If you would take up your Bibles and turn to Acts chapter 5; page 913 in your pew Bibles. Acts chapter 5, picking up where we left off last week in our series on the book of Acts.
You know when you live in SEC country, it’s hard to find allegiances stronger than SEC football and the schools that face each other on the football field each Saturday in the fall. In Acts, we’ve been reading about how the Christians were all gathered together and devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to the fellowship. To be fair, there were no home games the night before at that time! Football loyalties, school allegiances – they run deep. And you’ve probably seen those signs that say a “House Divided” – Ole Miss and State, Alabama, Auburn, South Carolina, Clemson – both in the same house, if you can believe that that’s true. A house divided. You see those signs, sometimes they’re displayed in all kinds of different ways. You can see them on bumper stickers, on license plate holders, on garden flags, on doormats. You can even get a “House Divided” sign to put on a baby’s onesie if you’re so inclined to do that! But to the true fans, to the loyal supporters, the dedicated, a house divided seems a little sad, doesn’t it? Maybe even sacreligious. A real fan would never put up with that kind of stuff.
Well as we turn back to Acts chapter 5 tonight, we find another account of the apostles and of the early church facing the persecution of the religious authorities. And really, it was a question of divided loyalties. Would they listen to the decrees of man, or would they listen to God? Would they value the things of man and of this world, or would they stake their lives on the things of God? It’s really not as easy of a question as you might think because their opposition in Acts chapter 5 is coming, after all, from the chief priests, and it’s coming from the captain of the temple. And it came from the religious council. Those are the things of God, right? Well maybe they deserve another look from us tonight because what’s clear in these opening pages of the book of Acts is that these two groups, the church and the Jewish religious leaders, they are on a collision course and only one will stand. One is of God and the other is of man. And like Gamaliel will say – we’ll see this in just a minute as we read – Gamaliel will say in verses 38 and 39, “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.”
So let’s study this passage along two lines tonight. We’ll kind of center it around Gamaliel. We’ll see first, Gamaliel’s council, and then secondly, Gamaliel’s counsel. Those are actually two different words! One – council; and the other is counsel. So those will be our two points tonight. Gamalie’s council and Gamaliel’s counsel. Before we read God’s Word, let’s pray and ask for His help and blessing.
Father, we do need Your help. We need Your guidance. We need the gift of the Holy Spirit that we see active and promised throughout this passage and throughout the whole book of Acts. We need Jesus to minister to us tonight. We need Him to do and to teach in our presence and we need You to give us the boldness that we see here to send us out to represent Your kingdom and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Speak Lord, for Your servants listen. We pray this in Jesus’ name, amen.
Acts chapter 5, starting in verse 12:
“Now many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles. And they were all together in Solomon’s Portico. None of the rest dared join them, but the people held them in high esteem. And more than ever believers were added to the Lord, multitudes of both men and women, so that they even carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats, that as Peter came by at least his shadow might fall on some of them. The people also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all healed.
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 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 your 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 a 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 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 that the Christ is Jesus.”
The grass withers and the flowers fall but the Word of our Lord endures forever.
This is now the second time that Peter and the apostles find themselves being questioned by the council in Jerusalem. The first time, if you remember, was when Peter and John had said the lame beggar, they said, “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” And the lame beggar rose up and he walked and they preached in Jesus Christ of Nazareth the resurrection from the dead. And what happened? The council arrested them and they charged them not to speak anymore to anyone in the name of Jesus. Now that was not a warning that the disciples were going to heed.
And now here we are in chapter 5 and the apostles are at it again. We find in verse 12, it says that, “Many signs and wonders were regularly done among the people by the hands of the apostles.” Now if there was any doubt about what kind of work and what kind of ministry this was, this was clearly a supernatural act of God. In fact, if you look at verse 15, it says they even “carried out the sick into the streets and laid them on cots and mats that as Peter came by, at least his shadow might fall on some of them.” This was an inexplicable work of God that was happening among them. And again, Peter and the apostles find themselves arrested and brought before the council to give an answer for what they were doing and what they were teaching. So here we have, in the book of Acts, this tension between the apostles and the council and it’s building. The conflict between these two groups is escalating here in the book of Acts. What’s the deal? What’s about on here? Why was there such opposition?
Well you see, this is really a clash of kingdoms. What you have here, taking place on the pages of the book of Acts, is a power struggle on a cosmic level. And this council that we read about in this chapter was the highest judicial body over the Jewish people in the city of Jerusalem at that time. And if we want to understand something about what’s going on, if we want to understand something about this conflict that we see in this chapter, we have to understand a little bit about the Roman tetrarch and about the high priest and the Sanhedrin and the Pharisees and the Saduccess. And if you’ve been in the church for any amount of time then you’re probably familiar with some of those words – words like Pharisee, Saduccee, Sanhedrin. But if you’re like me, then you’ve probably forgotten more about the Pharisees and Sadducees than you can remember most of the time. Who were these groups? What were they about? What’s going on? What were they about here in Jerusalem? Why is it so hard to remember what they are and what they were doing?
Well, at least a part of it is the fact that we really don’t know that much about the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the Sanhedrin. You know the only surviving writing from a Pharisee comes to us from the pen of the apostle Paul. And when he was writing, he was writing as a former Pharisee. That’s another reason why we don’t know as much about them. It’s that these groups that we find here in Acts chapter 5 in Jerusalem, they are former groups. There are no more Pharisees, technically speaking of course. There are no more Sadducees. There is no more Sanhedrin.
Back in 1807 in Paris, Napoleon assembled seventy-one rabbis from around Europe to come together to constitute le Grand Sanhedrin, or the Grand Sanhedrin. And the reason for him gathering these rabbis in 1807 in Paris was to come to a consensus about what were some of the basic Jewish beliefs at that time in Europe. Napoleon was wanting to understand how do the Jews fit into the French empire. Now as with so much of Jewish history, there was not a little bit of anti-semitism in his motivations. He was not all positive toward the Jews in gathering this Grand Sanhedrin. But that’s not really the point of why I bring it up. The point of brining up the Grand Sanhedrin of 1807 is that Napoleon was seeking to assemble for the first time in 1300 years this ancient Jewish court. It had been gone a long time.
And really, the truth of the matter is, its lifespan was not that long in the first place. You see, this council that we find in Acts chapter 5, it’s the Greek word, “sunedrion.” It’s the Sanhedrin. And the Sanhedrin was formed probably sometime in the Roman empire. And though it was made up of Jewish elders, really the DNA at the heart of the Sanhedrin was Greek; it was Helenistic. Think about Athens, Greece and about the Acropolis and the Parthenon and about the birthplace of democracy. It was there that the assembly met to represent the city of Athens and to decide on matters in their community. That was the Sanhedrin in Jerusalem as well. And instead of being made up of representatives of the ten tribes of Athens, the Sanhedrin was made up of the high priest and a mix of Pharisees and Sadducees. If you look at verse 17 it says, “But the high priest rose up and all who were with him, that is, the party of the Sadducees.” And then down in verse 34, “But a Pharisee in the council named Gamaliel stood up and spoke.” That’s the seventy-one members. That’s what makes up the bulk of the seventy-one members of the Sanhedrin, this council. It’s the high priest and a mix of Pharisees and Sadducees.
And again, although they were Jewish in background and ethnicity, there was much about these groups that were political and self-interested. The high priest, you see, he was appointed by the Roman tetrarch over the territory of Jerusalem. He was appointed by the ruler. And so not only was there opportunity for there to be government influence over the high priest, that oftentimes did happen. And you will read things or hear things about Annas the high priest and how he operated in many ways like a mob boss. He held power so tightly and so strongly. And the Sadducees, the Sadducees had more or less embraced the culture of the Roman empire because they felt that was their best way to have power and influence. The Pharisees were the opposite though. The Pharisees rejected the culture of the Roman empire. They wanted nothing more than to see the Romans expelled from Jerusalem and for the Jews to have autonomy in their homeland.
But what it comes down to, when you take all of that into account, is that the Sanhedrin was of man and it really had only superficial connections to the history of Old Testament, of Biblical Israel. It was of man. But what they did have, what they did have was a vested interest in holding on to whatever semblance of power and influence that they had at the time. And the more that the church grew in both influence, esteem and number, the more tightly the members of the Sanhedrin held onto their power and the more vigorously they opposed the members of the church. You see, they may have looked religious, they may have looked to be of God, but really they were of man. And when we are reading about them here in Acts chapter 5, their days are already numbered. And what Gamaliel says in verse 38 was actually true of the Sanhedrin. He says that if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail. That was Gamaliel’s counsel, Gamaliel’s advice.
And before we go there and look at that in more detail, let’s just pause for a moment. Let’s pause for a moment and think about our own lives. What are the things of man? What are the institutions, the authorities, the staples of our society that seem to have the most sway and influence over our lives, the things that demand our loyalty? I’ve already said something about divided houses and schools. And schools certainly do have that influence over us, don’t they? We can have an undue attachment to schools so many times. And parents, if you don’t think that’s true, just take note sometimes about how many of your conversations with your peers go back to where your children either go to school or where they are going to go to school in the next year or so. Schools take a lot of our attention. Sports are the same way. Sports will dominate the schedule. Sports will dominate the budgets. Sports will make seemingly normal people do crazy things.
I was reading a book about youth sports recently and the writer was talking about how he writes about this one season with his child in his hockey season. And he says, “In its intensities, the story of this season, which I have translated from life, mirrors the ups and downs experienced by every American parent. It can be football. It can be dance, fencing, baseball, basketball, soccer, theater or lacrosse. Here it happens to be hockey, where in the course of eight months, from August to April, my son and I experienced the highest highs and the lowest lows together. When in the spring of 2019 I asked my big sister why I cared so much, why I was losing my mind, she said, ‘This is what it’s like to send your kids into the world. Your child is not just like you or raised by you; he is you. And when something bad happens to him, it brings up things that are so deep and primal that it feels like you will die from it.’” All from sports! It holds a sway over our lives, doesn’t it? And good Chrisian parents will say all sorts of things to coaches and refs that would not stand anywhere else, except the only place where that kind of talk happens is in politics. And we’ll say all sorts of things about politicians that you would never say, dare to say about anyone else, because party allegiance is intense and patriotism can make people crazy.
And there are so many institutions, there are so many organizations that vie for our allegiance. It could be the firm or the practice or the club or a fraternity or a sorority. In fact, it seems to me so oftentimes that parents will spend more time and attention on connecting a child to a fraternity or a sorority when they go to college than they will connecting them to a local church there. There’s so many things, so many ways of seeking influence, looking for significance, for honor, for success. And you know if I am being honest, I’m going to have to put into that list church denominations as well. I want to be careful, because I don’t want to get myself into trouble, and that says a lot about how these things can have a sway over our lives. What are the councils? What are the Sanhedrins in our lives that demand our loyalty, that demand our allegiance? And how are we going to respond to those things and to their pressures and their expectations?
Well just notice, notice what we see in this chapter and notice how everything in Acts chapter 5 goes back to the difference between God and man. Because you see, it’s man who put the apostles in prison. And God brought them out. Verse 19, “An angel of the Lord opened the prison doors and brought them out.” Man told them not to teach in Jesus’ name. God, through the angel, said, “Go, stand in the temple and speak to the people all the words of this life.” Man said one thing; God said another. What were they going to do? What did Peter say in verse 29? “We must obey God rather than man.” And when they kept on preaching and their message was that man had killed Jesus by hanging Him on a tree, but God raised Him up, and man brought dishonor to their name, man brought dishonor to the name, in fact, it says in these verses. The name that we heard about, that we contemplated this morning thinking about the glory of God’s name from Psalm 119, they were bringing dishonor to the name. But they rejoiced because God counted them worthy to suffer dishonor for the honor of Christ’s name.
And in the end, their whole future, the whole trajectory of where this chapter is going, not only in these few verses but in all of history, it comes down to Gamaliel’s counsel, to what Gamaliel says. You see, Gamaliel was a Pharisee and he stood up and he said, “Basically, this is nothing new. We’ve seen this before, and it’s probably not going to last very long. It’s probably going to fade away. One time there was a man named Theudas and some years before he attracted a following, he caused a commotion. But what happened to Theudas? He died. And what happened when he died? It all came to nothing. And then the same way with Judas. Judas, he drew away some of the people after him, but he died and all those who followed after him were scattered.” Gamaliel was saying it was going to be the same with this situation, the same with this situation related to Jesus. Verse 38, “Keep away from these men. Let them alone. If 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.”
Gamaliel is right. In fact, he was saying something that was already written in Proverbs. Proverbs tell us, Proverbs chapter 16:9, “The heart of a man plans his way but the Lord establishes his steps.” Proverbs 19:21, “Many are the plans of the mind of man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.” You see, man sets up councils and senates and parties and tribes. And man uses pressure and force and fear and shame. But the things of man, the things of this world, they will fail and they will come to nothing. But the things of God, they will not be able to be overthrown. We don’t know much about the Pharisees and the Sadducees. We don’t know much about the Sanhedrin. Those things have been lost to the pages of history in many ways, but the teaching of the apostles and of the early church, the ministry of Jesus that is continuing in the book of Acts – here we are; we are right here! What Jesus began to do and to teach continues to be done and taught in this very room week after week after week. Every time we come together, every time we gather together, we hear and we celebrate and we rejoice because of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and because of repentance and the forgiveness of sins and the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the identity of the apostles, the way they identified themselves in this chapter – verse 32, “and we are witnesses to these things.”
Isn’t that what we come to do? As we come together to hear God’s Word and to pray and to sing together, we do it to worship and to witness. We witness to one another and to others what Jesus has done in history and in our lives. And that’s what we’re called to do whenever we leave here. Most fundamentally, we are to be witnesses, to be witnesses to Jesus and the cross and the resurrection, to live cross-shaped lives and to let Jesus be on our lips, to witness to the gift of the Holy Spirit, to forgiveness of sins, to new life, to fellowship with God, healing and joy; joy even in suffering. Because if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. It really is that simple. It’s the difference between being of God or being of man.
And I wonder, how much of our fickleness, how much of our being one foot in and one foot out, how much of our misplaced priorities and our divided loyalties come down to a matter of what’s of man and what’s of God? And you know the usual lines. You’ve heard it all before. That the coach scheduled practice. He scheduled this tournament that interferes with worship, that interferes with our day of rest. But if I don’t go, then I’m going to lose my playing time. I’m going to mess up my place on the team. And if I don’t compromise just this one time or in just this one area, I might not get that bid that I was hoping for. You have to go along with the ways of the guys. You have to talk with locker room talk. You have to cut some corners sometimes if you want to get ahead, if you want to advance, if you want to get that promotion. You have to dress in a certain way if you want to get noticed, if you want to be a part of the right group. Policy forbids saying anything about our faith in the workplace, in school. And if the government and the culture keeps on going in the way that it’s going, we are going to lose our religious liberties. We are going to lose our tax exempt status. We are going to have to change the way we do things. That’s just the way things are. We are not the ones who make the rules.
But, but Peter and the apostles’ answer – “We must obey God rather than men.” You see, we have a higher standard. We have a higher standard to obedience than what man demands and what man expects. And man may command what they wish, they may intimidate socially, financially, maybe even legally and physically, but we must obey man rather than God. And when it comes to the consequences, when it comes to the consequences of going against human institutions and authorities, if this plan is of man it will fail, but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow it. And all the kingdoms of this world, all the kingdoms of man have an expiration date. Ole Miss, State, Jackson Prep, JA, MRA, Butler Snow, UMC, Trustmark, Sigma Chi, Chi O, KA, JFC, AAU, SEC, the United States, China, Russia, Ukraine. These things all come to an end. We’re not servants of these things. We’re not servants of these places but we are servants of God where He has called us in those places because the kingdom of God, the things of God, they last. They will not fail. “We look not to the things that are seen, but to the things that are unseen, because the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” “The Lord is on my side, I will not fear. What can man do to me?” “If God is for us, who can be against us?”
You know, we talk sometimes about how we don’t face suffering, we don’t face persecution like some Christians do in other parts of the world. But if loyalty to God and obedience to His Word rather than to the word of man, if that causes us to lose popularity and promotion and playing time and political power and freedoms, that is suffering, that is persecution. The question is, “Are we willing to obey God rather than men? Are we willing to live for the things of God rather than the things of men?” That’s not easy to do. It’s not easy at all. And there will be a cost. For the apostles, they let them go for now, but not before they whipped and beat them. There was a cost for them. They were already experiencing the cost at this point in the book of Acts. But you know what? There was also a great reward. There was a great reward for them. Verse 41 says, “They left the presence of the council rejoicing, 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 that the Christ is Jesus.” They had joy, they had delight, they had blessing because their suffering, their dishonor brought honor to the name of Jesus.
And you know the stories. You know the stories about the martyrs and about the covenanters and those who gave their life at the stake and at the rack and at the mouths of lions. You know how the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church, but we’re not there. And I hope that I would be able to make that kind of stand if called upon to do that, but I doubt that many of us will be recorded in the pages of history with memorable speeches and valiant deaths. Maybe, but I doubt it. But it could be something much less spectacular and it could be something much more unnoticed. In fact, a few weeks ago, a visitor to our worship service came up to me at the end of the service and she said how, she didn’t go into much detail, but she said how she had lost her job as a teacher for leading a Bible study outside of school with some of her students. Witnessing for Jesus cost her her job, and that was in Birmingham, Alabama. It wasn’t far away. But you see, there’s joy, there’s joy in being counted worthy to suffer dishonor for the name of Jesus.
And maybe you’re here tonight and you’ve given yourself to all sorts of pursuits and you’ve tried to do it on your own strength, you’ve tried to bring it about to your own benefit, but it doesn’t last and it never satisfies. This passage is an invitation; it’s an invitation to something that will not be overthrown, to something that will never fail. And it’s life, it’s life in Christ because it’s not like Theudas and it’s not like Judas and their movements died when they died. No, this life, this life in Christ, it begins with Jesus’ death and His resurrection. He still lives and He still reigns and there’s room for you. There’s forgiveness. There is the gift of the Holy Spirit. There is life. There is joy for everyone who comes to Jesus, who calls upon Him and follows Him by faith. That’s the offer of the Gospel. That’s the good news to us tonight – is to come and to be a part of that which will not fail, that which is of God, and to give our entire lives to that. And if Jesus is so great, and if His grace is so good to us, then isn’t it worth doing all that we can to bring honor to His name?
Let’s pray that we would be counted so worthy.
Our Father, we give You thanks for the tremendous example of the apostles, strengthened by the Holy Spirit, carried about by the ministry of Jesus Himself and His authority, being with them and for them. We thank You for that same ministry in our midst. We thank You for the good news of the Gospel, of Jesus’ resurrection, His victory over sin, His victory over death, the life that is in His name, full of joy. We so want that and desire that and seek that and need it. Would You help us to be bold in the places where you call us in our responsibilities, our obligations, in all of our pursuits, that we would seek Your kingdom above our own, that we would seek Your kingdom rather than the kingdom of this world, and that You would receive all the honor for it. That You would use us to bring others to know Jesus and to respond in faith, to receive this good gift of life. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name, amen.