Speaking Boldly in a Hostile World

Introduction

Acts chapter 4 this morning, Acts the fourth chapter. I want to read part of this text. I really wish we had time to just read Acts 3 through the end of 7, because it’s a great section that really deals with a lot of what I want to cover this morning. The early days of the Ecclesia had a lot of external resistance. It was extremely fierce. And the world was a bit different in those times than it is today, in that the Jewish people, to some extent, were actually general insiders as well. I think what we have Luke doing in Acts is presenting the Jewish people in particular in the prayer in Acts 4, they are when they reinterpret Acts 2 in their prayer, they put the leaders and the rulers in the position of the Gentiles, the nations.

And so they are outsiders, and that’s the direction I want to come at it from this morning. And later on, we’ll talk about some internal conflicts. But it is a little different because the Jewish people and the Jewish leaders, they knew the law, they were familiar with Yahweh, and they should have been looking for the Messiah. And so there is going to be some overlap, whether it’s in this sermon or in a later sermon where I talk about internal conflict, just by the very nature of the audience at hand here in the text. But there is now the formation of the people of Jesus, and there are the people who are in opposition to that. And so they are on the outside. And they are creating a lot of obstacles.

They’re trying to stand in the way of the apostles and the other disciples and what they’re trying to do. And these external influences, these pressures from the outside, begin from the very beginning, just before Peter’s sermon in Acts 2. They’re mocking them, saying, These guys, they must be drunk. You know, they’re not understanding the situation. And so Peter has to correct that and then move on to the rest of his sermon. As the story continues, the leaders arrest them and they threaten them. They even physically assault them. Later in Acts chapter 5, they ultimately will kill various ones like Stephen and James. They question their authority. Why is it they’re doing what they’re doing? Which is a bit of an insider move as well, not just an outsider.

But later on in the story as well, we see numerous occasions where the people just don’t like what they’re hearing and they want to kill someone. I mean, this is pretty extreme. When Saul is converted and later becomes Paul, how we typically refer to him, he’s in Damascus and he begins preaching Jesus, and they don’t like that. He was coming there to bind people and bring them back to Jerusalem, people who followed the way, as we talked about last week. And suddenly now he changes and he’s proclaiming Jesus, and they’re so angry they want to kill him. But not just in Damascus. When he gets back to Jerusalem, the Hellenistic Jews also, it tells us, want to kill him. This is an extreme situation. It’s not just Paul.

This is faced by the early Christians in general that people don’t like what they’re hearing. They don’t like the truth being told to them. They don’t like being told that something needs to be different, and mostly they need to repent and change. And so rather than heeding the instruction, they lash out in violence or in threats, and even in murder itself, we see a few times within the story. I want to pick up this part of the story in chapter four, beginning in verse 7, and highlight some aspects of this. There’s a sort of story that’s very similar in Acts chapter 5. It’s not the same. But they are arrested again later for preaching Jesus and the resurrection. And they are brought before the council once again.

And there’s a lot of similarities, but we can get a lot of it here in chapter 4, and let this sort of be the basis of where we go. And then I’ll try to paraphrase the rest of the text and the accounts so that we’re not here till 1 p.m. That’s my goal this morning. All right, it says in verse 7, and when they had set them in the midst, they inquired, by what power or by what name did you do this? Now let me just quickly give you a context. If you’re familiar with Acts 3, you know what they did is they healed a lame man at the beautiful gate as they’re going into the temple. This guy has been lame for years. Everybody knows who he is.

And now he’s jumping and leaping and praising God. The rulers come in and they are not happy that this guy is healed and that he’s better. They’re upset, right? They’re mad about what Peter and John and the others are doing. And so they’re saying, by what authority you do this? By what name? That’s important. By what name do you do this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and elders, if we are being examined today concerning a good deed done to a crippled man, by what means this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man is standing before you well.

This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Now, when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men, they were astonished, and they recognized that they had been with Jesus. Then they confer with each other. What are we going to do about this? We can’t deny what happened, but we gotta stop this because we don’t like it. I mean, they’re wanting suppress the truth, they’re trying to get in the way of what’s happening, and we gotta stop these guys from doing what they’re doing, even though they’re healing people and making people better.

So down in verse 17, it says, But in order that it may spread no further, like you’ve got to stop all this healing and helping people that’s going on, let us warn them to speak no more to anyone in this name. It’s the name of Jesus. So they called them and charged them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John answered them whether it is right in the sight of God to listen to you rather than to God, you must judge. For we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard. And when they have further threatened them and they let them go, finding no way to punish them, because of the people, for all were praising God for what had happened.

For the man on whom this sign of healing was performed was more than forty years old. A lot of great applications from this text, and I can’t hit them all this morning. for example, they go immediately to their brothers and sisters, and they pray together. they ask God for boldness, which is a key concept, especially within chapter four, but within Acts in general. But I want to just take this concept of the oppression that’s going on, the persecution that is clear. And think, what do we do when the world doesn’t want to hear what we have to say? What do we do when the world is clearly obstinate to the message of Jesus? They don’t want to listen. Just like these people don’t want to listen to what the apostles and what the early followers of Jesus are saying.

1. Made the Message About Jesus, Not Themselves

What do we do about that? I think the simple answer is that we have to keep talking. We keep speaking. That’s what the apostles are showing. We don’t stop. But there’s some other things I think we should consider along the way in terms of how we do this. How is it that they went about preaching Jesus and proclaiming him that was the right way to go about this continued effort? They were not going to cease, it tells us later in chapter 5. They’re persecuted again. They’re actually beaten this time and released. And then they still went every day to the temple and house to house, preaching and proclaiming the message of Jesus. They were not going to stop. I think the first thing that we have to recognize about what these early disciples, and particularly the apostles, were doing, is that they made the message very clearly about Jesus and not about themselves.

Over and over again, we’ve already recognized in previous sermons, and we saw it in this reading here. It’s all about the name of Jesus. And so it’s happening in Jesus’ name. It’s about him. It’s about what God did through him, it’s about what he did, it’s about his resurrection and the salvation that comes through him. It’s not about the power of the messenger. And in fact, this is where this whole encounter actually starts. You remember Peter and John, they’re going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, which it seems the early Jesus followers were doing daily. They were still going to the temple all the time to meet. And they see this guy and they heal him. And then everybody is in awe, as you would expect.

And Peter starts his sermon in this way. I want to notice a couple things about some of these interactions. First of all, how he starts this sermon about how it’s not about him. And then the second part of this is how quickly he gets to Jesus, how quickly they always get to Jesus, how that’s the focus. So, first of all, everybody is in a frenzy about what’s happened. And in verse 12, when Peter sees this, he addresses the people, men of Israel, why do you wonder at this? Or why do you stare at us as though by our power or piety we have made him walk? Now here’s where he gets right to Jesus. The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, the God of our fathers, glorified his servant Jesus.

This is the story. The story is not that I and John have this amazing power and we can go around healing people. I mean, that’s great. But the real story is what you get through Jesus Christ and how powerful Jesus is and what that means for your life and the salvation that comes through that. And so from there, quickly getting to Jesus, he begins this message. I want to recognize quickly, because it’s a phrase that’s used so frequently in modern religion, that the apostles witness their testimony is not about, for the most part, not about their personal story. Those can be powerful. And so I’m not discounting the benefit of that. And certainly there are stories where someone can be brought down to the depths because of their own choices, and then through the power of Jesus, they experience new life.

And that is really important. But it also can simply be that Jesus saves us from a very mundane life in which we have no meaning. It doesn’t mean that we have to hit rock bottom and that Jesus then saves us from an addiction or some problem like that. It’s not, that’s not always the story. And you don’t need some amazing story. Those stories are great and they can be helpful, but you don’t need a rock bottom story to preach the message of Jesus. They’re testifying to what God did through Jesus Christ. And if they do tell their personal story, it is a story to quickly get them to the message of Jesus himself. That’s the point of what they’re trying to do here. Acts chapter 2.

We go back to the very beginning. Notice what happens here. People are mocking. These people are drunk. They don’t understand what’s happening. They hear all these different languages. These guys must have been drinking. Peter says, no, that’s not what’s happening. It’s not even the right time of day. This is what was uttered through the prophet Joel. He starts with the prophets. And then he quotes the prophet Joel, and then he listened to what happens next. Men of Israel. This is verse 22. Men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth. That’s where he begins. He doesn’t begin about how they were in the upper room, he and the other apostles and others, and then the spirit came and they got empowered, and you know, tell the whole story about what happened to them.

That’s not where he starts. The story is about Jesus and what God did through Jesus, and about what they knew about Jesus because they saw it themselves, how he healed people. And just a little subtle thing that’s happening through the book of Acts. All the healings and the things that are taking place, so many of them are much like the very things Jesus did. Remember the woman who comes up and touches the hinge of Jesus’ garment and she’s healed. In this context, Peter, they recognize his power through the Holy Spirit, and they’re bringing people out so that just his shadow will pass over them and heal them. I mean, this is an image of the same sort of thing that Jesus was doing to people when he walked the earth.

And now the apostles are doing the same thing, and it’s not about them, it’s about the power of God, and it’s about what he’s doing through Jesus Christ. And over and over again, they make this point. I love Acts 4. The part where we read.

Remember him? That’s how it happened. It’s not because I’m so great or John is so great, or these other followers of Jesus are so great. It’s by the power that comes through the name of Jesus, the name that you hate, that you crucified, that you killed and tried to get rid of, but God raised up. That’s the gospel. And it just keeps happening, story after story. In Acts chapter 5, when they’re questioned again toward the end of that account, when they’re telling them, don’t speak in his name, right? Verse 28, we strictly charge you not to teach in this name. It keeps coming back to the name of Jesus. Stop teaching in his name. The famous line: we must obey God rather than men. Acts 9, a little bit later in a different context, but you know the story.

Saul is encountered by Jesus. He sees Jesus on the road to Damascus. And later, you know, another Ananias, not the one in chapter 5 that we’ll talk about another time, comes to him. He doesn’t want to. God tells him, go to him. He’s like, hey, isn’t this the guy that was persecuting and killing people like us? Yeah, but go to him anyway. So he goes to him and then heals him. And this is what it says in verse 20. And immediately he proclaimed Jesus in the synagogues, saying, He is the Son of God. I just want us to recognize this is where these men start. Now, Paul will later on, for various reasons in different contexts, tell some things about his story. About what was there’s a reason why he’s doing that in each of these settings.

But I want us to realize when he’s converted and he realizes what his ministry is supposed to be, he doesn’t go out and saying, Let me tell you about my life, everybody. Immediately he’s preaching Jesus in the synagogues, the very places he was going to try to round people up and bind them and bring them to Jerusalem. And what he’s preaching is that he is the Son of God, that Jesus is the Christ, as it will be said later. He’s persuading people and convincing them of this. They’re proclaiming Jesus, they’re proclaiming the crucifixion, resurrection, and the reigning of Jesus the Son of God. They’re not preaching about self. And then there’s this interesting statement in Acts 4 that I think needs some attention on a number of levels.

He says, And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.

They’re not promoting their congregation or their system or trying to gain their own following. What they’re doing is promoting the message of Jesus Christ, his reign, his glory.

I don’t ever want to be called a church of Christ preacher. That’s not what I am. I’m a gospel preacher. I don’t proclaim a doctrine of the church of Christ. The church of Christ has no doctrine. The doctrine is Jesus’ doctrine. The church of Christ has no authority to establish doctrine. All it is to do is uphold the teachings of Jesus. And there are times when decisions or even discipline is to happen according to what Jesus and his inspired writers have taught. But I’d hope we would recognize, even though sometimes our own language betrays us, that the church does not lay down laws and rules. They only recognize the things that Jesus himself told us, and he inspired his writers in the New Title, it is a description, of which there are many in Scripture.

This is what an American religion, our heritage has typically chosen to use is the phrase church of Christ. But you could be church of God. That’s a phrase within scripture. Numerous times. Within the epistles, they’re just called the church at Corinth or the Church at Galatia, the church of the firstborn. We looked last week about how what they called themselves in Acts is the way and talked all about why. That is why they were called that. So we should not lose sight of the reality that the primary focus is Jesus Himself, the power that comes through his name, the salvation that comes through his name, and that there is no salvation in any other name, including church names. There’s no salvation in that. Going to a church that has the right name on the sign will not save anyone.

It is the power of Jesus Christ that comes through his blood that covers us because we have devoted our lives to him and we have given our will over to him. That is what saves. There is salvation in no other name, Peter tells us.

But I think the application remains for us as well, because just like these people in the days of the Acts of the Apostles can become sectarian and divided and tribal, the same thing can happen to us if we’re not careful. The tribe that we’re a part of is that of the name of Jesus Christ. That’s who we follow. His teachings, his rules, his decrees as Lord, as king, is what I and what you should follow at all cost, no matter what anybody else thinks. And this is what the apostles taught. The divergence actually was coming from the rulers and the leaders who could not get past what they had always thought. And they struggled to accept Jesus. This is actually the entire message of Acts 7.

If we had time to work through that, what we would see is what Stephen’s telling him is you’re completely missing it. You’re putting a lot of value in this building, the temple. You think this temple is so important, but what you need to understand is that God was with his people all throughout the stories of Israel when they weren’t even in the land of promise. And they had a tabernacle that tried that traveled from place to place, and even when they didn’t have a tabernacle, he was with Joseph when he was in Egypt. And he even talks about the ecclesia that was in the wilderness as he’s making this point. There’s a very pointed message he’s giving them there, and it is that you are thinking on the wrong level.

You’re emphasizing the wrong things. Because they didn’t like Stephen, and when they couldn’t overcome him because of his wisdom, and they were confounded by him, instead of submitting to Jesus himself and saying, you know, Stephen, you’re right. You have the truth. What they did instead was instigate people secretly to speak falsely about him, to bear false witness. They said this man speaks against this holy place and against the law, and his whole point is you’re missing all of it. You’re upholding the law of Moses and the temple as if that’s the most important thing. And he concludes by saying, God does not dwell in temples made by hands. You’re missing the whole point, and you resist the Holy Spirit, and you’ve done it from the beginning.

Don’t lose sight of what matters most. That is the name of Jesus. Jesus’ authority and what he teaches. Let me also just say quickly about Acts 4. And I kind of alluded to this when I was saying some things about testifying or about witness. But we are not called to impress people. You know, maybe you’re worried that, well, I just like Moses, you know, back in Exodus, I just don’t speak that well. I’m not real good at putting together a great message. I mean, notice what it says about they recognize that these were uneducated common men. But these uneducated common men had the ability to speak Jesus. To tell people about the gospel. You don’t have to be a professional speaker. You don’t even have to do it in a public setting like this, preaching or teaching an official Bible class during worship hours or anything like that.

But you can go house to house, you can talk to friends and family, you can give the simple message of Jesus, the truths that we know are real, about this story, without having great skill and ability. Just being even, as they say here, uneducated common men. I would say from antiquity, probably most of us are more educated than these men. They were just common fishermen. And Jesus says, hey, follow me. They follow him, and then they go change the world with the message of the gospel. And so I think it’s important to think about how can we do this well, and maybe it’s good to talk about how we can work on talking to people about Jesus and all that, but maybe we overcomplicate it.

2. Resistance Is Not a Sign Something Is Wrong

Maybe the point is just to get to Jesus, like these guys are doing over and over and over. I think also what we need to see from this text, and we’re looking at these early accounts of resistance, is that is not a sign that something is wrong. It’s not a sign that we need to stop speaking. As we already mentioned, they see all receive all kinds of pressure to remain silent. They’re beaten and they’re arrested and they’re threatened. Some of them are even killed. But the problem was not that the message was bad, or even the tone in which they give that message, which I’ll have some more to say about that here in a minute. It’s that the people just didn’t want to hear it.

They’re arrested for teaching the people, the rulers say, proclaiming resurrection. These are the accusations against them. You have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. They’re worried about Rome as part of this, but they’re also worried about their own power. People resist truth for emotional reasons. That is extremely clear within the Acts account, and I want us to think carefully about it. They’re not resisting the apostles because they hear some problem in what they’re teaching. In fact, the healing itself is a recognition that they’re not worried about truth. They’re worried about other things. They see the guy getting healed. He’s standing in before them, and they recognize we can’t deny this. So what are we going to do? But we’re going to try to squash it. We’re going to try to tell them to stop talking about this, even though it’s an amazing thing, and something we would want for anybody who is maybe our family member or someone we love.

We would want Peter or John to come and heal them, but we want to squash all of that. It’s not about truth. But the text actually tells us some things about what’s actually happening here. In chapter 5 and verse 17, when they arrest them again, it says the high priest rose up, chapter 5, verse 17, and all who were with him, that is, the party of the Sadducees, and filled with jealousy. Oh, there we’re getting the core reason for this.

It’s not that what they were saying was wrong or heretical or sacrilegious or blasphemy or error. It wasn’t any of that. It’s that these people were jealous. When Stephen is debating with those who are from the synagogue of the freedmen and the Cyrenians and the Alexandrians, and they can’t overcome his wisdom. They’re losing the debate. That’s what that means. That was embarrassing. When you’re in an honor shame culture, Jesus does this repeatedly to the leaders. They’re embarrassed over and over again when they try to confront Jesus and then he makes them look silly. That’s a shameful thing. And the same thing’s happening here with Stephen. They are confounded by him. They can’t answer him.

Is part of this.

No. It’s because they don’t know how to actually answer. They can’t actually have good dialogue with them. So they go get people stirred up and angry about it. Some people are deceived by those men. And so that’s their reason for rejecting the truth. And chapter 7, at the end of Stephen’s sermon, when he runs through their history and kind of reveals how they’re misguided and the things they’re thinking are completely off base. They’re focusing on the wrong things.

That’s what we’re talking about, right? Resistance, opposition. You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you. Verse 54, they were enraged. It’s not about truth. They didn’t say, you know, Stephen, I think that’s not right. I think you’re interactive. Let’s talk about this. Maybe that’s not true about our fathers. No, it was true. They couldn’t deny anything he said. But you know what they did? They just got mad. That’s it. When you can’t answer and you don’t want to, you just get angry. And in the moment that seems sufficient. And that’s what’s happening to these rulers. It’s not about truth. It doesn’t mean something’s wrong. The truth convicts, and it’s hard to hear sometimes. And that can go one of two directions.

It can result in humble repentance, like thousands did in Acts chapter 2. They hear the message of Peter and they say, What do we have to do? And he tells them, and 3,000 people repent and are baptized on that day. It can go that direction, or it can go the direction of stubborn obstinence. Where you clench your teeth and you plug your ears and you run with rage toward the person who’s telling you the truth. It’s tempting to think sometimes that resistance means I’m doing something wrong. You know, or maybe silence just keeps the peace. So maybe we just stay silent. Imagine if the early Christians did that. In our world, the worst of sins is to upset somebody. Even with truth. People don’t really want to talk much about sin, but if you want them to talk about it’ll be that you disrupt someone’s view of themselves.

You know, what they think is true, that’s one of the worst crimes. Now maybe some of that’s changing in our culture. I hope it is. But there’s still a stronghold with this idea that it’s unkind or unloving to challenge someone’s self-identity or their way of thinking. And even secular sociologists and philosophers recognize the danger of this. It’s a lack of critical thinking. You know, it’s why we need safe spaces and colleges and all this kind of thing. Because if you’re challenged and if your thoughts get challenged by anything, but you just can’t handle it. A very fragile kind of society is what has been created by this concept that you can’t upset anybody with truth or with challenging their ideas or beliefs. In Acts, faithfulness brought friction.

Obedience often meant pressure and difficulty. Silence was often not wisdom. It was fear.

3. Speaking Boldly Is Not Speaking Arrogantly

They pray not for comfort, not that it’ll be easier, not that everybody will get along. They pray for boldness to speak the word and to not stop. I want to deal in the third point this morning with kind of the other side of that, though, because I think we have both sides of this in our culture. It’s easy to react with either I think I have the truth or I know I have the truth through investigation or study. It’s easy to begin reacting with extreme sarcasm and disdain and condescension. And I want you to understand that is not the boldness that’s being talked about in the book of Acts. It’s used three times in Acts 4, and it’s used numerous times, I think 14 throughout the book itself, the idea of boldness.

It’s about clarity, about plain speech. And there are certainly times, particularly the Apostle Paul, but even Jesus, where they do use some sarcasm or they do take some extreme measures, but there’s typically a pretty big context to that. For example, when Jesus goes and condemns the temple, he’s been teaching them for quite some time. That’s not his first move. He’s been trying to encourage and persuade for years at this point. And then it’s time to make a statement about the corruption of the temple, and he goes in and begins flipping over the tables of the money changers who have turned the place of worship into a common business place. Paul is a bit sarcastic with people who were on the inside. That’s pretty important. That some of the churches that he’s formed through his missionary journeys, there were times he did get a little edgy and sarcastic with them because of their attitude and the things they were doing.

But this is not how he treated unknown people, first of all. This is not how he started off his message. He was careful about how he preached, for example, in Acts 17, to those who are pagans, he used their own poets, and he argued very logically and persuasively, trying to encourage them to see the importance of God in Jesus who is going to be a judge of all men. And so, yes, I understand there are occasions where those things are used in a very controlled capacity by men like Paul and Jesus. But I should probably be very careful for that not to be my first move. Speaking boldly is not about speaking arrogantly. And what we see throughout this entire encounter is the humility of these men.

The focus is not on them. They’re not going to go get theirs. You know, they were falsely accused and they were mistreated, and they’re going to go let the whole world know how horrible these leaders are, and all of that. That’s not their goal. At the end of chapter 5, when they leave, it says they left the presence of the council, rejoicing that they were accounted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name. Jesus. It’s about him. It’s not about getting their own glory and their own honor. They’re worried about Jesus, like we talked about before, and they’re worried about not stopping despite the oppression. And this involves speaking boldly but not arrogantly. Despite the opposition throughout this entire encounter, I want us to understand that many people are still listening.

In our world today, it’s the same way. There’s a lot of mocking, there’s a lot of resistance and opposition. But if we’re speaking Jesus and we’re telling people about the gospel, there are people who are listening. And we want them to be hearing the right thing, not arrogance, not ugliness, not condescension.

I already talked about the 3,000 in Acts 2 who respond to the message. There are many more thousands of people there at Pentecost. But 3,000 people here and respond. That’s amazing. Acts chapter 4, they arrest Peter and John and they’re questioning them. But Luke purposely throws in these little summaries throughout the encounter. So we hear what’s happening here.

But many of those who had heard the word believed. And the number of the men came to about 5,000. There’s another one we’ll deal with a later time. We talk about insider conflict. But if you look at chapter 6, and chapter 6 and verse 1, it says, now in these days, when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint by the Hellenists arose against Hebrews because their widows are being neglected in the daily distribution. Insider problem. But it’s leading in just after the oppression and the persecution at the end of chapter 5. The disciples are increasing in number. It’s not slowing down. There’s people listening to the message. Chapter 6, verse 7. And the word of God continued to increase.

Because there are obstacles, doesn’t mean people aren’t listening. And so we speak boldly and plainly, not stopping, realizing there are people who will hear. We speak boldly on matters of truth. This involves letting our ideas and our beliefs be vetted through dialogue with others. Because it’s always easy to believe you have the truth when you never challenge anything outside your own echo chamber. But we have to take the time to really dig in and find the truths that are there and then speak them boldly when we have them. Speak carefully on matters of opinion. I just throw this in here for application’s sake. Peter was not demanding repentance based on his opinions. Early disciples were not proclaiming opinion in Acts, but eyewitness testimony or the gospel itself.

That’s what they cannot help but speak. When it was opinion later in Acts 11 and 15, they were told not to add to the gospel. Because that was dangerous. But mostly I want us to understand that boldness is not a light license to be hateful and ugly and sarcastic to people. Even if that’s the way our culture thinks things should be done, it doesn’t mean Christians are free to act that way. Clearly or boldly exposing sin or misunderstandings of Scripture is not ugly or hateful. Boldness, though, is not instigating others or stirring people up or being ugly and hateful to people. That is not doing the story of Gamaliel. He’s a very interesting figure.

He’s a Pharisee. He’s part of the opposition. But I love his humility. This guy has some experience. He’s observed some things. And they want to kill these guys. That’s what happened. They’re upset. They hear the message of Peter saying, you killed Jesus, and God raised him up, and we’re witnesses to this. And it says in verse 33, when they heard this, they were enraged. There’s that word again. They’re not thinking really. They’re just mad. And they want to kill. But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel, he’s well respected in the law. He stands up, he says, Hey, we’ve had these other guys. We’ve had Tudis and we’ve had Judas, these two guys, the names rhyme. That’s awesome. They have these resistances. They’re rebels, you know, and everybody was all up in arms about them.

But you know what? They died. And their following died out. Why don’t we just leave these guys alone? Jesus died, and if this following is going to continue, if it’s from God, you can’t stop it. And in fact, you may be in danger of opposing God, is what Gamaliel says. I would like to think that he’s part of chapter 6, verse 7. I don’t know. That many of the priests, some of the leaders eventually believed. We’re told that happened in the Gospel of John as well. But I do love that he was willing and he had the courage to stand up and to speak. The humility to be willing to change his mind if needed about things. What do you do when the world won’t listen?

Conclusion

Acts is pretty clear. You cannot help but speak. You keep speaking the truth to anyone who will listen. Not because it’s easy or it’s safe or it’s popular, but because Jesus is alive and he is Lord, and people need to know the truth. Maybe this morning that you need this message of truth. That you need to come to Jesus and give your life to him, and as we see so often in Acts, be baptized into the name by the authority of Jesus Christ for the remission of your sins. To become part of his people, become part of the way. And we would love to help you do that this morning. Why don’t you come now as we stand and sing?