Acts 5:12-42 -- The Unstoppable Plan and Work of God (October 1, 2023)

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FBC Travelers Rest sermon from October 1, 2023 by Pastor Rhett Burns

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We can turn in your Bibles to Acts chapter 5. Acts chapter 5.
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As we continue going through the book of Acts, we're going to be in verses 12 through 42 this morning.
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12 through 42 this morning. Let me begin. I'm just going to read through the passage, and then we'll get into Acts chapter 5 verse 12.
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And the Word of God says, Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were healed.
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Then the high priest rose up, and all those who were with him, which is the sect of the Sadducees, and they were filled with indignation, and laid their hands on the apostles, and put them in the common prison.
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But at night an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors, and brought them out and said, Go, stand in the temple, and speak to the people all the words of this life.
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And when they heard that, they entered the temple early in the morning and talked. But the high priest and those with him came and called the council together with all the elders of the children of Israel, and sent to the prison to have them brought.
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But when the officers came and did not find them in the prison, they returned and reported, saying, Indeed, we found the prison shut securely, and the guards standing outside before the doors, but when we opened them, we found no one inside.
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Now when the high priest, the captain of the temple, and the chief priest heard these things, they wondered what the outcome would be.
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So one came and told them, saying, Look, the men he put in prison are standing in the temple teaching the people. Then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence, for they feared the people, lest they should be stoned.
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And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, saying, Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name?
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And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man's blood on us.
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But Peter and the other apostles answered and said, We ought to obey God rather than men.
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The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom you murdered by hanging on a tree. Him God has exalted to his right hand to be prince and savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
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And we are his witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.
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And when they heard this, they were furious and plotted to kill them. Then one in the council stood up, a
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Pharisee named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, held in respect by the people, and commanded them to put the apostles outside for a little while.
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And he said to them, Men of Israel, take heed to yourselves what you intend to do regarding these men.
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For some time ago, Theodos rose up, claiming to be somebody. A number of men, about four hundred, joined him.
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He was slain, and all who obeyed him were scattered and came to nothing. After this,
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Judas of Galilee rose up in the days of the census and drew away many people after him. He also perished, and all who obeyed him were dispersed.
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And now I say to you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this work is of men, it will come to nothing.
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But if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God.
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And they agreed with him. And when they had called for the apostles and beaten them, they commanded that they should not speak in the name of Jesus and let them go.
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So they departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
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And daily in the temple and in every house, they did not cease teaching and preaching Jesus as the
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Christ. Amen. This is the word of God to us this morning.
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As we read this story, we see that it takes many unexpected turns.
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You see, the apostles, they had been commanded to no longer speak and teach in the name of Jesus, but they did not obey.
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Instead, they kept preaching, and multitudes were saved. Not only did they keep preaching, but they continued performing miracles in the name of Jesus.
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We see that in verses 12 through 16. And this filled the ruling class with envy.
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The apostles were doing signs. The apostles were doing wonders. They were healing people. They were doing things that the ruling class could not do.
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And they were winning the hearts of the people. And this threatened their regime. And so what did they do?
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They put them in prison. And they gathered all the council together, first thing in the morning, to make a big show trial of the apostles.
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The only problem was, when they went to get them, and they opened the prison doors, the guards were there outside.
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The doors were locked, but there were no prisoners. They were gone. An angel of the
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Lord had brought them out by night. Now I find this scene just incredibly funny. I imagine their frustration, their embarrassment, kind of huffing and puffing about what's going on.
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And as much as they would really like to give it to them, they can't. They can't do anything.
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Because of the fear of the people. So they go get them, bring them without violence to the council. And there we see in verse 28, they give them a good scolding.
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Look at verse 28. It says, did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you fill
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Jerusalem with your doctrine and tend to bring this man's blood on us. They begin to scold the apostles. But Peter and the apostles' answer is just fantastic.
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They're calm, cool, confident, and they give no weasel words in their answer.
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Just say, we ought to obey God rather than men. We ought to obey
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God rather than men. This infuriates the council, and they want to put them to death. They're going to start making a plan to kill the apostles, but Gamaliel, a very respected teacher in Israel, he intervenes.
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Now Gamaliel, he's an advocate for tolerance, and he offers a caution to the council, giving a few examples of previous revolutionaries whose movements flamed out after the leader of that movement died and the dispersion of his followers, and it kind of came to nothing.
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And he says, that'll happen here if this plan, this work is of men. It'll all kind of come to nothing and fizzle out, but, verse 39, but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you be found to fight against God.
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And so the council took his caution, and they just decided to beat the apostles instead because they had to save face.
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They couldn't just let them go. They had to do something to them, and so they beat them and let them go. But I want you to notice the surprise ending here, another turn.
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The apostles, they were not duly chastised, and shamed, and fearful, and in dread, but what did they do?
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They rejoiced. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus.
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You see, the regime's actions were not having the desired effect.
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This was supposed to quiet them. This was supposed to put them in their place, but we see, especially in verse 42, where it says, and daily in the temple and in every house they did not cease teaching and preaching
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Jesus as the Christ. It had the opposite effect of what the rulers wanted it to do.
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The very thing that they aimed to squash was the very thing that the church kept doing in the temple and from house to house, preaching and teaching in the name of Jesus.
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And this illustrates Gamaliel's statement there in verses 38 and 39, saying, and I say to you now, keep away from these men, let them alone, for this plan of work is of men and will come to nothing, but if it is of God, you cannot overthrow it, lest you even be found to fight against God.
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I want to zoom in on that truth of Gamaliel's statement in verses 38 and 39 for the remainder of this sermon.
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I want you to be encouraged by this fact. The plan and the work of God cannot be overthrown.
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The plan and the work of God cannot be stopped. What God is doing in the world cannot be stopped and no one can thwart
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His will. Jesus had told the disciples that they would be His witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria to the ends of the earth and no high priest and no elder, no scribe, no temple guard was going to stop them from being
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His witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Not the Sadducees and not the
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Pharisees, full of envy and anger they may be, full of envy and anger, they might lash out at God's people, they might threaten them, they might even harm them, but ultimately they're tilting at windmills.
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They're fighting a losing battle. They're wallowing in their own futility because the kingdom of God is advancing and they're powerless to stop it.
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You see the nations will be discipled as Jesus commissioned His church to do.
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The knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. The gospel will speed along and triumph and it will happen because God has planned it.
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God is doing it and no one is more powerful than God to stop it. And so we see in Psalm 115, our
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God is in the heavens. He does whatever He pleases. Or Psalm 135, whatever the
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Lord pleases, He does in heaven and on earth. No one can stop
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God. He does what He pleases. Gamaliel noted that if the plan and work was of God, then opposing it would be like fighting
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God. We see this later in Acts, in the story of Paul. You remember the story, his name is
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Saul at the time. Saul is persecuting the church, but when Jesus appeared to him,
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Jesus said, Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? You see to persecute the church was to persecute
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Christ. To fight against the church was to fight against God. 2
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Chronicles 13, 12 speaks bluntly on the futility of fighting against God, saying, Do not fight against the
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Lord God of your fathers, for you shall not prosper. You don't win when you fight against God.
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So in what ways was the ruling class fighting against God and opposing the kingdom of Christ?
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In what ways was the ruling class here fighting against God and opposing the kingdom of Christ? Well, they sought to censor true speech.
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They put a gag order on the apostles, teaching and preaching in the name of Jesus. They imprisoned the apostles.
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They beat the apostles. Previously, they crucified Jesus. In a few chapters, we're going to see where the persecution gets heavy upon the church, such that they scatter out of Jerusalem.
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These are some of the different ways that they are opposing the kingdom of Christ. There's still places in our world today that highly regulates the speech of their people.
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There are places in the world today where believers are imprisoned or they're subject to physical beatings or other forms of physical torture.
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This happens currently around the world. I'll bring it into our context.
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I don't want to make our context sound worse than it actually is. I don't want to paint a picture of life in South Carolina or life in America as worse than it actually is.
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We thankfully still live in a place that has the vestiges of a once Christian society and its legal precedents.
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Therefore, we don't have the abject maybe governmental tyranny like we might have seen in the old
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Soviet Union or in Saudi Arabia. But we'd have to not be paying attention to fail to notice the pretty negative cultural trends in our world today.
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Ascendant opposition to Christianity in our culture. In previous weeks, we've referred to this as negative world where there's a negative relationship between the culture and Christianity such that it's socially and professionally disadvantageous to be a
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Christian. Now generally speaking, the threats against Christians currently are not physical threats.
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So there's been isolated incidents. Nor are Christians generally arrested, though we've seen a rise of that in some instances in recent years.
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Rather, threats that Christians might face today are economical. Getting someone fired, refusing to do business with them, canceling their bank account, weaponizing a regulatory agency of the government against a business, that sort of stuff.
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Or it's kind of really high pressure, grassroots social pressure. Regulating speech.
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What you can say, what you can't say, what you can advocate for, what you can't advocate for. These are some of the things, the pressures that Christians face where if you say the wrong thing, your reputation can be tarnished or torched as they insist you're a racist or a bigot or a misogynist or whatever insult they want to throw, label they want to throw on there.
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These are some of the threats that Christians face today. But I want you to notice the threat isn't for private faith.
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The threat isn't for believing in Jesus in your heart or going to church on Sunday. Our ruling class doesn't mind the merely private faith.
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It's when we bring the Bible to bear on society in a public way, like the apostles were doing. If you refuse to go along with the straights because of what
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God has said in His word or you advocate ordering society according to God's word, that's when you face these sorts of pressures and threats.
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So some Christians want to opt out of any public faith. To them I would quote the
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Baptist Faith and Message 2000 which says, All Christians are under obligation to seek and make the will of Christ supreme in our own lives and in human society.
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Every Christian should seek to bring industry, government, and society as a whole under the principles of righteousness, truth, and brotherly love.
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In other words, the nations should be discipled. We should teach them to obey everything that Jesus has commanded.
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And that vision may seem daunting. It may seem nigh impossible. How will we ever win our people?
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How will we ever win our nation to Christ? But brothers and sisters, I want to tell you that the plan and the work of God cannot be overthrown.
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It cannot be stopped. It might be a long time coming. We might be working and planting trees that we'll never eat the fruit of.
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We might still be in the first quarter with a lot of ballgame to play. But I want to tell you, the plan and the work of God cannot be overthrown.
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It cannot be stopped. Those who shake their fists at God will not win. Those who rise to oppose
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God will not succeed. Those who raise their hand against the Lord's anointed shall be broken with a rod of iron and utterly defeated.
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Read about that in Psalm 2. It's what Gamaliel is saying here. You might be found to fight against God.
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2 Chronicles tells us those who fight against God will not succeed. You see,
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I think one thing that Christians need today is a fresh shot of confidence. A reminder that all is not lost and cannot be lost forever.
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Christians today need hope. Christians today need to be reinvigorated to engage in life in negative world.
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Not as beautiful losers who are content to be very pious as the world burns, but as those who know that true piety leads to action on behalf of others.
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Leads to action on behalf of their sons, on behalf of their daughters, on behalf of their neighbors, on behalf of their nation.
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Christians need to be reinvigorated as those who conquer in the name of Christ. And I believe we get that confidence from Gamaliel's words to the council that the plan and the work of God cannot be overthrown.
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It cannot be stopped. And the apostles knew this. And because they knew this, it produced certain things in them.
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And the first thing it produced that we see here is courage. Confidence coming from knowing that the plan and work of God cannot be overthrown produced courage in them.
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I want you to think about the courage it took for the apostles, having already been arrested.
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It's been a couple of times for Peter and John. First time for the rest of the apostles. Having already been arrested.
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To be freed from prison at night and then go right back very first thing in the morning to the temple, the home turf of the high priest, and to go there to the temple and preach first thing in the morning.
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It takes courage. Or to sit before the Sanhedrin, 70 of the most powerful, elite men in all of Jerusalem seated in a semicircle, and you're standing or sitting there before them in the middle, and to look them in the eyes and say, we must obey
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God, not men. Takes courage. And they had it because they knew
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God. If you remember back to chapter 4, verse 13, they had been with Jesus.
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They had been with Jesus. They knew Jesus. They had witnessed Him teach with authority.
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They had witnessed Him interacting with opposition. They had witnessed His death and His resurrection from the dead.
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They knew because of the resurrection that the plan and work of God could not be stopped. It couldn't be stopped by the
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Roman Empire. It couldn't be stopped by a cross. It couldn't be stopped by death itself. Because Christ was raised, and so they had courage before their foes.
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And here's the thing about courage, it's contagious. It's contagious. You might find yourself in a place at your work or at your school or in your social circle where there's enormous pressure to affirm things that are contrary to God's word and contrary to God's will and abominable in His sight, and it usually just takes one person with the courage to say, no!
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And that breaks the spell. And others find the courage to speak as well.
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And so remember that the plan and the work of God cannot be overthrown. It cannot be stopped. And find your courage.
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It produces courage in us. Second thing it produces is obedience. Knowing that God cannot be stopped, the apostles were obedient to God.
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They chose to obey God rather than to obey the unlawful commands of men.
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Their highest loyalty went to their highest authority. We talked about this a couple of weeks ago in chapter four, and so I won't belabor the point.
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If you're interested in the subject of when to obey or when to disobey authorities, you can go back and listen to that sermon, but we'd summarize it here.
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If there comes a point where you must either obey God or obey man, obey
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God. You must obey God. It might cost you something. It might hurt you, but obey
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God. His plan, His work cannot be stopped. And that truth produces obedience to God in us.
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Third thing it produces is resistance. To obey God, the apostles had to resist unlawful actions of the ruling class.
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Again, we outlined that a few weeks ago about when it's permissible to resist authorities given our general posture of submission to those in authority as submission to God.
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It's taught by the scriptures. And so, I simply want to point out this morning that the apostles resisted.
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They preached and they healed against the command of the council.
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They were arrested, but then freed, and they went right back to the temple to do what? To preach.
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And in council, Peter preached again the death and the resurrection of Jesus in verses thirty and thirty two.
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And after they were beaten and released, they kept on preaching in the temple and from house to house. In fact, the text is very clear to say there in verse forty two, they did not cease teaching.
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They didn't stop. They resisted. There may come a time to resist unlawful orders from authorities, but in the meantime, you'll have all sorts of opportunities to resist the lies and propaganda of our godless age.
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I want to remind you that the point of propaganda is not to persuade you. If it persuades you, that's an added bonus, but the point is to demoralize you.
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To make you think that your loss is inevitable and just go along quietly as you can.
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But you are a Christian, you can't be demoralized because Jesus rose from the dead and the plan and the work of God cannot be stopped and Jesus must reign until he puts all his enemies under his feet and the knowledge of the glory of the
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Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea. And so we remember these truths and we can resist the ungodliness of our age and we can have confidence to do so.
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Then the fourth thing that remembering that the plan and work of God cannot be stopped produces, the fourth thing is preaching and proclamation.
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You see it's interesting when I read this passage, it's interesting to me what the council prohibited and what the council did not prohibit.
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See verse 12 says, many signs and wonders were done among the people. In verse 15, they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches that at least the shadow of Peter might fall upon them, heal them.
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Verse 16, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, they were all healed. So you see the apostles were doing all sorts of miracles and signs and wonders in the name of Jesus but this isn't what the rulers deemed to be dangerous.
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The healings were not a threat to their power and we know this because they didn't command them not to heal or do signs or wonders, they forbid them to preach and teach in the name of Jesus.
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They knew where the real threat was. You see the miracles weren't the point. The miracles weren't the main thing, the miracles, they were signs, signs point and they pointed to the main thing.
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The main thing was that there's a new king over all the world. One who has authority, all authority in heaven and on earth and he is
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Jesus Christ of Nazareth, the ones you rulers put to death.
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The main thing is that Jesus is king and he won his kingdom by his perfect life and his sacrificial death and his glorious resurrection and he's seated, ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of God the
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Father where he rules the world and he invites us into his kingdom, washing away our sin by his blood, seating us with him in the heavenly place as Ephesians 2 says, where we rule alongside him and with him.
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This is the gospel, this is the message, this is the hope as the power of God unto salvation and that is the threat that earthly rulers fear.
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See Acts is the story of the apostles and the first church conquering in the name of Christ.
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It's a story that continues to this day 2 ,000 years later. You see the followers of Theodos and Judas of Galilee were scattered and their movement died out.
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But the rest of the book of Acts shows us that followers of Jesus scattered and the movement grew to take over the
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Mediterranean and then later the Roman Empire and then later parts of Africa and then
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Western Europe and then east to Asia and then across the Atlantic to the New World. And today every continent you go to you can step on and you'll find followers of Jesus and you'll find churches there.
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And yes there are still many places and many peoples to which the gospel is not yet gone or it's not yet triumphed in.
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But if you zoom out and take a 2 ,000 year view, bird's eye view of the history of the world you'll see that the church has expanded from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to Alexandria to Rome to London to Plymouth Rock to Sydney to Beijing to Tehran to Istanbul to the coastlands to the islands to the very ends of the earth.
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The gospel has gone out. The gospel has sped forth and the gospel has triumphed.
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And it will if we keep preaching, if we keep proclaiming, if we keep teaching in the name of Jesus.
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For you see the plan and the work of God cannot be stopped. It cannot be overthrown.
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And confidence in that produces proclamation from us to a lost and dying world.
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The fifth thing it produces is joy and suffering. We'll read verse 41. So they departed from the presence of the council, this is after they had been beaten, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer shame for his name.
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See the apostles rejoiced in their suffering. One because they counted it an honor to suffer shame for the
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Lord. This is like a soldier who dies in battle for his country.
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That soldier is honored. And those who are persecuted in Christ receive honor.
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But second, they rejoiced in their suffering because they knew the plan and the work of God could not be overthrown, could not be stopped.
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And that means God will use the suffering for good. What others meant it for evil,
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God uses it for good. And so no matter what happens, and I say it like that because I want to be clear.
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That exercising courage for the cause of Christ in negative world may cost you.
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You may get hurt. You may get fired. You may get slandered. You may get fined. You may get arrested. I'm not saying be reckless and go look for those things.
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I'm not saying don't exercise wisdom. I'm not saying go seeking persecution. Just being a realist and remembering, heeding
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Paul's words in 2 Timothy 3 .12 that everyone who desires to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.
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And so no matter what happens, rejoice. Rejoice. Count it all joy when you face trials of various kinds,
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James 1. Matthew 5, blessed are you when they revile and persecute you and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for my sake.
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Rejoice and be exceedingly glad for great is your reward in heaven for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.
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Do not let the enemies of God rob you of your joy. Do not let them be the occasion for you sliding into bitterness.
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Let the joy of the Lord be your strength. Count the shame of the world as honor before the
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Lord and be glad and grateful that God found you worthy to bear reproach for the name of Jesus and to wear it like a badge of honor.
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I want to end here, though. We've been applying this truth that the plan and the work of God cannot be overthrown.
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We've been applying that to kind of our larger cultural context, right? But I want to end with a word of encouragement to those who are going through personal challenges.
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In your life, the plan and work of God cannot be overthrown and it cannot be stopped.
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God knows the plans that he has for you and they are plans to prosper you and not to harm you.
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And all things work together for good to those who love God and who are called according to his purpose.
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So whatever it is you're going through, I want you to take courage. I want you to take confidence and take comfort and take assurance from this truth that the plan and work of God cannot be overthrown and it might involve some suffering.
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But take heart. God is doing something and what might be meant for evil by some is meant for your good and he is working it together for your good and nothing, nothing, nothing can stop that.
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Let's pray. Our Father, I pray that you would give us confidence, that you would give us faith, that you would give us courage, that you would give us joy.
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And Father, I pray that no matter what we're going through, that our people, that we would trust you, knowing that you're a rock, you're a fortress, you're an ever -present help in times of trouble, you do not change, you are all wise, you are all good, you are all powerful, and you are love.
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And you are in the heavens and you do all that you please. We ask all of this in the name of Jesus.