The following program, Sharing Your Faith, has been pre-recorded. We might as well just stop there and say, you know, that could happen today. And if you are a child of God, if you are walking in God's will and filled with His Spirit, and you have been given gifts of the Holy Spirit, and maybe those gifts are teaching or preaching, and you are teaching people and you're preaching to people, some of the religious leaders, even in our churches, might take issue with you because you haven't gone through the proper training or you haven't gotten the pedigrees or the titles or have earned the doctorates and they don't think that you're somehow fit to teach. And so they're going to maybe take issue with you. In fact, you could even probably experience some persecution. Hi there, and welcome to Sharing Your Faith with Larry Dubois. Larry is an evangelist who's been sharing his faith in Jesus for over 30 years. As a street preacher, he has traveled the entire continental United States, preaching the gospel in over 200 cities. Taking from his experience in the Word of God, Larry hopes to encourage you in sharing your faith. And now, here's your host, Larry Dubois. We begin today in our Bible study in the book of Acts in chapter 4. And as a way of introduction, I wanted to mention a couple of things. This could actually lead to your own study. I haven't done a comprehensive study on these subjects, but the subjects I'm talking about is, one, the government of the Jewish nation within the Roman Empire, and then number two, the Sanhedrin, or Sanhedrin, however you choose to pronounce that, the ruling Jewish council. And if you were to do some of the studies on those two topics, it would give us some great insight on what's going on here in the Book of Acts, and specifically here as we enter into Chapter 4. And the reason I bring that up is because it helps to know some of the history and some of the things that were going on at the time to better understand the study and ultimately, even in our application, getting to observation, interpretation, and then eventually application. But as we look to Acts chapter 4, one of the things that comes up, of course, will hopefully cover verses 1 through 12 today, and then next time we'll finish off the chapter, we'll see how far we get. But if you were to look in the first part of Acts 4 here, in verse 1, right away after the preaching of the gospel by Peter in chapter 3 there, after the healing of the lame man, he drew quite a crowd as they saw this man healed, and then he began to preach and to teach about Jesus. Now, council, of course, came out and arrested him, as we're going to see as we get into the text. But the reason I say as a way of introduction, how is the relationship with the Jewish nation to the Roman Empire? Well, if we go back into the Old Testament, you're going to find that initially the nation of Israel, as God created this nation to be his representative nation on the earth, was that it was called a theocracy. And basically, that was just a government ruled by God himself. And we see this in the main man, of course, back in the Old Testament was Moses. God had directly spoken to Moses and he carried out God's wishes, God's law, God's government there for the Jewish nation. And then, of course, as time went on in the Old Testament, as you read through, they went from that to Joshua and then to Judges, and there were Judges running the country, as it were. And then after that, Samuel, I believe, not only a prophet, but being the last Judge, of Israel was at that time they desired to have a king. And of course we know the story with King Saul and then ultimately the King David. But what I wanted to bring out was, under the Roman Empire, the Jewish nation was not allowed to be a theocracy, of course. However, they were allowed to do certain things. The way the Roman Empire was set up was that they would allow certain cities or different districts, maybe a colony. Remember in Acts 16, there was a colony called Philippi. So there was a lot of colonies within the Roman Empire. But also people groups, and Judea, the Jewish nation, as it were, the Jewish populace was quite a big segment of the population, and the Roman Empire allowed them to conduct and control their own civil and religious laws to a degree. And this is why you We'll see that they had some authority. We're going to see here shortly as we get into our text that they had the authority to arrest Peter and John. They had certain authority. And of course, you remember when they took Jesus before Pilate and Pilate said, you judge him according to your own law. They said, it's not lawful for us to put anyone to death. And so that was reserved for the Roman Empire alone. They didn't have that kind of authority, but they had authority to reach certain verdicts in certain lower type cases. That's good and important to know in an in-depth study there, but to know the landscape of the government and what authority the Jews had. They had their own temple police. Which brings us to the second thing I brought up, which was the Sanhedrin. And that was a council of 70 members plus the high priest. And of course this goes back in the history of Israel. the Sanhedrin. In fact, it carried over into the church in Jerusalem, the Christians there. When the church was established, the history tells us that there were believed to be 70 elders. The church in Jerusalem there had 70 elders, so they followed the same pattern as far as the number Well, they had a large congregation by that time, too. 3,000 got saved, then 5,000, and then more. We don't even know how many people belonged to that church, but apparently it was a very huge church. You would need a lot of elders. Well, anyway, the Sanhedrin, of course, they railroaded Jesus into false charges and condemned him unjustly, and this has been part of Peter's preaching. Early on in the book of Acts, there in chapter 2, as well as chapter 3, we see that Peter was charging them with wrong, that they had crucified the Messiah, they had did this, basically it was murder, and so on and so forth. It helps to know some of the history about the Sanhedrin too, gives us some more in depth. But that's kind of an overview and we're going to go ahead now and get into our text. And I'm just going to read the first 12 verses. We'll see how far we get today. In Acts chapter 4, starting at verse 1. 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 is already evening. However, many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about five thousand. And it came to pass on the next day that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power or by what name have you done this? Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, Rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day are judged for a good deed done to a helpless man, by what means he has been made well, let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by him this man stands here before you whole. this is the stone which was rejected by you builders which has become the chief cornerstone nor is there salvation in any other for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved wow we got a lot of text there to work with And so we're just going to go down now, verse by verse, and going back to verse one. And it's taking over basically from chapter three. So it says, now, as they spoke to the people, well, the they, of course, is John and Peter. Well, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came upon them. It doesn't tell us, but somebody must have reported this, or the rumblings of maybe the healing, or maybe the rumblings of them, hey, there's people in the temple teaching. Well, they came upon them, interrupted their preaching. If you remember, Jesus often taught within the temple as well. And one of the things, he was a recognized rabbi. Of course, they didn't like him. They were always challenging his doctrine and his authority and his ability to teach. And so that was something that we're going to see that that was one of the issues they had. this was illegitimate teaching because they weren't one of them. I mean, they were these renegade fishermen and tax collectors and whatever else, the band of gypsies, if you will, that followed Jesus. And now they're taking the authority or the posture of someone who's teaching and preaching within the temple courts and they got upset. It wasn't authorized. It wasn't sanctioned by the Sanhedrin or the established religious leaders. Now we might as well just stop there and say, you know, that could happen today. And if you are a child of God, if you are walking in God's will and filled with his spirit and you have been given gifts of the Holy Spirit, maybe those gifts are teaching or preaching, and you are teaching people and you're preaching to people, some of the religious leaders, even in our churches, might take issue with you because you haven't gone through the proper training or you haven't gotten the pedigrees or the titles or have earned the doctorates, and they don't think that you're somehow fit to teach. And so they're going to maybe take issue with you. In fact, you could even probably experience some persecution. One of the things is that with Peter and John and the other disciples, they were filled with the Spirit and believers in Christ, and that's where the true power was. They had the goods. I mean, they hadn't gone to the proper schools and all, but they had the authority by Christ Himself. Remember the Great Commission, Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. you know, therefore go. And so he gives them that charge, that commission, and they're going with the authority of Christ, the one who raised from the dead, the king of all creation, the universe. And what higher authority do we come under? They were able to do these miracles. They were able to speak with power and authority. And although they didn't go through the proper training, Well, it tells us in verse 2, these Sadducees and the priests and that, it says, they were greatly disturbed that they taught the people and preached in Jesus the resurrection of the dead. I think, again, generally they were upset that they were just teaching the people, okay. Number two, we could point out that they were preaching Jesus. Jesus has been crucified, he's been, you know, buried, and of course now He's got his followers claiming that he's alive, and now they have Jesus in their hair again, so to speak. They can't seem to get rid of this guy. They didn't like his teaching when he was doing it. They certainly aren't going to appreciate his followers trying to take up the mantle. and go about preaching and teaching the things of Jesus Christ. They considered him a false messiah, they considered him a blasphemer, perhaps some sort of rebellious leader, and they didn't want this momentum to start and keep going there. That would be number two. They didn't want to preach in Jesus. And then thirdly, specifically here it says the resurrection of the dead. Well, you have perhaps the Sadducees. I don't know how much of the Sanhedrin they took control of. Remember later in Acts, if you've read through Acts before, Paul, who stood before a group of the Jewish people, it said he realized that half of them were Pharisees and half were Sadducees, and so he decides to bring up a point of contention between the two groups to get the focus off of him and causes a great disturbance there. So bringing it up because they didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees, you remember when they questioned Jesus also about the woman who had married the different brothers. that whose wife will she be in the resurrection? And the issue that they had was that they didn't believe in the resurrection of the dead, which Jesus pointed out to them, that they were ignorant of the scriptures and underestimated the power of God. But he said concerning the resurrection of the dead, and then he said the saying of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, God is the God of the living, not of the dead. They were concerned about the specifics of the teaching, the resurrection of the dead. The Sadducees certainly didn't want them teaching about that. In verse 3 it says, they laid hands on them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. Apparently, they didn't have any trials at night. It was always during the day time. I don't know if that was a specific law. That's what I read in a commentary. That might have made sense, the fact that Jesus, they tried Him at night, which would have been illegal in and of itself. They were kind of trying to do it under the, trying to keep a lid on it. They were trying to keep it secret. That was one of the things. And of course the term they laid hands on them. This isn't to be confused with the idea of laying on the hands when we pray with people for healing or for giving them a commission for a ministry position. This is the idea of laying on hands like back in the book of Ezra. Ezra threatens to lay hands on these people that are trying to sell goods on the Sabbath. And that means that even in today's law enforcement, that's an old-fashioned term that we use to lay hands on someone, is to basically arrest them, grab them physically, and subdue them to the point where they are in custody. That's what they did. And in verse 4, this is tremendous. The preaching that they were able to accomplish before they were arrested, it says, However, many of those who heard the word believed, and the number of the men came to be about 5,000. You have 3,000 that were saved earlier, and now we have another 5,000 about, and it's naming the men. And of course, just like in the feeding of the 4,000 and the feeding of the 5,000 in the Gospels, the account of Jesus doing that miracle, We have to figure there were probably some of the women were there obviously not maybe every man was married But if you count women and children or more there would have been much more than 5,000 But that's a tremendous harvest of people of souls that believed Though you can see as the church began the mighty move of the Holy Spirit causing people to believe it was just tremendous and so in verse 5 It says, and it came to pass on the next day that their rulers, elders, and scribes, as well as Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and as many as were of the family of the high priest, were gathered together at Jerusalem. Okay, so now, the next morning, they're going to go before the council, the leaders of this council, and of course, we got a couple characters here that are familiar to us from the Gospels. We have Annas, and that is the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest. Now, it's sort of interchangeable because Annas was the high priest. He was removed. I forget the whole story behind that. Caiaphas took over. They still considered Annas to be the high priest. They gave him that title still. They still call him that. Kind of like today in America, we'll address a former president as president still, even though he is no longer in office and officially in that capacity, we still call him president. Sort of the same thing there. They would still call him the high priest, and so it can be a little confusing. But there was a family dynasty there, apparently. So you got the high priest, then you got the Caiaphas, who was also the high priest during the ministry of Jesus. John and Alexander, apparently these are family members. It's to believe that one or both of these fellows were also at some point in the future in line to take over to be the high priest as well. We do know here that they were part of the family And they were gathered together as well. And they were meeting there in Jerusalem. And in verse 7 it says, And when they had set them in the midst, they asked, By what power or by what name have you done this? And so now they're confronting them. And they want to know basically the same thing they were asking Jesus. By what authority do you do these things? When he cleared the temple and threw out the money changers, they wanted to know. Other times in this ministry, they wanted some sort of sign to give them a sign in heaven to validate his authority. and they were always questioning him and wanting to know by what power and by what authority and in this case what name have you done this. Well then Peter of course in verse 8 gives him a great platform to take over and it says he is filled with the Holy Spirit. So it's interesting, we often think of our preaching to be on the side of kindness, correct? You know, when we're giving the gospel, we wouldn't think to use harsh words or to accuse people or anything like that. But here, and we're going to see later in the book of Acts 2, Stephen, who is full of the Holy Spirit. Remember in Acts chapter 6, there at the end, it starts to give his testimony in virtually the whole chapter 7. We have Stephen, who basically at the end of his discourse, he's rebuking them. He's giving them some harsh words there. We also see Paul in Acts, I believe it's 12 or 13 there, where he causes blindness to come across this sorcerer who was trying to interfere. And Paul rebukes him. He goes, you son of the devil, full of all deceit and fraud. And he's just chewing the guy out. And he's full of the Holy Spirit when he's doing this. So I guess there's a time and a place to have a verbal exchange like that under the power of the Holy Spirit. So we have to, of course, be careful that it is God, you know, causing us to do that, and we're not doing something from the flesh, but it is just interesting. Here, back to our text, verse 8, then Peter filled with the Holy Spirit. He said to them, rulers of the people and elders of Israel, and of course he always had some sort of introduction, acknowledge the people group, He would say, like back in Acts chapter 2, men of Israel, whoever you're talking to, I'll do that when I'm out street preaching. I might say, people of San Francisco, something of that nature. If we this day are judged for the good deed done to the helpless man, by what means he has been made well? Let it be known to you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole." Peter backs up a little bit, clarifies, oh, You're wanting to know what power and what name. Oh, are you talking about this? You know healing so he goes back and talks about the good deed done to this helpless man He wants it to be very clear because he says in verse 10. Let it be known to you all and to all the people of Israel That by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth Whom you crucified whom God raised from the dead by him this man stands here before you hold now he could have just left it at by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth. He didn't have to say whom you crucify. You know, whom you crucify. So again, he's he's letting them know that they had unjustly murdered this man. Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Jesus has many titles. And in the New Testament, people a lot of times were known by what area they were from. Nazareth was not a great place. Remember, can any good thing come out of Nazareth? Nevertheless, it's Jesus of Nazareth. It's not Jesus of Capernaum, although that was where he did set up his headquarters, but he was from Nazareth. One of the titles, his most well-known title, is Christ. In fact, it's so well-known, and we use it so often, we almost think it's his last name. But it should be actually Jesus the Christ, because Christ is the Greek form of Messiah. means the anointed one. And so we're saying Jesus the Messiah. That had extra emphasis to them because they didn't believe he was the Messiah. They rejected him. And he's saying Jesus the Messiah of Nazareth. you know, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. So he's not only saying it's Jesus who they don't like, they're getting it rubbed in their face that they had this man crucified, and then the fact that he's alive, he's risen from the dead. And that's how this guy stands here whole. Well, again, Peter including the death or the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus as part of his testimony. And we would do well if we would remember to include that in our presentation of the gospel. In verse 11, he says, This is the stone which was rejected by you builders, which has become the chief cornerstone. He's referring to a couple of passages, specifically Psalm 118, verse 22. It says, The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This was the Lord's doing. It is marvelous in our eyes. That is also the verse that Peter uses in his epistle later on. But we also know that in Isaiah it says similar language. Behold, I lay in Zion a stone, a tried stone, a precious cornerstone. Whoever believes on him will not be put to shame. You know, if you fall on the stone or the stone will crush you, there's this idea that this was a way of metaphor talking about this coming King, this coming Messiah. this one to be the representation of not only the Jewish nation, but all of the world in salvation, but specifically to the Jews here, is that this is the stone which was rejected by you builders. OK, he was rejected by the religious establishment, but he had become the chief cornerstone and a cornerstone in a building, especially older buildings that are made out of these big, huge masonry stones. The cornerstone was very important because it supported all these different walls and everything. So another word is a capstone. It's a very important piece of the building. It's not just any stone. It's the cornerstone. So the idea is that he is the chief cornerstone. Peter, in his epistle later, equates us to living stones as being part of being built up into a spiritual house, using that language, that imagery, and metaphors, talking about the building and the stones. He was saying they were familiar with these Old Testament passages. And in verse 12, a famous verse in evangelism, and I use this verse quite often, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. That is a very powerful verse. Peter, who had been with the Lord in his ministry for some three and a half years, and Jesus who had said in John 14, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. It's the same idea there. In fact, a lot of times when I'm preaching out on the street, I might use those two verses in conjunction. I might, you know, quote John 14, 6 first, and then I'll say this verse, nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Now, sometimes I have to be careful. I say it so close that those verses go together. Sometimes I have to make a distinction and let the audience know that. So they don't think that that's in John as well. I mean, I quote them so close to each other, they might think, oh, that verse is the next verse in John, but it's actually found in Acts 4.12. It's the same thought. It's the same idea. And that is one distinction that we would make in any gospel presentation, of course. And this is the controversy. as you go out into the world preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and sharing faith in Christ is that He is the only way. He's not some sort of God that we can add to a collection of our already, you know, many idols we have and He's just one more. Of course, we know that without God saving a person, they're not going to get saved. They're not going to see. Their eyes are still blinded, but that is a That is a big issue. People in our society, they want to make it that there are many ways to God. I guess they think it's arrogant for us Christians to say that there's only one way. All these religions contradict each other. They can't both be right. They can't all be right. So either Christianity is right and all the others are wrong, or one of those others are wrong. They try to mix it in this hodgepodge of confusion. But there's no confusion with Jesus. He made it very clear He was the only way. And why is He the only way? Well, I believe in the essence of the idea behind that is, is in fact that we are lost sinners under God's condemnation. We cannot save ourselves through any form of good works or religious activity or any efforts on our part. The only way that we can be saved is having God himself come down in the form of a man and live a perfectly holy life fulfilling all of the law of God as a human and then going to the cross and being crucified and dying and taking on the penalty of our sin in our place and of course he rose from the dead because death could not hold him in its grip and he has risen from the dead and he's alive and he's conquered death on our behalf but this is the idea is he's the only way is because There's no other way to have an atonement for our sin. We need a perfect sacrifice. And God, in His justice, has allowed for someone else to be our representation. Just as we have Adam, as the people have coined the term federal headship of the human race, he is our representation. And as he disobeyed God, all of his offspring have fell into transgression as well. Likewise, we have this one called the last Adam, the second man from heaven, and through his work, through his life, we can have then ride, if you want to use that term, on his coattails. We can be benefited by his work, that his salvation that he has accomplished and the righteousness that we need is imputed to us from him. Remember the verse that says, He made Him who knew no sin to become sin for us that we may become the righteousness of God in Christ, in Him. It is a great exchange, our sin for His righteousness. So that's why He's the only way. It's the only way it could possibly be that God had to die for humanity And it was only through Christ, and that's why we can boldly claim that there is salvation in no other, for there is no other name than that of Jesus Christ of Nazareth that can save us. Well, my friends, that ends our study. Be sure to tune in next time where we will take over in verses 13 to hopefully finish off the chapter. Thank you and God bless. And this has been Sharing Your Faith with Larry Dubois. If you would like to listen to a past broadcast or ask a question that would be aired on a future show, simply go to sharingyourfaithradio.com. And then we trust you'll join us again next time for Sharing Your Faith on First Love Radio, your Christian internet station.