Books of the Book: Acts

Peter's Second Chance

Three Angels Broadcasting Network

Program transcript

Participants: Jim & Mark Howard

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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.


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Revised 2014-12-17