When God's People Speak (Acts 4, John Lasken)

Gary and Sue were a young married couple, friends of Sandy and I.

We were in the Navy. Gary had a promising young Navy career.

Sue was a happy, devoted wife. They were living the American dream.

But things were going to change. It was the end of a six -month deployment.

We were finishing in our last port of call. Gary started to see double vision.

He started to have symptoms and was starting to experiencing debilitating brain tumors.

We were back home. The phone rang and it was Sue. She said,

Gary and I would like to know, what do you and Sandy mean when you say you're Christians?

We'll be right there. God gave us the blessing, the opportunity to be there and to see

Gary and Sue accept the Lord. God didn't choose to relieve

Gary of these tumors. It was hard. But for the rest of his life,

Gary was a walking, living testimony to God. At the end, as things got really dark,

Gary proclaimed that the Lord was sending angels to sing to him. What happened to Gary and Sue?

They were living the American dream and things turned upside down.

Why was Gary at peace with what was happening to him? So I guess the question is how and when and why can people make a difference for the kingdom?

See, Gary was making a difference for our national defense as a naval officer.

But his life changed. He lost the opportunity to serve in the

Navy, but he was serving in a much better way. He was making a difference for the kingdom.

It would appear that circumstances would have shut Gary down, but they didn't.

Acts 4 is where we're going to be. I'm going to read a couple of verses out of it right now. And they commanded them, they meaning the religious leaders, commanded them, this is going to be

Peter and John as we'll see in a minute. They commanded them not to speak or at all to teach in the name of Jesus, but Peter and John answered and said unto them whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than God judge.

We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.

Let's pray. Lord, we are going to open your scriptures and we thank you for them.

I ask, Lord, for your words, for your spirit, get me out of the way. I pray that we would be able to see in your word, in your truths what happens when

God's people speak, what happens to a life, what happens to lives. Open our eyes,

I pray, dear Lord. Acts 4 is going to be an account of Peter and John predominantly being confronted by the religious leaders.

But to really understand this, I think we need to go back a little bit and understand Peter a little bit better as he's going to go into this thing.

Early in his ministry, Jesus called 12 to be with him, to be his inner circle, to be his disciples.

He was going to hand the keys of the kingdom as it turns out. He found Andrew, Andrew found his brother

Simon, brought him to Jesus and in John chapter 1 verses 40 to 42, we read the account of Simon who

Jesus says you will be known as Peter comes to the Lord. He was a fisherman, he was a plain man.

Now he was Jewish, he undoubtedly had training, teaching in his family, but we know nothing of any formal type of training.

He was a plain man, he was a fisherman. But for the next three years, this guy had an amazing amount of opportunities with the

Lord, teachings, miracles, just times of seeing Jesus, being with Jesus, learning from Jesus.

Think about the Sermon on the Mount. Now Peter would have been taught many of the truths of the

Old Testament, but Jesus took him deeper, the Sermon on the Mount. Think about the feeding of the 3 ,000 and the 5 ,000s and the scraps that were left over and just the amazing miracle, the healings,

Lazarus. Think of the things that Peter would have witnessed. In Matthew 17, take him up on the

Mount of Transfiguration. The simple man, seeing

Jesus transfigured. It had to blow his socks off.

What is this man? Who is this man? And then

Jesus sends them out two by two and gives them authority and gives them a power. And so not only has

Peter, the simple fisherman, been learning and hearing and seeing and witnessing, but now he's actually getting to do it.

His life has started to change. Matthew 21, we read of the triumphal entry.

How Jesus rides on a donkey and his disciples are with him and the crowds are with him and they're shouting,

Hosanna, Hosanna. And they're expecting this victorious king.

Life is getting really, really interesting and really, really good. Well, this week is going to go on and towards the end of the week, the

Lord's going to say, let's have the supper together. So starting in John 13, we read about the supper.

Jesus washes their feet. This humble fisherman who has seen the

Lord sitting down and his Lord and his master washes his feet. And he says, no, no, no, not my feet.

And he said, unless I wash not just my feet, but all of me. This amazing, amazing scene.

Then Judas leaves. And then Jesus takes a few of them out to the garden to pray and he goes on further and prays.

But Peter and John and the others, they kind of get tired. It's been a meal. They fall asleep. Jesus comes back.

Jesus comes back. Jesus comes back. And then all of a sudden, there's a commotion. And here comes

Judas and a kiss. And soldiers and Peter's anger with a sword and the

Lord saying, no, no, no, this is not the way. And then Peter's life is rocked as his master is taken away.

His master is taken away. The trial and the moment of weakness, the betrayal.

I don't know who you're talking about. I've never been with a man. I don't know the man. And then the crucifixion.

And it's over. Three years of amazing opportunity, amazing learning, high expectations.

It's over at the Roman cross. Put into a tomb.

Three days later, the woman go to the tomb and they come back. And they report it's empty.

And Peter, John, run. And the tomb is empty. And for 40 days, Peter and the rest experience a master's level in theology from Jesus for those 40 days.

Study it sometimes. It's a great one because why did he have to spend 40 more days? He had done it. He had suffered.

He had died. He had been arisen. But he stays for 40 more days. It's a great passage. Do that sometime. And at the end of it, in Matthew 28,

Jesus takes them and he says, go, teach, baptize in the name of the

Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. I am with you. And then in Acts 1 .8,

he says, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and to the uttermost parts of the earth.

What is Peter expecting now as Jesus ascends up into heaven?

They've just been told, it's yours. What is he expecting? Another question is, what was he expected to do?

How could he possibly fulfill Jesus' commands? Well, we go continue in Acts.

We go into Acts chapter 4. I'm going to read the first verse, part of it. And as they spoke unto the people.

OK, what's going on here? Peter, the rest, they're in Jerusalem.

They have had Pentecost now. Wow. The second time things came to a crashing end, the first at the cross.

And then the master comes back and it's like, OK, now things will be OK. But then he leaves again. And now they're up in the upper room and we read about Pentecost and the power.

And the cloven leaves, the fire, and the preaching that he gives. 3 ,000 believe.

And we know that it's real because we read at the end of that chapter how the people acted in ways that were so foreign.

Their lives were changed. So Peter and John stay. And we go into Acts 3.

And they continue. And they're walking on their way up to the temple and they run across a blind beggar. Begging, begging, they said, silver and gold we have none.

But what I have I give to you. You guys can probably sing this song. I give to you in the name of Jesus Christ, and he does, and he is healed.

And the crowds are amazed. But they stop. Don't give us the credit. It's the Lord. It is

God. It is Jesus Christ. And so they continue to preach. And that brings us into Acts 4, the first four verses.

And as they spoke unto the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the

Sadducees came upon them being grieved that they taught the people and preached through Jesus the resurrection of the dead.

They laid hands on them and put them in hold unto the next day for it was eventide.

Albeit many of them which heard the word believed. And the number of the men was about 5 ,000.

Wow, here we go again more. OK, so we've got the crowd and we've got the religious leaders and we've got

Peter and John. They're doing what they need to do right now. They are preaching.

These common fishermen whose world came crashing to an end at the cross, whose world seemingly ended again when

Christ went up into heaven, who went cowering into the upper room, are so empowered and so emboldened that they are out there preaching.

But what made this so controversial? Because we do read in here that the religious leaders were vexed.

Now on the other side, we do read that those who heard an amazing number believed.

What makes this so controversial? Paul writes in the book of 1

Corinthians again. This one's in chapter 1, starting in verse 18. And he talks about the message of the cross.

And he describes the message of the cross to those who believe it's power, but to those who don't believe it's foolishness.

Why the difference? I would put in front of you that it's the same. It's exactly the same.

It required surrender. For those who believed and surrendered, the message of the cross became power because now they could appropriate the power of the cross without trying to add to it.

And to those who didn't believe, it was stupid. How could this possibly be? I have to be doing.

It's the same thing. Now the message that Peter and John are giving, we're told here, is the message of the resurrection.

I think it's the same. I think this is a battleground. You see, we're taught in many, many passages,

Jesus said in John 1 5, I am the resurrection and the life. He had to be risen from the dead.

His identity is in this resurrection. The grave was not going to hold him.

Do you remember what happened way back in the garden after the fall?

He's going to bruise my heel. I'm going to crush his head. Satan's going to do what he can to bring this reign of the

Messiah to an end, which he tried. But the Messiah is going to be risen. I am the resurrection and the life.

In 1 Peter 1 3, Peter writes that we're born to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus.

It is our hope. Without the resurrection, what we have can easily be meaningless.

But the resurrection and the hope. And then

Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ is not risen, our faith is futile.

You see, for us, the message of the resurrection is the power. It is everything.

But on the opposite side for Satan, this is disaster. Satan thought he won.

He got Christ on the cross. And he got the Romans to kill him. And he thought he had finally won.

There had to be a resurrection. There had to be a resurrection. And Satan loses because of it.

But the truth is that Satan can't abide this truth. But he can't change it.

It's truth. But he can't change it. So all Satan can do right now is influence men to believe a lie and to not accept the message of the resurrection.

And so we have here in Acts 1, Peter and John declaring the resurrection.

And the religious leaders are going, oy vey. See, Satan can't have this.

It's got to be stopped. But the message is so powerful and so true. 5 ,000 are believing.

Many believed, but many opposed. Scene 2.

It says at the end of that section that Peter and John are thrown in jail. So I'm going to start reading verses 5 through 7.

And it came to pass in the morrow that their rulers and elders and scribes and Annas, the high priest, and Caiaphas, and John, and Alexander.

I like this passage because these names are easy to read. And many of the other kindred with the high priest were gathered together at Jerusalem.

And when they had set them in front of their midst, they asked, by what power or by what name have you done this?

Some observations. They can't deny that something has happened. Now, what they're really looking at are two things.

They're looking at the blind man that was healed. And they're looking at Peter and John who are using the blind man healing and the crowds to continue to proclaim.

They can't deny that it's true. But they're challenged by the truth.

They're not convicted by the truth. They're not willing to submit to the truth.

And so they say, by what power, by what authority are you doing this? Now, Peter and John have an opportunity to make a decision here.

They can take the easy road out and they've just been thrown in jail. It's like, this isn't helping anybody, us being in jail.

I can rationalize a way. Let's just kind of get through this. I can go somewhere else and I can speak.

I can compromise. Or I can stand up and just flat out declare the truth.

And remember who they're facing. Remember who they were, common men. Yes, taught by the master three years, but common men, we're gonna see that in a minute.

These are the rulers. This is the authority. And they stand up to them.

Verse eight gives us an insight. Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost.

This is a fulfillment of promise. John 14, verse 16.

In that upper room, during that dinner, Jesus had told them, I will pray the

Father and he will give you a comforter and he will be with you. Peter, filled with the

Holy Spirit. Acts one, and you will receive power for after that the

Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses. And Peter, filled with the

Holy Spirit. A common man, filled with the Holy Spirit. I continue on.

Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if this day we be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man by what means he has made whole, be it known unto you all and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom he crucified, whom

God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.

This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner.

Neither is there any salvation in any other, for there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby he must be saved.

Some observations. They're being respectful. They acknowledge the authority of the people ahead of them.

They're being respectful, but they're getting right to the issue.

You see, they were challenging them by what power you're doing this, and the issue that they were trying to raise was how did you do this healing?

How did you do this healing? And did you notice in that passage how cleverly they turned the concept of the healing to the concept of the resurrection?

It's by this Jesus whom you crucified who was raised. They're bringing it back to the issue, and then what they do is without any compromise or waiver, they're gonna rely on God.

It's all about God, and then they're gonna proclaim the truth. Who is Jesus? And then they're gonna say, where does salvation come?

It only comes through Jesus. These simple men are gonna stand up to him.

Scene three, starting in verse 13 to 16. Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled.

They took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus. Again, a couple of thoughts here.

This is a spiritual struggle going on here. We on one side have Peter and John. Their lives have been transformed, and now they're filled with the

Holy Spirit, and on the other side, we have the religious leaders. That's on the surface, but what is underneath here is this war that's going on that Satan cannot allow this preaching to continue.

He has got to stop it. It's at its young stages. If Satan can stop it now, and so they're going after them.

Beholding the man which was healed with them, they could say nothing against it. The evidence was there.

But when they had commanded them to go aside out of the council, they conferred among themselves, saying, what should we do with these guys?

That's a paraphrase. What now? What are we going to do with these guys?

Satan doesn't really have omnipotence. And Satan doesn't really know everything, but what

Satan is is he's unrelenting, and he is going to find an answer, and he's going to try and answer, and right now they're saying, what are we going to do with these guys?

So he's going to come up with a game plan at this point in time, 17 and 18.

But that it might spread no further, there it is. But that it might spread no further among the people, let us strictly threaten them that they speak henceforth to no man in this name.

So they called them and commanded them not to speak at all or to teach in the name of Jesus.

I can call this absolutely nothing other than religious bully. Again, we're talking about the authority.

We are talking about those in high authority, and we're talking about common men, and they are commanding them, do not speak.

And they think by putting Peter and John under their threat that they could put Peter and John in an unbeatable situation.

Who could possibly stand up against the power of the world?

And so they threatened them. Now in the Greek, the conjunction is a powerful word.

Just a little conjunction is a powerful word. And so we start out in verse 19, but.

Conjunction is used in many ways, and in this way it's what's called a contrastive conjunction. You have condition

A, and you have condition B, and in the middle is but. Same kind of thing shows up in Ephesians in chapter two where it talks about us being dead and transpasses, but God, okay, same type of thing.

This is a but, and it's going to contrast from what it was to what, it's gonna contrast from emphasis on the worldly power, the worldly authority, and the worldly hand trying to push it down to godly power.

Guess which wins? Verse 19, but Peter and John answered and said unto them, whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto

God judge you. For we cannot but speak the things which we have heard and seen.

First of all, he puts the burden right back on them. You guys tell us, is it more important, these are the religious leaders, maybe they took it out of Jesus' playbook, they threw it right back at him, which is more important, to listen to man or to listen to God?

I mean, they're put in a bad position now. They're gonna say there's absolutely no way we can do anything.

Luke 19 has a very similar passage. Luke 19, this is again the triumphal entry type of a scene.

They've come in, Jesus has come in with the disciples, and they're crying out,

Hosanna, Hosanna, Hosanna, and as that is going on, the religious leaders are getting upset.

And they're saying, tell your disciples to stop speaking. Tell your disciples to stop saying this.

And when he came nigh, even now to the center of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise

God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying, blessed be the king that cometh in the name of the

Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. Some of the Pharisees among the multitude said, master, rebuke your disciples.

And he answered them and said, I tell you that if these would hold their tongues, even the stones would immediately cry out.

This is the truth. This is the truth that is not going to be squashed by man, by authorities, by the worldly power.

Master, rebuke your people. Tell them to be quiet. Nah, it doesn't matter, because if I tell them to be quiet, don't preach in the name of Jesus.

You decide, should I listen to you or God? But I tell you what, I'm going to continue to preach.

What does all this teach us? First of all, we are commanded to go preach and teach the truth.

We go to Matthew 28, we go to Acts 1, but we're told to rely on the power of the spirit.

We should take the opportunities that are in front of us. The other thing is the world's going to reject it.

They can't deny it, but they're going to oppose it. And there are going to be times where we in obedience speak out, and the world is going to bully us.

But I got a newsflash. He who is in you is greater than he that is in the world.

Go for it. We're a light in the world. We should watch for opportunities to give glory to God.

Matthew 5, 13 to 16 describes us as salt, describes us as light.

Matthew 5, 16, in the same way, let your light shine before men so that they may see your good works and praise your

Father who is in heaven. We are before the world. We should be proclaiming, we should be doing so that the glory goes back.

Peter and John finished their interface with the religious leaders, and they said,

I'm sorry, we're just going to do it. If I go towards the end of that chapter, starting in verse 29.

And now, Lord, behold their threatenings and grant unto thy servants that with all boldness we may speak the word.

By stretching forth thine hand to heal, and that signs and wonders may be done by the name of thy holy child,

Jesus. And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together, and they were all filled with the

Holy Ghost, and they spoke the word of God. I love this chapter.

It starts out with verse one, they're speaking. And it ends, they're speaking.

Lots of stuff has happened in between, but they're speaking. What happened to Gary and Sue?

Why did they find peace? And what, the guys on board ship saw

Gary's depilitating brain tumors, and they mourned with the family over a young promising career snuffed out.

They were confused, they were upset, but Gary was at peace. What is it that made them effective witness?

I think it's this. They had the truth, they knew the truth, and they were willing to proclaim the truth.

What they had was the American dream, great, but what they had was something so much more.

So what does this have to do with me? Number one, I need to speak the truth. I need to be his voice.

I'm commanded to do it, I need to do it. I need to show others the way so that others like Gary and those in your lives can find that peace that only comes, only comes through the

Lord. But I need to do it through the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will come upon you in power, and then you will be witnesses. Not you will be witnesses, and then

I'll give you the Holy Spirit. No, the Holy Spirit will come upon you, you will be in power, and you will be my witnesses. We need to be salt, and we need to be light.

The promise of the Holy Spirit is given to me, it's given to everyone in here who is a believer. It would be a shame to squelch it.

Be that power, and don't surrender. Remember, Satan can't change the truth.

He can try to squash the message. Don't surrender, don't be afraid of conflict.

It's going to come. If you speak truth, conflict will come, but it can't suppress the truth.

Don't be silenced. Two truths about the world. One, it's in rebellion to God, and two, its power is not greater than God's.

Like Peter and John in 420, we need to proclaim.

We cannot but speak. Let's pray. Lord, there is a world that needs to hear.

There is a darkness that controls the world. There's a battle going on, and you've given us what we need.

Make us your obedient servants like Peter, who proclaimed we cannot but speak.

We pray for the power of the spirit, not our power. We pray for the power of the truth, not us.