man of war, and if that's the case, it should not be surprising to us when there is conflict that comes up in the book of Acts, because we are engaged in spiritual battle. Of course, Psalm 149, the double-edged sword, it's a metaphor of the Word of God, and we're binding kings, there's judgments, there's grace, there's all kinds of things that are promised, but it comes through the scriptures. And we've come up to Acts chapter 4, And I want to read the first four verses. Here are the word of God. Now as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people, and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them, and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about 5,000." Amen. Father God, receive your word, and I pray that we would be built up, that we would be strengthened in our engagement in the spiritual battles that you call us to with our own flesh against the world, against the devil. And Father, that having done all, we would stand strong, not in our own strength, but in the strength and in the provision of the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen. May be seated. When I was in Shanghai, China, some of the people in our team visited the TSPM church. That's the State Authorized Church, just to get a feel for what was going on there. And never before have I seen so clearly why the American church will never, has not made a dent in American humanism, and never will unless there is reformation. The church was being led by, actually, an American black evangelical and everything in that service was approved by the PSB, the secret service there, including the talk about body life, the music band, the American say nothing songs, the feel good preaching. And it was kind of a shock to the people on our team because we had seen so much persecution of the underground church. And the question was, why? Why should we even bother having an underground church if the kind of American evangelicalism here is perfectly satisfactory to the PSB goons that were attending that service? They didn't have any problems with it whatsoever. And it struck me with real force that the communist regime is not against the soft, passive, pietistic, statist kind of Christianity that Feminized 2005 Americana is experiencing. It was a very specific kind of Christianity that they are persecuting. And it resembles the kind of Christianity that we see in the book of Acts. Now, if John and Peter had been smart and that they had done like the TSPM church had done, they probably would not have been arrested. Now, of course, you know, I'm talking facetiously because they were smart. But the point is that the Jewish leaders in John and Peter's day really were quite tolerant. And we'll talk about some of their tolerance in a bit. They were quite tolerant, but you had to follow their rules. And if you cross their rules, you better watch out. In this chapter, we see the first of many confrontations in this book, the first of many jailings in this book. And listen, they probably could have avoided those jailings if they had followed the advice that's dished out in many of the mega churches in America. Uh, in a biography on John Knox, Doug Wilson, uh, contrast William Maitland and John Knox. They were both Christians, both Protestants, both reformed, and they both wanted reformation being brought to the church in Scotland. But Maitland did not think that it was proper to have confrontation. For example, because of the trouble that would ensue if he did not partake of the Mass, he argued that, you know, we can partake of the Mass, but we can just reinterpret it as it rightly should be, and we can worship, you know, with our own interpretations, and apparently argued rather brilliantly, but Knox argued even more brilliantly, and he finally conceded, and he stopped going to the Mass. The queen said, you cannot have worship services without my authorization. Maitland really wanted the church to cooperate and to try to submit to this, but Knox refused because he recognized if they were licensed and if they had to be approved and all that they did by the queen, they would never be able to have reformation. And he took his cue from the New Testament. When Knox later had some trumped up charges brought against him by the Queen, Queen Mary, Maitland tried to get him to submit and to just go along and make some small compromises. He said, just try not to irritate the Queen. And he was always getting the Queen upset with him. Now, Maitland's goal was good. He did not want to have John Knox killed. And he was almost certain that Knox was going to be executed if he continued with these confrontational tactics. And he said, come on, let's just try to get along. Well, Knox refused. He went to court, and in that particular case, he won against all of the charges that were brought against him, much to the Queen's frustration. Anyway, the chapter ends by saying, John Knox finished his course in honor and with integrity, and that course was one of no compromise. William Maitland finally threw in his lot with the Queen's faction and like Kirkcaldy ended his life in ignominy, a defeated suicide. He wanted reformation, but he didn't know what it would take to bring about that reformation. I plan to spend a fair bit of time in Acts chapter four, because this highlights the kind of spirit and theology and character that is needed for reformation. And it also, I think, illustrates rather well Uh, the fact that true Christianity cannot avoid confrontation in a humanistic society. And if it does, there is something wrong with that theology. And there is something wrong with American evangelical theology. I think the main problem is that they are more interested in protecting conservativism than they are being biblical. And there is a difference between the two. Um, They're uncomfortable with radical proposals, whether those radical proposals come from humanism or from the Bible, whether they come from the left or from the right, they just want to get along. And you can see that in our present Congress, where over the past 20 years, if you examine the ways that conservatives have act versus the liberals who, man, they go after people, thong and hammers, they're always trying to be nice and trying to get along. In the same book on John Knox, Wilson said, the great theologian R.L. Dabney once commented on an effeminate form of American conservatism, which would never be guilty of the folly, quote unquote, folly of martyrdom, and which was simply the shadow that followed radicalism to perdition. This is the same phenomenon which caused one wit to observe that if the liberals in our Congress were to introduce a bill to burn down the Capitol, the conservatives would counter with a bill to phase the project in over the course of three years. When one group wants to drive us over a cliff at 80 miles an hour, it is hardly a pragmatic response to insist on 50 miles an hour. This is why pragmatic temporizers of all ages have never liked the discovery that pragmatism can be convicted by its own standard. It does not work. And I think Wilson's analysis is right on the money. In Acts chapter four, we find the Christianity, which whether it works or not, that's not the standard, whether it works or not, it could not be ignored. OK, Acts chapter four, verse one. Now, as they spoke to the people, as they spoke to the people. I want you to notice first that Peter and John bypassed the apostate authority structures and they went straight to the common masses. Now, they didn't do that because the leaders were unconvertible or that they did not have any intention of preaching the gospel to them. Later on in the book of Acts, we find that there were people from the aristocracy who came to Christ. There were priests and Levites. There were other leaders who became Christians. Very few did, but some of them did become Christians. But the apostles appeal to the masses. And verse two makes it very clear. This was one of two reasons that infuriated the Sadducees. Verse two says, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. Now that word and indicates there were two things that really upset the Sadducees. The first was that the apostle, actually the second that he mentions is that the apostles were undermining the liberal theology of the Sadducees. And secondly, that they were teaching it to the masses rather than trying to convince the leadership first. I want you to think about this. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. They were teaching the resurrection, but I don't think it was that doctrinal distinctive that was uppermost in their minds. Yes, they were irritated over that, but I don't think that was the key issue, and I'll tell you why. The Pharisees and the Sadducees had disagreed on that very doctrine for over 100 years. The Pharisees believed in the resurrection. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection. And yet they were able to at least tolerate each other, work together in trying to maintain Rome's approval of their system. They were even able to gang up together against the Christians. They were able to cooperate. So I don't think that was the primary reason. I think the primary reason is that they bypassed the leadership and taught the masses directly when they were undermining the doctrines of the Sadducees. That's, I think, why he puts that reason first and then the doctrine that they were teaching secondly. I suspect that is the primary reason. So verse 2 clearly says, being greatly disturbed that they taught the people. Now, I'm going to comment on that a little bit later because I think it's a key factor in why, for example, Communist China, they are persecuting the church so severely for teaching the common masses. And we'll get to that in a little bit. But for now, I just want you to notice four things about the strategy itself. First, it shows that the apostles were not elitist in their approach to the gospel. They were willing to minister to every segment of society, not just to the segments that were wealthy and could bring money into the church. They were willing to minister to every segment of society. In fact, what had just finished happening? He had just finished healing a lame man. And in chapter three, verse 11, it indicates that that lame man dressed in beggar's clothes was holding on to them, clinging on to the apostles. I cannot imagine a Pharisee allowing that. I cannot imagine a Sadducee allowing that. And so both in his healing and in his teaching, he was identifying with the common man just as Jesus did. There's a group of people all across the world that say Peter was the first pope. Of course, we don't believe that. Peter acted quite differently from these people who were dressed in silk, sitting on gold chairs, sticking their toes out to be kissed. That was not the way in which they act. And as Mo Leverett puts it so beautifully, Christ left the most exclusive gated community in the universe and moved into the worst ghetto of Israel. So the first point, they were not elitist. Secondly, I want you to notice that this phrase indicates that their strategy was to work from the bottom up. We speak of this as being a grassroots movement, right? Christianity was a grassroots movement. Now don't get me wrong, top-down reformation did occur on occasion in the Old Testament. There'd be a king who would be converted, and almost overnight, he would just take everything out that was offensive to God, there would be a massive reformation. And I think that's the thing that's so attractive, that's so neat about top-down reformations, they happen fast, it's just overnight. In contrast, A grassroots movement takes a long time to build momentum. And I think this is one of the reasons why evangelicals are so fixated on trying to get the right president into Washington, D.C. Because if you can fix it from the top, man, you can have changes very quickly, almost overnight. But if you examine the Old Testament revivals and reformations that started from the top rather than from the bottom, here's what happened. Almost as soon as the king died, things reverted back to the way they were before, didn't they? Now, that doesn't mean we can't work for top-down reformation. That's not an either-or proposition. But where should our focus be? And where was the apostles' focus? Grassroots movement takes time to build momentum. Now, here is the irony about this passage and their engaging in a grassroots movement. It's this. Israel didn't have time. Jesus had predicted that within one generation it would be wiped out. That's within 40 years it would be wiped out. And so to me, this heightens the significance of the fact that these apostles were focusing on a grassroots approach to reformation. If long-term change is going to happen, it can only happen when the citizens as a whole have their minds and their lives transformed. And that's true whether the form of government is monarchy or oligarchy, that means ruled by many, or just a few, actually, oligarchy. Whether it's a democracy or a republic, it really does not matter. And if your hope for reformation is exclusively placed in getting the right president in or getting the right Supreme Court justice nominated, then you're missing out on the most important factor in reformation, and that's the people. That's what's going to sustain a reformation, is if the people themselves are changed. Now again, it's not an either-or dilemma. You can work for both, but we do need to have this long-term strategy that the apostles had. I think this was part of the problem with missions in India. There were some missionaries who said, let's just focus entirely upon the upper castes, because if we start with the lower castes, we'll never reach the upper ones. And so here's a good strategy. We'll start with the upper castes, and then Christianity will filter down to the masses. And they thought this would be a much speedier way of gaining reformation. But their attempts to be culturally sensitive did not create a reformation. Instead, it created a culturally irrelevant backwaters church. They created a caste conscious church that the Dalits and the other backwards caste peoples did not feel welcome in. In fact, to this day, Dalits don't feel welcome in most of the Christian churches in India. That's why they've been starting their own massive church movement where thousands and thousands of new churches have been developed where they say anyone is welcome. And in this, they were not following the lead of the earlier missionaries, like William Carey, who really did have a Reformation-conscious strategy and approach. There's one author, Dr. Mangalwadi, who's written some great books. He's identified with the Dalits and backwards-caste people. He has nothing but praise for William Carey, because William Carey wanted to see the entire culture transformed on every level, and he did the things necessary. And it was later missionaries who kind of short-circuited what was going on. So the first point is that this was not elitist. Second point is this was a bottom-up, or what some people speak of as a grassroots movement. The third point was they had a long-term perspective. Yes, it'll be slow, but they had a long-term perspective. The fourth thing to notice about this first phrase is that teaching was at the heart of the Reformation. Teaching. And it's been at the heart of every reformation. If you change enough minds, a culture will be changed. It has to be changed. If you are uninterested in the mind, which seems to be the strategy of modern evangelicalism, you're uninterested in the mind. Instead, you're trying to manipulate people's emotions. you're never going to have long-term change. Sure, you may have some flash-in-the-pan kind of change, but you will not have the kind of long-term change that is needed. And that's one of the reasons why our focus as a church and the focus of Dominion Institute is on teaching. leadership teaching, worldview teaching, doctrinal teaching, teaching that can shape people's minds and hopefully over time will shape a culture. Christ's mandate is to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. And for him, thoughts are very important. And so scripture calls for teaching that is relevant, that confronts idolatry and rebellion wherever it is found, that links law and gospel in a holy matrimony, where we go forth conquering in his name. So to sum up, first phrase shows it's not elitist, it's a grassroots plan, had long-term perspective, and then finally it had teaching at the heart of what they did. Okay, moving on. Verse 1, now, as they spoke to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them. Now, those three groups represent the three parts of society that tend to be the most resistant to Reformation. The first group there, the priests, were the religious leaders. The captain of the temple represents the employees who maintain their salary by maintaining the status quo. And then the Sadducees were the lay political leaders. Now, later on in the book, he also mentions Rome. Rome had a very much of a vested interest in making sure there were not too many social changes. And we'll deal with that later. But I want to just look at these three that are so interrelated. The Sadducees were the aristocracy. Josephus says they only gain the well-to-do. They have not the people on their side. They were the upper crust. They were the ones that had political power. Their main interest was maintaining political control in the country, making sure nothing happened that would get Rome upset with them because Rome had put them into that position of power. And they were constantly maneuvering to gain more control. For example, And the Sadducees had finagled their way, managed to maneuver things so that their relatives were put into the priesthood. And so most of the priests were Sadducean in their doctrine and in their loyalties. And so they were ones who were primarily in control, even though they were a tiny minority. Here's what historian Stephen Barabbas said. This centralization of power led to a number of forms of reaction, especially from the Pharisees. Probably not theological at first, the Sadducees became so in order to defend their policies against the attacks of the Pharisees. Under the Romans, they became the party favorable to the government. As aristocrats, They were naturally very conservative and were more interested in maintaining the political status quo than in the religious purity of the nation. So you can see why they were upset. They have a vested interest in making sure not too much social change happens. The temple guard were in charge of the temple police. they were hired employees. And so their whole livelihood came from doing what their leaders told them to do. If they questioned the leaders, they could get their jobs lost, right? And you know, it's a fascinating thing. There haven't been very many war crimes trials down through the years, but during the trials that have existed of people who, people, what's their first line of defense? Exactly, of just following orders, just following orders. This is, I think, a tendency of the human heart to not want to buck what might get you thrown out of your comfortable position, right? And so they're going to be strongly motivated to resist Reformation as well. The priests are the third group. Most of them, as I mentioned, were related to the Sadducees, so there was blood loyalty, but they too could lose their positions. if they didn't cooperate. So talk about licensed religion. It was informally licensed, and many had sold their souls in order to maintain their positions. And it makes me think of the churches, the TSPM churches in China, the churches under Nazi Germany, and even what's happening in many cases here in America where people are afraid to ruffle feathers. I talked with one pastor who told me, I can't preach on that because we would lose our tax exempt status. And I told him, but it's in the Bible and you yourself have admitted that your people need to hear this. And he said, no, I just can't. He was afraid to do that. Listen to what Hitler said of the clergy in his day. I promise you that if I wish to, I could destroy the church in a few years. It is hollow and rotten and faults through and through. One push and the whole structure would collapse. We should trap the priests by their notorious greed and self-indulgence. We shall thus be able to settle everything with them in perfect peace and harmony. I shall give them a few years reprieve. Why should we quarrel? They will swallow anything in order to keep their material advantages. Matters will never come to a head. They will recognize a firm will, and we need only show them once or twice who is the master. Then they will know which way the wind blows. They are no fools." And I find that one phrase especially significant, he said, they will swallow anything in order to keep their material advantages. Matters will never come to a head. Now, he was not saying that they would not disagree with him. He knew they would disagree with him, but he knew matters would not come to a head. They just would not feel comfortable in pushing things. And I thought that was so insightful to the way human nature works. So here are the three groups that are highly motivated. to stop reformation from happening, their very positions of prestige make them vulnerable to the manipulation of tyrants. Do you know who were the most troublesome people to the reformers? John Calvin and Luther and some of the others. It wasn't their out-and-out enemies. It was the people who were friends, who agreed with their theology, but who just resisted every step of the way on what needed to occur to take on reformation. People like Maitland, or people like John Calvin was writing against. Do you have the book? It's the letter, Nicodemite letters. What an incredible book. Here he is writing to reform people within the Roman Catholic Church who don't want to let anybody know that they are reformed. They're saying, well, when we take the mass, we're not taking the mass. We've reinterpreted it, you know, and we just don't want to cause any raids. And Calvin says there will never be reformation unless you have this kind of confrontation. And so anyway, that's a side issue. We're going to stick with these three people here. Verse two says, being greatly disturbed, not just a little disturbed, but greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. Why were they so upset? We have some hints in this chapter. If you look at verse 17, you'll see the first hint. They say, but so that it spreads no further among the people, let us severely threaten them that from now on they speak to no man in this name. They're in part afraid of these ideas spreading to the populace, ideas that they don't agree with. And you can see the same fear in India and China and Tibet and North Vietnam and North Korea, and in other countries. And interestingly, China and India, while they have opened their doors to competition in the free market of commerce, have not been willing to open the doors at all in the free market of ideas. They do not want free market of ideas at all. You can see it everywhere. To me, it was just nauseous to listen to the news in China. It was just so obviously propaganda. It made me wonder if anybody in the country could believe what was being given on that, but it just made my stomach turn. The news stories that they gave, the reason they're giving propaganda is they know the power that ideas have. It was the ideas of the communism gripping the minds of the common people that led to the communist revolution in the first place, right? And once they got into power, they didn't want any more free market competition of ideas to be taking place. They knew that the pen is mightier than the sword and they were scared to death of these ideas circulating. America has the same thing. In the 60s, you had all of these protests and riots in the universities by people who wanted their ideas to be heard, you know, we want freedom of thought, but they weren't willing to compete in the free market of ideas. Instead, they wanted to use pressure, manipulation, force to gain their positions. And it's an interesting thing. Once they came into power, in other words, these guys are now the establishment. They're the status quo in the universities. What do you have? You have thought police. They don't want to compete. Why? Because they know that their ideas cannot compete with the truth. And here are these Sadducees who are very much trying to be thought police. The resurrection of Jesus, we don't believe it. We don't want anybody else to believe it. And you're talking about resurrection of a man that we thought we have put down. That is very dangerous. Later on in the book of Acts, actually later on in this chapter, I hope to be sharing why they thought the doctrine of the resurrection was so dangerous, why China continues to consider that doctrine to be a dangerous doctrine. And the TSPM churches, there has been a concerted effort to keep pastors from preaching on the resurrection, on judgment, on the second coming of Christ. Let's see, what other things do they have on spiritual gifts, on the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel? at least those things they don't want them teaching on, because they know the power that ideas have. And those are dangerous books to communism, incredibly dangerous teachings. And so, When I'm going off into these mission strips, I want you guys to be in prayer for me. Because if you think those doctrines are dangerous, you get into Reformed faith, you get into Reconstructionism. It's like nuclear weapons. And so I'm serious. I really do need your prayers. But there's more. Look at verse 21. So when they had further threatened them, they let them go, finding no way of punishing them because of the people, since they all glorified God for what had been done. They're fearful of public opinion. I find that very interesting. You don't ordinarily think tyrants could care less what the people think, but they are. They're fearful of public opinion, at least certain blocks of people. And when you're working in missions, that is a fear that can work against you, but it's also a fear, as verse 21 shows, that can work for you. There's more. Look at verse 26. Well, chapter five, verse 26, then the captain went with the officers and brought them without violence for they feared the people lest they should be stoned. Okay, here is a fear actually for their own lives. When a country is ruled by force rather than by wisdom, They know that there is no love between the citizens and the government. And unbelieving citizens in many of these tyrannical countries would, if they had the opportunity, stone all of their leaders. Christians obviously don't believe in that kind of revolution. Many of these people feel helpless to do much at all about that, but this is exactly what led to the overthrow of the dictator in Romania. What's his name? Susesco or something like that. This is what happened recently in the overthrow of the dictator in Kyrgyzstan. And we don't usually think of tyrants as being afraid, but it is often fear that drives tyrants to kill their opponents. It's often fear that drives tyrants to spy on their citizens. It's often fear that drives tyrants to try to control education and commerce and the news media and almost everything else. And this fear, I think, speaks of their enormous vulnerability to the spread of right ideas. I'm very encouraged by the fear. It makes me realize they know that they cannot compete in the free market of ideas, so we need to get our message out. Listen to a few examples from the Gospels of similar fears recorded earlier. Matthew 21, verse 46. But when they sought to lay hands on him, they feared the multitudes because they took him for a prophet. Matthew 26, five, but they said not during the feast, lest there be an uproar among the people. So they fear things will get out of control. Luke 19, 47 through 48. And he was teaching daily in the temple, but the chief priests, the scribes and the leaders of the people sought to destroy him and were unable to do anything for all the people were very attentive. to him, to hear him. So tyrants there were not able to do a lot. They were hampered because of public sentiment. Luke 23 through 6, Jesus answered and said to them, I also will ask you one thing and answer me, the baptism of John, was it from heaven or from men? And they reasoned among themselves saying, if we say from heaven, he will say, why then did you not believe him? But if we say from men, all the people will stone us for they are persuaded that John was a prophet. I mean, they recognize there's a point where citizens get to the place where they say enough is enough. And they, they do something about it. Maybe not the right thing. We don't believe in revolution. We believe only in lawful war with lawful magistrates. We don't believe in revolution, but there are many out there who do, and leaders in these tyrannical countries are fearful for their lives and their positions. Luke 20, 19. And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on him, but they feared the people, for they knew that he had spoken this parable against them. Luke 20, 26. But they could not catch him in his words, in the presence of the people, and they marveled at his answer and kept silent. This is why their persecution of him tended to be in secret. And this is why communist countries are expert at doing things in secret. Why? Because they still are afraid of public opinion. Luke 22, verse 2, and the chief priests. And the scribes sought how they might kill him, for they feared the people." Now, earlier it said, fear of the people kept them from hurting him. Here it says, fear of the people led them to want to kill him, secretly, of course, but it can go in either direction. They knew the influence that one man could have in transforming a nation. Luke 23, 5. But they were the more fierce, saying, He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee to this place. And notice that phrase, He stirs up the people. They were claiming he was fomenting rebellion. Now, he wasn't. This is a false charge that Nero brought against the Christians. They were not. They said, we are submitting to the government. But you know what? These governments recognize that however loyal these subjects may be, their ideas are revolutionary and it's their ideas that are so dangerous. Mark 11, 18. And the scribes and the chief priests heard it and sought how they might destroy him, for they feared him because all the people were astonished at his teaching. Now, this next passage shows that they despised the masses. And it was this despisement that led this kind of attitude that led the Pol Pot's of this world and the Stalins of this world to just murder millions of people without much thought. John 7, 47 and following. Then the Pharisees answered them. Are you also deceived? Have any of the rulers or the Pharisees believed in him, but this crowd that does not know the law is accursed." They utterly despised the people, and this despisement led them to persecute anybody who sided with them. In the next verse, it says, Nicodemus, who came to Jesus by night, being one of them, so he was a Pharisee, said to them, does our law judge a man before it hears him and knows what he is doing? They answered and said to him, are you also from Galilee? They're basically saying, you want us to lump you in with these guys? You're walking an awful dangerous ground, Nicodemus. They knew where he was from. They knew he wasn't a Galilean. He's a public figure. Everybody knows his genealogy. This is a veiled threat. So he says, are you also from Galilee? Search and look for no prophet has arisen out of Galilee. And so they're using guilt by association to intimidate anybody who feels sorry for the Christians. And so back to Acts chapter four. It was fear that made them upset. They were upset because these people had the gall to come onto their property, the temple, they thought of it as their property, to teach doctrines which they did not believe. And then secondly, to be doing this without applying for permission. Permits, you know, from the proper authorities and the proper channels to be doing that. Jesus said that if he was hated, we can expect to be persecuted. John 15, 20, if they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. Now, I read that long list of scriptures. I know it was a long list, but just to show you that this is not an isolated event. This is a pattern that you find all through the New Testament. You can find it in the Old Testament as well. And then secondly, to help you to get into their minds and to think like they are thinking so that you can understand why they are so frustrated in the rest of this chapter that we're going to be looking at in the weeks to come. If you don't understand this dynamic that's going on, their hatred, their persecution of the Christians just does not make any sense. Now, obviously, there was the demonic that was behind them, pushing them irrationally forward. But I think even apart from the demonic, you can understand this tension, this conflict, if you understand their sinful worldview. I think you can understand it just based on that. True Christianity throughout the Bible has always come into conflict with humanistic authorities because true Christianity has antithesis. Antithesis. If you don't know what that word means, look it up in the dictionary, memorize it. But antithesis, it means you see things in terms of black and white, in terms of right and wrong, in terms of jurisdictional limits, in terms of you can go this far, but no further. Clearly marked out details. And the true Christianity, the Book of Acts, was confronting idolatry, did not compromise. It looked more to God's glory than it did to man's glory. True Christianity was not cowed into silence by the threats of men. Why? Because they feared God more than they feared man. True Christianity was not intimidated into being silent about controversial areas because they saw themselves as ambassadors for God not goodwill ambassadors for the powers that be. And I tell you, if American Christianity could be laid hold of by these principles and could lay hold of these principles themselves, they would make an enormous difference, a powerful difference. They would also give immediate backlash. Verse three, they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. In short, they went to jail. They were thrown into the clink. This is how Acts begins. This is how Acts ends. And you find them in jail in the chapters in between. The last chapter of Acts has Paul in jail, in house arrest. And yet it says, despite his arrest, he continues to preach the kingdom of God, and no one is able to stop him. I love the title of Randall Terry's book, Why Does a Nice Guy Like Me Keep Getting Thrown in Jail? Now, I know he is a controversial figure and he's fallen out of favor in some circles because he did have an unbiblical divorce and remarriage. But just setting that aside for a moment, many people are upset with him for the wrong reason. They automatically assume if you're thrown in jail, you have sinned. You're wrong, you're guilty. They have confused sin with shame. And they are utterly different things in the scripture. And this is a very uncomfortable fact for American Christians to come to grips with. Just think of it this way. I know it's a long time ago that we signed the Declaration of Independence. But the Declaration of Independence made every person who signed that a criminal in the eyes of King George. They said they had broken the law. The declaration itself was an act of treason. Now, of course, our founding father said, no, it's King George who has broken the law. We are not the ones who have broken the law. But they pointed out that kings are subject to God. They have limited jurisdictions, and they must bow to the laws of King Jesus themselves. And it's that idea of the limits of the law that has enabled the underground church in China to say, we are going to resist. We're going to be submissive to the government on everything we can be submissive to them on. But on these areas, we cannot. We must not. It's true, there are limits to disobedience, civil disobedience. Whatever the limits of those are, and there are legitimate disagreements amongst people on that. I happen to disagree with Randall Terry's particular approach in Operation Rescue, but I respect the fact he is getting out there. But whatever the disagreements are, I want you to note this. The New Testament is never embarrassed about the fact that every one of its leaders was in jail. Not embarrassed in the least. In the book of Acts, it just reports it. In fact, it assumes that if you're really preaching the kingdom and you're advancing the kingdom of Christ, it's going to be so counter-cultural that conflict will be unavoidable. Americans have had a 200-year reprieve from such persecutions in our country. And so we're not used to even thinking in those terms. But we need to recognize the only reason we have had reprieve is because of our Puritan forebearers who, because of their consistent reformed worldview, established institutions that are protecting us, even to this day, from such persecution. Now those foundations have completely been eroded, which means in the near future we may fail jail time. We may face fines. We may face bureaucratic harassment. In fact, there are people who are already facing bureaucratic harassment for being faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, we still do have a lot of relative freedoms in our country. Things aren't nearly, nearly as bad as they are in other countries, but we may get backlash from time to time, and you just need to be expecting that. In fact, even this past week, we may get a little bit of backlash from an ad that Pastor Durham got placed in the yellow pages under the escort services. He was saying, look, I don't know that we can even advertise with you guys because you have been advertising incredible pornography in here and incredible ungodly prostitution. And prostitution is a crime. Oh no, it's escort service. Look here, this is not an escort. This is prostitution, clear and simple. And you should have just been there to hear the the conflict going back and forth, but the up and the long of it is that they finally, he finally conceded and said, okay, we'll advertise with you if you give us a free ad under the escort services in advertising that we will help people out of their addictions to this kind of sexual industry, and they gave it to him. They gave it to him, so praise the Lord. Any time you're going over the barbed wire that Satan has erected, you know, there will be some backlash that you can expect, but you're also going to see positive results as well. Look at verse four. However, many of those who heard the word believed in the number of the men came to be about 5000. I love that word. However, It's a small hint of the irresistible advancement of Christ's kingdom to those who put their feet on Satan's territory. I think that's the key. It's not to those who sit within their walls and try to feel comfortable and safe. It's to those who advance. What soldiers ever win a battle if they're retreating from the enemy? Now, you win a battle by going into the enemy's territory, right? And so what it's saying here is despite opposition and intimidation, the church was growing. Now, certainly there were going to be Christians who would be intimidated into silence. And certainly there would be unbelievers who, because of their fear, did not want to become Christians. But when the word was going forth, they knew that there would be people who would join them. And so Luke interrupts this account of the arrest and of the trial with that small nugget of information to encourage us. Yes, even in the midst of pressure and conflict, Christ's kingdom grows. Amen. So this is not a theology of escapism. This is a theology of conquest. Second, this conquest is a conquest of ideas, not a conquest of the sword. Right? They heard the word of God. They received, they believed the word of God. And it's when the word of God that is being preached, that it's that word, that communication that proved irresistible. And it's very imperative that the word get out. So I want you guys to be praying. that the Lord would help make our efforts to get the word out through radio successful, through literature, through conferences, training seminars, emails, counseling, whatever way that we can, that it would be successful. We don't know who the elect are, but we know we've got to speak the word and the elect are out there. Now this phrase should remind us of three things. First, mass conversions continue to be a part of God's irresistible growth of his kingdom. And because the men are mentioned here, household conversions should be thought of as not something that is that is odd or out of the ordinary. This is God's ordinary means of advancing his kingdom. So here they have grown from 120 men to 5,000 men. And so if you just very, very conservatively estimate one wife and one child per each, you've got at least 15,000 people who have come into the church. And so there was immediately phenomenal growth that the Lord was bringing about. Now, if you want a real encouragement, Read the first chapter in D. James Kennedy's book called The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail, I think is the name of it. Read that chapter and look at the statistics that they have of the incredible growth of the church nonstop. And it's an exponential growth. And in recent years, especially the last 50 years, it's almost straight up. It's just unbelievable how quickly the church has been growing. Second, God counts the church by households. And you're going to find this all the way through the book of Acts. It is family based, not just individual based. Thirdly, this gives every reason for the authorities to be concerned. Why? Because it's covenantal. Covenantalism is not satisfied with pietism. You know what pietism is? It's just Jesus and I. A type of Christianity where we forget about what's going on out there. We abandon the culture and we just want to have a personal relationship. No. Covenantalism The true Christianity of Acts is aggressively going out there into the marketplace of ideas, and like Walmart, they plan to dominate the market, right? They're not satisfied with their current customer base, no way. They know that Jesus wants it all. No square inch of planet Earth should be exempt from this new company that Christ has established taking it over, right? Well, now you can understand why the competitors don't want fair competition. Can you understand that they can't compete? Now you understand why they bring a persecution is because they are so fearful of the ideas that the apostles are marketing. Now, do you see why they want the government to step into the free marketplace of ideas and make it no longer a free marketplace? Why? Because they cannot compete with the truth. They need to use force. And so in the next weeks, we're going to look at the trial. the refusal to submit, the preaching of the apostles. And I think you're going to be hugely encouraged by the nature of that Christianity that is being described. It is utterly different than the Christianity that we witnessed in the TSPM church. It is so different than the Christianity that is so common in America that has not made a dent in American humanism. In fact, humanism has been running rampant in America. But it is very, very much like the Christianity that is in the underground church in China. Very much like that. And it's my prayer that our church would have the reputation of being empowered by God's grace, consumed for His glory, bold in His cause, and anointed by His Spirit. May it be so. Amen. Father God, we acknowledge that we are weak in ourselves. We can do nothing. But I thank you that you have made us mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds as we use the weapons that you have given to us and not the weapons of our own carnal imagination. And I pray that you would give to us wisdom. enable us to penetrate into this city, to make a difference, to go over the barbed wire and plant our feet on Satan's territory and plant your flag. And Father, cause the kingdoms of this world to become the kingdoms of our Christ. Lord Jesus, be exalted in this world. Holy Spirit, come and have your way in our lives and whatever fears that we may have, I pray that you would wash them away and give us boldness to make a difference wherever you have stationed us to be. Father, we are encouraged by the fact that the humanists of this world are actually the ones who deserve to be fearful. And it's no wonder that they are fearful because they cannot compete in a free marketplace. And I pray that you would help us to effectively get our ideas out there into the free marketplace of ideas. And Father, that you would help us to lead every thought captive to the obedience of the Lord Jesus Christ. It is our desire to give you the glory. And Father, to lay any pride at the cross of Christ, anything from our accomplishments that we would acknowledge and know deep down within ourselves, that it is not by might nor by power, but by your spirit, says the Lord. To you be all the honor, the praise and the glory forever and ever. Amen.