"Obey God Rather than Men" (Acts 5:17-42)

Transcript:

Please remain standing for the reading of God's word. This morning we will be in Acts chapter 5 in verses 17 through 42. If you're using a pew Bible, this morning is on page 1085. 1085. Hear now the word of the Lord from Acts, chapter 5, verses 17 through 42.

But the high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is the party of the Sadducees. And filled with jealousy, they arrested the apostles and put them in the public prison. But during the night, an angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out and said, go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. And when they heard this, they entered the temple at daybreak and began to teach. Now, when the high priest came, and those who were with him, they called together the council, all the senate of the people of Israel, and sent to the the prison to have them brought.

But when the officers came, they did not find them in the prison. So they returned and reported. We found the prison securely locked and the guards standing at the doors. But when we opened them, we found no one inside. Now, when the captain of the temple and the chief priests heard these words, they were greatly perplexed about them, wondering what this would come to.

And someone came and told them, look, the men whom you put in prison are standing in the temple and teaching the people. Then the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force, for they were afraid of being stoned by the people. And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, saying, we strictly charged you not to teach in this name. Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with this man's teaching, and you 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 Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on the tree. God exalted him at his right hand as leader and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. And we are witnesses to these things. And so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him.

When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, a teacher of the law, held in honor by all the people, stood up and gave orders to put the men outside for a little while. And he said to the men of Israel, take care what you are about to do with these men. For before these days Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody. And a number of men, about 400, joined him.

He was killed, and all who followed him were dispersed and came to nothing after him. Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and drew away some of the people after him. He too perished, and all who followed him were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and let them alone. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fall.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God. So they took his advice and and when they had called in the apostles, they beat them and charged them not to speak in the name of Jesus and let them go. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. And every day in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease teaching and preaching at the Christian is Jesus.

This is the word of the Lord. Please be seated. And as you're taking your seat, please let's join our hearts together in prayer as we prepare to consider this great text. Pray with me. Gracious Father, we pray that you would indeed bless us as we read your word.

Give us the resolution, the boldness, the joy of these apostles to bear witness for Jesus Christ even when we suffer dishonor and shame according to the standards of this world. Father, we pray as we study this, pour out your spirit upon us. Give us hearts to understand, eyes to see and ears to hear all that is contained in the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our leader and savior. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

We live in a world that is filled with rules. And this passage is talking about particular rules that were given to the apostles, rules that the apostles disregarded, that they violated, that they broke. Now, some of you in this room, as you think about your own temperament and nature, you may consider yourself to be something of a rule follower. If there is a rule to follow, you will follow it to the best of your ability. You're just uncomfortable when you extend beyond the bounds of rules that are laid down for you.

Others and you know who you are, are by temperament, more rule breakers. One of the pastors of this church, I won't name his name, but it was Ken posted when I said that this would be godly rule breaking. He mentioned that he was very excited about this on Facebook book. Some of you know that if there is a rule to be broken and it doesn't satisfy your standards, you're delighted to break that rule. It gives you great joy.

But as we think about all of these rules, as we think about a world filled with rules, it's really important to step back and to recognize that there are actually competing rules that are often given, that are often coming into contradiction, in conflict with one another. Children, let me give you an example. You children in here, think about all the rules that your parents give you. You can probably think of some of the rules that your parents give you, right? Well, you can probably think about instances, perhaps, when your friends have laid out other rules to follow, rules that if you wanted to be cool or popular or to fit in, you would need to keep sometimes in breaking the rules that your parents have given you.

Now, I'm sad to say that tension does not go away as you get older. You will always have friends who tell you that it is better to break the rules of those in authority. So there are those in authorities making rules. There are our peer groups making rules. And if we're honest with ourselves, there's a little lawgiver in each of our own hearts that is tyrannically demanding what we will or will not do in any given situation.

Then, yet there is another rule giver. It's God himself. And sometimes the rules of this world correspond to the rules that God gives us. Other times, those rules come in conflict with what God gives to us. But the thing that we must see is that we are always swimming and surrounded by by rules.

And the question is not whether we will keep rules, whether we will break rules. It's which rules will we keep? It's which rules will we break. Now, at the end of the day, we always stand to gain something and lose something by the calculation of which rules to keep and which rules to break. And the question is, will we seek to gain what this world can offer us, or will we seek ultimately to please the One in heaven?

What this world offers seems to be real and sure and concrete in the here and now. And there's a great temptation to follow whatever rules. Seems to be the path of quickest and most fruitful success in this life. And yet, God overturns the judgments of this world. That's our theme for this morning, that God overturns the judgments of this world.

And so we will see three parts to our text today. First of all, divine command. Second of all, divine authority, and third, divine approval. Now we're going to see the way that these all work together. Divine commands stemming from divine authority.

And the real choice in all of this Is whom do we seek to win? Or whose approval do we seek to win? Whom do we seek to please? Please. Divine approval.

So we'll start in the first section about Divine command in verses 17 through 26. Now, before we go into our text again, it's always good to remember where we have been in the previous sections. Remember that Ananias and Sapphira were struck down for seeking to deceive the Holy Spirit, to test the Holy Spirit. And when that happened, great fear fell upon not only the Church, but upon all who heard of these things. And so last week we looked at verses 12 through 16 where we saw that the Church was unified in verse 12.

But then as we look at verses 13 and 14, we see sort of a snapshot of the various reactions from outside the church. In verse 13. The first thing we read is that there are many who were in fear of the Church, but yet kept a fearful distance. They were fearfully reluctant to get too close to the church. Verse 13.

None of the rest of the people dared to join them, the church. But the people held them, the Church, in high esteem. But then in verse 14, we read that on the other end, there are those who are compelled not only to respect and revere what's happening in the church, but to actually come into the church, come to faith in Jesus Christ. And so in verse 14, we read now and more than ever, believers were added to to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women.

Well, now, in the passage that we are looking at today, we are seeing a third reaction among those outside the church. The people find the church compelling and either they respect them but can't get close, or they come all the way in. But the leaders of the people. And we read about the high priest rising up in verse 17, and all who were with him, that is the party of the Sadducees, they have a very different reaction to this. We read they were filled with jealousy.

Now, notice they are not concerned about doctrinal purity. They are not concerned about the truth. They are jealous because they see all of those who were under their authority and control, who were leaving their authority and control and flocking into the Church. It's fascinating to see that the rulers of this world are very often not seeking to follow high, principled reasons for opposing the advance of the Gospel. In fact, it's a political calculation.

They do not want to lose their influence. And they're upset because they are seeing the apostles doing the very thing that they had charged the apostles not to do. If you look back to the previous chapter, chapter four, verse 18, we read. They called them the apostles Peter and John and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. And they had given very clear instructions about what the apostles were not to do, to preach and teach in the name of Jesus.

But here this is flatly being ignored. The rules are being broken, laws are being violated, because instead the apostles are obeying the command of God. Back in chapter four, verse 19, Peter and John answered them, saying whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than God, you must judge. For we cannot speak of what we have seen and heard. Again, this is still playing out.

This is still happening. And we're going to see this stated in a stronger form in the next section. But for now, notice that they went these, the. The party of the Sadducees with the high priest rose up and arrested these apostles and put them in prison. But then this wonderful thing happens.

In verses 19 through 21, an angel of the Lord comes, opens the doors of the prison, the night, and gives them another rule. You were told not to preach and teach, but here's the rule that you are to follow. Go and stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life. Now here the apostles have a choice.

They have been rescued from a great amount of suffering. They have not been beaten yet. They have simply been imprisoned and now they've been released from prison. If there were ever a time to sort of put their heads down, shrink back away from the danger, let this all just pass over and pass away and, and maybe live to fight another day in safety and security and hiding somewhere, this would have been the time to do that. But what do we do?

There's no hesitation. As soon as they can, at daybreak, they're back in the temple teaching and preaching Jesus again. These are rule breakers, but notice they're rule keepers. God told them, go and teach. That's exactly what they do.

And they're delighted to do it. Now there's this really humorous scene when you have sort of just these, these renegade ragtag apostles who were just sent into the public to preach and teach in the temple. And then you have sort of the, the majestic, the regal senate of the people convened and gathered together. And you can see C SPAN gathered there and all of the pictures are being taken and there's lots of reporters there covering the scene. You can just imagine this scene.

And they say, summon the prisoners. And they cannot be found. They have no idea. With all of their power, all of their Authority, all of their influence, all of the rules that they give. They can't even keep track of two prisoners overnight.

And so they're scrambling. And it takes when someone comes from outside and says, I found them, they're out in the temple preaching and teaching them. Well, this is when they know they're in trouble. And so in verse 26, the captain with the officers went and brought them, but not by force. They can't do that.

They can't pull that off. For they were afraid of being stoned by the people. You see the political calculations at work. They were worried about the reaction of the people because again, chapter 5, verse 13, the people held the apostles in high esteem. But notice what then happens.

The apostles again go from the frying pan into the fire, back into the frying pan, as they voluntarily go with the captain and the temple guards back into before the assembly of the chief priests and the Sadducees. Now why would they do this? Again, they were preaching publicly back at the beginning of chapter four. Then they were arrested for it. You'd think maybe that would stop them.

Well, then they returned to preaching after being charged not to preach and teach Jesus. But then they were arrested again. Then they were freed by this angel and they had the chance to escape, but instead they returned to preaching. And then when they were arrested again, they couldn't be brought by force. And so they voluntarily came before the Senate at every opportunity.

They are boldly doing what is dangerous to do. Not so much to follow rules or to break rules. They're not just rule followers or rule breakers. Everything they do is to obey Jesus and to bear witness to Jesus Christ in the world. Now, why do they keep voluntarily putting themselves in such dangerous positions?

Well, first of all, because these apostles themselves had seen God many times already overturn the judgments of this world, especially the the judgments of the religious leaders, of the high priests and the Sadducees, especially when this was the same group who condemned and handed over Jesus for crucifixion. And God had overturned that judgment by raising Jesus from the dead and vindicating him in the sight of all the people. And once again, just this very night, God had overturned the judgment of the high priest and the Sadducees by releasing them from prison. And so again and again, God has demonstrated his higher authority over whatever rules these religious leaders might give to them. And so no matter what, these apostles are so confident that wherever the Lord leads them, they can trust him.

Well, what we see in the next scene is that it's not just A matter of rules. It's not just a matter of laws that are given. This really is getting into a deeper question. Not just rules and principles and things to do or not to do. It gets to a real question of authority.

Who has authority to command us? And we see the apostles with very clear priorities. Human authority cannot overrule divine authority because it's God who overrules and overturns the judgments of the world. So now we come to the second section, divine authority. In verses 27 to 32, one commentator, Lenski, points out that the Sadducees do not ask how they had escaped.

They were perplexed about it. That might be the most pertinent question. But if you remember, Sadducees do not believe in angels. So it would have potentially been very embarrassing for them to ask, how did you get out? An angel let me get out.

Well, clearly that couldn't have happened because we don't believe in angels. So let's just move right along. There's nothing to see here. The real question they get to is, how could you disobey our authority? Look at what they say in verse 28.

We strictly charged you not to teach in this name. Yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. You see the issue. You filled Jerusalem with your teaching, and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us. They are also insinuating that the apostles were really just doing this again for political gain to stir up popular resentment.

This man's blood, Jesus blood, against the religious leaders, perhaps to sort of take over their place of authority in this society. But that's not at all what's going on here. In verse 22 or 29, Peter and the apostles answered, we must obey God rather than men. Again, this is the same sentiment that they communicated back in chapter four, verse 19. Whether it's right for us to obey God rather than you, you must judge.

Now, they just say it. Clearly, we're not going to just give you sort of a rhetorical idea for you to consider. We must obey God rather than men. But then they continue, and they say that part of the reason we are doing this is because it's become very clear that your authority does not have ultimate sway. Verse 30.

The God of our fathers raised Jesus. In other words, that's the one whose commands we are following. We are bearing witness to him starting in Jerusalem, then into Judea, then to Samaria, then to the ends of the earth. God raised him from the dead whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. Notice here they're not stirring up popular sentiment, they are charging these leaders with the crime they have committed against Almighty God himself.

But then in verse 31, God exalted him at his right hand as leader, that is his Lord, as the one who rules and reigns, and his Savior, the one who saves, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. Now pause here for just a moment. This is being held out to them as a gospel moment. This is for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. Will you not listen?

Will you not turn even at this juncture? Then they continue, verse 32. And this completes their speech. And we are witnesses to these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey him. Jesus Christ as leader, possesses authority, and therefore with authority, he demands obedience to his commandments.

But as Savior, he conquers our condemnation. That is, he is the King who subdues our hearts, who wins our hearts, as we talked about in Westminster, shorter catechism number 26. And he does this by leading us to repentance and faith for the forgiveness of sins. Now, the apostles are making this very clear. For them to continue preaching in the name of Jesus is not something they are doing because they are temperamentally rule breakers.

Rather, they were simply rejecting the authority that commanded them not or not to do what God himself, what Christ himself had commanded them. It's not about the rule. It's not about the principles behind the rules. The religious leaders are demanding blind obedience to them, which made their rules and their authority very weak and very brittle. But for the apostles, this is so much clearer.

They obeyed God's command because they honored God's authority. But here's where, again, if sort of rules are sort of the top layer issue, and underneath that, we have this question of authority. There's always going to be a question of whose authority will you ultimately follow, whether for good or for ill, whether for right reasons or wrong reasons. What rules we follow will always have to do with our hearts. Namely, whose approval are we seeking?

Whom do we wish to please? And here we are saying that no matter what happens to them, the apostles are set on seeking divine approval for their lives. And so this is the third section, divine approval in verses 33 through 42. And now that the political leaders were not happy about this, the chief priests and the Sadducees, they were not happy about this. They were enraged and wanted to kill them.

The word for enraged is maybe literally translated as the idea of being sawn or cut asunder, cut in two. Now, you may remember that earlier on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter preached, those men on the day of Judea, from Judea were cut to the heart. And that prompted them to repent. They said, brothers, what must we do? Well, here the senate is sawn into in their heart, but but not with repentance, it leads them to rage.

They wanted to murder the disciples. But to restrain this, at least for the moment, God uses Gamaliel. Gamaliel was a Pharisee. These were very dead set opposed parties who composed the religious leaders of Israel. And Gamaliel is used by God to prevent the Sadducees from murdering.

The apostles. Were right here and right now. Now Gamaliel was again party of the part of the minority party, a part of the Pharisees. But he was very influential. This was the Apostle Paul's teacher, as Paul says in Acts 22, verse 3, that he was educated at the feet of this man Gamaliel.

And Gamaliel urges them to wait. He points to two other would be messiah figure figures who when they died, their followers were scattered and their movements came to nothing. And so he urges them not to do anything in this present case, keep away from these men and let them alone. Verse 38. For if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fall.

But if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You might even be found opposing God. Now this is true, and this wisdom wins the day. But I want us to see that in Gamaliel we have a man who is not sort of following the rules of the Sadducees. He is not also following the rules that God has given.

He is ultimately following his own rules. Gamaliel just doesn't want to be bothered by this, because notice what he's not doing. He doesn't then spring into action and say these. These are really important things for us to consider. Let's search the Scriptures to see if these things are true.

That Jesus, whether he is or is not the Messiah. Instead he says, I just don't want us to have to deal with this. Let them be and let's just see what comes of it. Now this is so important. This does win the day.

They do let the disciples go, but not before they beat them in verse 40. This is not a minor beating. This would have described the 40 lashes minus one that would have been inflicted on their chest and on their backs. Some men died from this kind of a beating on its own. They beat them and gave them another brittle, frail, made to be broken rule by charging them not to speak in the name of Jesus.

But then they let them go. Now how do the apostles respond? Verse 41 we read. Then they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. Now this is where we see the one whom the apostles are seeking to please.

They are willing to suffer worldly dishonor and even great worldly pain. And they are rejoicing because they are counted worthy to suffer for the sake of Jesus Christ's name. They love him. It's not a matter of rule keeping, a rule following, a rule breaking. This is an issue that they love their Savior.

They love their leader so much that when they are beaten for the sake of Jesus, they rejoice. There's so much joy here, there's so much freedom in this. And then notice they don't hesitate. Verse 42, they get back to work every day in the temple, publicly and from house to house privately. They did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus.

There's more godly rule breaking now. What are we to do with this? Well, again, if we, if we think about the different layers of this, we have like a rule up here, and that's sort of the top level, and we have authority here, and then we have approval. I don't want to start by just saying you need to obey the rules better, because that's not ultimately where we need to start. I also don't want to just lift up questions of authority, philosophical questions that we might consider.

I want to get to the issue of your heart. Cherish the Lord's approval. Cherish the Lord's approval. Some rules are made to be broken, and the answer to which rules are those depends entirely on whether those rules and the authority behind those rules clash with the rules and the authority of someone else. Of greater and better and truer authority, ultimately the authority of God.

At the end of the day, you will obey someone's rules. Either the rules that you forge in the dark recesses of your own heart, or either your peers rules as you seek their approval more than anything. Or if you want the approval of your parents, whether they are living or dead, you will follow rules designed to please them, or of your teachers or of your employers or whoever it is. You will find someone's rules that will get you or that you hope will get you what you want out of this life. And so the question you have to ask is, in your heart of hearts, do you desire the Lord's approval more than anyone else's?

And if you don't the Bible calls that idolatry. The Bible says that you have set up a God in your heart and our hearts are so good at this. John Calvin famously called the human heart an idol factory. We're constantly churning out places that we want want to see approval from, that we want to gain something from. And we worship each of these things, thinking that we will get them.

And that includes obedience to these things. As Jesus says, if you love me, you will keep my commandments. If you want my approval, you will keep my commandments. But ultimately the reason this can't be about rules and rule following because ultimately all of us are already rule breakers. We are behind the eight ball.

We are guilty. We are already standing condemned because of our sins against a almighty, all knowing, all seeing God. Whatever you think you have gotten away with or whatever you do not believe to actually be sinful in any sense, God knows and understands and sees straight through and in his word, by almighty authority, he condemns you for your sin. And so the only hope that any of us have is in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who was hanged on a tree, who gave up his life, that sinners might be cleansed, might be healed, might be forgiven of our guilt, so that we could be given his own righteousness, so that we could stand before God. Jesus Christ calls you to salvation.

You are not saved by obedience, but you are saved for good works. Ephesians 2, 8, 9, by grace you've been saved through faith.

But Ephesians 2:10 says, for we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, not to earn something, but out of gratitude, to thank him, to seek his good pleasure. And what I want you to see here is the great freedom that we have when we live for nothing more than to please Jesus Christ alone. The world can make rules against us, the world can persecute us, the world can beat us and leave us for dead. But at the end of the day, the world can do nothing to steal our joy. If ultimately we are looking to the one who overturns the judgments of this world.

Jesus Christ has overturned the judgments of this world by his resurrection from the dead. And one day he will overturn all the judgments of this world when he returns, so that every knee bow and every tongue confesses that he is Lord of the glory of God the Father. Today let's seek him by faith and follow him, seeking his pleasure in all that he commands us. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we do pray that you would bless us through faith in Jesus Christ to know and love our Savior and to follow him wherever he would lead us.

Father, we are so hard hearted, we are so rebellious, we are so prone to idolatry with heart seeking after approval of all kinds of people and things. And we pray that you would break that power and you would forgive us through faith and repentance in Jesus Christ. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.