SImon Peter No.10 The People who got noticed

Let's turn together to the Word of God as it's contained in the Book of Acts, Chapter 4. The Book of Acts, Chapter 4, at verse 1. The priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. They were greatly disturbed because the apostles were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. They seized Peter and John, and because it was evening, they put them in jail until the next day.

But many who heard the message believed, and the number of men grew to about 5,000. The next day, the rulers, elders, and teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. Ananias, the high priest, was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and the other men of the high priest's family.

They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them, by what power or by what name did you do this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, rulers and elders of the people, if we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple, and they're asked how he was healed, well, then know this, you and all the people of Israel, it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. He is the stone you build as rejected, which has become the capstone. Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.

And so to verse 13, which is the text verse for our message this evening, when they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished, and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say. So they ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together.

What are we going to do with these men, they asked. Everybody living in Jerusalem knows that they have done an outstanding miracle, and we cannot deny it. But to stop this thing from spreading any further among the people, we must warn these men to speak no longer to anyone in this name.

Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God's sight to obey you rather than God, for we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard. After further threats, they let them go.

They could not decide how to punish them, because all the people were praising God for what had happened, for the man who was miraculously healed was over 40 years old. On their release, Peter and John went back to their own people and reported all that the chief priests and elders had said to them. When they heard this, they raised their voices together in prayer to God.

Sovereign Lord, they said, you made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them. You spoke by the Holy Spirit through the mouth of your servant, our father David. Why do the nations rage and the people's plot in vain? The kings of earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the Lord and against his anointed one.

Indeed, Herod and Pontius Pilate met together with the Gentiles and the people of Israel in this city to conspire against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed. They did what your power and will had decided beforehand should happen. Now, Lord, consider their threats and enable your servants to speak your word with great boldness.

Stretch out your hand to heal and perform miraculous signs and wonders through the name of your holy servant Jesus. After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

Amen. May God bless his word to us this evening. Almighty God, to whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of your Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love you and worthily magnify your holy name through Christ our Lord.

Amen. We offer to you the following moments of this service. And we ask that you will fill them with a sense of your presence.

And may our hearts be sensitive to your voice and our wills obedient to the sovereignty of your spirit. And this we pray in the blessed name of your son, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Now, will you turn to the word of God and to the chapter Hugh read? And to that 13th verse. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. And they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Just assume for a moment that to be a Christian carried a capital offense. In other words, you will be hung. Would there be enough evidence to convict you? Now, that's not just an abstract principle in some countries.

It's a very real question. So, I want to assume that we're not in the United Kingdom, but Saudi Arabia or Gaddafi's Libya. Where freedom of expression of Christianity is not tolerated.

Where conversion could well mean that you face the death penalty. So, get those little cogs working at the back of your mind and listen to my challenge once more from the pulpit. If Christianity was a capital offense, would there be sufficient evidence to hang you? You see, this is what my text is implying in regard to a couple of men.

It was increasingly obvious that they were Christian men. And as a result, as I will explain, they were risking everything at the human level. So, here are my relevant questions coming up, breaking them a little further apart from my text, but relating them to you.

Are you a Christian? Is it worth being a Christian? How many people know that you are a Christian? I think I would like to be the president for the movement for the removal of bathroom mirrors. I can think of nothing worse in a house, first off in a morning, than to find yourself in the bathroom with a frontal reflection of you on the mirror. I mean, maybe it doesn't put you off, but it does put me off.

I like to think that I am not quiet, like the mirror indicates I am. And the problem is that mirrors don't lie. It was Rabbi Burns who said, Lord, give us the gift that thou canst give us to see ourselves as others see us.

I think I once told you my school days, that is as a teacher, in a blackboard jungle situation in Tottenham, we tried to get the kids to spruce themselves up. And they did look a mess, and they don't need to have looked as bad as they did. So our head of English, who was always out of touch with reality, he came from Oxford, he said, let's get a mirror.

And let's put it up at the end of the corridor outside the assembly point. And when the youngsters come out of assembly and they get a look, as to what they really are like, it will work magic. The following day, there will be vast improvement.

He argued this with great cogency at the staffroom meeting. And we did, at least the caretaker did what he was instructed. It didn't make a figure of difference.

Not a bit. The kids still looked as messy as they had been before. Here are men who look like Christians to those who themselves are not Christians.

They were noticed as being followers of the Lord Jesus Christ. Peter and John, they'd spent a day, a night in the cell. And they were brought before what I guess was equivalent to the old Bailey of those days.

And the reaction of the judges, the reaction of the barristers, of the prosecuting council, is what is contained within our text. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. And they took note that these men had been with Jesus.

Now I want to review that assessment. Because it seems to me that there is within it at least three things that cause us to give it attention. The first conclusion I make is this, that courage has a language of its own.

The second one I make, which will be of benefit to some of you, education is not necessarily an advantage. And the third one, that within this assessment there is an incredibly accurate conclusion. Courage has a language of its own.

When they saw the courage of Peter and John, you couldn't help but be impressed, could you? When Terry Waite was sprung from jail, when he was released from the years of captivity, you were aware of the fortitude that that man had shown for such a long period of time. There was a man last century by the name of Judson. He was one of the pioneers in a missionary task force, actually it's 200 years ago.

And he went out to the subcontinent of India and eventually he found himself in the land of Burma. He was put into jail for preaching the gospel. And he spent quite a number of months with the manacles on his wrists, digging so deeply into his flesh, and also the chains on his legs, that when he was released, he bore the marks of his imprisonment.

On one occasion he came to the king and he said, Sir, I want to take the Christian message to other parts of Burma. And the king said, No. And Judson says, Why not, Sir? You've allowed other missionaries in.

The king said, My people are not so foolish as to believe what you say, but they will take notice of the marks that you bear. When they saw the courage of Peter and John. Two nights, two men, one night in jail.

Many future nights they would know because jail would become quite a part of the lifestyle of the emerging Christian church, following the death and resurrection and ascension of our blessed Lord. In fact, John, the companion of Peter, who is standing alongside him facing this Jewish old Bailey, will find in the latter part of his life, he will be restricted for years. For it's John who is taken on the Isle of Patmos, you remember, as a captive of the Roman army.

But these accusers of Peter and John, they saw their courage. The fact that they'd been in jail overnight hadn't dissuaded them from confessing Jesus Christ. What's more, they refused to be intimidated by this Jewish court.

There were at least 70 magistrates gathered. It was a sort of who's who occasion. All the dignitaries of Judaism were present.

But when I was in Maybridge earlier today, I was reminding some of the folk there of the language lessons they used to have in school in the language of the French. Well, let me bring a couple of words of French just to you to think through for a moment. Deja vu, that means here again.

Now, look at verse six, will you? Because here we're told of the men who were trying John and Peter, Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, Alexander, and the other men of the high priest's family. Now, just six weeks ago, that band of men had been brought together to try not Peter and John, but Jesus Christ. Here we go again.

Another court scene. And the ones in the dark are those who claim to believe what Jesus taught. When they saw the courage of Peter and John, courage can be seen.

It has a language of its own. Are you courageous in the way that you testify to your faith in Jesus Christ? Or are you easily intimidated? Are you afraid that if you confess him as your Lord publicly, then perhaps it might go against you in your office, in your college, in your school? It's not easy to be a Christian at school these days. I mean, Christianity is not widely acclaimed by the average person, even though they believe in God, amongst the adult community.

It's even more difficult when you're a kid at school, or a student in college, to nail your colors to the mass and to say I'm a Christian. But this is what these two men did. They were courageous, and their courage spoke.

Would to God that you and I might be like them. They put it straight down the line in terms of what they believed concerning Jesus Christ. They spoke about who Jesus was and what Jesus did, and what those who heard about Jesus should do as a result of the knowledge that they were given.

No messing about, straight down the line. These men were as blunt as they came. Courage has a language of its own.

But then, secondly, education is not necessarily an advantage. When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished. Some of the greatest men whom God has used did not have a formal education.

Take a man like D.L. Moody. Now, it doesn't mean from the Scripture, when reference is made to the fact that they didn't go through a formal education, that there are any prizes to be given in the Bible for those who are ignorant. After all, the Apostle Paul will tell us that in understanding we are to be men, we are to be mature, but you don't necessarily need a formal education.

Some of the greatest preachers that there have ever been within the English-speaking, amongst the English-speaking peoples have been those who were never educated in a formal sense, and yet God filled them with His Spirit and enabled them to communicate the gospel in a very effective fashion. Here are Peter and John. See them.

It's an incredible scene, actually, if you can imagine it. They're standing in front of these 70 magistrates, or at least there's probably as many as that. The Sanhedrin, when it was in full complement, had as many as 70 magistrates.

Oh, what an intimidating sight confronted these fishermen from northern Galilee. You see, what they had done was as serious today as if you took a bunch of tracts and distributed them on the streets of the capital of Libya. They had healed a lame man in the name of Jesus, and they had started to speak to a large company of people.

Now, remember that this took place not in an ordinary bazaar in Jerusalem, but actually in the temple precincts, in the court of Israel. Now, there is one Roman official who has legal charge to ensure that the Jewish religious authorities don't get upset by behavior in the temple area. This officer is not referred to by name, but he is referred to by rank.

In the opening verse, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to Peter and John while they were speaking to the people. If a man did something that upset the Jewish authorities by seemingly criticizing the Jewish religion, the Romans had given the religious authorities the right to take the life of the ones who had committed this crime. Now, this was exceptional in Roman rule.

It was not the case, generally speaking, that a Jew could be done to death, not while the Romans were in charge. They had to go before a Roman magistrate. But if someone had violated the temple area, if someone had upset the Jewish authorities, then the Romans handed their lives and judgment on them to the religious authorities.

So you see, Peter and John, they represent very brave men. At this particular point, as they're hoisted the following day, before this tribunal, the life is on the line. What do they do? Well, these unlearned, untrained men break silence and they start to speak.

At least, we gather that it's Peter who becomes the spokesman of the two. And as he speaks, he does so by bringing together three or four emphases in his defense, which actually turns out not so much to be a defense as an attack upon the beliefs of the magistrates. Look at verse 8. Peter and John have been asked what it is that they have been doing, and by whose power, by whose authority, they have healed a lame man.

Then Peter uses a little bit of subtlety. You know what subtlety is? It need not necessarily be nasty, but it's very cute. It's showing great wisdom.

There's an example which does have an element of nastiness in it, in the history of Parliament. Remember Winston Churchill, on one occasion, he falls foul of the opinion of a lady member of Parliament, and she gets up and addresses Mr. Churchill and says, Sir, if I were your husband, Sir, if I were your wife, rather, I would put arsenic in your tea. And Mr. Churchill said, Madam, if I were your husband, I'd drink it.

Here is subtlety. Verse 9. If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a cripple and are asked how he was healed, then know this. Oh, what an incredible situation.

Here is subtlety. You see, here is irony. Has it ever been known in Jewish legal history that two people were brought and placed in the dock simply because they healed a lame man? To subtlety, Peter adds something else.

Clarity. Know this, verse 10. You and all the people of Israel, listen to what I have to say, not just you magistrates, but if it's possible for this message to permeate down the ranks of the ordinary folk of Israel, then let them know, let you hear, that it is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed.

You see the clarity. Here is Peter, and he's really piling it on. We've healed this man.

Now, you've asked how we healed him. Well, we healed him in the name of Jesus. You remember who Jesus was.

He was the man you crucified. You remember what happened to Jesus. He was raised from the dead.

We want you to know this. We want the whole of Israel to know this. But the man who's speaking has his life in the balance as far as legal power is concerned.

And it's held by the people who are listening to him. You see the courage that there is, subtlety, clarity. He adds to that authority.

He starts to quote the scriptures, Psalm 118. He, Jesus, is the stone you builders rejected, which has become the capstone. That's a reference to Israel, actually, historically.

But very often Jesus fulfills the predictions concerning Israel in himself. The original reference means the rejection of Israel by the surrounding nations. But its final fulfillment is in Jesus Christ, who has been rejected by the leaders of the nation from which he came.

And Peter quotes the authority of scripture to back up what he has been involved in. In healing a man in the name of Jesus, despised by the magistrates. And then to clarity and authority, he adds dogma.

Look at verse 12. Salvation is found in no one else, for is there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved. So if you put the whole of Peter's defense together and gave it in summary fashion, you would say this.

Subtlety plus clarity plus authority equals dogma. There's no hope for you. There's no hope for the nation.

There's no hope for the world apart from Jesus. And the man who is making this speech and his companion are recognized by those who hear him to be unschooled, ordinary men. What's the result? Well, the magistrates are driven to an incredibly accurate conclusion.

You see, it's a question of deja vu as far as they're concerned. We've been here before. In what sense? Well, do you remember our Lord Jesus when he's on earth in his public ministry? He too has great understanding of scripture.

He delves into the Old Testament. He lifts up the text. He parades them in front of the people.

He explains them and they understand. And the people respond. Why is it that the professional clergy don't speak like he speaks? And the professional clergy says, how does he understand scripture? He's not trained.

You see, deja vu. This is what happened to Jesus. This is exactly what happens to his apostles.

The same criticisms or the same critique, the same assessment that's made of Jesus is now made of these men. What's the explanation? You don't generally get men coming from this working class background in Galilee able to speak with such clarity and authority coming into the Old Testament, having in front of them this man that's been healed, answering our question, how has he been healed by referring to Jesus and scolding us at the same time? This is audacious. This is completely different.

How do we cope with a situation like this? And there along you almost feel sorry for the Jewish authorities. You see, the man or the men who are really in control of this situation are not the magistrates. They are Peter, John, these ambassadors of our Lord Jesus Christ.

These who have received from the Lord verbally during the three years of the tuition that they had from him and these who have received from the Lord spiritually to the effect that on the day of Pentecost, they are overwhelmed with the Spirit of God. And what is the direct conclusion of that? Well, you shall receive power. Acts chapter 1 verse 11.

You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses. And it works. Here is Peter.

We put the spotlight on him a couple of weeks ago. We saw the change, the transformation in his life. He who had blasphemed Jesus Christ just several weeks before is now so equipped by the power of the Holy Spirit that when he launches words out in front of these magistrates, they cannot contain the logic of his argument.

As with relentless power, he pushes and pushes his case forward and he brings them to a conclusion that he is indeed a man equipped with an authority, the only explanation for which is that he has been with Jesus Christ. And so these poor magistrates, they clear the court. Look at verse 15.

They ordered them to withdraw from the Sanhedrin and then conferred together. You see, they've got a conundrum. That means they've got a puzzle.

Verse 16. What are we going to do with these men? Everyone living in Jerusalem knows that a lame man has been healed. This man was 40 years lame.

He was one of the sites in Jerusalem that people recognized because, well, he was always there by that beautiful gate. And throughout the whole of the bazaars in Jerusalem, the talk has been nothing else but this, that the lame man has walked and the name of Jesus has been used in order to pray that the healing shall come. I often wish I got a camera and that I lived in the days of the Lord Jesus and the Acts of the Apostles.

I'd love to have taken the face, the picture on the face of Annas and Caiaphas. You see, I can imagine these men just conferring with one another. Dear God, it was just six weeks ago, seven weeks ago, to be precise, when we got this matter all stitched up.

We got rid of Jesus from Nazareth. We've put him on the cross. That would be the end.

And now, we're even in a worse plight. These disciples of his, they are showing characteristics which are incredibly like the ones that he had. And the impact that they're making here in Jerusalem is such that they've grown from 120,000 to 3,000, before you can say Jack, Benjamin.

The inability of the priest to cope with the situation is seen in the anemic way in which they return to Peter and John and say, you are no longer to speak or teach at all. In the name of Jesus, as though they expected in their naivety that Peter and John would comply. Oh yes, we'll get you out of the mess, Caiaphas and Annas, you're such nice guys.

We appreciate the difficulty. Look, this was a religious court. And the people who were members of that court recognized that there was a law of God.

And if the law of God said one thing, and human opinion said something else, there was only one conclusion that a sincere person could make. And that was to accept the law of God. Now, these untrained men from Galilee, they know this.

They know that this court has got no explanation as to what has happened. Here is this man who's been healed. There is no other way to account for that healing, but that the power of Jesus has been released.

Incidentally, isn't it interesting that the Sanhedrin at that point become very much like the ordinary people in Worthing or in the United Kingdom or in the Western world. You see, they're faced with incontrovertible, irrefutable evidence about Jesus and his power. You see, there are lame men today who've been healed.

There were lame men yesteryear who had been healed. There have been men throughout the whole of church history who have been healed, spiritually, mentally, physically healed. The church has no credibility if it doesn't have healed men.

And when a healed man stands in front of the crowd and says, he is the one who put my life together again. I was broken, but I heard of him. His power came pulsating into my body and he remade my circumstances.

He gave me back my dignity. He changed my course of life. The world has got no argument to offer to a man whose testimony is, I am a healed man.

And if logic had been on the side of the Sanhedrin, instead of trying to keep all this private and to stop the permeating of the word of the evangel through Jerusalem, they would have gone over to the side of Peter and John. But you see, their eyes are blind, their hearts are hardened, and they will not take this Christian saying. The Sanhedrin, I tell you, is still with us today.

Its members are perhaps part of our congregation here. You know the evidence. You know about this Jesus.

You know that he was sent from heaven. He died on the cross of Calvary. He was raised in the power of an endless life.

You know that your own life is utterly inadequate. And one day you will stand before God. You know all this.

And you have seen people who have responded and whose lives have been changed as a result. There is the evidence. It stares you, man.

It stares you, woman, in the face. Then what are you going to do? Do what the Sanhedrin does and pretend that nothing has really happened. No, says Peter and John, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.

My time has gone. We put the spotlight on Peter and John again, or especially on Peter again. But in one sense, we put the spotlight on you and me.

Courage has a language of its own. These men knew that Peter and John had been with Jesus. The people know this of you.

The lack of formal education is in no way a handicap. Preventing you from speaking out the message of Jesus. And astonishingly, there will be some who will come to an accurate conclusion that you have indeed taken close fellowship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

They saw the courage of Peter and John. And when you go back to the eighth verse, you discover that Peter had been filled afresh with the Holy Spirit. And when you go to the end of the chapter, you find once more, verse 31, when the disciples prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly.

The requirements of Christian people today is to know more of the filling of the Spirit. For it's only his blessed ministries that will make you more like our Lord Jesus. Courageous as he was courageous.

Holy as he was holy. The Acts of the Apostles is wrongly named, as I was saying earlier today. It's really the Acts of the Holy Spirit of Jesus working through the body, the members of the Church of Christ.

And what happened in those days? As a result, people recognized that there were those folk who had been very close to Jesus. The Acts of the Apostles doesn't stop at chapter 28. It goes on and on, down the centuries, down the corridors of time.

And it's still being written. Those chapters in the 1990s, here in Worthing Tabernacle, there need to be folk who keep close to Jesus, knowing the baptism of his Spirit, the endowment of power, and speaking out boldly the word of the Lord, even to an unbelieving generation. Let's pray.

Father, we come before you, confessing our great need for a new awareness of your power in our lives, so many of us. And others of us, Lord, we identify with the Sanhedrin. We've heard the voice of the Lord through many of your servants.

We know who Jesus is and what he has done. We've seen evidence of his power, but we refuse to adjust our thinking. And to commit ourselves to him as a result.

Lord, we plead that such people this evening may be humble enough to go through to the side of Peter and John and to acknowledge the Lordship of Christ. And then those of us who feel weak and anemic, so often tongue-tied when any opportunity comes to speak for you. Oh, God, we pray that within our innermost being, we might have that mighty spring of water gushing up, that part of your Spirit.

You shall have power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses. Dear God, grant it, we pray. Come afresh into our hearts, afresh into our lives.

Filled ones, some of us may have been, but Lord, there is an even greater fullness. There are greater depths. Oh, God, take us to the fathomless depths of power that we might be able to tell out the message of the great and glorious Lord Jesus Christ.

Hear us and use us to this end for his honor, for his glory, and all the people of God's end. Amen. Let's turn for our final hymn to 378, a hymn of response to the challenge of being a servant of Jesus Christ.

Who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? Who will be as helpers other lives to bring? 378. Who is on the Lord's side? Who will serve the King? Who will be as helpers other lives to bring?