Acts 4:1-31 -- A Christian's Guide to Standing up to Fools and Tyrants (September 17, 2023)

Acts 4 and the Church in a Hostile Culture

You can turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 4. Acts chapter 4, we've been going through the book of Acts for several weeks now. And today, we're in Acts chapter 4. We're going to do the first 31 verses.

We'll pick up in verse 32 next week. But Acts 4, verses 1 through 31 this morning. You'll remember, in our very first week in the book of Acts, I said that one of the applications that we would return to, one of the applications that we would consistently make as we go through this book, is to apply lessons from the book of Acts for the church in what we call negative world.

Negative world just being a framework for describing cultural conditions and where there's kind of a negative relationship between Christianity and culture. Such that Christianity is seen as a negative and that it might be somewhat disadvantageous to you.

It might cost you something socially or professionally to be a Christian. That is a type of culture we are increasingly living in. And so we want to take what we see in Acts chapter 4 and apply it to our circumstances the best that we can.

We see in Acts chapter 4, the early church, they're living in what might be called negative world for them. Christianity was opposed from the highest echelons of society down to the street level. And we see here in this chapter, Peter and John get arrested.

The ruling class conspires against them to stop them from speaking in the name of Christ. This is what we see in Acts chapter 4. Now, our cultural conditions may not be a one-to-one comparison with first century Jerusalem.

That's true. But we have noticed a significant shift in our culture, especially over the last 10 years. Pagan worldviews are ascendant. And there have been and there will be clashes between true religion and false religion, between light and darkness, between the kingdom of Christ and the kingdoms of this world.

And these clashes will manifest them or often manifest themselves through our temporal earthly institutions. So for example, I have a friend who was arrested back in 2020 up in Idaho during a psalm singing protest that his church was doing.

He was arrested for that. I recently saw on the news two young men were arrested while reading the Bible and preaching outside of a drag queen event in Wisconsin. Just reading the Bible got arrested. I know churches in Canada that face millions of dollars in fines simply for gathering for worship during excessive COVID lockdowns a few years ago.

At least one pastor went to jail for a time. And even here in Greenville, I know of two men who were arrested while preaching and doing evangelism out at the abortion clinic on Grove Road. Now to be fair, they weren't arrested for preaching, but they were arrested while preaching.

And so what do we do in these situations? Even if you're never put into a context, you're never put in a situation where you're going to be arrested, I still think there are applications here for all of us in the face of growing cultural opposition to Christianity.

And so I've titled, I don't often title my sermons, but I've titled this sermon from the first 31 verses of Acts 4 today, a Christian's guide to standing up to fools and tyrants. A Christian's guide to standing up to fools and tyrants.

Tyrants being those who willfully, maliciously, purposefully abuse their authority for their own ends. That's what a tyrant is, right? And then you have what I would call fools, and I don't use this term pejoratively, but rather to indicate that they operate according to folly rather than wisdom.

And they're those who just kind of go along with the tyrants, just following orders. Yet, they'll still put the handcuffs on you or file the lawsuit or fire you or whatever it is, just doing their job.

So how do we engage in this type of environment? How do we stand up to fools and tyrants? I want to read the first seven verses of Acts 4, making some comments as we go. And then as we get into the rest of the passage, I want to draw out some lessons for us in how to do this.

So let's begin in Acts chapter 4. We'll kind of go stop and go here as we read. And it begins, the Word of God says, Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captains of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them.

And as they spoke to the people, let's stop there for just a minute. You remember what happened, what we saw last week in Acts chapter 3. Peter and John, they had healed a lame man. A crowd had gathered around him.

And Peter, sensing an opportunity, began to preach. He knew there was an opportunity for the gospel there. So he began to preach. Christ crucified and Christ resurrected. And he called on the people to repent, telling them, If you repent, times of refreshing will come.

But everyone who does not hear the words of the prophet, he shall be utterly destroyed. We saw that in Acts chapter 3. So this is the context. This is as they're speaking to the people. Then the priests, and the captains of the temple, and the Sadducees come upon them.

This is the ruling class in Jerusalem. Now the Roman Empire ruled the land, right? But they often governed provincially. And so the regional government, so to speak, those who had real power locally were the priests, and the elders, and the scribes, and the temple police, captains of the guard, and the Sadducees.

And Sadducees, they were political lackeys of Rome. They were wealthy, and they held considerable power in the ruling council called the Sanhedrin. And they, one of their doctrinal distinctives, they denied the resurrection of the dead.

And so we see in verse 2 then, they came upon them being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And so two things here. One, broadly speaking, those in power usually don't like it when you go directly to the people, right?

They would rather dictate to the people. They'd rather manipulate the people, the population. They'd rather do that than teach them. A well-informed public tends to make power-obsessed politicos rather uneasy.

So that's one thing. They're greatly disturbed. But it's especially true when what they are teaching is not only true, but also in direct, explicit opposition to their most distinctive doctrine. So the Sadducees denied the resurrection of the dead, and they're greatly disturbed because Peter and John, they're going to the people, to the masses, and they're hearing this good news of Jesus Christ risen from the dead.

And so feeling threatened, we continue reading verse 3. And they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. See, there's an old preacher joke where the preacher puts in the margin of his notes, you know, argument weak, pound pulpit, and yell louder.

That's kind of what the principle that's going on here. Their argument was weak. It wasn't true. And so what do they have to do? They had to yell louder. They had to arrest them. They had to threaten them.

But here's the great thing that we see in verse 4. However, many of those who heard the word believed. And the number of the men came to be about 5 ,000. And the number of the men, so the total numbers even include women and children, is even more than that.

In spite of opposition, in spite of the arrest, the number of disciples grew. The gospel cannot and it will not be stopped. That is good news for all of us. That's encouraging news in troubled and turbulent times.

The gospel isn't going to be stopped. Continuing on in verses 5 through 7, it came to pass on the next day that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, and Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many 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? This is the Sanhedrin. This is the ruling council. All the power players in Jerusalem are there. They got about 70 members of the Sanhedrin.

And they're kind of sitting in this semi-circle with Peter and John on trial in the middle. Now, I'll pause here for a second. I'll see if you remember something from Luke 12. Do you remember when Jesus was teaching the disciples and he said, Now, when they bring you to the synagogues and magistrates and authorities, do not worry about how or what you should answer or what you should say.

For the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say. Well, Peter and John, they've now been brought before the authorities. What Jesus said would happen has now happened. They're brought before the authorities.

And then how does verse 8 start? Peter, then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, The Holy Spirit will teach you what to say. Don't worry in that hour. The Holy Spirit will teach you what to say.

And then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and elders of Israel. And what happens from here on out in this story is the Holy Spirit teaching them and telling them and guiding them in what to say in that hour, just as Jesus had said.

And from that Spirit-guided experience, I want us to take 11 lessons for standing strong against opposition. Now, before you think, Oh, no, an 11-point sermon. We're going to be here forever. I promise to make some of them short.

Now, this isn't an exhaustive list. We'd be here even longer if we made an exhaustive list of how to stand against opposition. There are all sorts of other temporal means that I'm not going to mention that one might use.

But for this message, I just want to limit us to what we see in Acts chapter 4, how we can stand against cultural and governmental opposition. So here we go. Christian's guide to standing up to fools and tyrants.

And the first lesson for us is to be explicitly Christian. Be explicitly Christian. So look at verses 9 and 10. If we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man. And I'll pause for just one quick sidebar there.

You see how they're asking, By what power did you do this? And immediately, Peter reframes things to say, We're on trial for a good deed. I mean, we made it. He's healed now. And he frames it according to what he wants to center there.

He takes charge of the discourse there. Just a good tactic for us to assume the center. He says, If we are this day 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.

Amen. You see the council, the council here, they're in a tough spot. And the reason they're in a tough spot, we'll see it in a few verses. It's because they can't deny the reality of what happened. They can't deny the miracle.

They'll go on and say that later in the passage. They can't deny the fact that the lame man is now walking. He had been lame from birth and now he came leaping into the temple. You can't deny that. But they also didn't want to credit Jesus for this because they did not want to admit to the resurrection from the dead.

That's their distinctive doctrine. So they're in a pretty tough place here. And so they would have been happy to have accepted a way out. And so they tried to give Peter and John a way out where everybody could save face.

They asked him, By what power did you do this? And all Peter and John had to say was by God's power. This kind of speak generally, generically. They could have gotten out by invoking the name, just saying that God did this.

They could have spoken of God in a very general generic way and the whole thing probably could have been over. But generic gods are powerless. Power is found in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Power is found explicitly, specifically in Jesus Christ.

In our culture today, it is perfectly acceptable to be a person of faith. Right? I mean, nobody's bothered if you say that you're a person of faith. Politicians still say and campaign on being a person of faith.

But here's the thing. If someone tells me that they're a person of faith, they have not told me anything yet. I don't know if that's good or bad, right? You don't know if it's good or bad yet. Faith in what?

Faith in whom? We don't know you. Faith in humanity? Faith in human reason? Faith in Buddha? Faith in Ishtar? Or faith in the Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth? If you want to stand up to fools and tyrants, then you need to remember the power that is in the name of Jesus Christ.

The name above all names. The one who is above all principality and power and might and dominion and every name that is named is Ephesians 1. And you need to speak in His name. His name is the one that is powerful over every earthly authority.

And so the lesson is be explicitly Christian, not generically religious. That's what we see from Peter here. He is explicitly Christian. He says to the council, they're against him. They've kind of given him a way out and he does not take it and said, he says, let it be known to you as the power of the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth.

Because it's the name of Jesus. In the name of Jesus that strongholds are broken. That's lesson one. Lesson number two, speak to the conscience. Speak to the conscience. We saw this last week in Acts 3 when Peter preached to the crowd and he said that they had killed the prince of life, God's servant, Jesus.

And again, Peter now tells the Sanhedrin in verse 10, whom you crucified. He said, you killed him. And then in verse 11, this is the stone which was rejected by you builders. Which has become the chief cornerstone.

He preaches to their conscience. Now, Peter's not angry. Peter's not malicious. But he did not shy away from telling them the truth. He loved them enough to tell them the truth. He loved them enough to make them be confronted with their sin.

Because only then could they turn from it. Only then could they repent of it. And so Peter and John, their goal here, their goal was not to be let go. Their goal is not to be set free. Their goal was not to be safe.

No, they had higher aspirations. Their goal was that the people that they were preaching to should be pricked to the heart, cut to the heart, so that they might repent and be baptized for the remission of their sins.

This is his message in Acts 2. This is his message in Acts 3. And now this is his message in Acts 4. He wants them to be cut to the heart so they can be confronted with their sin so they can turn from it.

If we're given the chance to stand before authorities, if we're given the chance to speak to anyone in opposition of Christ, we ought to tell them the truth and speak to their conscience so that they might be confronted with their sin so they can turn from their sins.

This is a gift and a grace to them. This is the loving thing to do for them. So lesson number two, be explicitly, or excuse me, lesson number one, explicitly Christian. Lesson number two, speak to their conscience.

Lesson number three, proclaim the gospel. Verse 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. So here's the thing. When it comes to securing our earthly good, we're at liberty to use all sorts of earthly means, right?

To use all sorts of human means to secure earthly good. We can utilize the courts. We can engage in the political process. We can appeal to the constitution or the ordinances of the city or the laws of the state.

We can and ought to make use of all of those things. They're God's gift to us. But at the blazing center of all of our public engagement and all of our public entanglements must be the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Some trust in chariots, some trust in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. We believe the gospel is what sets the land ablaze and renews the nation and turns enemies into friends. And so if we're going to truly stand up to fools and tyrants, we must proclaim the free grace and free salvation that is found in Jesus Christ alone.

That is the blazing center of all of our engagement. People are looking for a savior and they'll turn to all sorts of figures. They'll turn to all sorts of vices. All sorts of ideologies. But there is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved.

In the name of Jesus Christ. And so we proclaim Christ. Christ crucified. Christ risen. We proclaim the gospel. Fourth lesson. Be with Jesus. Or that might get alternatively titled this lesson, Credentialism is Dead.

Let's see what I mean by that. By reading verse 13. It says, Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.

You're never going to hear me say education is bad. I'm a proponent of vigorous education. We're giving our kids a classical Christian education. I have graduate degrees. I'm all for it. I'm not anti-intellectual, nor am I anti-institutional.

I believe in institutions. But the credentials that come from education and institutions, while they can be very helpful, they are never ultimate or primary. And we see that with Peter and John here. They had no formal training.

From an established religious institution in Jerusalem. They didn't have a PhD. They hadn't been to seminary. They didn't have any letters behind their names. They had something better. They had been with Jesus.

They spent three years with Jesus. They had listened to Jesus teach. They had watched Him interact with crowds. And they had watched Him interact with individuals. They had asked Him questions. They had heard Him give His answers.

They had heard Him give answers to others who were asking questions of Him. They've heard Him tell parables. They've heard Him deflect the attacks from the Pharisees. They've seen Him do this. They saw Him teach as one who had authority.

Authority. And they have learned from their master. And even though they were uneducated and untrained, what did the council do? They marveled! They had been with Jesus. Friends, I'll tell you, in negative world, when you're standing before fools and tyrants and opponents, your credentials will not help you.

Whether it's graduate degrees or decades of Sunday school or whatever it is, our opposition is not impressed with evangelical institutions. And honestly, most of our seminaries probably won't prepare, actually prepare a man to stand before Christ's enemies.

What's going to matter in that moment is have you been with Jesus? And do you have the Spirit of God? Because the Spirit will teach you what to say in those moments. Luke chapter 12. Have you learned from the master?

That's what matters in those moments. And I mean actually have learned from Jesus. Not Jesus filtered through a very safe, comfortable, pristine Christian environment. But Jesus straight up. The Jesus who did verbal combat with the Pharisees and ministered to demoniacs and spoke very hard words about the coming destruction of the corrupt temple system.

That Jesus. I have a friend. He makes cigarettes at a factory in Virginia. And in various engagements on social media with superior wisdom and maybe a few blue collar rough edges, he consistently exposes the folly of so much of the credentialed class of evangelicalism.

And how? Well, he's been with Jesus. Our credentials are dead when it comes to engaging with a world in opposition to Christ and His church. It's not that they're not helpful. They can be. But that's not the primary question.

The question for all of us is, have you been with Jesus? Have you learned from the master? Because in the end, that's the only credential that counts. Let's keep reading verses 14 through 18. And seeing the man who had been healed standing with them, they could say nothing against it.

But when they had commanded them to go outside of the council, they conferred amongst themselves, saying, what shall we do to these men? For indeed that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.

But so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them that from now on, they speak to no man in this name. And so they called them and commanded them not to speak at all, nor teach in the name of Jesus.

I want to see a couple of things here. Verse 17, where it says that, you know, so it doesn't spread any further, let's severely threaten them so they speak to no one in this name. First, we see that these leaders here, this council, they would rather people stay sick.

They would rather people stay lame. They would rather people suffer than for their status and their standing to be threatened. That's awful, right? I mean, it's just bad humanity. But we see that similar today.

And as Christians, we stand against fools and tyrants because we care about those who are sick and suffering. We care about those who are poor and weak. And so we speak up for them. Second thing I want us to see here is they can't win the argument, so they resort to threats.

It's important that we understand this principle that the heavy handedness from authorities and threats from the ruling class are often done in moments of weakness. They're often done in moments of weakness when they feel threatened, when there is no other recourse but to try to show a strong hand and threaten.

And this is why courage is so important. This is why courage is so important, especially early on when tyrants begin their threats and mistreatment. Because often at that moment, they're fragile. And a little courage will fell them.

A little courage will break the spell and everyone can see clearly for a few moments what the situation exactly is and then that just takes the whole thing down. Courage begets courage. Courage seen by one man will build it in another.

And so it's important at this moment that courage is shown. Of course, often this is where our opponents are fragile. So standing up to fools and tyrants and we do this as much for others. We do this for our sons, for our daughters, for our fellow countrymen, as much as we do it for ourselves.

But part of this is that when we get a small victory, we don't let up. We practice the principle of pursuit. And so here, I want you to think of David and Goliath. You remember that story, David and Goliath?

David goes out. He's the champion for Israel. Goliath's the champion for the Philistines. He hits him with the rock, defeats the giant. And then what happens to all the Philistines? They flee. They run.

What do the Israelites do? Say, oh, well, good. I'm glad they're gone and glad we got Goliath. No, they chase them and they rout them and they defeat them. They put their enemies to flight. Peter and John could have acquiesced here.

They could have just kind of played the safe route. They had leverage, right? Verse 14 says that they couldn't deny what had happened. So they had leverage. They could have thought, well, we dodged a bullet there.

We'll lay low for a little while. We'll be quiet. Let's go along for a little bit. We'll be all right. We'll ride this out. But this is how those who abuse their power gain their power and gain more of it to abuse it even further.

So instead of doing that, what do we see in verses 19 and 20? But Peter and John answered and said to them, whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you more than to God, you judge. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.

They pressed the attack. They didn't let up. They would keep preaching in the name of Christ because there is power in the name of Christ and there is no other name under heaven by which men must be saved but by the name of Christ.

And so they would keep preaching even though they've been instructed, commanded not to. And so they did not give the council their assurances of compliance. Rather, they gave them assurance of their incompliance.

And they challenged them, you judge. And in these verses, we find our next lesson that we are to obey God above all others. We are to obey God above all others. Now let's start here. The Bible teaches that we are to obey government authorities.

This is authoritative instruction from God in the Bible. We're to submit to them. We're to pray for them. However, we also recognize that no earthly authority is absolute. No earthly authority is unlimited or ultimate.

Only God's authority is absolute. So here's an analogy. A husband has authority in his home, right? He has real delegated from God authority in his home. We see that in Ephesians. But if he becomes abusive to his wife, acting outside of the parameters God has set, being physically abusive, we would not say that the wife is under any obligation to just shut up and take it all the while we're reciting Ephesians chapter 5, right?

Really give that counsel to your friend or to your daughter. Likewise, the civil magistrate has authority in society. Real delegated from God authority. But if he becomes abusive to his citizens, acting outside the parameters God has set, we shouldn't say that the citizen is under obligation to just shut up and take it while we cite to them Romans 13.

That is to say there is a higher authority than the civil governments and that authority is the Lord Jesus Christ. And so each week during our pastoral prayer, we rotate praying for those in authority over us.

We pray for national leaders today. We'll pray for local leaders, city of Traverse Rest leaders next week. Pray for state leaders after that or actually Greenville County leaders and then state leaders.

And each week we do that. We pray for our governing authorities because we desire to honor them and we desire God's blessing upon them. And each week we also pray that they will remember whose ministers they are, whose servants they are, whose deacons they are.

Because that's the language that's used in Romans 13. Civil government is God's deacon for good, His servant. You see, they get their authority from God and are subject to God and His word. They're not just in authority, but they are also under authority.

Just like in my house with my kids, I'm not just in authority and I tell them this often, I'm also under authority. And so if we have to choose, and ideally we don't have to choose, right? But when we do, when those things conflict, we must choose obedience to God.

For His authority is higher and His authority is absolute. In other words, obedience to God sometimes might mean disobedience to mayors, governors, and presidents. And that's okay. Now, given our general posture towards authorities, which should be honor and submission, under what conditions may we disobey?

I want to give three. The first is if the civil authority commands something that God forbids. So, for example, if the government commanded you to sacrifice to idols, you should disobey that. You're not allowed to by God, and so you've got to choose obedience to God over obedience to man.

You can't do that which God forbids. Or if they tell you you have to lie and call a man a woman, you should disobey. God says not to bear false witness. So that's the first one. If the civil authority commands you to do something God forbids, or if the civil authority forbids something that God commands.

So, for example, we have some church members who lived in California during COVID lockdowns. And they had to park down the street from their church, and get on a bus, and be bused into church. And they had the windows closed, covered.

So they could meet for worship. Because their governor there had forbid something, gathered worship, that God commands. Hebrews chapter 10. And they were righteous for disobeying that, and gathering with God's people for worship.

So we can disobey when the civil authority forbids something that God commands. Then the third thing would be when the civil authority makes a command outside of his jurisdiction. And so let's explain here what that means.

God's ordained three governments in the world. You have your government of your family or household, government of the church, and government of the state. Family, church, and state. Broadly outlined, fathers have authority in their family, and to the family is given the ministries of health, education, and welfare.

Pastors have authority in the church, and to the church is given the ministries of word and sacrament, or word and ordinance. Magistrates have authority in government, and to the government is given the ministries of justice and defense.

And when one of those authorities starts meddling in the ministries or the jurisdiction of one of the others, things start to go sideways. And we start to see unlawful overstepping of bounds. And in those cases, we're free to disregard their commandment using prudence as our guide whether we should or whether we shouldn't.

So it would be like, think of it this way. Let's say the revenue department of North Dakota sent you a tax bill. Now you don't own a house in North Dakota. You don't live in North Dakota. You've never even been to North Dakota.

You get a tax bill from the revenue department of North Dakota. You're free to throw that in the trash. Why? He doesn't have any authority to tax you. Now if the South Carolina revenue department sends that to you, that's a different story.

But North Dakota doesn't, right? You're not in his jurisdiction. You're free not to pay. It's similar here. In recent years, there have been some egregious abuses of state power at all levels of government.

And some bad actors have been aided by sometimes well-meaning Christians and sometimes not so well-meaning Christians, citing Romans 13 to bind the consciences of other Christians that they would acquiesce to everything the state has said.

And so in order to stand up against this, we need to have a proper understanding of jurisdiction. We need to have a proper understanding of delegated authority so that we know when it's okay to say no.

And it's sometimes okay to say no. But we have to have that framework in mind in order to do so righteously. Because we don't want to disobey God's word in this either. Now very quickly, I want us to draw a few lessons from verses 23 to 31.

This is going to be a little bit rapid fire. But we see in verse 23, and being let go, they went to their own companions and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. So the lesson here is gather with God's people.

They got let go and they immediately went to God's people. So to stand up, we need to rally together and be together. Oppressive governments want people to be, they want God's people to be isolated. But we draw strength from our togetherness.

And so we need to gather with God's people. Next lesson, verse 24. So when they heard that, they raised their voice to God with one accord and said, Lord, you are God who made heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.