Speak All the Words of This Life

Acts 5 and the Early Church’s Unique Historical Moment

You'll turn your Bibles with me, please to Acts chapter 5. Acts of the Apostles the early history of the primitive church. Acts chapter 5 and we continue in our study this morning. Let us ask the Lord to bless our time together.

Our Grace Heavenly Father once again, we come into your presence with open Bibles and open hearts Desirous that your spirit would utilize this time. Lord we rejoice in the great availability of the Word of God to us we rejoice that unlike many in many lands who have very restricted access to your truth many of us have multiple Bibles in various editions available to us at all times and Yet Lord, we know that your people all around this world the love they have for your truth is born of the Spirit of God.

Sometimes Lord we confess that the great access we have Causes us to have apathetic hearts. May we not be like that this day. May you once again remind us of The great privilege that is ours to possess your truth.

May that truth work within our hearts and minds by your spirit this day. We pray in Christ's name. Amen. We have been studying together through manuscript p45 and as if you were here last week, you know that we Transitioned into Acts chapter 5.

We are looking at a period of time in the very very very very early period of the church and We did mention and I will probably mention beginning of each part of our study at this particular point in time in the book of Acts the uniqueness of This time period in the history of the church.

I mentioned this because it has been a constant theme Down through the history of the church that there are those who Instead of recognizing that God has a purpose in the church progressing and advancing instead of recognizing that God wants us to be looking back and learning from those before us without idolizing them and then Taking from them their great insights and building Upon those insights Instead the idea is we always Should be desiring to be in the infancy of the church the infancy of the church.

Well, let's think for just a moment. We are in Jerusalem we have an Almost well, we have an exclusively Jewish Church at this point There are some there are some proselytes that are coming in proselytes in the sense of people who have Entered into Judaism from other religions.

They weren't born as as Jews and and so That is happening. But there is there's great It's it's a homogenous group and When you have a homogenous group, there are certain stresses and strains and pressures That you're not going to have once that group starts becoming something less than homogenous and so you have all the Apostles together and It's a very short period of time since the events of Jesus life have taken place.

So there's there's eyewitnesses galore. This is an unusual period of time and as we mentioned last week Well, we're gonna see looking back That it's understandable that the early church would want to Be together and keep the Apostles together and this is just such a wonderful grand thing.

But that wasn't God's intention and By the time we have an Acts chapter 15, which we'll get to someday Once you have the Jerusalem Council You look back through the lens of that and you can sort of see that you have here the infant church and It's God's purpose that there be this childhood this infancy as We're gonna see today.

There's going to be miracles taking place once again establishing Especially the authority of the Apostles and we're gonna see one other person that's gonna gonna be working miracles. But he's one of the deacons that'll eventually be established and hence have the apostolic sign of acceptance upon him Stephen and then of course He's going to die as one of the first martyrs.

But we have all this taking place, but it's it's not. It's not the same thing once we get to the end of the book of Acts. Things have changed the church has spread all Across what we would call the Mediterranean Basin by the end of the book of Acts you don't have a homogenous church anymore and Rome so far could really care less about this small sect of people in Jerusalem.

But the sacral authorities the Jewish authorities. That mixture of religious and and and Governmental power that was given to them to try to keep peace in that volatile place called Jerusalem which in Just a matter of decades is going to explode and result in the Jewish rebellion and eventually the destruction of that city in AD 70.

They were given that authority and and so they're exercising that authority and they're opposing This church as we're going to see in our text today this this small group of people and so you have the first encounter with a a Not a secular authority, but a sacral authority a mixed religious Political context found in the Sanhedrin and the Jewish authorities there in Jerusalem it is a unique period of time and we can look back and when we saw last week the unity that was there is a one heart and one mind and and Meeting each other's needs.

There are all sorts of wonderful positive things we can take from that. But I just think it is very very important that we recognize that the impulse that has manifested itself throughout church history and Continues to manifest itself today that we need to somehow go back.

Go back to what? You see for the Christian people you go back to God's Word and God's Word then has been applied in all sorts of different situations and God's Word has to be our foundation not the experience of any of the communities of faith in a Particular culture today because that is a wide-ranging experience today.

We have brothers and sisters who are suffering terribly now. Everybody knows in places like North Korea. Oh my. What utter repression there is by that godless regime but right next door Chinese Christians facing all sorts of different challenges as China cracks down on on all sorts of different expressions of religion.

I'm not sure if you've noticed this but they have dynamited and blown up churches in China not just evangelical churches, but I Guess you can give the Chinese government some some credit for being consistent they're going after the Catholics and the Orthodox and the evangelicals and the Pentecostals and the charismatics and everybody all at once and They're going after the Muslims, too because in communist Theology and that really is I think a proper way of describing it in the in their mindset the state must be the ultimate authority and they realize as long as there is a recognition of God and an idea that God has spoken.

You're not going to have the state as the ultimate authority in those people's lives. And so there's great persecution going on there. But there's great persecution going on in a different form in Western society.

There are many of our own Universities here in the United States have have in essence kicked Christian groups off of campus. Because you if you're gonna have a group on campus. Then you must embrace our worldview and that means you must allow into leadership in your groups people that don't believe.

Not only don't believe what you believe positively, but positively reject what you believe positively. You have to allow them in. They have to be able to have positions of authority. There is So much the church faces today that that's saying we need to go back to that early period.

Misses the great gift that God has given to us in his word and that words ability to lay down Foundational principles that then by the Spirit's leadership we apply to all of these vastly different changing and challenging situations and.

The Church Must Grow Beyond Its Jerusalem Infancy

So we look to Acts chapter 5 and we want to we want to learn from Acts chapter 5 at the same time. We want to keep in mind that when we look at Acts chapter 5 and We will be finishing up the the last of p45 and acts is in chapter 17.

Even that far down the road. We are going to see that the church has grown and when I say matured, I don't mean that in the sense of Not smart in 5 and smart in 17 when people hear that term Maturing they get that kind of a thought that you're saying it's better at one point than another point.

No, it's just that God had a purpose for the church and it was not to stay as a homogenous little group in Jerusalem. We like homogenous little groups. It's a whole lot easier to live in a homogenous little group where everybody looks like you and speaks your language and you share a Church starts going out into the Gentile world and you start getting all these stresses and strains that requires an act 15 Jerusalem Council and all the rest that kind of stuff.

Starts taking a lot of energy. We'd rather have the nice simplistic way of doing things. Well, that was not God's purpose for the church. And so we saw at the beginning of chapter 5 what happened. We saw at the end of chapter 4 the Unfortunate chapter division between 4 and 5 we saw what happened with Barnabas.

Selling the land and then Ananias and Sapphira. They want to be seen as as having the same kind of generosity as as Barnabas. And so they sell a piece of land but they lie as to what it costs and they hold back some of the price of land even though There was as we saw there was absolutely no Apostolic command to either sell the land or to give all the price they could have done with it what they pleased.

But because they lied they lied to God they lied to the Holy Spirit. They lied to the people of God. We have the first divine example of church discipline. That takes place at the beginning of Acts chapter 5 and it is it is severe church discipline and as a result Great fear verse 11 came over the whole church and over all who heard of these things.

And as we reminded ourselves of my dear Greek professors deep insight into the Greek language last week the Greek word for fear means Fear that's right. Deep insight bit of a tautology. But a good thing to remember in light of how many people have come up with alternate meanings That try to get rid of the actual meaning of the word fear it means fear.

There was great fear amongst the people. So at the beginning of verse 12 at the hands of the Apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people and They're all with one accord in Solomon's portico.

But none of the rest dared to assess associate with them. However, the people held them in high esteem and All the more believers in the Lord multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number To such an extent that they even carried the sick out of the streets and laid them on cots and pallets.

So when Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on any one of them. Also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits and They were all being healed.

But the high priest rose up along with all his associates that is the sect of the Sadducees and they were filled with jealousy or indignation. They laid hands on the Apostles and put them in a public jail.

During the night an angel the Lord opened the gates to prison and taking them out. He said go stand and speak to the people in the temple the whole message or all the words of this life. Upon hearing this they entered into the temple about daybreak and began to teach.

Now when the high priest and his associates came they Called the council together even all the Senate of the sons of Israel and sent orders to the prison house for them to be brought. But the officers who came did not find them in the prison and they returned and reported back saying we found the prison house Locked quite securely and the guards staying at the doors, but when we had opened up we found no one inside.

Now when the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests heard these words They were greatly perplexed about them as to what would come of this. But someone came reported them the men whom you put in prison are staying in the temple and teaching the people.

Then the captain went along with the officers and proceeded to bring them back without violence for they were afraid of the people That they might be stoned. When they had brought them they stood them before the council.

The high priest questioned them saying we gave you strict orders not to continue Teaching in this name and yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and intend to bring this man's blood upon us.

But Peter and the Apostles answered we must obey God rather than men. The God of our fathers raised up Jesus whom you had put to death by hanging him on a cross. He is the one whom God exalted to his right hand as a prince and a savior To grant repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins and we are witnesses of these things and so is the Holy Spirit whom God has given to those who obey him and So here we have This incredible story that takes place after the death of Ananias and Sapphira.

And so let us consider what the Holy Spirit has provided for us here in this record of the early church. And so after that event takes place at the hands of the Apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people and they were all with one accord in Solomon's portico and so once again the homogenous unified nature of the people is Seen in this text Solomon's portico.

I Don't think you could have gotten all these people together there at one particular point in time. I mean, it was a very very very large building. Yes, but We've we've had the the thousands at Pentecost and and now many more are being gathered together and so it does seem that there was sort of a Rotating schedule or something along those lines.

That would allow the number of people to get together it it is let's let's be honest There have been times in in history where churches have had to basically open the doors and and have Now we call them multiple services.

But but very lengthy meetings to be able to accommodate the number of people that would that would come and it's a fairly modern situation where you have a a Building with a limited size of people and a particular only a particular congregation shows up.

There have been the church has existed in many different ways down through the history of of the church and certainly at this time, there is no church building to meet in and the very strongly Jewish nature of This early church in Jerusalem.

It's not only seen by how the Apostles Speak when they are spoken to In talking to Jewish people, but in the fact that they're all in one accord in Solomon's portico. Now why specifically there? Well, we don't know but certainly We have referenced the same area in Jesus's experience in John chapter 10, for example, and so maybe The Apostles remembered some of the events in Jesus's life that were there what whatever the reasons might be It was probably at least far enough away from the area of sacrifice and stuff that they could do so without necessarily Constantly having to be dealing with the the Jewish authorities and yet they are gathering in the very heart of where the Jews meet for worship and At the hands of the Apostles many signs and wonders were taking place among the people now I just point something out to you.

It doesn't say at the hands of every single believer. I Think that we are being very fair with the text to recognize that what takes place especially in the earliest chapters of the book of Acts has as its focus the establishment of the authority of the Apostles they are functioning as the representatives of Christ Teaching his gospel they are witnesses to his resurrection and it is going to be their writings that is going that are going to form the the core of the covenant documents that the New Testament Church is going to look to now not all the Apostles wrote and One of the Apostles specifically chosen by God to write much of the New Testament has not yet at this point been converted.

We'll run into him in just a few chapters actually but the reality is that you do have a core of men here who are being recognized by the Approbation of the Holy Spirit of God in their lives so that they are performing signs and wonders amongst the people and And So much so that eventually the the Jewish leadership is going to have a very clear idea of exactly Who it is.

They need to be focused upon. They're gonna know who the the leaders are. And there is a reason for this. This was not all the Christians running around Performing miracles, but the Apostles are the ones who are engaged in this activity.

It's interesting that the text says None of the rest dared to associate with them. However, the people held them in high esteem none of the rest dared to associate with them and so this first Early period there is a division even though we're meeting in the same place from heating in the temple a Division is taking place and It is not a division where the church is saying we will have nothing to do with you.

It is a division to where none of the rest dared to associate with them because if you listen to what the message was you would immediately sense the centrality of the very one About whom the Jewish leaders had made their feelings very clearly known.

I Mean John had already told us earlier than this that if you confess that Jesus was the Messiah you'd be put out of the synagogue and and Obviously in light of the crucifixion of Christ. You can understand why even the people in Jerusalem Would not associate with them.

This would put you on the outs. This would put you in a very dangerous situation and this is only going to get worse and worse until in a matter of years. That becomes the background That we discussed when we went through the book of Hebrews together that strong Pressure it was being put upon those early Jewish Christians to come back to the old ways.

So right now they the people held them in high esteem. But they would not associate with them and they're hearing about all these miracles and and It's just like the days of Jesus once all over again.

Except now there's these Apostles and there's this much larger movement. It's not just 12 guys and and one rabbi. Now you've got thousands of people and so we're told and all the more believers in the Lord Multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number and so there were there may have people May not have wanted to associate with them if they wanted to maintain their position within the culture.

But there was evangelism going on the proclamation of the crucified and resurrected Christ especially by eyewitnesses. Especially in a context where these are individuals who well knew about Crucifixion many of them maybe had even seen the crucifixion.

They had been in Jerusalem when these things happen and so there is witnessing going on and multitudes of men and women were constantly added to their number and again, I I know that you've heard this before but We are so accustomed to it Having read the scriptures, but it is important to recognize the the utilization the specific Utilization of The very purposeful wording in verse 14 men and women.

Not just people. But an emphasis upon the fact that this was not like Many of the Roman religions that were focused upon the powerful focused upon the men. And women just followed along or did not have a role or whatever else it might be the work of the Spirit of God in joining multitudes To their number was of men and women.

And it was with an equality in the sense of the message was Equally valid for men and women. This was not the normal practice of that day. You had Roman religions you had Greek cults That would be focused primarily upon men and you had others with female deities that would be primarily attractive to women.

You had in the temples of the day female prostitutes obviously for example in Corinth. But then you also had places with men prostitutes the religions of the world very often Divided men and women up in a way that Christianity does not that doesn't mean Christianity does not recognize the differing roles of men and women but there is only one way of having peace with God for any man or any woman and One does not become quote-unquote more saved than the other and so multitudes of men and women believers in the Lord and That term Kurios early on here in Acts is already Taking on the the shape it's going to have in the rest of the New Testament as being applied primarily first and foremost to Jesus Christ himself to Jesus the Messiah and so they are being added to their number to such an extent That they even carried the sick out in the streets and laid them on cots and pallets so that when Peter came by at least His shadow might fall on any one of them now.

Does is that intimating? That when Peter's shadow fell upon someone that every single person that that managed to sneak into Peter's shadow Would be healed. Well, I'm not sure that we can go that far.

It sounds a little bit more like the same thing we have In in the Gospel of John when we're talking about the pool of Bethesda and and people desire us to Be the first one down etc etc and and hoping for a miracle.

But you'll notice that verse 16 says also the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together Bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed and so there is for this time period a Tremendous outpouring of miraculous divine power.

What is again and must be again seen is That later on the book of Acts for example when the the Jewish leaders When Herod make the later Herod? When when Jewish leaders and and secular leaders start to strike out at the leaders of the church.

This type of thing isn't taking place and You have to wonder if five ten years down the road. Were there not discussions? Amongst Christians going hey you remember. Remember how it used to be? Remember remember how people were putting people on on cots and putting them along Alongside the road lest Peter's shadow fall upon them.

That's not happening anymore and Peter We have absolutely no reason to believe that throughout the rest of the ministry of Peter. Even when he went and we don't exactly know where Peter went. You know tradition says he eventually went to Rome and was the first bishop.

Well, yeah. That doesn't really fit with Peter's own letters in any way shape or form but he identified himself as the Apostle to the Jews and One of his letters says he's in Babylon, and there was a very large Babylonian Jewish group.

It would have made sense for him to go there. But there is nothing that indicates to us that for the rest of Peter's life. Man, all you need to do is get into Peter's shadow. I mean you would think there would be hospitals all over the world called Peter's shadow Hospital, you know.

Because everywhere he went boom everyone gets healed as long as you get into Peter's shadow, you know and They would make sure that Peter got lots of sleep at night. So he could walk around a lot during the day because you know a night, you know.

It doesn't really work so well, and so we don't we don't have any evidence of this at all. This is an absolutely unique period and we have to ask ourselves the question why? What was so unique about this time?

Why is God doing this? And what's interesting is Many churches answer that question by saying by focusing upon Individuals. Well, it's our fault if we would just clean ourselves up if we would just do what they did back then if we would start a commune and go out into the desert and and You know go to Waco, Texas, or you know, whatever else it might be.

That's what they were thinking to don't don't think that the that Correction all the guys there did not have that exact thinking in their preaching and teaching if we would just Get back to the old ways then that kind of stuff will start happening again.

Because that's what God wants to do in every age of the church and there's the problem. You see we reform folks. We get we get criticized a lot. Because we don't tend to buy into this kind of stuff real easily and so people look at us like, you know, you're just wet blankets and you're not you're against revival and all the rest of that stuff and You know, you can go back to the great revival in the days of Jonathan Edwards and you can there's things to learn.

I mean if God start starts moving you know, we want to test everything but sometimes what we call testing is just because we just like things to always be the same and We're scared of any type of anything that's different.

Okay, I get that but the point is we go There is a decree that God is working out in this world and That decree is not for the church to experience the exact same situation throughout the entirety of her existence that decree has brought the church into every culture into all the corners of the world and that means the church is going to Be facing all sorts of different challenges.

And so there has to be growth. There has to be development. There has to be maturity. All these things must take place and people say well, you're just being you're just being a wet blanket. No, it's it's not being a wet blanket to observe that by the end of his life Peter can walk down the road without anyone stumbling to try to get into his shadow and There had to have been thought about this or had to have been discussion.

There had to have been even a recognition on their own part that God had his purposes in Working in one way at one point in time and in a different way in another point in time. God didn't change but he is accomplishing his purposes in the church in the way that he chooses to do so and so We have at this point in time Clearly amongst the people of Jerusalem.

And so when when the Apostles end up standing before the Sanhedrin. It's not just the one guy remember the you know Acts chapter 4 the one guy at the at the gate Just hit the presence that one guy changed the the power characteristics of the encounter between the Apostles and the Jewish leaders at that time.

They can't deny. Everybody knew who he was and now he's up running around and happy and I've been healed and they did it. That's the name of Jesus. Isn't this great? And what are you supposed to do? They'd seen him sitting there for decades.

Everybody knew who he was. No question about that and Now as we get into chapter 5 Then these encounters become more frequent and they become more violent and now we're getting old getting checked in prison and so on and so forth and There has to be this establishment of the authority of these men.

But that's not going to continue on after that establishment has been made. Or if you're going to say that it is then that's going to change why this is actually happening. Why this is actually taking place and we'll see what kind of results that has later on.

The Sadducees’ Jealousy and the Apostles in Prison

So verse 17, but the high priest rose up along with all his Associates that's an interesting way to put it. It's all who are together with him. So in other words, we we know at this point in time that the high priesthood was controlled by the sect of the Sadducees.

Sadducees were the In the in the spectrum of joining together religious and political power. The Pharisees would be on the religious end and the Sadducees are on the political end. So if it was a mixture you're talking 90 politics 10 religion were for the Sadducees.

And yet they control The high priesthood in the sense that the high priest comes from their group. But as we've already seen in the Gospels the Romans had Because of that had already been messing around with the high priesthood.

There's only supposed to be one high priest at a time, but we see multiple high priests because the Romans are like This guy here you need to change him out. We don't like what he did here what he said there and so they had already overthrown in essence the biblical mandate and the biblical rules Concerning the high priesthood but the high priesthood still remained within the purview generally of the Sadducees and the high priest was drawn from the Sadducees and so The the Sadducees were in verse 17 filled with Jealousy yeah Jealousy in the sense of When when we use that term it's sort of like wow I wish we could do this stuff.

They're doing and there can be a kind of jealousy. That is just I wish I was like that person, that's I don't really think that's the the The way that this is here. They are jealous in the sense that they see Their followers in danger of being drawn away they're obviously seeing some of their followers are joining this this group because there's a Growing number of them over time and they see that what was initially a small little group getting bigger and bigger and bigger and so there is a Jealousy that has an anger element to it a jealousy that says you are taking away from what I think is mine is What's going on here, and so they laid hands on the Apostles and put them in a public jail now I'm not sure it was all 12.

We're not we're not told. It just simply says the Apostles. So maybe it was the Apostles that were teaching at that particular point in time when they decided to move against them. Whatever it might be.

But they are put in a in a public jail not a in there's some evidence that the The Sanhedrin would have had its some of its own ability to put certain people away under their own auspices, but this is a a public jail and We don't have a description of how this took place or it's pretty obvious there wasn't any violence Involved the Apostles did not call upon the thousands of followers.

Help us Come to our defense grab the closest weapon you have and that type of thing. They are simply arrested and are put in a public jail. Now what happens next? Clearly and plainly is of supernatural character.

There is no means for us to be able to decide exactly the mechanics of how this miraculous event takes place because from the Apostles perspective An angel the Lord opened the gates to prison took them out speaks to them.

It's not told we aren't given any information about. Well when they walked out the guards couldn't see them because they were invisible or the guards looked like zombies because they had been knocked out cold, but they were still standing or There was a darkness that descended over them, so we're not we're not told and the fact the matter is We want to know because you know miracles are cool, you know and and so if and if you're gonna make a movie about it, you've got a you got to come up with some way of of making this and and so, you know, there's all sorts of speculation and everything else, but the point.

The point is that's not the point and That bothers a lot of people and especially in later Centuries, there's gonna be all sorts of speculation and tradition that develops to try to answer all these questions.

That God does not feel that it's important for us to know or even when we try to dig into them We're not really getting to the point anyways instead There's no place That can be created by man That is beyond God's vision knowledge activity.

You can't put God's people anywhere that God cannot deliver them if he chooses to do so now what that also means whether we want to accept this or not is That we have Brothers and sisters in Christ who have languished in jail cells all around this world to this day for many years and The reality is that a person in that situation Must come to deal with the reality that God could deliver them if he chose to do so.

Therefore he has a purpose for why they are there if you don't have a sovereign God if you don't believe things like this, you don't believe the perspicuity or consistency of the Word of God then you You'd have to come to the conclusion that yeah, I'm in this place and there's nothing God can do about it and for some people They'd rather have that Than to actually accept the reality that God is good even when his servants suffer.

That's the tough part but the testimony that I have heard from many of the martyrs for many of those who have suffered is That it was the realization that God could deliver them that gave them hope every single day and Gave them the comfort to be able to continue on even during lengthy periods of imprisonment.

I Know there are many who say all that that Calvinism man at that just kills people because you know God could deliver you and it doesn't live you what you want. You want the you want the opposite of that?

You want God going? Oh, man I had so many plans for that guy and now he's gotten himself stuck in jail and there's nothing I can do about it. What am I gonna do now? Is that what you want? I would much rather Recognize the biblical teaching that if I'm here Wherever I am Whether it's a literal prison or a metaphorical one God has his purposes and I can trust him and I can have hope in light of the fact that he is sovereign over all things and he has all power and there is Nothing in this created or that can separate me from the love of Christ.

Is that not what Romans 8 says? That is what Romans 8 says. So the angel of the Lord opened the gates to prison, by the way. Let me just mention in passing and I may have the number wrong. I need to look at it again, but there is since we are doing a sermon series based upon a Greek manuscript.

There is a Greek manuscript of the New Testament from the 5th century Called Codex Bezae Cantabrigiensis. Now, it's called Codex Bezae because it was given to Calvin's successor at Geneva Theodore Beza and He then donated to Cambridge is why it's called Cantabrigiensis.