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Reading Acts 4:23-31 where the apostles raise up this exalting prayer, acknowledging that God who created all things even ordained for the murder of Jesus for our benefit. Visit wwutt.com for all our videos!
The disciples lift up this prayer to God, recognizing that it was by His sovereign hand that Pontius Pilate and Herod, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, did what God had predestined when we understand the text.
This is When We Understand The Text, a daily study in the Word of Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness. Find all our videos and other ministry resources at www .utt .com.
Here once again is Pastor Gabe.
Thank you, Becky. In our study of the Book of Acts, we come back to Chapter 4. We just read of how Peter and John were brought before the Sanhedrin and questioned, and finding nothing to charge them with, they let them go.
And so where we're picking up is Peter and John returning to their friends, reporting all that had happened to them, and we read this wonderful prayer that we have in this section as well. So let me read from Acts 4, verses 23 -31.
Hear the word of the Lord. So when they were released, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord and said, O Master, it is you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father David your servant said.
Why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples devise vain things? The kings of the earth took their stand, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. For truly in this city, there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur.
And now, Lord, take note of their threats and grant that your slaves may speak your word with all confidence while you extend your hand to heal and signs and wonders happen through the name of your holy servant Jesus.
And when they had prayed earnestly, the place where they had gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God with confidence. I just read this prayer yesterday in my sermon, in fact.
I'm in Romans chapter 9. Now, if you've been listening to those sermons as I post them on the podcast, I just started Romans 9 yesterday, but those sermons are a few weeks back. At church yesterday, I finished through verse 24, and it was in reading this section, verses 21 to 24, that I added in this prayer that we have an Acts chapter for.
So, this is Romans 9, verse 21. Has the potter no right over the clay to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory?
Even us, whom he has called not from the Jews only, but also from the Gentiles. And in connection with that, I read this passage, this prayer from Acts chapter 4, where we have vessels that have been prepared for destruction in order that the mercies of God would be shown to vessels that have been prepared for honor, prepared beforehand for glory.
So, let me come back up to verse 23. We'll read through this prayer together in Acts chapter 4. So, when they were released after Peter and John had been questioned and let go, they were told by the Sanhedrin not to speak in the name of Jesus any longer, but Peter and John had replied, hey, if you got to do something to us, that's between you and God, but we cannot help but speak and testify about what we have seen and heard.
So, they weren't able to find anything to charge them with. They let them go. Peter and John returned to their companions and report all that the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And verse 24, when they had heard this, they lifted their voices to God with one accord.
All of them are rejoicing in that they were considered worthy to suffer for the name. That's an expression that doesn't come up until chapter 5, but I'm adding it here because they were all rejoicing together.
We have been persecuted along with Christ for his righteousness. And so, now they pray to God, thanking him for this ministry of the gospel that has been given to them and how successful they've seen it become.
There were thousands more people that have been added to the church because of this miracle that was done in the temple and the testimony of Peter and John to them. By the way, I kind of brushed by this rather quick and I was just reminded of this a few days ago, but earlier in chapter 4, when Peter had testified before the Sanhedrin, he said, I'm coming back up to verse 10 here.
Let it be known to all of you and all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ, the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead by this name, this man that they just healed stands before you in good health.
He, Christ, is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.
And it was just recently I came back into that, knowing that I had just taught on that and was reminded, Peter is not the rock the church is built upon, Jesus is. Because that's the Roman Catholic claim, that Peter is the rock.
He's the foundation of the church. But Peter's own testimony here, his own preaching, he says, it's Christ who is the rock that the church is built upon. The stone which was rejected by you has become the chief cornerstone.
He is the rock on which the church is built. And it is to their Lord that they appeal when they pray this prayer. And it begins like this. This is verse 24. Oh, master, it is you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is.
In them.
Now, I actually like the rendering in the English Standard Version better than this that I'm reading from the Legacy Standard Bible. So in the English Standard Version, it's actually, oh, sovereign Lord, it is you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
Well, it comes from a Greek word that can mean either sovereign Lord or master. It means an absolute ruler. And this is different than other references to Lord, which is the Greek word Kyrios. So a little bit later, like in verse 26, there's a reference to the Lord, verse 29, and now Lord take note of their threats.
So that's a different Greek word. That's not the same Greek word that's used in verse 24. The Greek word that's used there is for an absolute ruler. And I think that it is better described in the English Standard Version or better translated as sovereign Lord.
I wonder, I don't know that this is the case, but I wonder if the reason why it comes out in the Legacy Standard Bible is because of the legacy's commitment to lexical consistency. And what that means is where a Greek word would be translated like here, master, anywhere else that same Greek word occurs, it's always going to be translated master, or at least it's as much as they can help it.
They're committed to this consistency. We want to translate the word to be the same all the way through. And so I think it's because of that reason where elsewhere that word is shown up and it's been translated master.
So they do that here as a matter of consistency. But really, I think it's more accurate to say sovereign Lord. I think the word goes above just simply master, even though it can be translated that way.
But this, especially as God is being addressed as the sovereign ruler, oh master, it is you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them. So it really serves the translation better to say sovereign Lord.
This is one of those places where I'm going to side with the ESV over the LSB. So anyway, oh master, it is you who made the heaven and the earth and the sea. This is a quote, by the way, that comes from Exodus.
And again, it is showing that God is sovereign overall. He has made all things and all that is in them. And so as they are going to acknowledge and lift up before God, you predestined that all of this would take place.
It's because he is the creator. He made all things. He made time and space and everything that fills it. And so God has even ordained every event that would take place and where those things would occur, even when it comes to the murder of the son of God, which was the worst sin that had ever been committed by man.
And so as these apostles are praying this, they begin by talking about how God is the one who is the creator of all things. And this is also a very Trinitarian prayer because then next in verse 25, who by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father, David, your servant, you said, why did the Gentiles rage and the people's devise vain things?
This of course is from Psalm two and Psalms one and two are not marked as having been written by David. Like if you go to the Psalms, it doesn't say in Psalm two that it's a Psalm of David. So it could be that Peter and the rest of the apostles here, they are revealing to us that it really was David that wrote that Psalm perhaps in the Holy Spirit as they're praying these things.
Or it could also be that just largely the Psalms are considered to be attributed to David. So even if you had a Psalm that was by Moses or Solomon or Asaph or the sons of Korah, you still have the body of the Psalms were largely contributed to David.
So it could just very simply be that they're saying anything that came from the Psalms was from David, your servant. That could be a possible explanation. But consider also that it is said that this came from the Holy Spirit through the mouth of our father, David, your servant.
That seems very specific to me. So it very well could be that they're revealing to us and it's being said to us here in Acts chapter four that David was the author of Psalm two. Why did the Gentiles rage?
Now, that's the way it's translated in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. If you go back to Psalm two and read it as it's been translated from the Hebrew, it says there, why did the nations rage?
But as we've discussed before on this podcast, most of the time when you see nations in the Old Testament or even when you see it in the New Testament, it is a reference to Gentiles in the New Testament.
It's a reference to Jew and Gentile most of the time. And so why did the Gentiles rage and the peoples devise vain things? And the fulfillment of this is in the crucifixion of the son of God, as they're going to show.
So verse 26, the kings of the earth took their stand and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ. And again, that's a translation from the Septuagint. You go back to Psalm two and as it's been translated from the Hebrew and it says against the Lord and against his anointed, but that's what Christ means.
Christ, the word Christ means anointed. Also understood as Messiah. He is the anointed one, the one chosen by God, the one set apart. And of course he is the God man. He is God incarnate who put on flesh and dwelt among us.
But this still speaks to his humanity, that Jesus is the Christ, the one human being that God had set apart to fulfill this incredible thing. Jesus, of course, again, being God, but God in human flesh, that he would accomplish in his flesh all that needed to be done for man to be reconciled to God.
And so the disciples go on to say in verse 27, for truly in this city, remember, they're still in Jerusalem. There were gathered together against your holy servant, Jesus, whom you anointed. Both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel.
To do whatever your hand and your purpose predestined to occur. So did these men act out of their own wills to put Jesus to death? Oh, yes, they certainly did. So don't hear verse 28 saying that they were just automatons, robots that God had pre-programmed or pawns on his chessboard that he moved to where he wanted them to be.
They still acted out of the wickedness in their hearts. And we've seen this. We've seen this throughout Acts. This isn't even the first place that this has been said in Acts. The sermon that Peter preached in Acts chapter 2, he said to the people there, you murdered Jesus, but this was all according to the predestined plan and foreknowledge of God.
Now that's still upon the people to repent and be baptized. And they were, they were cut to the heart by Peter's words. When Peter said that God had predestined this to take place, but you murdered the chosen one, the Christ, you murdered him.
None of them responded to that by going, oh, well, then it wasn't our fault. God predestined it. And it wasn't me who did it for who can resist his will. That's the, the objector in Romans chapter nine.
You will say to me then, why does he still find fault for who can resist his will? But who are you, oh man, to answer back to God? None of the people there in Jerusalem, when Peter had preached at Pentecost, responded in that way.
Oh yeah, well, if God had predestined this, then I guess I'm not at fault for putting the son of God to death. They still had to answer for their sin. It cut them to the heart and they recognized really what they had done against the anointed one whom God had sent.
And all of this had happened because God had predestined for it to happen. He had set for it to happen before the foundation of the world. That Jesus would even be killed by his own creatures that were made in the image of God.
Jesus said, I lay my life down and I have the authority to take it back up again. No one takes my life from me. So this was all according to God's plan. It was Jesus in giving himself for us, but those who put him to death still carried out the wickedness that was in their hearts.
It was predestined by God. It was exactly according to his purpose that these things would take place, but they still have to answer for their actions. There is no contradiction in recognizing that God has ordained all that comes to pass and you are still responsible for your actions.
There's no contradiction there. It is our folly as human beings that we think that there might be a contradiction. It's called a paradox. A paradox looks like there's a contradiction, but there's really not.
That's what a paradox is. And so for us, yes, it very much may appear to be a paradox that God predestined that Herod and Pontius Pilate, as well as all the rest of the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel would plot together to crucify the son of God.
Looks like there's a contradiction there. If God had ordained that all of that was going to take place, but there's not. This was according to God's plan, and these persons still carried out the desires of their hearts.
And this being a fulfillment of exactly what was prophesied in Psalm chapter 2. I'll read you the end of Psalm chapter 2, Psalm 2. I'll read you the end of that Psalm here in just a moment. So all of this was to do whatever your hand and your purpose had predestined to occur.
Verse 29. And now, Lord, take note of their threats. The same people who had risen up against Christ are now threatening us. And grant that your slaves may speak your word with all confidence. While you extend your hand to heal and signs and wonders happen through the name of your holy servant, Jesus.
And as I've said so far, as we've been reading through Acts, this is the purpose of those signs and wonders. That it would point to the message that is being proclaimed by the apostles as genuinely being from God.
The true gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. And verse 31. When they had prayed earnestly, the place where they had gathered together was shaken and they were filled with the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean that they did not have the Holy Spirit before.
But God is responding to their request and demonstrating his spirit being among them. And there may have been some of them among them at least in this group. It's not detailed for us exactly who was in this group.
But it could be that in this group there were those who had not yet received that outpouring of the Holy Spirit. That would drive them to speak the word of God with confidence. But here the Holy Spirit comes to them.
There's no sign of the spirit among them that's like speaking in tongues. But simply that they began to speak the word of God. And do so with confidence. Just as Jesus had said to them in the upper room that I will send the helper to you.
And he will teach you what to say. And so it is by the power of the Holy Spirit that they speak the things that they speak. Here's the end of Psalm 2. So now, O kings, show insight. Take warning, O judges of the earth.
Serve Yahweh with fear and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he become angry and you perish in the way. For his wrath may soon be kindled. How blessed are all who take refuge in him. Let's finish there with prayer.
Heavenly Father, we thank you for this prayer that we have read out of Acts 4. And being reminded that you are sovereign over all. You created the heaven and the earth and the sea and all that is in them.
And though the nations had plotted against Christ as though to put him to death. Yet you fulfilled and accomplished all that you had predestined to occur. You even used them. These who had plotted against the Lord.
You used them that it would be accomplished for us the salvation of our souls. So that everyone who believes in Jesus will not perish but have everlasting life. And so God, filled with your Holy Spirit, may we go out.
Speaking with all boldness as these disciples did. But also living in holiness before you. Before the return of our Lord Christ. It is in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.
Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.
Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study, When We Understand the Text.