Big Problems? God’s Bigger
Acts 5:17-42
One of the great modern stories of a sports hero who has experienced great adversity and yet persevered is that of Dave Dravecky, star pitcher of the S.F. Giants. I’m sure many of you know his story.
•In 1987 Dravecky was playing his best baseball. He was at the top of his game. Heading into the 1988 season he knew it would be the best of his career. He says it this way: “No question about it I was going to win twenty games. My plan was for twenty games. [But] God’s plan was for cancer.”
In October of 1988 Dravecky had surgery to remove fifty percent of his deltoid muscle and a tumor that had developed in my left arm, halfway between the shoulder and the elbow. The doctor said, "Outside of a miracle you will never pitch again."
•Yet Dravecky persevered and made and extraordinary came back. Less than a year later on August 10, 1989 he stood on the mound again and threw the first pitch of ninety three pitches. I am overwhelmed when I think about the fact that I was able to stand on that mound. Before that deltoid muscle was taken he threw eighty-eight to ninety miles an hour. In that game I was clocked at eighty-eight to ninety miles an hour. “I don’t care what anybody says to me. It was a miracle and that’s all that matters.”
•Yet disaster was about to strike again. Five days later, while pitching against the Montreal Expos, Dravecky threw a pitch and collapsed on the mound. It proved to be a recurrence of the cancer. His left arm and shoulder had to be amputated, ending his pitching career.
•What a double whammy.
I’m sure many people were saying, “What a disaster. Life had been going so well. His career was flying. He had so much going for him. It just wasn’t fair.”
•In life it seems sometimes it is at our times of greatest success that disaster strikes....
•Just when we think we are about to achieve something, it all comes falling down.
That must have been how the early church fell in Acts, chapter 5. Turn with me to Acts 5.
The Church is thriving. Jesus’ disciples, the apostles are in great form. You might say pitching shutouts. And the Church is winning. Everything is going great.
•There is wonderful unity: Sharing all things in common.
•There is wonderful growth: We have just learned that the Church is growing and thriving: 5:14: “more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number. We learn that people are being healed, lives are being changed.
•There is spiritual strength: The dramatic death of Ananias and Sapphira caused everyone to rethink their commitment.
But when things are going well, that’s when Satan goes on the offensive; that’s when he unleashes his most powerful weapons.
•In this case it is the Church’s religious opponents in Jerusalem. The same body that turned Jesus over to Roman authorities.
•They see the popularity of the Church and it angers them.
•And so they lash out: Verse 17 Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. 18 They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail.
Now this must have been a scary experience. After all, this is just what happened to Jesus.
•The arrest itself would be scary. But there is something else. This is their second offense.
•Back in 4:18 this same legal body, the Sanhedrin, ordered Peter and John not to speak anymore about Jesus.
•And what did they do? They went right back to preaching about Jesus.
•Now the first time you issue a warning, but the second time punishment usually follows.
•That’s usually the way it works with children, right? You say, “If you say, ‘I’ve told you before I don’t want you throwing the ball in the house. “ Five minutes later when you hear “Wham,” as the ball smash against the wall, it’s not going to be a warning. The punishment begins.
•It works that way with adults, too, right. I was driving down El Cajon Blvd about a year ago, going a little fast and I got pulled over. He said, “running a little late today, are we?” And he was very gracious. I didn’t even have to get down on my hands and knees and beg. He said, “slow it down.”
•I learned my lesson and I have slowed down. But suppose on the very next day, he pulled me over in exactly the same place for exactly the same offense. I can assure he would not have been so gracious.
The apostles have been warned not to preach Jesus any more. But they have gone right on doing it. There is no way they are going to get off with a warning this time.
•And as we shall see, they don’t. They get severely beaten for their actions.
This is a scary situation. This is a big problem. They could lose their life. I’m sure it was a source of stress for them and for their family and friends.
But the apostles are going to recognize that though they have big problems, they have a bigger God.
•Luke expresses the solution very briefly, almost casually. Look at it in verses 19-20: But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out.
•How do you get out of a locked jail, with armed guards? These are not commandoes. These are a bunch of peasants and fishermen? How do you get out? You wait for your angel to show up.
The principle we learn from this is that no matter how big the problem, how strong the prison, :
1. God has the keys to every locked door, vv. 19-20
Do you believe that this morning?
God has the ability to bring us through the worst of life’s circumstances.
God has the financial resources to get you out of mountain of debt.
God has the healing power to save your marriage.
To work through that rift with your parents.
To make you whole again after you’ve been scarred by abuse.
This passage teaches us that God has the power to do it.
•In this case, it’s angel power.
•And the Bible tell us God has lots of angel power.
A story appeared Moody Bible Institute’s devotional magazine Today in the Word, (October, 1991, p. 18), the story of John Paton, who was a missionary in the New Hebrides Islands.
•One night hostile natives surrounded the mission station, intent on burning out the Patons and killing them.
•Paton and his wife prayed during that terror-filled night that God would deliver them.
•When daylight came they were amazed to see their attackers leave.
•A year later, the chief of the tribe was converted to Christ. Remembering what had happened, Paton asked the chief what had kept him from burning down the house and killing them. The chief replied in surprise, "Who were all those men with you there?"
•Paton knew no men were present--but the chief said he was afraid to attack because he had seen hundreds of big men in shining garments with drawn swords circling the mission station.
This story sounds eerily like the story of Elisha and his servant in 2 Kings 6, when the King of Syria sends an army to capture Elisha.
•Elisha’s servant wakes up early in the morning and sees chariots and horses surrounding their home.
•He runs to Elisha and says, we’re surrounded! We’re dead!” Elisha says, oh no, we outnumber them (servant; two of us?). Elisha prays, “Lord, open his eyes!” And we learn, “Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and say the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.” (v. 17).
The point is, “If we could only see the angels. If we would only see all the chariots.”
•Maybe we would face life with more confidence in God. Confidence that God is in control.
I have a good friend who loves to tell the story when he was a young man, he and a friend were driving their old car. The brakes were pretty bad and they were just flying down this hill when the brakes went out. At the bottom of the hill were train track and they were dismayed to see a train was coming. They were sure they would never stop in time. At the very last second the brakes caught enough and they stopped just short of the tracks, and the huge locomotive just flew by feet in front of them.
•He told me he was certain that if he had gone around the back of the car he would have seen drag marks of the feet of 4 guardian angel held.
Don’t get me wrong. Bad things do happen, even to Christians. But I wonder how often God intervenes, and we are unaware.
T- But God never opens prison doors just to get people out. He always has a larger purpose.
And the angel has orders for the apostles. Look at them in verse 20 “Go, stand in the temple courts,” he said, “and tell the people the full message of this new life.”
• “What are you waiting for? Get back out there and do your job, proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ!” Don’t forget your purpose.
•I wonder if that’s one reason we don’t see as many prison doors opening today; maybe we have forgotten our purpose, that we are to be proclaiming the Gospel to all nations.
But I want you to see how the angel describes the Gospel, “the full message of this new life.” It’s a very odd expression,
•Literally is says something like tell them “all the words of life.” This is the only time in the Bible when the Gospel message is described in this way.
•What’s the point? Then angel says “Tell it all. Don’t hold back.”
•What would be the tendency? Well just like me when I got pulled over, I (rightly) held back; I stopped driving so fast.
•The apostles would naturally have the tendency to hold back. After all, they’ve just been through a traumatic experience. Take a few days off. Let things quiet down.
•The angel says, “Don’t slow down. Speed up. Put the pedal to the metal.” Don’t pull any punches. Tell them the whole Gospel.
•What’s the whole Gospel? We’re going to find out a little later in the passage.
So they obey. Look at verse 21 At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.
•I love that. They were up at daybreak. After a night in prison, they didn’t even sleep in.
•It reminds me of my marine friends. I’m always amazed, they’ll say, “We were up at 4:00 am on maneuvers.”
• 4 am! That’s nighttime. Real people don’t get up at that hour. Ah, but soldiers do.
•The apostles have a wartime mindset. They are up at daybreak because they have a battle to win.
Now I’m sure God has a sense of humor. Because the scene that follows is a truly comical.
•Not only did God rescue the apostles with an angel, but somehow he brought them out without the guards seeing (whether the guards were sleeping, or supernaturally blinded we don’t know.)
•But Luke is a great storyteller and I’m sure he just relishes in this scene.
•First, the guards are standing at strict attention, but they’re guarding an empty prison.
•The Sanhedrin was the most distinguished legal body in the land, gathers the next morning to make a ruling on the apostles. And one by one the Sanhedrin files in their formal robes.
•The bailiff comes up, “The court will now come to order.” ”
•A cry goes up, “Bring in the prisoners!” And the bailiff says, “Yeah, about the prisoners. You see we kind of lost them.” What!
•The guards are guarding, but there are no prisoners; the court is meeting, but there are no defendants. This is better than Court T.V.!
Middle of verse 21 ...When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin — the full assembly of the elders of Israel — and sent to the jail for the apostles. 22 But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, 23 “We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside.” 24 On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this.
It gets better. There is a dramatic pause and then someone rushes into the courtroom, and he says, “You know there’s a bunch of guys preaching at the Temple, and they bear a striking resemblance to those guys you put in jail.”
Look at verse 25 Then someone came and said, “Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people.”
So they go out and bring them in. And now they are really ticked off. Look at what they say: 27 Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.”
He says essentially, “you are calling us murderers!”
Now this is scary. These are powerful men, capable of arranging your execution. How will Peter respond.
Let’s see: verse 29: Peter and the other apostles replied: We are really sorry, and we promise never to do it again, so please don’t hurt us....
•Is that what your Bible says? Mine either.
•That would be the wimp-out version of the Gospel. But if you will recall the angel did not tell the apostles to preach the wimp-out version of the Gospel, he told the to preach the whole Gospel. The angel said not to pull any punches. He told them to put the pedal to the metal. So that is what Peter does: Verse 29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men! 30 The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead — whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree. 31 God exalted him to his own right hand as Prince and Savior that he might give repentance and forgiveness of sins to Israel.”
The high priest had said, “You are trying to paint us as murderers.” And Peter replies, “If the shoe fits, wear it.”
Now it is likely that the Sanhedrin are not going to be happy campers at this point. And we see they are not. 33 When they heard this, they were furious and wanted to put them to death.
Now this is getting really serious. They want to kill them.
•The apostles big problems just got bigger.
•But God is about to teach them another principle. Once again he’s going to show them that despite their big problems, God’s bigger.
Just as they are about to have them executed, a particular leader steps forward. His name is Gamaliel. He is one of the leading rabbis of that day. We know him from outside sources. By an amazing coincidence, he is the rabbi who is training Saul of Tarsus, whom we will meet in a few chapters in Acts.
But Gamaliel has some sound advice for the Sanhedrin. It is essentially, “Don’t do anything rash, these things have a way of working themselves out. Troublemakers get themselves into trouble.”
•He points to two troublemakers.
•Theudas. He calls him a man who claimed to be somebody (probably claimed to be the Messiah, like Jesus). Four hundred men rallied to him. But he was killed and his followers scattered.
•Judas the Galilean, led another group in revolt. The Romans killed him.
Then Gamaliel makes an amazing statement. He says, Verse 38 Therefore, in the present case I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. 39 But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God.”
•Pretty sound advice. This movement will surely fail if it isn’t from God.
•But if it is, you can’t stop it at all. Why? Because God is bigger than the Sanhedrin.
•Now Gamaliel did not for a minute believe this movement was from God. But he recognizes reality. If it’s from God, kiss your chances of beating it goodbye.
When I teach the book of Acts at Bethel I treat this verse as almost the theme verse of Acts. (Amazing, On the lips of an unbeliever!)
The theme of Acts is the unstoppable Gospel. The steamroller of the Gospel.
•Nothing can stop it: Persecution can’t; prison can’t; shipwreck can’t; snakebite can’t. Not even murder can.
•That is the greatest proof of all that God is in this movement. Because God is unstoppable.
•Do you have big problems? God’s bigger.
This is a great principle for us to remember. It’s our second point.
How do we know that we can get through life’s most difficult circumstances? It’s because:
2. God’s sovereign plans are unstoppable, vv. 38-39
God has a plan and purpose in this world, and he has a purpose and plan for you. And nothing, absolutely nothing can stop.
There is a great deal of interest in prophecy these days. Turn of the millennium; Y2K and all that. And I’m sure as the year gets nearer the end...more intense.
•And there is huge interest in the book of Revelation, with its amazing symbols and images.
•And many prophecy writers claim to be able to decipher these images, and apply them to specific events.
•But you know what? They’re wrong. They don’t know. Everyone who has ever tried
But you know what, I know what the book of Revelation is all about. I have the key to the book of Revelation. I have the key to Bible prophecy.
•And if you send a check or money order $9.95 to me, I will tell you too.
•No. I’ll tell you right now. The main theme is....ready, “God wins. God is going to win because his sovereign purpose and plan for this world are unstoppable.”
I can’t tell you if the stock market is going to crash.
I can’t tell you if we will get bogged down in an impossible civil war in Kosovo.
I can’t tell you if nuclear war will occur.
More personally:
I can’t tell you if you will stay well this year.
I can’t tell you if your family will stay together.
I can’t tell you any of those things. But there is one thing I can tell you with absolute certainty. And that is that God knows exactly what will happen to you this year. And he is sovereignly in control.
•There is nothing that can get in the ways of his sovereign plans.
•Paul says it best in Romans 8. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
•Nothing can separate you from the love of Christ. Nothing can keep you from the blessings that he has planned for you.
The apostles had big trouble.
•They were looking death in the eyes. And it looked pretty painful. The Romans crucified; the Jews stoned. How would you like to die? You can either be nailed to a tree and left out until exhaustion, hypothermia and excruciating pain causes you to suffocate. Or you can have sharp jagged rocks thrown at you until you die of bleeding and internal injuries.
•These are not good options
But the apostles can look death in the eye and face it down because they ahve a much, much bigger God.
T- But finally I have to say that though God will always accomplish in us his perfect will, that doesn’t mean life will always be easy.
•It wasn’t easy for Jesus
•It wasn’t easy for Paul
•It wasn’t easy for Stephen, who will be stoned to death in ch. 7
•It wasn’t easy for James, who will have his head chopped off in ch. 12.
•And it’s not easier for the 12 apostles.
Verse 40 His speech persuaded them. They called the apostles in and had them flogged. Then they ordered them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and let them go.
They got flogged. Luke mentions it almost in passing, but this must have been a painful and traumatic episode.
•They usually used a calfskin whip, the bare upper body of the offender--one-third of the lashes being given on the breast and the other two-thirds on the back. They would give 39 lashes (Law allowed only 40, Deut. 25, so to be careful not to break the Law they gave 40). (H. Cohn, “Flogging,” Encyclopedia Judaica, vol. 6, p. 1350).
And what is their reaction?
41 The apostles left the Sanhedrin, rejoicing because they had been counted worthy of suffering disgrace for the Name. 42 Day after day, in the temple courts and from house to house, they never stopped teaching and proclaiming the good news that Jesus is the Christ.
They weren’t masochists. They didn’t enjoy that suffering.
•But they realized that Jesus Christ had suffered much more for them.
•They rejoiced that they could suffer a little for him.
T- They also realized, that through suffering, God was doing something significant in their lives.
Because:
3. Suffering and hardship build Christ-like character, v. 41
This is a principle we find throughout Scripture
Paul said ...we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.(NIV) Romans 5:3-5
James 1:2-3: 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4
I started this message with the story of Dave Dravecky and his battle with cancer.
Through his suffering and hardship God worked an amazing thing in his life.
•Today, Dave and his wife Jan have an extraordinary ministry.
•He travels around the country as an inspirational speaker.
•They founded an organization called Outreach of Hope Ministries, in which they minister to the needs of cancer victims.
•His story has touched the lives of thousands.
I’m sure that wasn’t how he would have written his story, if he had the chance. But God knew that he could take the pain and the suffering and accomplish something good through it.
•He could build the kind of character that would last for eternity.
I don’t know what trials you are enduring today, but God can bring you through.
