Participants: Jim & Mark Howard
Series Code: ABOTB
Program Code: ABOTB00007A
00:20 Welcome to Books of the Book. I'm Pastor Mark Howard. I'm a
00:24 pastor in the Michigan Conference of the Seventh-day 00:25 Adventist church and I'm here with my brother, my co-host, 00:29 Jim Howard who also pastors in Michigan. We have been studying 00:32 in the book of Acts. In our last time together we were in Acts 00:36 chapter 3 and we were looking at the very first healing in the 00:40 New Testament church since Jesus' ascension to heaven. 00:43 Of course we see all the healings of Christ but we then 00:46 came across the first bonafide miracle, Jim, of the New 00:50 Testament church where Peter heals the man at the temple gate 00:53 the lame man who was lame from his birth. Now we followed 00:58 through that story and cut off at our last session together and 01:02 in chapter 4 we're picking up on some of the aftermath of that 01:07 story. Before we go into scripture I'd like to just begin 01:10 with a word of prayer. I'm hoping you have your Bibles, 01:13 our viewers have their Bibles with them. We're going to pray 01:16 and ask God to guide our study of his word today. 01:18 Father in heaven, we do thank you for your word and we thank 01:21 you for the Spirit of truth that you've given to guide us into 01:25 truth. I pray that you would send him to give us 01:27 understanding as we study today. In Jesus name, Amen. 01:30 Now I actually want to pick up just before chapter 4 in the 01:35 last verse of chapter 3. Of course, Peter has healed the 01:39 lame man and when the people are astonished... One of the 01:42 things we mentioned last time is the people are astonished by 01:45 the healing. Peter is not astonished. Peter has this 01:49 attitude that's like hey what are you guys so surprised about? 01:52 Isn't this what we would expect from the Lord Jesus. And we see 01:55 this expectant faith of Peter. Then he takes an opportunity 02:00 to share with his hearers that this healed man is an evidence 02:03 that Jesus of Nazareth that was crucified, that many of them 02:07 has shouted crucify him, crucify him was indeed the Son of God 02:10 and their Messiah and of course they're brought to a point of 02:15 repentance. It's interesting as Peter closes chapter 3 he says, 02:19 to you first God having raised up his servant Jesus sent him 02:24 to bless you in turning away every one of you from your 02:28 iniquity. So he gives them this opportunity here for repentance. 02:32 It's amazing to me that just prior to this in the verse just 02:36 before he quotes what God said to Abraham, In your seed all the 02:40 families of the earth shall be blessed. And he is here 02:44 pinpointing that Jesus was that seed and first and foremost he 02:48 was to be a blessing to them, those same ones who shouted 02:51 crucify him, crucify him. Here we find that he was intended to 02:56 be a blessing to them. Isn't that a large-hearted thing to 03:00 say to this group who were so opposed to the works and 03:04 teachings of Jesus. But here the promise is still given to them 03:08 that if they would turn, they could be accepted. 03:11 That's right. So we see the heart and the compassion of God 03:13 for his children wherever they may be. These are ones who had 03:16 openly rejected. Like I said, many of them had been shouting 03:19 crucify him, crucify him, but God's heart goes out to them 03:22 for their salvation. Now what's interesting as we come into 03:25 chapter 4, verse 1 it says, Now as they spoke to the people 03:29 the priests, the captain of the temple and the Sadducees came 03:32 upon them being greatly disturbed that they taught the 03:35 people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. 03:39 Now the gospels teach us that the Sadducees did not believe in 03:42 the resurrection. What's so interesting here is that the 03:45 Sadducees in light of this miracle, and we're going to go 03:49 on in this chapter and see that this was an unrefutable miracle. 03:52 I mean everybody had to acknowledge that this was a 03:56 miracle of God. And yet the Sadducees were so disappointed 03:59 that their belief, their opinion was contradicted, somebody had 04:04 a different Bible opinion than them, they were so disturbed by 04:09 that that they overlooked all the evidence of power and 04:12 miracle and just wanted to get to silence this message because 04:18 it was going contrary to what they taught. So it says as they 04:23 spoke to the priests, the captain of the people and the 04:27 Sadducees came upon them, verse 2, being greatly disturbed, and 04:30 then verse 3 says, and they laid hands on them and put them in 04:34 custody until the next day for it was already evening. However, 04:38 many of those who heard the word believed and the number of men 04:42 came to be about 5000. Now it's interesting here. The number of 04:45 men, we're not counting women and children, and the Bible does 04:48 this in many places, so the church is growing quite a bit. 04:51 Before we get into that though, it's interesting the language 04:55 here of verse 2, they were greatly disturbed, I'm sorry 04:59 verse 1 it says, the Sadducees, the priests and the captain of 05:02 the temple came upon them. I think of the language there, 05:05 they came upon them. What does that conjure up in your mind? 05:09 They came upon them... Pardon me guys, could we uh-huh have a 05:13 conversation with you? No. Came upon them. In other words, it 05:18 tells us that they were very disturbed, but this is a very 05:22 forceful and forcible approach to the apostles and it says in 05:26 verse 3, they laid hands on them so they took them violently. 05:31 This is a characteristic that we find. It's interesting that they 05:35 don't come to Peter and John and say now listen guys, let's look 05:39 at scripture and look at what you guys are teaching. They can 05:43 not refute their teaching and it's characteristic when a 05:47 person can't refute from the word what they disagree with 05:50 that they turn to argumentiveness and violence. 05:54 So they took them by forceful hands and it says they put them 05:58 in custody until the next day for it was evening. It was too 06:02 late to do anything and so they put them in jail. Think about 06:06 this for a minute. Peter and John are taken by the religious 06:10 leaders and put in jail. What is going through their minds here? 06:15 What are they on the heels of. They just preached about that 06:19 the crucifixion of their own Master. So they're in jail 06:24 awaiting a decision the next morning which is likely in their 06:29 minds going to be death. And this is where you're going to 06:34 pick up in a little bit here, but we see in verse 4 however... 06:39 It's interesting, however, in spite of all of the opposition 06:43 from the leaders we see the church growing to be now about 06:46 5000 men not counting the women and children. So the church is 06:50 exploding. We see the power of God growing the church in spite 06:53 of some of the opposition. 06:55 It seems as though the more forcible they were the more the 06:59 church grew. It just wasn't a good argument. It wasn't a good 07:03 way of handling it and people were smart enough to see the 07:07 evidence of the Holy Spirit and the evidence of God in what was 07:10 happening with the apostles and they could clearly see that 07:12 there was nothing that the priests and rulers could do to 07:15 refute that. So they are brought to another forcible situation. 07:19 This is really perhaps the highlight of this chapter here 07:22 in chapter 4. Beginning in verse 5 we'll read there. It says, and 07:26 it came to pass on the next day that the rulers, elders, and 07:32 scribes as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John and 07:36 Alexander and as many as were of the family of the high priest 07:40 were gathered together at Jerusalem. 07:43 Now you read this list and there is not really too much left out, 07:47 right? I mean, this is all the religious leaders, all those 07:50 with authority. Right. I was looking up some of 07:54 the names and Alexander is a name, for example, that 07:56 commentators aren't quite sure who he was. John was a man who 08:00 was a very influential leader in Jerusalem in those days and the 08:04 surrounding area. So the idea we get is besides the religious 08:07 leaders, the highest religious authorities in the church, you 08:11 have other people that are men of reputation which is very 08:15 significant here. That's right. And in verse 7 08:18 they put Peter and John in a very awkward situation. It says, 08:23 They set them in the midst. They asked by what power, by what 08:28 name have you done this. So they set them in the midst, right 08:32 here in the middle. You can imagine the spotlight, as it 08:36 were, was upon them and all of the power and authority to do 08:40 with them what they would was surrounding them. And you can't 08:45 help but think back to the trial of Jesus. And Peter here 08:49 especially has to be, through his mind, experiencing, 08:53 re-experiencing, revisiting what happened at the trial of Jesus 08:58 when first Jesus was taken rather forcibly and then he was 09:01 taken to the judgment hall, and as he was taken to the judgment 09:05 hall Peter followed, John followed, but the Bible says 09:09 that John followed right in with Jesus but Peter followed at a 09:13 distance. It's never safe to follow at a distance. 09:16 You know, it's interesting too, Jim, I've looked this up on all 09:20 of the synoptic gospels, Matthew Mark and Luke. It tells us that 09:23 Peter followed at a distance. In other words, none of them 09:26 left that detail out. That was significant. 09:28 It was important because of the fact that that seemed to be the 09:32 reason or the cause for Peter's denial. 09:36 Yeah. It tells us something about Peter and his character 09:38 there. That's right. So Peter enters in 09:41 at a distance and of course we recognize that Peter was told 09:45 prior to this by Jesus that he would deny him three times 09:50 before the cock crowed twice. And sure enough, Peter is asked 09:55 by a girl and in one case it even says that he's asked by the 10:00 servant of the high priest who he is and isn't he with Jesus. 10:05 It's interesting to me that Peter denied Jesus to this 10:08 servant of the high priest, someone who was really 10:11 relatively low authority in comparison. But now here he is, 10:16 not before the servant of the high priest and a girl, but here 10:21 he is before Annas, Caiaphas, as you said renowned leaders, the 10:26 rulers, the elders. Peter is brought back into this situation 10:31 Now previously when Peter was in that situation he cared more 10:37 about his reputation than he actually was a man of character 10:42 at that point. He thought of himself more than he really was. 10:47 So it was that when the time came he denied three times and 10:51 after that happened the Bible says that the Lord turned and 10:56 looked right at Peter. You can imagine what happened when the 10:59 Lord turned after Peter denied him that third time, the Lord 11:03 turned and looked at Peter and Peter was broken and the Bible 11:07 says that he went away and wept. So then we had the crucifixion 11:11 of Jesus. We have that beautiful story of the restoration of 11:15 Peter. You know, I think about that for 11:17 a minute. I think about times, and I hate to say it, where I've 11:20 had situations in my life where I maybe in high school was with 11:24 a group of friends who didn't like one of my friends and they 11:27 were a real friend of mine but I was in that group and when the 11:30 pressure was on and they were talking negatively I joined in 11:34 and then the friend that was being talked about found out 11:38 what I said. You know, I never intended to hurt my friend but 11:42 the point is I caved in because of that love of reputation and 11:47 when they found out and I saw what it did to them and how it 11:51 hurt them you know I remember how it made me feel. That's a 11:56 pale comparison to where Peter was where Jesus eyes meet him 12:00 right in the midst of his denial and the rooster crows and then 12:04 the Bible says in Luke that Jesus looked right at Peter. 12:07 And in that moment here's Peter denying his master with cursing 12:11 and swearing and while the swearing is still on his lips 12:15 Jesus looks right at him and it pierced his heart. 12:19 But now Peter has, after going through that experience, had to 12:26 also be reinstated and you remember that Jesus met him 12:29 during those 40 days after his resurrection when he appeared 12:32 to the disciples and he asked him three times do you love me, 12:36 do you love me, do you love me? And Peter received once again 12:41 the assurance that he was a disciple of Christ. But yet it 12:46 still weighed upon his heart that he had denied his Lord. 12:51 So what we see here is a very eerie similarity to that trial 12:55 of Jesus. And Peter is here being given a second chance. 13:00 How will he respond when, as he stated earlier, it appears that 13:04 there's no hope, there is no opportunity, no out. As far as 13:08 he can see there's no evidence that he's going to get out of 13:12 this. Just like Jesus was crucified after his trial 13:16 Peter now what is he going to do? Is he going to try to skate 13:18 out of it, is he going to try to evade it? That's what he did 13:21 before. But this is the new Peter and we're about to see 13:25 one of the most miraculous changes or conversions seen and 13:29 expressed here in the answer of the apostle Peter. 13:32 Absolutely. And we're going to see it after we break. We're 13:36 going to take a short break here and I hope you come back with us 13:38 as we look at this transformation that God gave 13:41 in the life of the apostle Peter We'll see you in a minute. |
Revised 2014-12-17