FIGHTING AGAINST GOD

We saw in the preceding verses of Acts chapter five how there was such an outpouring
of grace and faith through the power of the Holy Spirit working in the church with
healings and signs and wonders and the good will of the people in going without, so that
they could care for one another’s needs. We also saw how in the example of the
judgement upon Ananias and Saphira that there was also great accountability to the
Holy Spirit for all that grace and power.
Crowds were streaming in from the Jerusalem suburbs, bringing their sick folk and those
oppressed by evil spirits and every one of them was healed …
And all of this finally caused an angry reaction from the Jewish religious leaders.

Reading on in Acts chapter 5.

Acts 5:17. The high priest and the entire Sadducee group became very indignant. They
took hold of the apostles and locked them up in jail.
19. However the angel of The Lord opened up the prison doors and set them free and told
them to go and stand in the temple and proclaim to all the people this new way of life.
21. So, upon hearing that, they went into the temple the first thing in the morning and
began to teach. At the same time the high priest and all his supporters convened the
council and the senate of Israel and decided to send for the prisoners to be brought to
them from the prison. But the prison officers went to the prison and found that they were
no longer there. So they went back to the council and senate. They told them that the
prison was shut securely, and the soldiers were on guard outside the prison doors, but that
when they opened the doors, they found that there was nobody there.

24. When the high priests and all the other religious officials heard about this they began
to wonder where all this was heading. Then someone came and told them all that the men
they had put into prison were back in the temple again, preaching to the people.

The high priest and his other Sadducee officials rejected any belief in the resurrection or
angels or other supernatural signs from God. Their religious beliefs were focused on the
strict interpretation of the written Torah. But now they were stumped because there
were supernatural things happening all around them and they were getting anxious. But
this was actually an act of mercy and grace for them also because God was giving these
religious leaders a chance to witness God’s power and accept the truth of the Gospel.
This brought the high priest and the leaders face to face with reality and an
accountability to truth, not to mention the hostility of the multitudes who were being
persuaded of the power and glory of God.

26. So the captains and officers of the temple went and discreetly removed the apostles
from the place, treating them gently because they were afraid that they might end up
getting stoned by the people.
27. They set the apostles before the council and the high priest, and he began to question
them; He reminded them that they had been forbidden to teach anything in that name,
charging them that they had filled Jerusalem with their doctrine, and were even planning
to bring the blood guilt of Jesus upon them.
Somewhere in their strangely superstitious yet unbelieving minds they were anxious
that a curse of blood guilt would be cast upon them. Religious superstition and legalism
is a curse in itself, as it cuts off the flow of spiritual blessing (Galatians 1:9).

29. Peter and the other apostles reiterated; ‘We have to obey God rather than men.’

30. The God of our ancestors resurrected Jesus, whom you put to death upon a cross.
31. God has given him the most exalted of all positions, as the Prince and Saviour of Israel
to give them a new heart and mind and total cancellation of all their sins.
32. We are witnesses of all of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has
bestowed upon all that become subject to his authority.

33. When the religious leaders of Israel heard that they were infuriated, and they
determined to put them to death.
34. Then Gamaliel, one of the Pharisees of the council, who was a teacher and interpreter
of the Law, and held in high esteem among the people, commanded that the apostles be
detained outside of the meeting for the time being.

Gamaliel was a Pharisee and unlike the Sadducees he did believe in a resurrection. He
was also the tutor of Paul when he was a Pharisee. Paul mentions that he sat at the feet
of Gamaliel in Acts 22:3.

Gamaliel then addressed the meeting and said: ‘Be careful, you leaders of Israel, about
what you do with these men, because it was not so long ago that Theudas gave himself
some kind of self-appointed significance and gathered a following of some four hundred
men. He ended up being killed and all his followers were scattered, and it all came to
nothing. Then another self-appointed ruler called Judas of Galilee rose up, in the days of
the taxing, and he also had quite a crowd following him. He died too, and his followers
were scattered. So what I am telling you all is that you should leave these men alone,
because if what they have been saying and what they have been doing is just the work of
men, it will come to nothing;

39. But if it is of God, you are powerless to stop it; and you will find yourselves fighting
against God himself.’

40. They listened to what Gamaliel had to say and they agreed. So they called the apostles
back, had them beaten, and commanded them not to speak in the name of Jesus, and then
let them go. The apostles left the council and went on their way, rejoicing to be counted
worthy to suffer shame for the name of Jesus and they continued to teach and preach
about Jesus Christ every day in the temple, and in all the houses round about the region.

Peter’s words earlier in the chapter were “We ought to obey God rather than men.’ (vs29).
They were appointed to preach the Gospel and they had to obey God even if it meant
breaking a civil law. The Gospel that they preached was powerful and it was confirmed
by God in an undeniably supernatural way. It was therefore a threat to the religious and
civil power base of the day. It was more than just speech that was unpopular or offensive
to the rights or special interests of others in the community.
They were quite happy to suffer the consequences of disobeying the law of man in order
to obey God. It was up to God to either set them free by sending an angel or to let them
stay there for however long he wanted them to be there. They knew they were doing
God’s work wherever they were. Paul spent a long time ‘doing time’ in jail for God,
knowing that God had ordained it, but if God had wanted him to escape confinement
God would organize it, as we see in Acts chapter nine when Paul first started preaching
in Damascus after being converted and was confined inside the city - his friends lowered
him down a wall in a basket to escape being killed by those hostile to his preaching. God
works all of these things out his way – it is his Gospel, and his power.

Paul spoke about this principle of obeying God first even if you go to jail for it, when he
wrote to the Roman church ‘Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities’
(Romans 13:1,also 1Peter 2:13 ; submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's
sake’).
A person can obey God first and also be subject to the governing authorities even when
they disobey a civil law as long as they accept the legal consequences of it in the civil
courts. It is then put into God’s hands.

There are Christians preaching the Gospel today in countries where it is illegal to do so,
and they cannot lobby the government about freedom of speech to preach because they
don’t get to vote. In a Western democracy Christians today lobby the government for
legalizing freedom of speech to further the work of the Gospel, the way that they feel
sincere about - and they can feel irate if they are denied this freedom. As Christians
people can vote as citizens in a democracy with the hope that their sincere requests for
freedom of speech for their cause will be granted, and if it is they rejoice, but there is no
guarantee from God. Faith is not about wishful thinking or political power. There was
never any politically sanctioned freedom of speech in the Book of Acts.

But if you really have a Gospel of power, and not just a political opinion about your
religious rights or your self-importance it doesn’t matter what the government of the
day is - nobody can stop the power of the Gospel from going forth and accomplishing
what God intends for it to achieve. This might bring about distressing opposition and
personal suffering but being counted worthy to share in the sufferings of Christ in this
way releases great power from Heaven - and it brings about God’s outcomes for his
glory. When people fight against God, God wins.