The Acts of the Apostles 22

Subtitle: Rejoicing in Persecution

Acts 5:40-42.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 23, 2022.

There are many things in life that cause people to rejoice.  We rejoice at weddings and at the birth of children.  We rejoice at graduations and getting that first job as an adult.  Of course, there are many similar things of lesser caliber that we rejoice over as well.

However, it is not common for people to rejoice when they are being persecuted by others for the sake of following Jesus Christ.  Yet, if we are truly following Jesus, we should be growing in our ability to do so, and far more Christians should be spiritually mature enough to do it.  I do not mean in theory, or in pretense.  I really do mean that we should internally and externally rejoice when we are persecuted for our faith in Jesus.

Today we are going to see the Apostles of Jesus rejoicing because they were being persecuted.  May God bless us with even half the joy that they had on that day!

Let’s get into our passage.

The Apostles are released (vs. 40)

The Apostles of Jesus were in a tough spot with the council angrily planning their death right in front of them.  It seemed that the same thing that happened with Jesus would now happen to them.  Yet, something unexpected happens.  Gamaliel, a rabbi with a lot of clout on the council, stands up and gives a speech strongly cautioning the group against putting the men to death.  This is where we left off last week.

In verse 40, we are told that his speech “persuaded them.”  He is a very learned man who knows this assembly well.  He cannot easily be dismissed by the high priest and the Sadducees on the council.  It is also possible that he has caught them off guard, and the are persuaded more out of a lack of preparation to resist his logic. 

All this notwithstanding, Gamaliel is not the hero here.  It really is God who has turned them from this path of executing the Apostles.  God often works through people, both the righteous who are willing to be used of Him and the unrighteous who are used unwittingly by Him.  Thus, it is God who has set them free.

We should remind ourselves of how God protected Daniel in the lion’s den.  He sent an angel who was clearly unseen by others.  How many times was Israel outnumbered by their enemies, but God sent an angel, or stirred them to fight one another, or pummeled them with hailstones, etc.  Many are the methods that God employs to help the righteous, and sometimes it involves using those who are unrighteous.  Yes, I am saying that Gamaliel is unrighteous.  He is resisting and standing against the clear leading of the Spirit of God in his day.

However, God does not always set His servants free from the hands of those bent on persecuting them.  Everyone of these Apostles would be heavily persecuted by their fellow Jews, and by the Gentiles.  Most of them would be executed for the sake of Jesus as martyrs down the road.

Jesus himself had warned Israel that he was sending them prophets and that they would persecute them.

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  Because you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets.’

“Therefore you are witnesses against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets.  Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ guilt.  Serpents, brood of vipers!  How can you escape the condemnation of hell?  Therefore, indeed, I send you prophets, wise men, and scribes: some of them you will kill and crucify, and some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from city to city, that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar.  Assuredly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”  Matthew 23:29-36 (NKJV)

They would become guilty of all the righteous blood shed on the earth because they were doing this over the top of the powerful light of God given in their generation.  Cain is the primary, or original, type of this.  He slew his brother even though he had been warned by God Himself.  He had great light and sinned against it.  There is a rejection of God and truth, and an embrace of wickedness.  We see the same thing with Mystery Babylon in the book of the Revelation of Jesus.  Revelation 18:24 says, “And in her was found the blood of prophets and saints, and of all who were slain on the earth.” 

The light and the glory of Jesus Christ has spread across this world, and many who would speak of Jews as Christ-killers will themselves become the greatest persecutors of his true followers.  It has been figured that, from AD 1540 to 1580, papal Rome had over 900,000 Protestants killed.  However, those numbers pale in comparison to what can be done today.  Perhaps we will see the days when Protestants themselves call for the death of those they disagree with.  I pray not.  Yet, the rise of Pentecostalism in the early 1900’s received much social persecution from the Protestant churches they were being kicked out of.  Perhaps even Pentecostals will join in the fray of persecution.  This is always the challenge.  Will we allow ourselves to make the institution an idol and persecute those who refuse to do so?  Or, will we allow Jesus to lead us along the path that he has chosen?

Friend, hear me.  You had better flee to Jesus and deliver yourself from this wicked and perverse generation.  No denomination can save you.  No church can save you, only Jesus can!  I pray that you as an individual, and this church as a local body, and the Assemblies of God will hold the line in standing with Jesus.  However, our faith is anchored in Jesus, and not in an institution.

We are told that they are beaten and ordered not to speak in the name of Jesus, but it would not stay that way for long.  God had a certain work that they had to accomplish, and no one could stop them, until they had accomplished what He had sent them to do.  Yet, they were able to make the apostle’s lives difficult.

In our generation, we do not like it when sinful people, even sinful “Christians,” make our lives difficult.  However, this is the call to all who would follow Jesus.  Following Jesus is not easy because he is headed to a cross, and he tells you to pick up and carry your own cross in following him.  Praise God that there is coming a day when Christ will come in his glory, and the sons of God will be manifested to a world that is not worthy of those whom God has sent!  It is not yet clear who we are, but God Himself declares that we are His children.  He will manifest it on that day!

We should now turn our attention to the response of the Apostles.

The response of the Apostles (vs. 41-42)

Imagine how you would respond to being hauled before the Snohomish County Superior Court judge, or the supreme Court of the State of WA, or the House of Representatives of these united States of America.  What if you were unlawfully detained, questioned, beaten, and then told to quit talking about Jesus or you would get worse?  I know that it seems an impossibility and hard to fathom.  Yet, this is what had happened to these men.  How did they respond?  Maybe we had better focus more on how we would respond?

We are told that they responded by rejoicing in their suffering.  No, they were not rejoicing that they were released, but that they had suffered for Jesus!  Why would they do such an odd thing?  We could chalk it up to the fact that they had failed before the cross to stand with Jesus.  Perhaps this was an opportunity to prove their devotion and love to their Lord after having failed so miserably before.  However, I believe it is more than that.

Jesus had prepared them for this moment as a part of their discipleship.  The Gospels record several places where Jesus addressed this.

“Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all manner of evil against you falsely for My sake.  Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”  Matthew 5:10-12 (NKJV)

Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of Man’s sake.  Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!  For indeed your reward is great in heaven, for in like manner their fathers did to the prophets.”  Luke 6:22-23 (NKJV)

They were not suffering because of living a sinful lifestyle, and rejecting the Word of God.  They were suffering shame for the name of Jesus and doing righteousness! 

Public humiliation, or public shame, is one of the ways that societies and governments have kept people in check through the years.  However, these men were more interested in pleasing Jesus than they were in pleasing people.  Leonard Ravenhill said it similar to this.  If we displease God, then it doesn’t matter if we please men, and if we please God, then it doesn’t matter if we displease men.  God help us to quit being people who are trying to please others at the expense of pleasing God.  God give us enough backbone to follow Him even when other Christians become our greatest persecutors and call us heretics, or accuse us of perverting the faith. 

This was the shame that these Apostles were suffering.  They were treated as traitors to Israel and to God.  They would be excommunicated and cut off as heretics accused of working for the devil.

I have saved the phrase “counted worthy” for last.  They were rejoicing, but Luke adds a sense of being counted worthy to suffer.

Do we have this whole issue of suffering backwards?  Do we think that the more we know God the less persecution we will encounter?  This is not an accurate understanding of a man like Daniel.  Yes, the lions did not eat him, and he was restored to his position.  However, Daniel was not protected from suffering persecution.  These men had laid in wait and used their power, position, and craft against him.  Martyrs are clearly suffering, but my point is that even the great examples of those who were protected by God (remember David?) suffered great persecution for standing with Him.

We may think that there is not as much persecution against Christians in America because we are far more civilized than those other nations.  We are somehow better and more righteous than they.  But what if we are not living lives worthy of suffering for Christ?  Maybe us pastors are living lives that do not have enough faith to preach the truth in the face of opposition?  Perhaps believers are afraid of what may happen if they get serious about warning others around them about a future without Jesus.  Or simply, maybe we are consumed with the lusts of our flesh instead of the eternal work of the Lord Jesus that the Spirit of God is calling us to?  O, friend, if you have ever sensed the Spirit of God before, then sense Him now.  Jesus is looking for workers in the fields, and those workers will encounter persecution to varying levels.  Will you answer His call?

We are told by Luke that the Apostles never stopped teaching and proclaiming the Gospel, that Jesus is the Messiah!  They did not surrender for even one minute!  They did not obey the unlawful command from the lawless authorities.  Rather, they continued to do what Christ had told them to do.  They preached Jesus as Christ to the people in his power and authority.  They declared him to be the Anointed one promised by God the Father.  This anointed one would be the savior of mankind, and he would have authority over all in heaven and on the earth.  He is the King of kings, and the Lord of lords!

I believe that Jesus is removing the middle ground here in America.  To our flesh, it is a scary day, just as the night of betrayal was to the Apostles.  But when you get on the other side of Pentecost, the Holy Spirit gives you a vision of what lies ahead!  May God help us to be a people who are seeking to be fille with His Spirit.  May we be a people hearing the Holy Spirit, repenting of lethargy, and exercising faith in him through loving obedience.  In short, may we truly be his disciples and take on the image of Jesus Christ! 

Persecution audio

The Waiting King

Psalm 110:1; Ephesians 1:19-22; Hebrews 2:5-10.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on December 12, 2021.

We know that we are told to be patient and trust that God is waiting for the right time in order to bring this present age to an end, and to bring in the promised Kingdom Age.  Of course, this is not a waiting of inactivity.  Instead, we live our life in order to glorify God, regardless what we face, and we testify to others about the Savior, Jesus Christ.

Yet, we rarely think about the fact that God has not asked us to do anything that He is not doing Himself.  Today, we are going to look at the reality that our Lord Jesus is also patiently waiting, and yet not inactive.

Let’s get into our first passage.

The now, but not yet, kingdom

Psalm 110 is a Messianic Psalm that prophesies about the coming Kingdom of Messiah.  It is quoted three unique times in the New Testament.  The first is by Jesus himself during the week leading up to the crucifixion (Matthew 22:44, and in the other synoptic Gospels).

On one hand, Jesus is pointing out this psalm to the religious leaders to silence their badgering of him.  The rabbis generally saw this psalm as messianic, but there were some cryptic aspects to it.  The Messiah is of the line of David, the ultimate Son of David who would come and restore the kingdom of God.  However, verse one has David calling the Messiah, “my Lord.”  If the Messiah is David’s offspring, in what way can he be David’s Lord?  Before we jump in with some suggestions, we should understand that the culture in the Near East was not like ours.  This would hit the religious teachers as a difficult puzzle.  There is something about this Son of David that would be so unique that David recognized him as greater than himself.  David literally says, “Yahweh [Jehovah] says to my Lord…”

The Apostle Peter also points to this verse during his sermon at the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:34).  There he points out that this is what has happened with Jesus.  He was victorious over the grave, but the Father has decreed that he is to sit at His right hand.  Of course, Peter also points out that Jesus isn’t just sitting there twiddling his thumbs.  He was directly responsible for the pouring out of the Holy Spirit upon God’s remnant people.

The writer of Hebrews also points to this verse in Hebrews 1:13. The emphasis there is that God does not minister to angels, or serve them.  Rather, angels minister on His behalf to us.

All of these passages, point out the concept of a kingdom that was initiated in the first century after Christ’s resurrection, and yet had an aspect that wasn’t yet.  These verses picture God the Father having the Messiah sit at His right hand until his enemies are made his footstool. 

The ascension of Jesus was clearly preached as a fulfillment of this prophecy.  Where is Jesus?  He is at the right hand of the Father.  This implies a picture of participation in the rule of the Father.

One should not miss the use of the word “until” in this verse.  This sitting and waiting of the Messiah will not last forever.  This makes the phrase following “until” very important.

The phrase is until “I make your enemies your footstool.” (NKJV and ESV).  This almost sounds like Jesus does nothing and it is the Father who “makes” the enemies of Jesus his footstool.  However, there is more going on with this verb than can be seen in the translation.  I would point out that Revelation 19 does not picture Jesus setting still and the Father subduing his enemies.  Jesus clearly participates in this.  So, what about this phrase?

First, the verb is a continuous thing that is future to its writing.  It points to a time when God will be making the enemies of Christ to be under his feet.  Second of all, the verb can also mean to make in the sense of appointing or decreeing.  As we are going to see, there are ways that the enemies of Christ are already under his feet, and ways that they are not.  These can fit nicely with the sense that there is both a decreeing that happens and an enforcing of the decree.  Thus, there are ways in which this is “now, but not yet.”

There does develop a confusion over just when this “enforced” aspect of the kingdom would occur within the Church.  The early Church understood that they had spiritually joined the Kingdom of God, but that the enforcement of all things under Jesus, would not occur until he returned.  They saw themselves as warning others of a coming kingdom that they could spiritually join ahead of time by faith in Jesus.  It wasn’t until the A.D. 300’s that this began to change.  First of all, the emperor Constantine issued an edict of toleration in A.D. 313.  This gave to Christians the protection of the empire and shut down much of their persecution.  By the time we get to the 390’s, things have changed.  The emperor Theodosius was a Christian and was making paganism and its rituals a capital crime.  Historians often point to this vast change of the Roman empire as a separate kingdom (Byzantine Kingdom).  However, that is somewhat special pleading.

Over the next century, Bishop Augustine and others fueled a reinterpretation of the kingdom to fit with what they saw happening on the ground.  They still held to the believe that Jesus would come back, but now they understood the kingdom to have been handed over to the Church as Christ’s representative.  Jesus would rule over it spiritually from heaven instead of in person on earth.  The Church would march forth and bring all the enemies of Christ under the feet of Jesus in the name of the Father.  We are now at the end of 1600 years of the Church wrestling with how to make that happen. (Note: not all Christian groups adopted this modified view of the Kingdom, nor hold to it today, but it is widely prevalent). 

The patience of our Lord

Just as Christians have been called to be patient, we must see that Christ is being patient too.  We can be guilty of thinking of patience as something only we humans have to do.  God is not just choosing patience.  His nature is patient, where ours is not.  It is God’s patience with a lost world, with sinners, that we must emulate.  Similarly, the Messiah is put in a now, but not yet, situation that calls for patience.  Surely, after Jesus is resurrected, it would be the time to attack and take over the kingdom.  Yet, the Father says, “Sit at my right hand until…”  This is contra our human nature.

Let’s walk through several New Testament passages in order to get a handle on this and perhaps also unravel some of the confusion.

Ephesians 1:19-22 seems to be clear that everything is already under Christ’s feet in the 1^st Century A.D.  Verse 22 says that God “put all things under His feet…”  The Greek word used for “put” is a verb that often means “put” in the sense of appointing.  All things in heaven and on earth have been given a station that is under the feet of Christ.  Clearly not all things are choosing to submit to that “setting,” or appointing by God.

This all makes sense as early Christians were persecuted to the point of being fed to lions for Rome’s pleasure.  They were rejecting the rule of Christ.  Neither Rome nor the majority of the world came under it even in the sense of being forced into that position.  Yet, it is taught and believed in the first century that Jesus has a position that is above all powers and authority.

Now, let’s look at Hebrews 2:5-10.  This passage is a little long, but verse 5 obviously states that the time of subjection to Christ is in the “world to come.”  The Church Age had begun.  Christians were proclaiming this appointment by God the Father of His Son to the place of a cosmic Emperor.  This gave/gives room to people to choose allegiance or not without being forced.  Yet, the “until” would eventually come to an end.  Jesus would not stay in heaven forever.

In fact, verse 8 even recognizes that what is promised, and what we are seeing in this age, are at odds with each other.  “We do not see all things under his feet.”  This reminds us that part of the patience of our Lord begins with the incarnation, his suffering as a man, and now his patient waiting in heaven.  Our Savior Lord ahs not asked us to do anything that he isn’t doing himself.

So, verse 10 ends making the point that it is fitting for a suffering people to have a suffering savior.  No matter how hard you have it, it has always been hard for our Lord Jesus.  He is not absent, but is our fearless captain leading us through the suffering, the waiting, and into the joyful reward that lies on the others side.

Another passage that is important is 1 Corinthians 15:26. All of these passages have Jesus in the heavens waiting.  However, in 1 Corinthians 15:26, we are told that “the last enemy that will be destroyed is death.”  This is actually pictured in Revelation 20:14, “then death and hades were thrown into the Lake of Fire.”  It is not the Church’s job to put death and hades into the Lake of Fire, but that is the path that some have put themselves on.  Notice that at least the completion of the enemies being both appointed and made to be under the feet of Christ is after his second coming.

This brings us back to today.  If God grants repentance to a large number of our society, then our nation will see great political change.  However, there is a tension here.  We can be tempted to see favorable events as a sign from God to “force” the issue of the dominion of Christ.  God help us to become like Him, patient and yet quick to glorify God in what we do and speak, rather than trying to force the world into subjection to Christ.  That day is coming, but it is not this day.

Waiting King audio

Lessons from the Underground Church 13: True Identity

This is a 13 week series that will not be posted on our website.  If you would like an audio of the sermon or a written article on the sermon contents then please contact the church at AbundantLifeEverett@frontier.com.  You can also leave a message at 425.438.1500.  Thank you for your interest.

Lessons from the Underground Church 13: True Identity

This is a 13 week series that will not be posted on our website.  If you would like an audio of the sermon or a written article on the sermon contents then please contact the church at AbundantLifeEverett@frontier.com.  You can also leave a message at 425.438.1500.  Thank you for your interest.