The Lord’s Day
Evening
July 30, 2006
Acts 5:33-42
“To the End of
the Earth (12): Leave These Men Alone!”
Dr. Derek W. H.
Thomas
Now turn with me, if you would, to The Acts of the
Apostles, and the fifth chapter. Our reading this evening begins at the end of
the chapter, beginning at verse 33. You will recall that the apostles have been
imprisoned for the night, and during the course of the night an angel has opened
the gates of the prison; and they have been bidden to go back to the very temple
area, to Solomon’s colonnade, there to preach and teach and testify to the Lord
Jesus Christ once again.
In the morning, the authorities…the Sanhedrin in
particular…when they go to the prison they find the prison doors shut, but the
apostles are not there. And then it is reported to them, you remember, that the
apostles are in fact preaching and teaching in the temple. They are brought
before the Sanhedrin. And last week, you remember, we were looking at what in
effect is Peter’s gospel testimony in less than 35 words, when in verses 30-31
he says:
“The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging Him on a tree.
God exalted Him at His right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to
Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”
And it’s at this point now that we pick up the reading at
verse 33. And before we do so, let’s come before God in prayer. Let us pray.
O Lord our God, again we bow in the majesty of
Your presence, conscious that the Scriptures that we’re about to read are Your
word, Your inerrant word, given by inspiration of God, by the out-breathing of
God, and profitable for doctrine and reproof, and correction, and instruction in
the way of righteousness, that the man of God might be thoroughly furnished unto
every good work. Open up Your word to us, we pray, and this we ask in Jesus’
name. Amen.
Hear now, then, the word of God:
“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 them, ‘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 four hundred, 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 fail; 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 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 Jesus as the Christ.”
Amen. And may God add His blessing to the reading of His
holy and inerrant word.
The counsel of Gamaliel–it’s often cited with
approval as a piece of received wisdom to apply in any and every circumstance.
It is, in effect, “leave well alone; wait and see; if this thing is of men, it
will perish; if it is of God, then nothing that you can do can disabuse it of
its rightful place.” It seems on the surface, doesn’t it, to be a piece of
wisdom, a useful stratagem to apply in a circumstance where there are problems
and difficulties, where there’s an impasse? At a meeting of some kind, in a
discussion between elders or deacons, in a church meeting, in conversation about
strategies with regard to the church–no matter what it is, it seems on the
surface to be a useful piece of advice: to leave it alone; and if it is of God,
then it will prosper; and if it is of men it will perish. It’s do nothing, and
wait and see.
It’s interesting that in the twentieth century this
piece of advice by Gamaliel was alluded to in a very famous sermon. Harry
Emerson Fosdick preached a sermon, Shall the Fundamentalists Win? Of
course he was not arguing for the fundamentalists; of course he was arguing for
the liberal cause in the church, and he was saying in effect — applying the
wisdom of Gamaliel — ‘Leave liberalism alone. If it is of men it will perish,
but if it is of God there’s nothing that you can do about it. Leave it alone.’
That’s a kind of laissez faire approach to the church and to theology.
I want us to look at this piece of advice, and I
want us to look at the author of this piece of advice, Rabbi (or Rabban)
Gamaliel the Elder. He was a very famous person, and wise…a distinguished
theologian and teacher. He was, of course, the principal teacher of Saul of
Tarsus. Paul will refer to him in Acts 22. That should give you a little
insight, as you read this particular passage, that Saul of Tarsus is probably
here in Jerusalem as a student of this Rabbi Gamaliel. He’s unconverted, of
course: he’s a “Pharisee of the Pharisees; of the tribe of Benjamin; as touching
the law, blameless….” That’s the Saul of Tarsus right now, and he’s probably
here in Jerusalem. He’s probably witnessed some of the events that we’ve been
looking at in these past few weeks. He’s probably looking and making his
discernment and drawing his judgments about what these apostles are doing, and
perhaps he’s having conversations with Rabbi Gamaliel.
Who is this Gamaliel? Gamaliel is the grandson of a
very famous rabbi and teacher in the first century B.C., a man by the name of
Hillel. Now there were two schools of thought and two schools of judicial
opinion amongst the rabbis. There was the moderate party, called the school of
Hillel, from which Gamaliel comes, and there was the strict party, the school of
Schammai; and these two were often at loggerheads with one another.
Gamaliel is mentioned in the Talmud. The
Talmud is the written account of what for years and years was the oral tradition
of Israel’s laws — laws dealing with case law, and precedents, and so on. And
Gamaliel is mentioned, and he’s mentioned and he’s given a very specific title:
Rabban Gamaliel the Elder. And the term Rabban is a term that
distinguishes him from the other rabbis. In other words, he’s the head of the
Sanhedrin. That’s why he’s the one that speaks here, and that’s why it appears
that his word here in this private meeting of the Sanhedrin…and you may be
wondering, how does Luke know what it was that Gamaliel said in what was a
private meeting? The apostles, you remember, had been sent out, and the answer
to that is probably because Saul of Tarsus heard it from Gamaliel, and Saul of
Tarsus was a fellow missionary with Luke, and that’s probably where Luke heard
exactly the deliberations of what was going on here. He’s mentioned, then, as
the head of the Sanhedrin.
He’s also mentioned in the Mishnah.
The Mishnah is now, once again, the oral tradition of the Jews, and it appears
that Gamaliel was something of an authority on conjugal rights. It was this
Gamaliel who said that you only needed one witness to testify to the death of
your husband or of your wife, and therefore be eligible for remarriage.
Well, he’s an important figure. He’s a well-known
figure in Jerusalem. He was probably something of a notorious teacher, and
perhaps even Bible scholar. There are some comparisons perhaps between Gamaliel
and Nicodemus, the teacher of the law.
And it’s before Gamaliel and the Sanhedrin, this
austere, authoritative, somewhat intimidating Court of the Jews, that the
apostles are now brought before. They had been imprisoned. They’d been released
from prison by a miraculous intervention of an angel, and they’ve escaped. And
they’ve been discovered preaching and teaching the very same gospel that got
them into prison in the first place, back in Solomon’s colonnade in the temple.
And now they’ve been brought before the Sanhedrin to answer for their doings.
And you notice, Peter, having given that testimony
to the gospel in less than 35 words, you notice in verse 33: “When they heard
this, they were enraged.” It’s a very strong word. Their hearts were
rent asunder by what they heard. They were inflamed. They became passionate.
They were incensed by what Peter and John and the apostles were doing. And what
were they doing? They were teaching and preaching in the name of Jesus Christ,
and they had been forbidden to teach in the name of Jesus Christ.
“And when they heard this, they were enraged
and wanted to kill them.”
Clearly the apostles and the Sanhedrin are on a collision
course, and for the apostles it was a simple thing. It was a matter of obedience
to God. What the Sanhedrin had demanded of them, they could not comply with. “We
must obey God rather than men.” It was an issue of conscience. This was
something that God had told them to do, and woe betide them if they didn’t do
it! No matter what the consequences!
I. The violent opposition to
Jesus Christ.
And I want us to see, first of all, the violent
opposition to these men, and effectively, the violent opposition to Jesus
Christ.
They wanted to kill the apostles. Isn’t that
astounding, when you think about it? What had these men done? Were they
murderers? Were they child molesters? Were they guilty of some gross form of
pornography? Had they embezzled funds from the Jewish authorities in some way?
What had they done? What law had they broken? What evil, dastardly deed had they
done that would bring about in the Sanhedrin a desire that they might be killed
– that they might be judicially put to death? What had they done? Were they
insurrectionists? Were they armed bandits? Were they calling on men and women in
Jerusalem to arm themselves and form some kind of militia? The very mention of
Jesus brings a note of violence into the hearts and minds of these Sanhedrin.
And what had they been doing? They’d been doing that
one thing that they had been forbidden to do: teaching and preaching salvation
in no other name but the name of Jesus Christ. Christianity is an intolerant
religion: intolerant to other Gods; intolerant to any other way of salvation but
faith alone in Jesus Christ alone; and it incensed them, incensed them to the
point of violence.
The situation today perhaps is a little different.
We live in a post-Modern society. It’s fine for you to believe whatever you want
to believe. You can believe the moon is made of green cheese, and that’s fine,
so long as you don’t go about trying to proselytize and evangelize others into
believing that the moon is made of green cheese.
We have the ghost of Schleimacher still with us.
He’s been dead for over a hundred years, but his ghost is still with us, that
says that religion is a genus in which all other religions, all other faiths,
are more or less developed — highly developed — species; that all roads, in the
end, lead to God. Christianity is one way, Hinduism is another, and Islam is
another, and Shintuism is another.
It’s always fascinating to me that the media will
give attention to almost anything, and will give pride of place on prime time
television to almost anything, and show sympathy to almost anything, except
Bible-believing Christianity.
It was interesting. I was reading an editorial in
The Times newspaper, The London Times newspaper, yesterday, and I saw
it coming. You can always guess what the next few words are going to be, as the
leader was heading in a certain direction, and it was criticizing American
society — no surprise to you, I’m sure! And I knew what the word was going to
be: It was either going to be ‘Calvinism’ or it was going to be ‘Fundamentalism’
(and the author probably didn’t know what Calvinism was, so he chose
Fundamentalism). And all his cleverness and all his vilification…it was as
though he had swallowed a thesaurus to find all the epithets he could find as a
tirade against those who had the audacity to believe that faith in Jesus Christ
alone is the only way to salvation. ‘How dare you say such a thing!’ And it’s
what’s wrong with America, so the leader said. (Well, I wish it was!)
Now there’s nothing new, of course, to the
rejection of Christianity, but don’t you get the impression here that there is
something irrational about their response? I mean, these are men who are
simply teaching and preaching that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, that He’s the
fulfillment of God’s promise of a Savior.
Now, to be sure, perhaps they had heard of what
Peter had done in the Garden of Gethsemane with a sword — you remember? And
lopped off Malchus’ ear? Perhaps they had heard that. Perhaps they had heard
that one of the apostles was Simon the Zealot, a member of the Zealot party, a
party within Judaism bent on bringing Roman domination to an end by the power of
the sword…but Simon had put away the sword. Jesus had said, “They that live by
the sword shall die by the sword.” And Jesus had said to Peter, “Put away your
sword.” And don’t you get the impression here that there is something utterly
irrational about their response? There’s something completely over the top about
their response that they want to kill these apostles. Such is the hatred…and
you get a sense here that there is more than just the hatred of the natural man,
that there is something almost supernatural about this…that behind this of
course lies the animosity and the hatred and the vilification of Satan himself,
because what you see working itself out here is what Jesus had said at Caesarea
Philippi: that “I build My church within sight of the very gates of hell.” And
here are the forces of darkness arrayed now against Christ and those who are
Christ’s. Something utterly irrational about it….
You remember what Bertrand Russell said? The famous
philosopher of the early twentieth century? He was asked what he would say if
after death he met God. (Of course, Bertrand Russell didn’t believe in God.) And
he was asked what he would say if after death he would meet God, and he said, “I
would say to Him, ‘You didn’t give us enough evidence.’” You didn’t give us
enough evidence.
The modern world is prepared to believe almost
anything. It’s prepared to believe that nothing can produce everything; that the
whole world, in all of its complexity, came out of absolutely nothing; that
nothing is the cause of everything. And there’s something utterly irrational
about the opposition that it shows to the idea that everything came from God, a
supreme all-powerful being who created the heavens and the earth. Now, I tell
you — I ask you — this evening: Which is a more rational statement, that God
created everything, or that everything came from nothing? And I think you see
here in the response of these members of the Sanhedrin something that is utterly
irrational, because unbelief is irrational. It’s utterly irrational for you not
to believe in Jesus Christ. It’s utterly irrational for you to dismiss
Christianity and to dismiss the Scriptures, and to dismiss the claims of Christ
and of the apostles. “When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill
them.”
II. The reasoned intervention
of Gamaliel.
And the second thing that I want us to see is the
reasoned intervention of Gamaliel. Now, there’s a problem here that we need
to look at, and we need to try and solve quickly. It’s one of these red herrings
that those who want to dismiss the Bible ad nauseum raise. It’s the issue
of Theudus and Judas the Galilean.
Now Luke tells us (it’s Gamaliel who’s speaking, of
course) and Luke is recording Gamaliel’s speech, and Gamaliel says two things.
He says first of all that Judas the Galilean came after Theudus; and, secondly,
he tells us that Judas arose in the time of the census.
Now, the only Theudus that we know of historically
is a Theudus that is mentioned in the historical writings of Flavius Josephus,
the Jewish historian who was born in about 33 A.D. and died somewhere around 100
A.D. He is the most famous Jewish historian of the first century, and he
mentions a Theudus. And he mentions a Theudus, a man who rose to arms and had a
following, an insurrectionist who lived somewhere around 45 A.D.
Now you see the problem. If you don’t see it, you’re
not thinking straight, so get up from your seat and think through that, because
Gamaliel, you understand, is writing within six months of the resurrection. And
let’s put that in 30 A.D., say. In other words, Gamaliel is talking about
something that’s 15 years in the future! Gamaliel talks about Judas the Galilean
in the days of the census, and there was a census of course in the Bible in the
time of Quirenius, when he was governor; and there were two censuses that we
know of. One was roughly between 4 and 6 B.C., and another one roughly between
6 and 9 A.D. What’s the solution?
Well, the solution is very simple. The first
possibility is that Josephus is wrong, and there’s a lot of evidence to suggest
that Josephus was wrong about many things. Josephus is writing a history to try
and promote a certain view of Judaism against the forces of Christianity. It was
in his interest to distort history. It may very well be that Josephus was wrong.
Of course, liberals have been saying for years that Luke is wrong, and that is a
possibility that is completely and utterly ruled out, because we believe that
the Bible is the inerrant word of God.
The answer is that there were probably two people by
the name of Theudus. Theudus is short for Theodotus, the Greek which is
the Hebrew of Jonathan, which means given by God. Now in the first
half of the first century there were scads of young boys called Jonathan, or
Theodotus, or Theudus. Why? Because they were so named after Judas Maccabeus —
Jonathan Maccabeus, the great Maccabean king who fought against the Seleucid
kingdom, Antiochus IV Epiphanes. Antiochus Epiphanes was the man who, 150 years
before Christ, had slaughtered several hundred pigs in the Holy Place and caused
an uproar. It was Judas Maccabeus who rose to defend Jewish honor and Jewish
integrity, and he became a hero; and no end of people would name their sons
after him — Judas, or Jonathan, or Theudus.
Now there is no problem here, so throw that problem
out and let’s get on with looking at the passage!
You notice several things about what Gamaliel
does. You notice first of all the comparison that he draws. Why would
Gamaliel draw comparison between the apostles on the one hand and two
insurrectionists — or freedom fighters, or terrorists — on the other? Now, you
understand one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, and we have to
appreciate that. That’s not my point. There were two men, Theudus and Judas the
Galilean, and they were terrorists. They were freedom fighters. They were those
somewhat akin to the IRA; somewhat akin to ETA in Spain; somewhat akin to The
Shining Path in Peru. They were native Jews rising up in violence and swords to
put down the Roman Empire.
It’s astonishing, isn’t it, that Gamaliel would draw
a comparison between the apostles on the one hand and what in effect are
terrorists on the other? Is what Gamaliel says here political savvy on his part,
or cowardice? Commentators are on both sides here. There are those who say that
Gamaliel was a believer; there’s tradition to suggest that Gamaliel did, in
fact, become a Christian. He was baptized by Peter, together with his son
Nicodemus. Now, Jewish history denies that lock, stock, and barrel! We
absolutely have no reason to believe that Gamaliel was a believer here, or that
he ever did become a believer.
There are those who say that what Gamaliel is doing
is…he’s in a tight corner, he’s the head of the Sanhedrin. He’s got all kinds
of opinions to try and find some kind of compromise, and what he is saying here
is political savvy: ‘Leave it alone. If it’s of man, it will perish; but if it
is of God, you might find yourselves fighting against God.’
Here is a man, I would suggest to you, who is
utterly untouched by the supernatural. He’s not defending the apostles at all.
He doesn’t use his opportunity here to come to the defense of the message of the
apostles. He doesn’t speak on behalf of Jesus Christ. All of his sophistication
and all of his learning in the end amount to nothing, because, my friends, the
principle…the principle itself doesn’t hold water.
Imagine if you’re in the early 1930’s — 1934, 1935 —
in Europe with the rise of Nazism, when thousands upon thousands upon thousands
of young men, young boys, are beginning to join organizations that eventually
will lead to the full blown Nazism of Europe. And imagine if that’s all the
philosophy that you could apply to the situation: Leave it alone. If Churchill
hadn’t given his famous speech that it was time to take up arms and fight
because an enemy was knocking at the door…I tell you, my friends, this
principle doesn’t hold water, because there are evil things in the world that
God has allowed to prosper in the mystery of His providence; and there are good
things in this world, wonderful things in this world, Spirit-induced things in
this world, that God has allowed to fizzle and fade for purposes that are known
unto Him.
And what does Gamaliel accede to in the end,
together with the rest of the Sanhedrin? The flogging of these apostles…the
flogging of these apostles. Thirty-nine lashes with whips and possibly bits of
metal tied at the end of the whips, and bits of leather…exposing flesh and
sometimes organs, and from which from time to time those who are inflicted with
flogging would die. And all because they had preached in the name of Jesus.
III. The determined response of
the apostles.
I want us to see, in the third place, the
determined response of the apostles. It’s quite breathtaking. It’s quite
astonishing. In verse 41, we read, after they had been charged not to speak in
the name of Jesus, they let them go, and “…they left the presence of the
Council”…and look at this! These men, their backs are bleeding…there’s blood
dropping on the floor…you could have followed them out into the streets of
Jerusalem by simply following the trail of blood… “…rejoicing that they had
been counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the Name.” For the name of Jesus.
Worthy to suffer dishonor….
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, in his Gulag Archipelago,
speaks of an individual by the name of Boris Kornfeld, a Jewish doctor who
converts to Christianity. And one evening he’s in a prison cell speaking to
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and his last words were, “Bless you, prison, for having
been my life.” Those were his last words, and they took him out and clubbed him
to death. Alexander Solzhenitsyn said it was one of the most moving things he’d
ever heard: “Bless you, prison, for having been my life.”
Some of you will remember Joseph Tson, a Romanian
pastor who stood up to the repressions of Christianity in the 1980’s in Rumania
by Nicolai Ceausescu. Joseph Tson wrote:
“Because of one of my writings, I was placed under house arrest for six months,
during which time I was called in for interrogation almost daily. I was charged
with propaganda endangering the security of the state. During that time I still
had to preach every Friday night and on Sundays. People listened just to see
what sort of subject I would tackle. One Sunday I preached on “Joy” with
Nehemiah 8:10 as my text: “The joy of the Lord is your strength.” Somebody told
me, “Joseph, I thought I was going to see a wreck on Sunday, but here you were
with a shining face, thundering about joy.”
Thundering about joy…in the midst of all that repression.
My friends, our Christianity is far too
comfortable. It’s far too comfortable. We’re far too concerned about our
comfort, and woe betide somebody who disturbs our comfort zone. (Usually that
means somebody who’s taken our seat in church.) For these men, it was life or
death. For these men it was 39 lashes on their backs, bleeding, sore, and
they’re rejoicing! They’re rejoicing that they had been counted worthy to suffer
for the Name, the name of Jesus.
And look at what he says in verse 42:
“And every day, in the temple and from house to house, they did not cease
teaching and preaching Jesus as the Christ.”
You’ve got to smile. You just can’t put these men
down! You just can’t stop these men! And what is it? What is it that drives the
apostles to do something that they know will lead to beatings and imprisonment,
and in a while, death? It’s their love of Jesus. They’re overwhelmed by the love
of Jesus. Their hearts and souls are consumed by the love of Jesus. They’ve come
to appreciate…they’ve come to understand that all their sins, though they be
red like crimson, in Jesus Christ they’re as white as snow. These men weren’t
concerned about this world any more. They knew that they had a city which is to
come, whose Builder and Maker is God. These men knew that to be absent from the
body is to be present with the Lord. That’s the way they lived. That’s the way
they testified. You didn’t need to teach these men to evangelize. You didn’t
need to give these men a system. Their love of Jesus drove them, in the temple
and from house to house, to teach and to preach that Jesus is the Christ.
I tell you tonight, this is Christianity. This is
Christianity. I’m sometimes not sure what it is that we do, but this is
Christianity: whole-souled commitment to Christ. First, last, beginning and end
and middle, they lived for Christ. They were prepared to die for Christ. Christ
was everything to them.
What does Charles Wesley say?
“Happy if, with my latest breath
I might but gasp His name;
Preach to all, and cry in death:
‘Behold, behold, the Lamb.’”
May God give us a little glimpse of the passion that drove
these early Christians to be out and out for Jesus Christ, and may it shake us
from our comfort and our preoccupation with ourselves, and to see that the most
important thing in all the world is making Christ known to others, to sinners,
whoever they may be.
Lord, we bow in Your presence awed by men that we
would honor as heroes, except that this is the way we’re meant to be. We are
ashamed at how little we love You in that way. And we pray tonight as we read
the Scriptures and meditate over this narrative – own our whole heart, we pray.
Take possession of all of us, and that we might live out and out for You, for
Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Please stand. Receive the Lord’s benediction.
Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and
the Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen.