Text: Acts 5:33-42, Title: Surprise Endings, Date/Place: NRBC, 9/16/07, AM
A. Opening illustration: the surprise ending of Cold Mountain or The Six Sense
B. Background to passage: After Peter and John’s bold defiance of the Sanhedrin, as well as their bold witness to the Sanhedrin, they are on a collision course with death. If some consensus could have been reached, they probably would have been stoned. But an all-sufficient and all-sovereign God used a moderate Pharisee named Gamaliel to spare the lives of the Apostles for now, for their time had not come. And so just about the time we think it is over for the apostles, God delivers in an unusual way. A Pharisee argues for them! God has a lot of surprise endings for your life and mine to situations that we can’t see how He will do it, so keep holding on to His sufficient grace and face your trials with your eyes wide-open and fixed on Christ!
C. Main thought: In our text we will see three aspects of God’s surprise endings to their second imprisonment and trial before the Sanhedrin.
A. A Pragmatic Half-Truth (v. 33-39)
1. Gamaliel was by far the most well-respected rabbi of this time. He was the leader of a rabbinical school, of which Paul was a student. And probably the leader of all the Pharisees on the council. It is said that when he died, the glory of the Torah ceased, and separateness and purity died. He arose, asked the prisoners to be removed and gave a speech that seemed to be good theology, but in reality was only a half-truth. He argued that God was sovereign and man-originated movements would come to nothing. But in the sense that he argues, it is on partially true. God is absolutely sovereign! But just because something succeeds from a human standpoint, doesn’t mean that God’s blessing or endorsement upon it. Cults and other religions. In fact sometimes God does inexplicable things that cause evil men or circumstances to appear to triumph for the day. However, in those circumstances God is still doing all that He pleases!
2. Ex 33:18-19, Isa 46:10, Dan 4:35, Ps 115:3, 135:16, Eph 1:11, Rom 9:15, Deut 4:25-27, Hab 1:6,
3. Illustration: James Boice says, "God’s self-existence means that he is not answerable to us or to anybody. Although He sometimes explains things to us, he does not have to and often he does not. God does not have to explain himself to anybody." We don’t seem to want to worship a God who’s too big, too authoritative. We seem more comfortable with a deity who’s more manageable. As they came near to set fire to the wood, they noticed that the king was missing a thumb. Being superstitious, they never ate anyone who was less than whole. So untying the king, they sent him on his way…. And he proceeded to tell the friend all that had just happened. "And so, I am very sorry for sending you to jail for so long. It was bad for me to do this." "No," his friend replied, "This is good!" “What do you mean, ’This is good’? How could it be good that I sent my friend to jail for a year?" "If I had not been in jail, I would have been with you."
4. We should exult in the truth that God is Sovereign. That His Name at its core means freedom. That a central tenet of what it means to be God, and the essence of His glory is Freedom and Sovereignty. And we should love that, and revel in that, and rejoice in that, and worship because of that. The Lord Reigns, let the nations tremble. The Lord God Omnipotent Reigns, let the people fear and worship! But don’t let this create a pie in the sky, prosperity gospel. Make sure your theology is systematic and fits together and fits biblical revelation. For God doesn’t always do what we would consider good things. But know that all things that He does are good and purposeful. Do not allow your experience or the experience of others, be them human success or failure, determine their rightness. Stand upon the revelation of a Sovereign God and be firm. Don’t be afraid to call heresy heresy. Don’t settle for half-truths, ground yourself in the Word of God. God is victorious always, but sometimes His victories are achieved by allowing Satan to take a couple battles.
B. A Philosophy of Indecision (v. 33-40)
1. The worst part about the advice that Gamaliel made was it essentially was a “wait and see” strategy. He told them to just see if it turns out that God is really in this. He ignored the miracles, the prison releases, the popularity of the apostles, and said lets wait and see. What is he waiting on! An email from God saying that He is in it? Did he miss the darkness, earthquakes, and dead people walking around Jerusalem on crucifixion day? As far as we know, Gamaliel never heeded his own advice, and died without coming to know about the Man that the apostles continue to turn the world upside down about.
2. Heb 3:15, 4:7, 2 Cor 6:2, Luke 11:23,
3. Illustration: “Delay is the ultimate form of denial.” When the future president did so, he found one square-toed and one round-toed shoe! “This will teach you to never let people make decisions for you,” the cobbler said to his indecisive customer. “I learned right then and there,” Reagan said later, “if you don’t make your own decisions, someone else will.” Tell about Ronnie and the prisoner named Jason, and about how he just didn’t understand that God is dealing with him, tell about the man who got up in the sermon to go pray because he knew that he might not go if he waited, so he just went.
4. Delay and indecision are terribly effective tactics of Satan used against unbelievers and believers alike. We rationalize and explain to ourselves why we should wait. We are afraid of what people might say or think. We worry about the consequences toward our lives, or if we fail. But we walk by faith, not by sight. Have you ever thought or heard: I know I need to get saved, but there are things in my life that I need to get straight first. OR, I am just not ready. OR, maybe I will pray when I get home. Let me remind you that indecision for Christ is a decision—it is rejection. We do the same thing with ministries that we are called to do. OR, churches that we should join. OR, friends that we know we should not hang out with. To delay is to side with Satan against God. if you are here today and you know you are not saved, let his be the day that you stop deciding for Satan, and put your faith in Christ. Sell all that you have, follow Jesus. If you have been led to join this church, or get involved in this ministry, stop being disobedient, step out in faith. There is so much to do, and so little time. The urgency is real.
C. A Divinely Empowered Joy and Persistence (v. 40-42)
1. The final surprise is the reaction of the Apostles. You got to wonder if the council really heeded Gamaliel after they flogged the apostles (39-1). But the flogging didn’t produce anger, or bitterness, or discouragement, but joy! This is anti-cultural, anti-Baptist, and anti-human. These disciples were overjoyed that God would count them worthy to suffer disgrace for the name of Christ! Then they went and began to teach and preach from house to house and in the temple. Every day they taught the word.
2. Rom 5:3, Jam 1:2, Matt 5:10-12, Rom 8:37-39, 2 Tim 3:12, 1 Peter 4:12-14, John 15:19-20,
3. Illustration: The Christian just keeps right on moving and triumphing over life and glorying within tribulation, enduring longsuffering within and attitude of joyfulness. Perhaps this has never been portrayed more graphically than in the movie “The Hiding Place.” The true story of Corrie Ten Boom while within a concentration camp north of Berlin, Germany. Here are her words. “Far away from my home in Holland, the barracks where we lived, my sister Betsy and me, now was to be within the shadow of a crematory. Everyday about 600 bodies were burned there while yet alive. When I saw the smoke go up in the air I asked myself, “When will it be my time to die?” I did not know before hand that I should be set free by a miracle from God, a blunder of man one week before the Germans killed all the women of my age.” She says, “I have looked death in the eye not once, but several times. When you see death within people’s eyes, you wake up to the reality that the next one could be your own death. What a joy it was that Jesus was with me and that I knew that He had died on a cross for all the sins of the whole world and also for my sins as well. Now listen to these words! “I was not afraid! I knew that when they killed me I would go to the Father within heaven. How can we know how rich we are in Jesus and his abiding presence? By looking at the cross. Sometimes in that terrible concentration camp we had to stand naked. They stripped us of all our clothes. Seven times I went through that ordeal. The first time was the worst. I could hardly bear it. I have never felt so cold, so miserable, so humbled in all my life. I said to my sister Betsy, “I cannot bear this,” but then suddenly if was as if I had seen Jesus at the cross. The bible tells us that they took his garments as he hung there naked. By my own suffering I could now understand the suffering of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and it made me so thankful that I could feel the way he felt. “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my life, my soul, my all.” Folks, Corrie is right! We must never for forget that we follow a scarred captain. Should we not also have our own scars? Within her darkest moments she didn’t loose her note of joy. In his sermon on dealing with trials, Nashville pastor Byron Yawn points out: "For most, especially American Christians, even the remotest suggestion that there could be value in our suffering is viewed as uncaring and insensitive. We have been conditioned by our culture to believe the opposite. A collective attitude that exalts comfort and views personal happiness as the end of all things has blurred our perspective. There is no place for pain in American Christianity. "Because of this distorted perception, we rarely stop to search for the ’hand of God’ in the midst of our trouble. Seeking to understand God’s purposes in our pain is all but foreign. As a result, embracing pain’s role in our sanctification is usually the farthest thing from our minds. As one so aptly put it, ’Most people count it all joy when they escape trials. James said to count it all joy in the midst of trials.’ We need to come to grips with a significant truth: God’s will is not our happiness, but His Glory. The two may, or may not, be directly related." It’s a power that assures me I don’t need to be afraid of suffering, self-giving love, because it’s the only way I will ever fulfill my humanity, and find my purpose, and experience true joy and peace."-Bonhoeffer,
4. We must heed the warning of Hebrews not to let a root of bitterness grow up inside of you. Allow painful situations to produce joy. The goal of this church is to produce disciples that laugh and rejoice in the face of persecution. Our goal is to raise up disciples that will let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also, and embrace the joy of the glory and sufficiency of Christ. We should be growing in our ability and endurance of suffering instead of growing in our complaining about it. The price of fulfilling the great commission is and will be suffering. Ask the 160,000 martyrs this year, and those that follow Christ because of them. Should we expect anything less than back to the Great Commission from these guys? They bound up their wounds, then got back to work. I would to God that we were all that persistent in sharing our faith.
A. Closing illustration: I like the story about a professor who sat at his desk one evening working on the next day’s lectures. His housekeeper had laid that days mail and papers at his desk and he began to shuffle through them discarding most to the wastebasket. He then noticed a magazine, which was not even addressed to him but delivered to his office by mistake. It fell open to an article titled "The Needs of the Congo Mission".
Casually he began to read when he was suddenly consumed by these words: "The need is great here. We have no one to work the northern province of Gabon in the central Congo. And it is my prayer as I write this article that God will lay His hand on one - one on whom, already, the Master’s eyes have been cast - that he or she shall be called to this place to help us." Professor Albert Schweitzer closed the magazine and wrote in his diary: "My search is over." He gave himself to the Congo.
That little article, hidden in a periodical intended for someone else, was placed by accident in Schweitzer’s mailbox. By chance he noticed the title. It leaped out at him. Chance? Nope. It was one of God’s surprises.
