But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. NKJV) If you have not been born again, and repented from sin, and are trusting in Christ alone for salvation; you are filthy and need to be cleansed. What Peter has been preaching and continues to preach through the book of Acts is:

Acts 2:38-39 . . . Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. NKJV

This is the message and the ‘command’ that Peter and the disciples are being persecuted for. The Jews thought they already possessed salvation, but they were trusting in their father’s faith. As far as the religious leaders were concerned these bunch of “kooks” were insane to call us to repentance. Is this any different than what we are seeing right now here in America. Israel -- with all her freedom and access to the truth, and with synagogues in every town did not know her own God. This is the very same predicament that America is facing even now. God has given this nation over to her pride and rebellion. America takes away a person's religious freedom only to give it to another who will then in turn take that freedom away. The idea of freedom in this world is ludicrous. This is why the kingdom is not of this world (Jn.18:36). Nothing that defiles or corrupts shall enter God’s kingdom, but surely if the kingdom of God is within you (Lk.17:21), then the kingdom of God has come upon you (Mt.12:28).

And it came to pass, on the next day, that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, “By what power or by what name have you done this?"

At this point, Peter and John have been in prison for a night, and all the people who witnessed the event, plus the Sanhedrin, gathered to judge the Apostles. It is obvious again that the Jews wanted to cover up their sin, because they knew exactly what Name the Apostles were preaching. Half of them were witnesses to the miracle and the preaching of Peter. But it was what they were preaching that cut them open and spilled out their darkness. Peter was reiterating everything Jesus Christ was crucified for. And what we have here is another ‘kangaroo’ court. They are asking by what power the disciples have done this miracle; as if, the healing of the blind man wasn’t enough to show them by what authority these men and the Christ spoke from:

John 9:26-34 Then they said to him again, "What did He do to you? How did He open your eyes?" He answered them, "I told you already, and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you also want to become His disciples?" Then they reviled him and said, "You are His disciple, but we are Moses' disciples. We know that God spoke to Moses; as for this fellow, we do not know where He is from." The man answered and said to them, “Why, this is a marvelous thing, that you do not know where He is from; yet He has opened my eyes! Now we know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does His will, He hears him. Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind. If this Man were not from God, He could do nothing." They answered and said to him, "You were completely born in sins, and are you teaching us?" And they cast him out. NKJV

You see it was a pride issue with these so-called spiritual leaders. They did not want the name of Christ to continue; first, because they loved money, and second, because they murdered Jesus Christ and it continued to haunt their conscience. I personally love how this former blind man called out the ignorance of these leaders. The testimony of this man cut so deep into their “willful” ignorance that they excommunicated him out of their synagogues. Now, continuing in the context of Acts, Peter preaches in the name of Christ through the miracle of the lame beggar at the gate and all the same religious leaders continue in their willful ignorance of the obvious authority of Jesus Christ. Their own speech testifies that they understood this to be miracle when they ask, “By what power or by what name have you done this?” They know that a miracle took place, but it is the name and authority that they question. But the miracle is only to testify that what is being preached is true. So Peter tells them again as the Holy Spirit fills him with power and boldness that Jesus Christ is risen from the dead.

If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.

Peter is not afraid to tell them once again that it is by the power and authority of Jesus Christ that the beggar was made whole. It is by the same power and authority that you knuckle heads rejected the first time and crucified Him. The Pharisees had testimony after testimony or miracle after miracle to authenticate that the message was the solid and pure Word of The Lord and it still was not enough to soften their cold and hard hearts from the love of money and power. Because of their hard hearts and continuation of resisting the Spirit another martyr named Stephen was murdered (Acts 7:59). The Pharisees were on the verge of blaspheming the Holy Spirit (Mt.12:31), but it eventually does cause a dramatic conversion in one the worst persecutors the church has ever seen, the Apostle Paul (Acts 26:11).

If you have been following me you know that my daughter and I have been studying immigration into America during the mid-1800s until the present. One of the things that America was concerned about was that with all the new immigrants might not want to be “American”. So they made new laws that would make it harder for immigrants to become citizens. They were closing the “golden door” so to speak, but I asked my daughter if she thought that was right? She said that she didn’t think it was. This is what these Pharisees were afraid of. They thought that these “Christians” were going to change the way “Israel” did things and they were right, but would that have really been a bad thing? At least in the minds of the Sanhedrin it was. They didn’t want anybody telling them what to do, simply because they were the authority, and an obvious miracle wasn’t going to change that. Jesus said:

Luke 5:36-39 Then He spoke a parable to them: "No one puts a piece from a new garment on an old one; otherwise the new makes a tear, and also the piece that was taken out of the new does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the wineskins and be spilled, and the wineskins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into new wineskins, and both are preserved. And no one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.'" NKJV

What is taking place at this point in Israel’s history is the fulfillment of this parable. The Apostles were given the impossible task of putting new wine into old wineskins, causing the pride of the old to burst and be ruined. But the next generation was able to be teachable in the way of Christ and this is what God uses to preserve Israel. This is the same principle that America used to “Americanize” the immigrants coming into the nation during the mid-1800s and continue to do today, but is what America did the right thing? What made America so great at her beginning was the freedom immigrants had in passing on their heritage to their own children, but the new “America” stole that from the immigrants and was actually our stumbling block. We became proud like Israel and would not give people the freedom to teach their own children with their own values. This was when America stole the children from the fathers. Should we be proud of this? God says, “NO!” God says, “Repent!”

Deut 5:8-10 'You shall not make for yourself a carved image — any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments. NKJV

If your identity is only as an “American”, then you haven’t repented and are not trusting in Jesus Christ.