Good morning to everybody. We're going to get the adult Bible study started right on time. I see doughnuts around. Y'all haven't partaken yet. You may want your energy. Jason told me the thing here's got eight hours of battery life. So, you know, you never know, right? We're going to be in the book of Acts again. We didn't do Acts last week, but we have been working through that for a handful of weeks. I want to read some verses from Acts to calibrate where we're at in the book. And so you see the big picture. The big picture of the book of Acts is momentum. It's intensification. It's movement. And you'll see this when I read this. I'm going to read several, but you will see a theme here. Acts 2, verse 41. So those who accepted this message were baptized, and that day about 3,000 people were added to them. That had to be a really big invitation, right? 3,000 people. Then you bump up to verse 47. It says, they were praising God and enjoying the favor of all people. Every day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved. Then I bump up to chapter 4 and verse 4, and I read, but many of those who heard the message believed, and the number of the men came to about 5,000. Then I jump up to chapter 5 and verse 14, and in chapter 5 verse 14 we read, Believers were added to the Lord in increasing numbers, multitudes of both men and women. Then we jump up to chapter six and verse seven. So the word of God spread, the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly in number, and a large group of priests became obedient to the faith. Then we go up to chapter eight and verse one. Saul agreed with putting him to death. Reference to Stephen. On that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land of Judea and Samaria. Jewish leadership thought that would destroy the church. It didn't. It exploded because of the scattering. So we go up to chapter 9 verse 31. Chapter 9 verse 31 says, so the church throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria had peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. The church in all these areas increased in numbers. Chapter 11 verse 21, if I can find it, chapter 11 verse 21, We read that the Lord's hand was with them and a large number who believed turned to the Lord. And I jump up to chapter 16 in verse five, it says, so the churches were strengthened in the faith and grew daily in numbers. And we get up near the end of the book in chapter 19, verse 20. And we read there that in this way the word of the Lord spread and prevailed. And then one last one, chapter 21 and verse 20. Chapter 21, verse 20 says, When they heard it, they glorified God and said, You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews there are who have believed, and they're all zealous for the law. The book of Acts is about the story of the church from its infancy. really about 61 or so AD, not that big of a time period. And yet what you keep coming back to is no matter what happens, no matter who stands against it, it keeps growing, growing, growing, because they keep doing one thing very well, they keep talking about Jesus. Jesus said in Matthew 16 He was going to build His Church and the gates of Hell wouldn't prevail against it. Well the gates of Hell have tried, but they didn't. And in our time, the gates of hell have done a better job, maybe. But we talk about Jesus, it'll keep exploding. That's what it does. And that's what the book of Acts is about. It's momentum. And what becomes key to it, and this gives a little bit of an answer to the very, very difficult of why there's pain and suffering in a world, right? Because if God's all loving, then no one should ever step on a Lego or anything else that hurts. But that's not life. But what you see, and I don't have all the answers to it, but I do know this, God sometimes uses events that seem like very bad events, but they bring about very good results. The martyrdom of Stephen is why we're here. Because the martyrdom of Stephen you know, builds a change in the life of the Apostle Paul, because he's there holding the clothes of the men that were throwing the rocks at him. So just understand, you're going to see some bad things happen, but it really pushes the church to growth. It doesn't do what it's designed to do. So we're going to start in Acts chapter 5 and verse 17 where we left off last time The Apostles Peter and John had healed a lame man. He was born that way lame his whole life and he's able to walk and And it causes a problem because if you're healing people, that validates your message. And what's happening is a lot of Jewish people are becoming Christians. They're believing the message about Jesus Christ as the Messiah. And that puts them at odds with the Jewish leadership who have characteristically, not all of them, but characteristically rejected Jesus. Notably, we would say, well, Joseph of Amerithea or Nicodemus had not rejected Christ, but a lot of them had, and they're going to intensify, because they brought Peter and John before them in that episode in chapters three and four, and they said, don't go preach Jesus anymore, and they said, look, you tell us what's right, to obey God or men, we're going to keep preaching Jesus. Then they go and Peter and John join the other disciples and they pray to God to allow them to keep preaching Jesus boldly. Then you have this unusual episode in chapter 5 that we did two weeks ago where Ananias and Sapphira sold a piece of property and they lied about it and they fell dead in the church service and anyone else who got asked how much money they had given after they sold their property told the truth after that. right? Everybody told the truth. But those two people lied and Peter said, you've lied to the Holy Spirit. So, there's that kind of episode. Well, after that they're going to go out preaching again and that's where we come in beginning in Acts 5.17. It says, then the high priest, well really 12 through 16 they start preaching and a lot of people are believing, a lot of sick people are getting healed, they're doing all these miracles. And what happens? Verse 17, the high priest rose up and he and all who were with him, who belonged to the party of the Sadducees. They're rich folk who deny a resurrection. They deny a lot of things. They don't accept the whole Old Testament as scripture. They just accept the first five books. And they're very much at odds with the Pharisees and how they interpret. But because they deny a resurrection, preaching Jesus is a real problem for them. And saying that these healings aren't something Peter or John or Matthew did. They're something Jesus did. Dead people can't heal people, right? They just can't. And so they're angry. And these Sadducees are filled with, and it's this lovely word, jealousy. Why? Because people aren't coming to them for the answers anymore. They can't raise dead people. They can't heal people. going to Peter and John and to the other disciples. And so they arrested the Apostles and put them in public jail. And Luke is going to go real quick through something that seems very significant, but it's not really the focus. And that is that they are going to have an escape. This isn't the first time that people will be imprisoned for Christ, an escape. It says, an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail during the night, brought them out and said, go and stand in the temple and tell the people all about His life. They've locked them up for preaching Jesus. And when everybody shows up at the temple the next morning, there all the apostles are out there preaching Jesus again. It's fascinating. They're going to have a little trial of these guys. And at the trial, they're going to make no mention of it because they can't explain how they got out of the jail. These miracles never get explained away. They just don't care. And we have a great capacity to believe something contrary to all the evidence. And that's what these guys apparently are doing. Well, the angel tells them to go preach Jesus. And so hearing this, they enter the temple at daybreak. When we say the temple, understand it's a big complex, a big courtyard. It's not the actual building out there in the middle that has the Holy of Holies. It's not that. It's this larger courtyard and on three sides it has a colonnade, an open walkway that's covered and it has columns. And you can read up on it on the interweb, and we know a lot about it, or what we think. I mean, these columns are like 30-something feet tall. It's quite a marvel. And one particular walkway was where Jesus preached in John 10. It's called Solomon's Colonnade. It's a very public place, and it's a good place to draw a crowd, and it probably had good acoustics. So they're out there preaching. And that's where they'll end up going. They'll go there routinely and preach, because that's where folks will be. And it's folks thinking about religious things. Well, when the high priest and those who were with them arrived, they convened the Sanhedrin. That's that group of 70, and they're the religious leadership. The Sadducees control it, but there's Pharisees in the group. It's a position one buys with money. It's holy and totally corrupt. It was not always that way. It's great power involved to be the high priest. It's worth paying money for. It's worth killing for. And that's what they did. If you read the history, just 75, 80 years leading up to this point in time, it's just, you're astonished. And these are supposed to be religious people. The full council of the Israelites, that's the Sanhedrin, and they sent orders to the jail to have them brought. They still think they're in the pokey. But when the servants got there, they didn't find them in the jail, so they returned and reported, we found the jail securely locked. See, how is it they got out and it's securely locked? This is a real problem for them. If you were escaping for jail, would you turn around and lock the door behind you? I mean, who are you trying to keep in there, right? Now, I don't know, we're not told exactly how it got him out of there, but I think it was one of those, you know, did they walk through the bars? Did they disappear? We don't know, but the doors are still locked. And the guards are still standing in front of the doors. How do they get them past the, it's not that the guards fell asleep. This is a big thing. They can't explain it. They found no one inside. And as the captain of the temple police and the chief priest heard these things they were baffled about them. I'd be baffled too. I'd also be scared that maybe I shouldn't have put them in jail to begin with. They were wondering what would come of this. And someone came and reported and said, look the men you put in jail are standing in the temple teaching the people. And then the commander went with the servants, they brought them, and this is key, without force, because they were afraid that the crowd might stone them for trying to get the apostles and take them. So you understand that they're drawing just literally thousands of people, as I read to you earlier, because their preaching has been validated by these signs and miracles. And so the apostles go voluntarily. After they were brought in, they had them stand before the Sanhedrin, these 70 men, and the high priest is doing the interrogation. Didn't we strictly order you not to teach in this name? When is it acceptable for Christians to reject governing authority and just say no? Goes against what God says. If they tell you that you've got to do something God says not to, or that you can't do something God says you have to do, like go to church, that's a problem. The government has some delegated authority, but they've exceeded that authority, and it's time to take a stand. I think maybe in this country, we haven't taken a stand enough. And I won't let it be a rabbit to chase today, but we're going to have more and more of a challenge in coming days and years about whether we're going to take a stand or be quiet and hope the storm passes. The storm will not pass unless the Christians take a stand. So that's how it'll work. But that's what happened. They're telling them what they got to do. Peter and the Apostles, well, there's one more, I don't want to skip this verse. After he says, didn't I tell you to be quiet about Jesus? He says, look, you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching. Which teaching? That the Christ came, that the leadership murdered him. using Roman troops, that he was in the grave, but then rose Sunday morning and was still alive. And now he's ascended to the right hand of God and he's healing people. That's what they're teaching. And he says, you're determined to make us, the Sanhedrin, guilty. Friends, you're already guilty. You roused the people to say, give us Barabbas and not God. But you're going to make us guilty. What are they worried about? Guilty of this man's blood, of Jesus' blood. It's an expression. The idea is you're going to make the people want to kill us. You ought to be worried about that. I mean. You're guilty as charged. But of course, Peter and the apostles didn't try to do that. They're just preaching. And they answer and they say, we must obey God rather than people. The God of our ancestors raised up Jesus, whom you had murdered by hanging him on a tree. You think they like hearing this? It's 100% the truth. But this is what's going to escalate the conflict. And you'll see it right here in what they're fixing to say. God exalted this man to his right hand as ruler and savior to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins. That's what they've been teaching. They teach the same thing every time. And we're witnesses of these things. They mean eyewitnesses. And so the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him, is also a witness. When they heard this, they were enraged and wanted to kill them. Spiritual, religious people. want to kill those who they don't like the messenger. And you can understand why Jesus would tell parables about a king in a far away land, and he owns a vineyard, and he sends people to the vineyard to collect some money that's due, and they keep sending them away. And then he says, well I'll send my son. And then they kill the son. I That's what they're doing. And they've continued it. They murdered John the Baptist. They murdered Jesus. They murdered most of the prophets. And that hardness of heart remains here. But someone's going to save the day. in a fascinating way, because not meaning to, he's gonna prove the veracity of Christianity, and his name is Gamaliel. We see him in the next verse, 34. A Pharisee, not a Sadducee. Have you heard the name Gamaliel before? Who would you connect him to? Paul, right, Paul's teacher. This is Paul's teacher. A lot of people have their favorite teacher, but there were rabbinic schools at this time. We think Nicodemus led a rabbinic school, and he was the one you listened to. You could be a disciple of Nicodemus, a disciple of Gamaliel. This man's exceptionally bright. He trained the apostle Paul. And he stands up and he's gonna give some advice. And I made a note about this on the handout. I think Gamaliel, was very influential from around A.D. 25 to 50, about this time period, 25 to 50. He's the grandson of another famous rabbi named Hillel, who we read about and is mentioned, I think, in the Gospels. He held the title of Nasi. He was the, N-A-S-I, he was like the president. So he holds kind of an official, he's not the high priest, but he holds an official position related to the Sanhedrin. The Mishnah, which is Jewish commentary on the law, and more than commentary, the Mishnah is designed to help us understand how to keep the law. It was written for Jewish people. It was what they viewed as an oral tradition that in light of the destruction of Jerusalem, it needed to be written down. And so you could go and look in there and get nuts and bolts about on the Sabbath when I'm not allowed to do some work, can I carry a shovel? You know, things like that. And so, they had this writing. But the Mishnah says this about Gamaliel, when Rabbi Gamaliel the Elder died, the glory of the law ceased and purity and abstinence died. That tells you how of high esteem he was held. And so, even though he's not the high priest, these guys are ready to go and throw rocks at the Apostles and stone them. or chop their heads off or do something. And Gamaliel says, let's be calm a second. And he's probably the only guy that could have brought the calm and given some advice. And he does it. And what he says makes good sense. He really is a wise person. It just, his wisdom's gonna prove Christianity. We'll see that. He's a teacher of the law who was respected by all the people. stood up in the Sanhedrin, he ordered the men to be taken out for a little while. Let's take the Apostles out so we can talk behind their back. And he says to the Sanhedrin, men of Israel be careful about what you are going to do to these men. Some time ago Thutis rose up claiming to be somebody and a group of about 400 men rallied to him. He was killed and all his followers were dispersed and came to nothing. We're not sure who he is. There is a Thutis recorded in Josephus' history who But he's just much later, and so it's probably not this guy. We don't know. But his point's a simple one. If God's not with him, it'll come to nothing. It'll fizzle out. And then he says, after this man, so later in time, Judas the Galilean, we know about him. He comes in right around like AD, I want to say 5, 6, 7, that time period. And this Judas the Galilean rose up in the days of the census and attracted A following, he also perished and all his followers scattered. So in the present case, with these Christians that are causing us all this trouble, I tell you to stay away from these men and leave them alone. For if this plan is the work of human origin, it will fail, but if it's of God, you will not be able to overthrow them. You may even be found fighting against God. What a prophetic statement. This man's not a Christian, but he is smart enough to read the writing on the wall, so to say. They were persuaded by him, so after they called in the apostles and had them flogged, just for good measure, that's no small thing, that's not a slap on the wrist. They had them flogged. And by the way, you know, we talk about Peter and John and all these others, it's the apostles plural. This is the whole group, and that'll become apparent in a moment. It seems to be all twelve of them. So even though, you know, we don't, you know, get a lot of intel about some of these apostles and what they did after Jesus' ministry, understand, they're there, and they're doing the work. And probably the reason is simply that Luke chose to focus on Peter up to a certain point, and then Paul thereafter. It's just, that was his focus. When you write a history, you can't necessarily talk about everybody, but don't think that they weren't doing something. Here, they're taking a beating for preaching Jesus. So they went out of the presence, well, they ordered these guys, after they flog them not to speak in the name of Jesus, like, how likely did you think that was gonna work out? All right? But they send them away. out of the presence of Sanhedrin, and they were rejoicing that they were counted worthy to be treated shamefully on behalf of the name." Would you be joyful if you had suffered for Christ that way? What gets somebody to that point that they would be joyful that they had suffered for the name? Not for being an obnoxious Christian or having the spirit gift of being a total jerk, right? But because they had simply preached Jesus what makes a person where they could look back at that persecution and have some rejoicing about it? That's one reason they could have been worse, right? Weren't killed, right? This didn't happen in Texas. But they had to have a heart change, right? As long as Christianity is something that's an add-on, It's an extra feature, like the cruise control on the car, that a lot of people, you own a car for years, never use it. If Christianity is that kind of add-on, it's your cruise control or whatever, it's not what these guys had. These guys had some inward change, and as long as they understood that the persecution came because they were doing the right thing, they didn't have a problem with it, and they could rejoice in it. So, you read about these guys, After they left, they viewed themselves counted worthy. Every day in the temple and in various homes, because churches were being held at homes at that time, just as a matter of practicality it seems, they continued teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Messiah or the Christ. The more you try to shut them up, the more you beat them, the more you jell them, the more they talk about Jesus. that way for a long time. In those days starting in Chapter 6, so we're going to kind of change gears and we'll talk about something real quick. But you get an interesting episode that we think is where the idea of a deacon will develop later. It just doesn't use the word deacon here. But in Chapter 6 it says, in those days the disciples were increasing in number. They're all in Jerusalem though. So this is a very big church. Today we'd call it a mega church but it's not meeting all in one place. There arose a complaint There always does, right? And it's just how it is. I wish it wasn't that way. But there arose a complaint, and maybe there was some legitimacy to this one. There were Hellenistic Jews. When Jewish people left Israel a long time ago, you know, when the Assyrians had come in, or when the Babylonians had come in, and they sort of went abroad to other places, they lost the language. That's not uncommon. A lot of times people will immigrate here and their children or at least their grandchildren then won't even know the original language that maybe they brought from wherever they've come from. So you have these Hellenistic Jews who don't speak Hebrew. And they're not really from Israel anymore. They were from somewhere else. And then you've got the Hebraic Jews and basically we're talking about the widows because there wasn't a government program to provide money each month so they could live. And so the church is doing it. But the accusation is these ladies are getting more money than these. Or these ladies are getting their check on time, these ladies are not. Something like that's going on. And it says these widows, the Hellenistic ones, were being overlooked in the daily distribution. The Twelve, that's important for us because that tells us all those people are theirs, apostles, including Matthias, who replaced Judas. The Twelve summoned the whole company of disciples and said, it would not be right for us to give up preaching the Word of God to wait on tables. Now, he's not talking about the Sunday morning sermon. He's talking about going just almost daily, I think, to that temple, maybe to the colonnade of Solomon, and evangelizing. And he says, if we're spending all our time distributing the money or the food to these widows, we can't do that. And so, they have a solution. It wouldn't be right for us to do that, the apostles say, but brothers and sisters, select from among you seven men of good reputation. full of spirit and wisdom. These wasn't just volunteers, because the job needs to be done right. And so he puts some qualifications here, and maybe these are the kind of qualifications you'd want to see in a deacon. He won't use the word. If he's not talking about a deacon, it's someone who's fulfilling kind of a role of a deacon. That is, they are stepping up under the authority of these 12 apostles to provide for these ladies. So he says, seven men of good reputation, Does it matter what people think about you? You ever hear someone, even a Christian, say, I don't really care what people think about me? Should you care? Yeah, you should care. Your reputation matters. In one of the churches in Revelation, Jesus says to a church, you have a name. You have a reputation. Your reputation matters. Now, if your reputation is bad with some people, but for the good reason, that is, they're the people that want you to stop preaching Jesus and you just won't shut your mouth, that's okay. But that's not usually how the bad reputation happens, right? It's more likely, just like a little story. I had a lady I worked with years ago and she was in a church and she bought a house and she had hired a man in the house to build it because he's a home builder, but he never would deliver the appliances. He just cheated her. You know? I mean, so he's going to get a bad reputation. Why? Oh, I'm being persecuted because I'm a Christian. No, you're being persecuted because you're a thief. Right? So we can get that out of whack. But our reputation ought to be good. And the Bible repeatedly is telling us, you know, even Paul will say, he kind of uses an expression, but you can heap lumps of coal on somebody by your goodness toward them, even in the face of them treating you wrong, that kind of thing. It's a reputation. If someone has a reputation as a lazy person, I probably don't want to put them in charge of making sure these widows are taken care of. It's important. Right? So they need to be a person of a good reputation, full of the Spirit, full of the Holy Spirit. What does that mean? Their life is guided, influenced, controlled by the Spirit of God, using the Word of God. But these are people who, if I could say that, they act Christianly. They have wisdom. That's good sense. Skill at living. It's not enough to know the truth, but know how to implement the truth in your life. They have wisdom. Who we can appoint to this duty. I'm assuming they were volunteered and not voluntold, but they're being appointed to this duty, but we will devote ourselves, that's the apostles, to prayer and the ministry of the word, and that's as it's supposed to be. The proposal pleased the whole company, and they chose Stephen. I think one of the key reasons this is here is to introduce Stephen. Stephen is, we might say, a deacon. He's a deacon prototype at least, and he's going to die preaching one tremendous sermon. I mean, you read it, you learn things about Moses and other people that you don't even see in the Old Testament. I mean, he is just on fire. And he dies for it. And Paul's over there, young man, student of Gamaliel, doing what would please his teacher, holding the clothes of those so they can more easily throw the rocks. And Stephen sees Jesus up there and asks, as Jesus would have, forgiveness for their ignorance. I mean, he's just a powerful man. It is the ripple effect of Stephen, and persecution will follow that, but it's that ripple effect that will both scatter the church, but so, you know, impress Paul. When Saul becomes Paul on the Damascus Road, I think this event of being a part of the murder of Stephen and cheering it on is just there front of mind for the rest of Paul's life. And he, of course, plants churches all around, just all around the Mediterranean. And so this is a powerful thing. And so Luke needs to tell us about Stephen. And there's others there. Stephen, he describes as a man full of faith in the Holy Spirit. Philip, Prochorus, Nicanor, Timon, Parmenas, and then a Nicolaus who's described as a convert from Antioch. What they mean is a Gentile. not even Jewish guy. They had them stand before the Apostles who prayed and lay hands on them. And sometimes, you know, today in churches we'll pray and lay hands on people. This is a model for that. The Word of God spread, the disciples in Jerusalem increased greatly in number, and the large group of priests became obedient to the faith. Deacon prototypes perhaps, but They're gonna serve. We're gonna talk about service later in the sermon. So this is really fitting. You think it was glamorous service to take the stuff to the widows? What do you think? What kind of service is preferable? You know, I knew a couple at the church where we used to be, and even before they were at that church, because even the church we were all at before that, we had a lot of people, we sometimes call them shut-ins, people who had been at the church for maybe even decades, but they couldn't travel anymore. And what you find is a lot of times those people don't even see their family that often. This couple went out and saw those people every week, I mean for years, just for years. And these people were so excited to have that visit. They would usually bring a CD, or even in the old days, a cassette tape with the latest sermon message. They would bring them the church bulletin. So they were still part of the group. You'd never know they had even done it. You know who knew they had done it? The person they helped in Jesus. I mean, I kind of found out about this years after the fact. I'm like, for years, you've been pouring your lives into these people. Is that a life that honors God? No. We need to start thinking that way. These guys step up to do something that may not appear glamorous because they're not in front of anybody. This is important. These ladies' lives are important. Their survival and having food is important. For all we know, these ladies, a lot of them are the prayer warriors in the background propping up the whole operation. with their prayers. Just think about that as you see that. Any comments or questions, thoughts?